I was intrigued when I saw this little title pop up on the eShop as I was browsing through the week's new wares. I had previously played
Coder Child's last game in the Nintendo 3DS eShop, Dress to Play: Cute Witches! and enjoyed the game despite (or perhaps because of) its simplicity. The premise was simple: dress up a cute girl then have her fly through an obstacle course of adorable monsters in the sky.
Coder Child took a different approach to the game in Magic Bubbles. Instead of being only limited to a girl character, the player can now choose either a male or female protagonist.
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| Why is he holding a star Pokeball, though? |
You customize your character before beginning. Looking deeper into character customization, a number of options exist which become unlocked through earning tokens of different colors during gameplay. I was disappointed to note that certain dress up options gender specific, limiting what your character can unlock unless you create two save files. I have no clue why some options like gender neutral headphones and other options are restricted to guys only and with challenges and scores being bound to a certain character, I can't see wanting to make a separate character just to see it all in such a simple game. Overall, though, I was happy with the customization present. I would have liked more outfit pieces that I felt would be appropriate to mix and match instead of being more neatly tucked into pairings which are obviously meant for each other.
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| It's hard being stylish. |
Additionally, the gameplay centers around being a simple puzzler with the aim goal to match three colors in a row. This goal does become more complicated by the addition of obstructions to combos such as rocks or freeze blocks which can cause of whole column to be unable to combo for a number of turns. As you make combos and level up, the blue penguin featured in the game shouts encouragement at you in an engrish like voice. While the game feels somewhat slow at first and I would have liked an option to select level for starting at the beginning of each game, I felt that the difficulty curve was overall satisfying as the color palate on the board continually expanded.
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| Lvl 1 for teh winz |
One of the oddest parts of this game is that the puzzling gameplay feels only marginally related to the dress up game. While playing helps you to unlock more pieces, your character doesn't actually do anything during the course of gameplay besides pull a lever to start the bubble producing machine at the beginning of each session. I would have much preferred if the character created didn't just take up the bottom touch screen but instead played a real role in the game.
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| I'm on this gais. |
Despite the issues, I've overall had a very fun time playing the game. Especially for someone who seldom games on their smart phone, this is a fun little mini game to distract. Additionally, the game is likely to be pleasing to children as they can unlock items even if they can't get very far into the game due to difficulty. The price point of $3.99 is a tad more than I think the game's price point should be, but I still have to give the little dress up puzzle a solid middling score: 6/10 hearts.
