GoNintendo 'End of day' thoughts - Great/Tolerate/Hate review: Soul Bubbles

The reviews continue on. I think I’ll be doing a WiiWare title tomorrow…but there are so many more reviews to go! Oh well, at least it keeps me from worrying about ‘Eod’ thought topics! Hope you all had a great Wednesday, and let’s hope for an even better Thursday. I’ll be starting mine off with some much-needed rest. See you all in a few hours, gang!

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Soul Bubbles is the new Psychonauts. For that matter, Soul Bubbles is the new Beyond Good and Evil, Okami, and Ico. It’s one of those games that has a ton of creativity, mixed with very high production values. It’s a game that the developers cared about, which isn’t something you see too often with today’s market. What happens to games that have all these elements? They are shunned by the public. Okami came out twice, and didn’t sell well either time. Beyond Good and Evil was on three platforms, and bombed across the board. Soul Bubbles has things worse than those two titles. When originally launched, it was only available through Toys “R” Us. We still don’t know the reasoning behind this move…but it is what it is. Now, you can grab the game through Amazon, if TRU isn’t an option for you. I just hope that this review will help spread the word a little bit more, and make at least one other person out there pick up this game. It’s one of the best titles to hit the DS in a long time.

Great

I could ramble on in the ‘Great’ category for the remainder of this review, but that might get a little tedious. I’ll try and keep things to the main aspects of the game that really impressed me.

Soul Bubbles has some pretty unique gameplay. It kind of feels like other games you’ve played, but when you smash all the elements together, you get something almost completely new. Imagine a game like Monkey Ball, or Marble Madness. Now, detract all the zaniness of those games. No looping, crazy level designs, no timer to race against. Instead of those elements, you have items that you have to protect from the start to the finish of a level. Your bubble contains spirits that need to be carried to the end of each level, and if your bubble pops, the spirits are at risk. The more spirits you exit the level with, the faster your tally rises. Eventually, this tally will open up new worlds to explore.

Okay, back to the Marble Madness/Monkey Ball analogy. Take the same basic idea of maneuvering a ball through a course, and adapt it to a bubble. Now, instead of rocking back and forth down a narrow path, you can float around wherever you want. You still have to direct your bubble down a certain path to reach a goal, but now you don’t have to worry about flying off course. There are obstacles to avoid, but you do so at your own pace. The frantic nature of those other games has been taken away. Soul Bubbles is all about the experience of guiding and protecting the bubble, not the frenzied pace of the other two games.

You also have tools at your disposal to help you better control your bubble. You can make the bubble big, small, divide it into sections, and more. This helps you to navigate your way through each level. This way, you can leave one bubble in one section of a level, switch to another bubble, and progress down a different path. To do so, all you do is touch the stylus to the screen. This will blow the bubble in the desired direction. You can gently guide it with the power of the wind that you control…making it stronger with controlled stylus swipes. Different sized bubbles will react differently to your control, and you’ll learn how to keep a better handle on things as you go along.

The gameplay is fun…great even. The thing is, there’s another aspect of the game that really pulls this all together. I’ve never played a DS game that had as much atmosphere as Soul Bubbles. It even rivals some of the more atmospheric games that consoles have offered throughout the years. Both visuals and audio come together to create such a soothing, yet engaging experience.

Soul Bubbles is an absolutely gorgeous game. The artwork here is top-notch, and shows us once again why 2d is far from dead. Show me any next-gen 3d game that is as striking as Soul Bubbles, and I’ll tip my hat to you. This is some of the best 2d art out there. Even more amazing is the fact that the environments are interactive. If you see vines swaying in the breeze, you can cut them down. You can tap rocks to start a rockslide. You can control pools of water with your bubbles. The environment is so pretty, yet it isn’t static. It makes this fantasy world that much more believable.

The game’s soundtrack takes all of this one step further. There really isn’t all that much music to speak of. This is more of an ambient soundtrack…one that uses instruments and sounds that suit the environments. What music/sounds there are remain faint, which was definitely done on purpose. As you move through the different courses, you’ll hear different sounds that compliment what you are looking at. Simple melodies will play as you progress, and then a final recognizable tune plays at the end of every level. I cannot stress how important I believe the soundtrack to be in the overall experience of Soul Bubbles. This game deserves an award for sound design and composition. I have to find out who exactly was involved in the sound creation, so I can follow their work from game to game.

Tolerate

There are a few instances where you will be unable to save the contents of your bubble from danger. Most of the game is extremely relaxing, but there are some instances that have you putting up quite a tough fight. Those areas play great, but there are a few that you’ll happen upon, and have no way out of them. If you get stuck in an area with fire, or spikes, or a bubble-popping enemy, you could be screwed. There are just some portions of the gameplay area that are too small to draw bubbles in. You’ll frantically try to save the contents of your bubble by drawing a big bubble, but there’s no room to do it. By the time you start drawing little bubbles, some of your spirits will die off because they’ve been out of a bubble for too long. It’s not a game-breaker, or even a major nuisance. It does happen though, and when you are a stickler like me, you won’t want to lose any of your spirits. I found myself restarting levels just to pass through safely. Time consuming, but I wanted to do the best I could!

Hate

I hate the promotion behind this game. I hate how the title was only available in Toys “R” Us for so long. I can’t stand the fact that people are going to miss out on this game because they have no idea it exists. There needs to be more coverage of Soul Bubbles…more locations to pick it up from…and better advertising. Games like these need to be pushed in the public eye until its all they can see. We all know how hard it is for an original I.P. to break through in the game industry. When games with big promotions fail to sell, how do we expect a title like Soul Bubbles to find an audience?

Wrap-up

Soul Bubbles couldn’t be done as well on any other platform. The DS’ touch screen adds the perfect tactile feeling for this game. When Nintendo promised that the DS would bring us unique games, this is the stuff they were talking about. Funny how a tiny group of guys manage to take better advantage of what the DS can do than most established developers. These are the games we need to support. The industry can’t move forward unless we buy games that try new things, offer new settings, and bring us originality. Don’t rent Soul Bubbles…buy it. Your money will be very well spent.