I love the idea of Super Mario Bros. taking place in the Bubble Bobble universe, because there are so many strange ideas to explore. At present, this one could use a little more time in the oven, I think. I love the visuals - the underwater stages are particularly nice - but everything else about it just seems… off. You can’t dash, but your jumps are a little higher to compensate. Fair enough - that’s how it was in Bubble Bobble - but since none of the level design has changed at all, it puts you in some unnecessarily difficult situations, especially when jumping long distances. A lot of the music remains unchanged, and the main bubble bobble music that you hear throughout the entire game is a little off rhythm; the melody seems fine, but the rest of it seems like it’s… tripping over itself? I’m bad at describing music.

The are some things that aren’t necessarily bad, but seem odd choices. The mushrooms are now cake, but they don’t actually do anything. I suppose that’s fair, since Bub and Bob didn’t get large or have any real equivalent, but this would’ve been a great opportunity to have the red cross as an enhancement to change your bubbles into more powerful blasts of fire. This would’ve been especially helpful, since you can’t jump on enemies (again, just like in Bubble Bobble), and your bubbles don’t work on everything. The invincibility item is not only not the heart from the game, but also uses the Super Mario Bros. invincibility music. The underwater stages are beautiful, and filled with blue, as if you’d grabbed a blue cross, but the actual tiles are not. At times, I was wondering if this was made by someone who’s even played Bubble Bobble, but then you have really thoughtful adherences to it.

With a little work, this could be spectacular, and I would definitely play an updated version, but I cannot recommend it in its current form.