[BobNewbie]

Hello, Romhacking community. My question may be a predictable one, and I may not have chosen the correct Sub-Forum. Nevertheless, I hope I can get some assistance on a matter.

I'm a huge fan of Bubble Bobble for the NES, due to its excellent co-op elements. I've always been curious about when the game was officially released in the United States. "November, 1988" seems to be the accepted timeframe, but some have claimed November 28th, as well. Therefore, I wanted to look through the game with a Hex Editor to see if I can find a Build Date left by the developers, which seems to have been a common practice back then, as well. I have been unsuccessful, mostly due to my inexperience in the field. I was wondering if there were any tips or better strategies to use when hunting for a Build Date within a game file.

Any help that can be provided would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time and help!

[Auryn]

I am not an expert on NES rom but a quick look HERE and HERE tells me that you are out of luck. Anyway, what is sure is that the original arcade date from 1986 and the source code has been lost.
Bubble bobble with their many ports and company involved in the porting, is a complicated case (see the story HERE).
The only thing you could try is to search the release date of all versions but even then I think you will not get nearer as "november 1988" for the us version and 26 October 1990 for the PAL version.
I just checked the original NES PAL card but there is nothing written on it apart the usual 1985 copyright that all PAL game have.
You maybe know that Bubble bobble is related to Rainbow Island, Liquid kids, New Zealand story and Puzzle bobble (see how HERE) so maybe you can try to find something from them.
The original NES PAL card of New Zealand story has copyrights written on them:
1989 Ocean Software
1988 Taito

Anyway, the only thing that is really hidden in Bubble bobble NES is probably THIS.

[BobNewbie]

That is a shame, but I do appreciate you offering some advice on the issue. I guess developers weren't labeling their build dates as much as I thought.

Thanks again.

[KingMike]

The closest you'd be able to find is a build date of the cart (telling what week the ROMs were burned), though you'd have to open and compare many copies to find the oldest.

[syntax error]

TCRF guys find a lot of ASCII strings  and other unused content in even in very old games.