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Space Bust-A-Move: DS Game Review

Reviewed by on Aug 24, 2009
Rating: 4 Star Rating

A new game for Nintendo DS popped onto shelves recently. Space Bust-A-Move makes you feel like you’re playing on an old standing machines in the local arcade.

Theme: Bubble-bursting!
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Square Enix
ESRB Rating: E For Everyone

Late last month a new game (actually a remake of the 90s classic Bust-A-Move or, if you lived in Japan at the time, Puzzle Bobble) for Nintendo DS literally popped onto shelves across the country. Space Bust-A-Move makes you feel like you’re playing a video game on one of those old standing machines in the local arcade – sticky floors, quarters, bells, whistles and all.


Space Bust-A-Move

Game Guide

This bubbly little game takes place – unlike the original – in outer space. But the basic gameplay is the same as it was in the last century. It’s what’s known as a “match 3” puzzle game. You control a canon that sits at the bottom of the screen. Above the canon are clusters of colored bubbles slowly drifting toward the bottom. To clear the screen you have to fire colored bubbles with your cannon at the drifting bubbles, making sure you only hit bubbles that are the same color as the ones coming out of your canon. If you happen to fire a specialty bubble you can do things like wipe out all bubbles on the screen at that time of the same color.


You can aim and fire using the stylus and touch screen but much easier is aiming with the good old D pad and firing with the A button. And one feature in Space Bust-a-Move you won’t find in the original version is the cosmo bubble, which randomly appears throughout the stages. The trick is to free the bubble without accidentally destroying it.


There are many modes of play. Multiplayer includes being able to play with others through the Wi-Fi connection or DS download play. For single player you play through eight worlds with three stages and a boss battle each, and within each stage are five levels. If you do the math, that adds up to a whole lot of bubble-bursting goodness.


Space Bust-A-Move

Mode Madness

  • Versus Mode: Lets you challenge various characters in the game.
  • Endless Mode: A never-ending array of bubbles descending down the screen.
  • Challenge Mode: Accumulate as many points as possible in a given amount of time.
  • Extra Mode: Offers three types of games, which you unlock with points you earn during any of the modes in single player.
  • Pressure Mode: Clear a stage with just one bubble.
  • Factory Mode: Clear a stage with a limited amount of bubbles.
  • Puzzle Mode: Classic Bust-a-Move game.

  • Video Game Video


    Rating:4

    Price: $19.99


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