Touhou Spell Bubble
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''Touhou Spell Bubble'' is a rhythm based competitive
arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...
puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...
game developed and published by
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as an officially licensed spin-off in the ''
Touhou Project The , also known simply as , is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by Indie game, independent Japanese Doujin soft, soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. The team's sole member, ZUN (video game developer), Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, ha ...
'' series. The gameplay is similar to that of the
Puzzle Bobble internationally known as ''Bust-A-Move'', is a 1994 tile-matching puzzle arcade game developed and published by Taito. It is based on the 1986 arcade game ''Bubble Bobble'', featuring characters and themes from that game. Its characteristicall ...
series, which Taito also developed. The company has referred to the game as "''Puzzle Bobble'' meets ''Touhou Project''," implying that they consider it to also be a spinoff of both series.


Gameplay

In ''Touhou Spell Bubble'', the player is given colored bubbles, which they fire from the bottom of the screen onto a pile towards the top. The rate at which the player can fire bubbles corresponds to the
tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...
of the music. When three bubbles of the same color are connected, they pop, giving the player points. If a large enough group is destroyed, a rhythm microgame will initiate, requiring the player to rhythmically press the button to the song's timeline (seen on both far left and right) to receive further points and send colorless junk bubbles to the opponent. ''Touhou Spell Bubble'' features a story mode told from either Reimu and Marisa's perspectives, both containing 22 levels each. Using
visual novel A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustratio ...
-styled cutscenes and gameplay, it tells the tale of Marisa's newly developed, magically charged game "Spell Bubble" and the ongoing mysteries regarding the upcoming tournament surrounding it. Characters can be unlocked in story mode, totalling at 20 playable characters upon completion, each of whom has a total of 3 spell cards to choose from, which can be used to destroy bubbles, or impede her opponent's ability to do the same. Matches last for the runtime of the background music, and the player with the most points when the time runs out is declared the winner. The player can also play singular matches, either with the AI, or with human opponents through local or online multiplayer. Upon winning or losing matches, the player is given in-game currency based on the overall skill intensity between the opponents of the match, which can be used to purchase new songs and spell cards.


Development

On 23 January 2020, Taito released a gameplay trailer for ''Touhou Spell Bubble'' on their
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channel, and announced the game's release date. The game was released in Japan through the
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on February 6, 2020, and internationally on October 29. Physical copies were released in Asia in autumn 2020. The music of ''Touhou Spell Bubble'' was used in promotional material, with Taito releasing the names of composers in January 2020. The game features
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songs including "
Bad Apple!! "Bad Apple!!" is the sixth track in the soundtrack of the 1998 shoot 'em up video game ''Lotus Land Story'', the fourth entry in the ''Touhou Project'' series created by Team Shanghai Alice. The instrumental theme was originally designed to be ...
", "Marisa Stole the Precious Thing", "Night of Knights", and "Cirno's Perfect Math Class". In November 2020, three separate music packs were released as DLC, and side story content was released in DLC exclusive to Japan. In November 2021, online multiplayer was added to the game in a free update.


Reception

''Touhou Spell Bubble'' received "generally favorable reviews", according to
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. ''
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''s Pete Davison commended the gameplay, music, and artwork, but criticised the lack of an online multiplayer. ''Digitally Downloaded''s Harvard L. was more critical, stating that "the elegant simplicity of ''Puzzle Bobble'' was being tainted", resulting in "a game about instincts rather than planning". He considered both the story and gameplay too difficult to understand, and argued that it was inferior to the original ''Puzzle Bobble''. ''
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''s Jenni Lada gave positive remarks to the "unbelievably satisfying" gameplay, and "amazing" music. Lada later went on to call it one of the best games of 2020. ''Nintendo Blast''s Juliana Paiva Zapparoli criticized the high retail price due to the use of licensed music and translation issues, stating that the title was better suited for fans of ''
Touhou Project The , also known simply as , is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by Indie game, independent Japanese Doujin soft, soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. The team's sole member, ZUN (video game developer), Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, ha ...
''. Nevertheless, Zapparoli gave positive remarks for the gameplay, replay value, game modes, responsive controls, adjustable difficulty, music selection and for being faithful to the source material. ''Cubed3''s Shane Jury felt that the game stands above most puzzle titles on
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for its "brilliant audio collection" and unique take on the ''Puzzle Bobble'' system, but criticized the lack of online multiplayer. ''
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''s Shaun Musgrave called ''Touhou Spell Bubble'' one of the 10 best puzzle games available on Switch, but noted "the only thing it’s missing is an online multiplayer mode, and that is admittedly a big omission given what a blast the local multiplayer mode is."


See also

* List of ''Touhou Project'' fangames


References


External links

* {{Bubble Bobble series Spell_Bubble 2020 video games Arc System Works games Bubble Bobble Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo Switch games Nintendo Switch-only games Puzzle video games Rhythm games Split-screen multiplayer games Taito games Video game spinoffs Video games developed in Japan