The Commodore 64 conversion of Bubble Bobble is held in high regard by those who know it. It was programmed by Stephen Ruddy for Software Creations and published by Firebird in 1988.

All the levels, sprites, tunes, and bonuses are in there. The graphical rendition of the game is chunky but authentic, and it feels like the Bubble Bobble we all know and love. The game runs fast enough to be playable, fair and fun and even has a few extra tunes of its own that are not in the original arcade game. It is missing a few of the intermission screens though (like the depth indicator screen, for example). Considering that all 100 levels, and pretty much all the main features of the arcade game, have been squeezed into a single 64K load, it’s a miraculous 8-bit conversion.

It seems inexplicable that the C64 port does not feature in my top ten list of best Bubble Bobble conversions, considering how good it is, but it just narrowly missed out appearing on the list because there are so many excellent conversions of Bubble Bobble available. This is still a brilliant conversion of a classic game and is well worth playing today.

See also: 10 Best Bubble Bobble Conversions

More: Bubble Bobble on Wikipedia