Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands

Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands brought two of Taito's most addictive arcade platformers to PC CD-ROMs in 1996, packing a pair of very different adventures into a single package.

Two classic arcades in Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands

Arcade ports to home computers in the 1980s and early 1990s were often messy affairs, cut down to fit low RAM budgets or stripped of sound hardware support. By 1996, Probe Entertainment Ltd. set out to solve that problem by delivering near-perfect conversions directly to PC screens. Publishing through Acclaim Entertainment, Inc., they bundled the classic 1986 original alongside its vertically ascending sequel, giving players a massive dose of single-screen action alongside multi-screen platforming.

Launching the MS-DOS release brings up a clean menu where you choose between Bubble Bobble, the original Rainbow Islands, or an Enhanced edition of the latter featuring revamped sprite artwork. The immediate draw is how faithful the ports feel right out of the box, matching the precise movement speeds and screen layouts that devoured quarters in arcades. Whether you plug in a Gravis Gamepad or fight for space on a single keyboard, the responsiveness is right where it needs to be for precision jumping.

Blowing bubbles and bouncing on rainbows across 100 levels

The core loop of Bubble Bobble turns two transformed green and blue dinosaurs, Bub and Bob, loose across a cavernous 100-floor underworld. Your job is simple: spit bubbles to trap roaming monsters, then physical-jump into those bubbles to pop them. Popping an enemy transforms them into points and falling fruit. If you leave a monster trapped in a bubble for too long, it turns red, bursts free, and moves around the screen with terrifying speed.

To survive the full run, you rely on a continuous stream of drop items and power-ups that alter how your bubbles behave:

• Rapid-fire candy that lets you spit bubbles faster
• Sneakers that boost your walking speed across platforms
• Crosses that flood the screen with water or lightning to clear out clusters of foes
• Letters spelling out EXTEND (or EXPAND), which instantly grant a precious extra life

Take too long to clear a stage, and a terrifying skeletal ghost known as Baron Von Bubbla appears to hunt you down. That constant timer forces you to take aggressive risks rather than hiding in a safe corner of the screen.

Why Rainbow Islands changes the rules entirely

Switching over to Rainbow Islands completely alters your tactical mindset. Human brothers Bubby and Bobby trade their bubble-blowing breath for magic rainbows that arc outward from their hands. These rainbows serve a triple purpose: they form temporary physical bridges to walk on, act as platforms to reach higher ledges, and crash down on enemies when you leap on top of them from above. Instead of staying within static borders, stages scroll steadily upward while rising water threatens to drown you from the bottom of the screen.

This design makes height your absolute priority. You constantly construct improvised staircases out of rainbow arcs while dodging insect swarms and mechanical toys. It feels nimble, but it demands fast fingers and solid spatial awareness. Probe also included the Enhanced version in this package, which applies a coat of updated mid-90s PC graphics over the original arcade layout for players who want a fresh visual spin.

The design decisions that frustrate even hardened players

Despite how bright the presentation seems, these games hide a punishing, almost sinister level of difficulty. The early floors of Bubble Bobble ease you in, but by the mid-30s, stages turn into utter bedlam. Monster spawn patterns overlap, platforms narrow down to pixel-thin ledges, and even using fifteen continues will not guarantee you reach the final level 100 showdown with Baron Von Bubbla. Furthermore, the PC version's soundtrack plays a single, short music loop on endless repeat, which tests your patience long before the enemies do.

The single biggest misstep in this conversion, however, lands on Rainbow Islands. Where the original Bubble Bobble shines as an incredible two-player cooperative experience, the included version of Rainbow Islands cuts co-op entirely, restricting the climb to a single player. It is a strange exclusion for a game whose arcade parent was built around side-by-side action.

There is also an infamous music change tucked into Western home releases. Due to potential copyright issues regarding the main theme's close resemblance to "Over the Rainbow" from MGM's 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, publisher Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. had to ship versions featuring a altered background tune instead. Meanwhile, unlocking the true ending in Rainbow Islands requires collecting seven secret big diamonds in precise color order across the islands along with three hidden mirrors, a feat practically impossible without a strategy guide.

Fire up Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands right in your browser

Developer Probe Entertainment Ltd. delivered a solid technical port that ran flawlessly on humble 80486 MS-DOS machines back in 1996. The pixel art remains crisp, and the responsive controls ensure every missed jump is entirely your own fault rather than input lag. While the difficulty wall in both games will hit you hard after thirty minutes, the fast-paced scoring loops remain endlessly replayable for anyone who loves pure 90s action games.

You can play Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands free in your browser right here. No configuration or emulator setups are required to get moving. Fire up the Bubble Bobble side first to get a feel for bouncing off your own bubbles to reach top platforms, then test your patience on the ruthless vertical climbs of the islands.