Puzzle Bobble 4 is a game released by Taito in December 1997 for Arcades, and was later ported to the PlayStation, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, and Microsoft Windows throughout 1998 to 2000. It is the fourth installment in the Puzzle Bobble series.
Story[]
The story from the North American Dreamcast booklet. It's called "A Bedtime Story".
"A peaceful day ends with a wild night when a character is awoken from a visit from Cronoa, Governess of the Future. She comes to warn you of a dire situation, and to ask your help. The Arcana, mystical cards, have fallen into dimensional cracks we call dreams. The energy of each card will be out of balance unless someone brave and skillful can enter the dream world and seal each card. Each card has five challenging puzzles which must be solved in order to seal the card. It won't be easy, but Cronoa- and the whole universe- are counting on you to see this difficult task through the end! If you mean this challenge, you will be greatly rewarded. Do your best to burst the bubbles and seal the cards!"
Gameplay Changes[]
In Puzzle Bobble 4, various gimmicks make a return from the previous installments, such as Wide Stages from 2, and the ceiling acting as a wall and nodes from 3.
Endurance Stages do not make a return from 3. Instead, a new type of stage is introduced called Pulley Stages. They can either be Normal or Wide stages. In Pulley Stages, the main gimmick is a pulley with two sets of bubbles hanging on either side of it. When a bubble sticks to a side of pulley, the sides will raise or lower depending on the difference of the amount of bubbles on either side, with the side containing more bubbles lowering and the other side raising. The player must exercise caution as if they are not careful with the balance of the pulley, they can easily end up losing the game rather quickly. The indication of a Pulley Stage is it using a different music track instead of the original music track.
In the Battle Modes, a new mechanic called Chaining was introduced. When groups of bubbles drop from the board, the bubble that dropped will seek a group of bubbles that isn't obstructed (has a space of at least one bubble around it and a pathway open) and has two or more bubbles and pop them as well. If there are more bubbles in that group, then those bubbles will seek and pop the other bubbles, and so on. This can result in a powerful attack if they can rack up a massive chain. Also, a handicap system is also implemented for both players to either increase or decrease the amount of bubbles sent over from an attack, with five different damage levels.
Play Modes[]
There are several different modes you can play in.
Puzzle[]
Arcade[]
In this mode, the player goes through a series of stages to reach the ending of the game.
After selecting this mode, the player chooses any of three selections that makes up the courses of the game.
Practice[]
The player goes through five simple stages to get used to the controls, then they will be told to try the other courses before ending the game.
Normal[]
The player goes through the normal set of stages that compose of Puzzle Bobble 4. At the beginning of the game, the player selects any of two sets of five levels (Set A or Set B) to begin play. After clearing a set, then they can choose to either play the set on the left of it or the set on the right of it (for example, if you clear Set B, you can select either Set D or Set E for your next Set).
The map of each set is similar to the previous games since Puzzle Bobble 2 / Bust A Move Again, with 2 Sets for the first stage, 3 sets for the second, all the way to seven for the final stage.
There are 27 different Sets that are available, from Set A to Set ?. This means that there is a total of 135 stages in the game, and you will only be able to see thirty of them. Once you clear the 30th Stage, the game will end and you will get an ending screen depending on the final set cleared. The credits shows various character's backgrounds as animations of the various characters play out,
Expert[]
The player goes through the same set of stages which are edited to be more difficult than the normal puzzles. As with the Normal Course, the player selects any of two sets of five levels to begin play, and work their way through the branching tree until their chosen sixth Set. As with the Normal Course, there are 27 different Sets that are available, from Set A to Set ?. This means that there is a total of 135 stages in the game, and you will only be able to see thirty of them. The ending is the same as in the Normal Course.
Story Mode[]
There is also another puzzle mode only for the console ports called Story Mode.
In this mode, there is a story, in which you are awaken by Crona. She tells you that the Arcana has been fallen into various dreams, and it's up to you to help recover them by going into them.
You can choose to go into each dream, which, like in the Arcade Mode, is a set of five Stages the player must complete. After completing all five Stages, then they can secure that Arcana. This means that you can even challenge the hard sets from the get go, or select them in order. There are a total of 22 different dreams to clear, meaning a total of 110 Stages must be completed to clear this mode.
Once you clear the game by obtaining all 22 Arcana, you will be able to do a tarot card reading for your fortune, and see the mode's ending. The credits shows various Arcana floating from the bottom to the top of the screen in your bedroom in the morning. There is also a high score table for the mode, as you cannot continue from a save point if you lose and don't continue.
About "Another World"[]
If you press the Fire > Right > Left > Right > Fire > Left > Right > Left > Fire buttons on the Title Screen, it will show a rotating Drunk icon on the lower right corner of the screen. This means that you have unlocked the "Another World" for this play only.
"Another World", as like in the previous games since Puzzle Bobble 2 / Bust A Move Again, allows you to play a completely different set of stages, effectively doubling the amount of stages present in Arcade and Story Mode. If counting regular courses and Another World courses, there are a total of 760 (540 puzzle stages and 220 story stages) different Stages available.
Collection Mode[]
In this mode, the player can be able to play various stages that were created by a ton of Puzzle Bobble fans around Japan, as like in Puzzle Bobble 3.
Unlike Puzzle Bobble 3's 1,026 stages, there are only 230+ stages that are available in this mode. Some of those Stages are easy, while others can be a challenge. After selecting the character, the stage select screen will be shown. In the stage select screen, the player can select the stage by pressing left or right for increasing / decreasing stages by 1 at a time, or pressing up or down for increasing / decreasing stages by 10 at a time. At the end of the stages is an "EXIT" choice that exits the mode.
After clearing the stage or not, the player can either retry the stage which starts the stage over, go to the next stage which starts the next stage, go back to the stage select screen, or quit the mode entirely.
The player also has a score like in other modes, but there is no high score table in this mode, or time bonus for clearing the stages. Also the stages are only Normal Stages and not Wide or Pulley Stages.
Unlike Bust A Move 3 DX, this mode cannot be selected in the Bust A Move 4 version of the game.
Explanation of the Pulley[]
It's not a mode, but selecting this plays a demonstration video on how the Pulley Mechanic works.
Player VS Computer[]
Story[]
In this mode, the player goes through a series of battles between computer opponents to reach their chosen character's ending.
After selecting this mode, the player chooses any of three selections that makes up the courses of the game.
Practice[]
The player goes through three simple battles to get used to the battle mode, then they will be told to try the other courses before ending the game.
Normal[]
The player goes through a series of battles that compose of Puzzle Bobble 4's main story, which is different from the normal Story Mode. Here in this story, the Moon Queen ordered the Moon Fairy to steal the Rainbow from the Rainbow World, and also split it to various colored bubbles and scatter it to various planets in the galaxy. It's up to your chosen character to secure them back and make dawn come back again.
As of Puzzle Bobble 3, there is no route of characters per character, all characters play through the same order of opponents, in which there are twelve in total, like Puzzle Bobble 2. Each battle starts with a cutscene showing a conversation between the player character and opponent character, which is new to the series.
The list of opponents you must face are as follows:
- Bub / Bob
- Alkanet
- Marino
- Kurol
- Tam Tam
- Cleon
- G
- Bramb
- Develon
- Gigant
- The Moon Queen
Once you defeat the Moon Queen, he will reveal that Drunk is actually piloting him, and you have to fight him in the twelfth and final battle.
Once you defeat Drunk, the game will end and you will get an ending sequence of the morning coming back to Rainbow World, and a different scene depending on the character you cleared the game with. The credits shows various character's backgrounds as animations of the various characters play out, as with the normal Puzzle Mode.
Expert[]
The player goes through the same series of battles as the Normal Course, but on a higher difficulty.
Win Contest[]
In this mode, as like in Puzzle Bobble 3, it's basically the "Endless Mode". After selecting the character, the player keeps on fighting computer controlled opponents as the difficulty increases, until they eventually lose.
As the player wins more rounds, the more a pixelated image of their character gets closer to being fully un-pixelated in the final results screen, and at around 12 wins, it will be fully clear.
The high score table does not count score, but the highest win streak recorded. (default high score being 5 wins). The player can continue after seeing their results. Doing so will reset their win streak, as well as their score. The player can even unlock four different characters, Monsta, Packy, Woolen, and Maita, if they encounter them in the mode and successfully win a match against them.
Explanation of the Chain Reaction[]
In this mode it explains how the chain reaction combos work.
Player VS Player[]
Basically it's the same as the previous three installments, where both players choose a character and fight until one of the players won two matches, but with the Handicap and Chaining options.
Challenge Mode[]
In this mode, the player goes through a series of 5 levels containing five stages each, as like of Puzzle Bobble 3.
- In the first level, there are Stages that test the player on speed, as these levels drop the ceiling faster than normal stages.
- In the second level, there are Stages that test the player on shooting bubbles with the puzzle composing with many colors.
- In the third level, there is an Endurance Stage that the player must complete. (This is the only mode that contains an Endurance Stage, as the other modes do not have one)
- In the fourth level, there are Stages that test the player on accuracy, testing them on how well they can shoot bubbles.
- In the fifth level, there are only Pulley Stages, testing the player on the mechanics of the pulley.
The player must play all five stages (or the endurance level, which is five stages) in order. If they fail to clear a stage, they can still move on to the next stage without retrying it. At the end of each level, the player is graded on their performance. The performance grading is based on:
- Their total amount of stages cleared, up to five (one in level 3)
- Their average time spent per stage
- Their amount of bubbles used and burst
- Their speed, technique, and accuracy
Their grade can be anywhere from E, D, C, B, or A, with E being the worst and A being the best.
After beating the fifth level, they will be presented with a certificate showing their "Bust-A-Move / Puzzle Bobble Grade". This rank is the cumulative totals of all the ranks of the five levels, with E being no grades, D being 1 grade, C being 2 grades, B being 3 grades, and A being 4 grades. Their grade can go as low as 1, and can be as high as 20.
The high score table does not count score throughout this mode, but the highest Grade achieved. (default high score being Grade 5)
Characters[]
Main Characters[]
Unlockable Characters[]
Monsta[]
Monsta can be unlocked by playing through Win Contest in Play VS Computer. Whether you win or lose a round against him you will unlock him.
Woolen[]
Woolen can be unlocked by playing through Win Contest in Play VS Computer. Whether you win or lose a round against her you will unlock her.
Packy[]
Packy can be unlocked by playing through Win Contest in Play VS Computer. Whether you win or lose a round against him you will unlock him.
Maita[]
Maita can be unlocked by playing through Win Contest in Play VS Computer. Whether you win or lose a round against him you will unlock him.
Dreg[]
Dreg can be unlocked by playing through Story in Player VS Computer on the normal or expert difficulty.
Madame Luna[]
Madame Luna can be unlocked by playing through Story in Player VS Computer on the normal or expert difficulty.
Non-Playable Characters[]
Chack'n[]
Chack'n makes an appearance in this game during mode selection and in Puzzle's Story mode. He is seen interacting with the various cards.
Cronoa[]
Cronoa only appears in Puzzle's Story mode. You see her in the mode's beginning cutscene.
Locations[]
Trivia[]
- The game forbids the initials 'SEX' on the high score table. If you try, it gets changed to 'AAA'.