Review

Gameplay 70%

BubbleMea is your average Bubble Shooter. You have a set of elements in the screen, and to pop them, shoot the same kind of candy to them. If 3 or more are together when the candy sticks, they will disappear. Also, if you pop “bubbles” that have another kind of element connected below them, the will all fall down, and you’ll get extra points.   You start out with a limited number of candy in your basket, and if the one you’re holding at the beginning is not useful, click on the switch icon above the black cat to change it for another one. To aim, touch the screen, and you’ll see a path appear, drag your finger where you want to throw the candy, and release it to shoot. Sometimes a rainbow bubble will appear at random from the basket, this one transform into the element it hits when you shoot it. There are also special bomb bubbles you can use. They don’t match the other candy, but explode taking out the elements surrounding it. It’s very useful in certain situation where you need to open a space to get another bubble to the top of the screen. The objective of the game is not to eliminate all bubbles, but to find and release pages from a magic book trapped inside transparent spheres. Most of the time they’re placed at the very top of the level, but sometimes you’ll find them in the center or the bottom of the pile of candy. If you run out of bubbles to shoot before getting all the pages in the stage, you’ll lose the level and have to start over. Depending on how many bubbles you use to win a level, you’ll get a star rating. After several stages, you’ll exit one area, like the forest, and get to the gate to the next one, like the mountain, and you need a certain amount of stars earned in the levels to pass. If you have enough, go play the next area, if not, go back and get a better score.

Graphics 74%

BubbleMea features Anime inspired 2D art. The developer is actually a company based in Japan, where this particular style is very popular. Mea is pretty detailed, and even if she’s wearing dark clothes, you can see many shades of dark making up the shadows, and bright spots on her hair making her look quite good.   While game game looks good at first glance, the animation is kept to a minimal, the backgrounds are static and the cat doesn’t move at all. At least the story is told with portraits that feature different expressions, and every time you see the characters, they look great, but they aren’t really animated. The bubble candy doesn’t squash and stretch, change size or anything when hitting a wall. They should be bouncy, and here they look very solid, which doesn’t look good at all. The effect when they pop is what you’d expect to see, nothing extra fancy. The backgrounds are very detailed just like Mea, and you can visit different areas based on classic fantasy tales, like the candy house of Hansel and Gretel. If woul’ve been nice to see moving elements like clouds or maybe birds flying by, because the lack of animation makes watching this game kinda dull.

Production Quality 67%

BubbleMea is a pretty generic puzzle bubble shooter. Besides the particular graphic style, it doesn’t really stand out from the rest. Gameplay wise, it has just the basic mechanics of the genre, but lacks power ups, obstacles, special bubbles to shoot and other things to keep your interest.   The music is nice, and there are different tracks so it doesn’t gets old so fast. But the translation is very bad, it seems like it was done with google translate. The game was originally in Japanese, and the English version seems to have been done in a rush without an actual professional translator. Still, you can understand it, but it lowers the overall quality of the game.

Value for your Money 97%

BubbleMea is free on Google Play and the Apple App Store. There aren’t any in-app transactions, and you won’t see any video ad unless you want a special item after beating a couple of stages; but there’s gonna be an advertising banner at the bottom of the screen the whole time. It isn’t intrusive with the gameplay, but being there all the time is a little bothersome.

Launch Video

Summary

BubbleMea is just a casual platformer with an art style that will catch the attention of anime fans, but as a puzzle bubble shooter, it’s very basic in gameplay, and if you’re looking something that is on par with the most popular games of this genre, this one will bore you quite quickly. Check it out only if you want a cute little casual game of this kind to pass a few minutes, otherwise, try something else that has more features.

Game Help Guru Rating 68%