An excellent translation of the arcade classic, but not without a few minor problems
As the name suggests, there are two versions on this cart....old and new. The old version is the arcade classic. The graphics are spot on, and the music comes close to the arcade original. The new version is the same game with a graphical upgrade to what appears to be 16-bit quality graphics and the music remixed. But both versions play exactly the same. It should be noted though, that in the original version you only get one credit to go through the entire game whereas in the new version, there are quite a few continues available.They share the same gameplay and also the same problems.
To anyone who enjoyed any previous version, the hardest thing to get used to is fact that the entire playing field is not visible. The games default setting is "zoomed in" and you can see a fair amount of the playing field but not all of it. This can make for some very annoying deaths with enemies dropping in from above, or flying up from below outside of your field of vision. This can be rectified with a simple press of the R button, which zooms out to show the entire playing field, but the graphical quality takes a fairly big hit. Since the GBA's screen dimensions are wider than the arcade classic, when zoomed out, it is centered in the GBA's screen. On the GBA's small screen, this can perhaps be extremely taxing on your eyes. I find myself using my Gameboy player more often than not to play time game.
The question that begs to be asked is...how badly do you want to play Bubble Bobble on your GBA or Gamecube? It's probably easier to pick up the NES version or PSX version if you have those systems. But if you really want Bubble Bobble in your GBA collection, this version is a good one. It just may take some time to get used to.