Bubble Bobble Plus is an excellent WiiWare title that stands above the rest.
As with the original Bubble Bobble, Bubble Bobble Plus has all the elements we've come to expect from 1980's arcade games: simple yet addicting gameplay, blood boiling difficulty and graphics that are primitive, yet have a charm that can't be matched.
Bubble Bobble Plus has many options to start with, along with two additional modes that can be purchased for 200 Nintendo Points. The stock game contains 200 addicting levels, and the content packs are outfitted with 50 additional levels each. For the mathematically impaired, that's 300 levels. For $10 total, that is by no means a bad value.
The gameplay in Bubble Bobble, as mentioned earlier, is very simple. The idea is to shoot bubbles at enemies, then pop the bubbles once the enemies are trapped inside. This is the general idea that works with most of the enemies in the game. There are a few times where you will be required to hop on the bubbles to get out of certain areas of each level, which adds to the challenge.
There are two different modes to choose from on the main menu, being Standard Mode and Ranking Mode. Standard mode allows for up to 4 players (Original arcade levels only allow for 2) while Ranking Mode is strictly solo but here the player scores are uploaded to Nintendo's WiFi servers to see how you compare with the rest of the world. Online play is a no show, which is a slight disappointment.
Powerups have also been a staple of the Bubble Bobble series, and there are plenty here as well. Purists may be happy to know that the original 100 levels remain unchanged–it's nothing more than a graphical upgrade. With the new modes, however, there are plenty of new powerups to explore making the whole experience quite fresh.
Overall, Bubble Bobble Plus is an excellent WiiWare title that stands above the rest. The only real glaring omission is online play, but it wasn't really expected either. The reason it is such a bummer though, is because the game is so much fun with more and more players. This shouldn't shy anyone away from Bubble Bobble Plus because at $6, it's only $1 more than the NES game, and with 100 new levels to boot. New and old players alike should love Bubble Bobble Plus, as its addicting gameplay will keep anyone coming back for more.