''Super Buster Bros.'', released as ''Super Pang'' (スーパーパン) outside of North America, is a cooperative two-player shooting puzzle arcade video game developed by

Mitchell Mitchell may refer to: People *Mitchell (surname) *Mitchell (given name) Places Australia * Mitchell, Australian Capital Territory, a light-industrial estate * Mitchell, New South Wales, a suburb of Bathurst * Mitchell, Northern Territo ...

and released in the United States in 1990 by

Capcom is a Japanese video game developer and video game publisher, publisher. It has created a number of List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil' ...

. It is the second game in the ''

Pang Pang may refer to: Places *Siem Pang District, Cambodia *Pangnirtung or Pang, an Inuit hamlet on Baffin Island, Canada *Fo Pang (Chinese: 火棚), an area of Kowloon, Hong Kong *Pang, a hamlet in Leh district, Jammu and Kashmir, India *Pang, Mal ...

'' series and was ported to the

Super Nintendo Entertainment System The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Eur ...

in 1992. It is also featured in the compilations ''

Buster Bros. Collection ''Buster Bros. Collection'' is a video game developed by Mitchell Corporation and published by Capcom for the PlayStation. Gameplay ''Buster Bros. Collection'' is a compilation of ''Buster Bros.'' (1989), '' Super Buster Bros.'' (1990), and '' ...

'' for the original

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

and ''

Capcom Puzzle World ''Capcom Puzzle World'' is a compilation of puzzle games created by Capcom for the Sony PSP. It was released on February 6, 2007 in the United States and July 13, 2007 in Europe. It contains five puzzle games: *''Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo'' ( ...

'' for

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

. It was the tenth game released for the

CP System The is an arcade system board developed by Capcom that ran game software stored on removable daughterboards. More than two dozen arcade titles were released for CPS-1, before Capcom shifted game development over to its successor, the CP System ...

hardware.

Gameplay

The object of the game is to use a gun to pop

bubble Bubble, Bubbles or The Bubble may refer to: Common uses * Bubble (physics), a globule of one substance in another, usually gas in a liquid ** Soap bubble * Economic bubble, a situation where asset prices are much higher than underlying fundame ...

s that bounce around the screen. There are two different modes: Panic mode and Arcade mode. Similarly to ''

Asteroids An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

'', when a player pops a bubble, it splits into two smaller bubbles. Sufficiently small bubbles simply vaporize when popped. Occasionally, monsters walk or fly on to the screen. When the player character touches the bubble or the timer reaches zero, they die. Monsters can also pop bubbles. Although the arcade game and the PlayStation version included in ''

'' allow two players to play simultaneously, the Super NES version only has one player mode. Powerups are found by popping certain bubbles, shooting boxes, or shooting certain unmarked spots in the level. The gun power-ups cannot be used in conjunction with each other.

Panic mode

In this mode, the player faces a rain of bubbles. The default weapon is the bubble shot and cannot be changed at any time. Every time a bubble is popped, a rainbow bar at the bottom is slowly filled. Filling the bar all the way causes the player to advance to the next level. As more bubbles are popped, the remaining and incoming bubbles move faster. There is also one special type of bubble that appears rarely. The bubble can appear at any random time, and has a clock image engraved. Whenever the bubble bounces, the engraving changes to a star, and when the bubble bounces again, the engraving changes back to a clock. Popping the bubble when the clock engraving is present causes all bubbles to stop movement completely for 9 seconds, while popping the bubble when the star engraving is present causes all bubbles to be popped and the game screen gets cleared, filling the rainbow bar with every pop made from the bubbles that are being destroyed. Panic mode is beaten when the player reaches level 99, fills the rainbow bar and destroys any remaining bubbles on the screen (after the bar is filled and level 99 is reached, no new bubbles appear). The ending of the game is different in panic mode than in Arcade mode.

Arcade mode

In this mode, each of the stages has a set layout, consisting of walls, destructible glass walls, invisible walls, ladders and ice. There are items such as candy and

1-up In video games, a life is a play-turn that a player character has, defined as the period between start and end of play. Lives refer to a finite number of tries before the game ends with a game over. It is sometimes called a chance, a try, rest ...

s. In the SNES version, there are four difficulty levels in the arcade mode: easy, normal, hard and expert. Each difficulty has their own stage layouts, some remaining the same, some varying slightly and some changed completely. The amount of continues and general speed of bubbles is also affected by the difficulty level chosen.

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Super Buster Bros.'' on their January 1, 1991 issue as being the eight most-successful table arcade unit of the month, outperforming titles such as ''

Carrier Air Wing A carrier air wing (abbreviated CVW) is an operational naval aviation organization composed of several aircraft squadron (aviation), squadrons and detachments of various types of fixed-wing aircraft, fixed-wing and rotorcraft, rotary-wing aircr ...

'' and ''

Columns A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

''. In 1995,

Total! ''Total!'' was a video game magazine published in the United Kingdom by Future plc. It was published monthly for 58 issues, beginning in December 1991 (cover-dated January 1992), with the last issue bearing the cover-date October 1996. A "1993 A ...

ranked Super Buster Bros. 83rd on their Top 100 SNES Games writing: "Otherwise known as Super Pang this is an unusual game in which you break up bouncing bubbles."

References

External links