Chack'n Pop is considered a predecessor of Bubble Bobble. It is a platform game where a roundish yellow creature, named Chack'n, must fight against Monstas and Mightas in order to reclaim hearts that were stolen during a romantic encounter with Miss Chack'n. The Monstas themselves hatch from eggs hanging from the ceilings and the Mightas push a rock that is used as the game's timer. The Monsta eggs have three phases: if it's blue, it's completely harmless, if it's yellow it will pop within 10 seconds and if an egg turns red it will pop almost immediately. Chack'n uses bombs to blow up the Monstas and their eggs and he also uses them to release the captured hearts from their cages. When the heart is released, it will fly up and destroy the separator block and reveal the exit to the level.
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I have recently made a friend who is a big Bubble Bobble fan, so I decided to play Bubble Bobble. However, you obviously can't play Bubble Bobble without first playing The Fairyland Story, Taito's game from one year prior that directly influenced Bubble Bobble, so I did. Then I was ready to play Chack'n Pop, the other game you have to play to be ready to play Bubble Bobble
This is one of the hardest and most frustrating games I have ever played. The movement is like you're always in one of those ice levels everyone hates, when you move in one direction you slide until you turn around (and slide in that direction) or you reach a wall or you change platforms, so I even though I did get better at it, I never felt comfortable moving Chack'n. Similarly, I never got used to the way of attacking, which consists of two bombs you can throw to the left or right and they roll and fall and I never could quite figure out the timing and the size of the explosions, which can also kill Chack'n. Most of the times my bombs went off before the enemy reached the explosion radius or he was already pass it. The enemies are extremely abundant, there are entirely too many of them, their movement is hard to read and predict, and they can move freely around the mazes while Chack'n clunkily slides around from platform to platform.
The game is half as long as The Fairlyland Story and it took me thrice the time to beat using a lot of savestates. BTW by "beat" I mean just the first loop. Just the first level of the second loop is so exaggeratedly full of enemies it felt borderline impossible to complete.
Nevertheless Chack'n is pretty cute and I love his name and at the end he gets married which is pretty cute, so.
Recientemente hice un amigo que es fan de Bubble Bobble, así que decidí jugar a Bubble Bobble. Sin embargo, obviamente no podés jugar a Bubble Bobble sin antes jugar a The Fairyland Story, el juego de Taito de un año antes que influenció directamente a Bubble Bobble, así que lo hice. Ahora estoy listo para jugar a Chack'n Pop, el otro juego que tenés que jugar para estar listo para Bubble Bobble.
Este es uno de los juegos mas dificiles y frustrantes que jugué en mi vida. El movimiento es como si estuvieras siempre en uno de esos niveles de hielo que todos odian, cuando te moves en una dirección te deslizas sin parar a menos que te des vuelta o lleges a una pared o te pases a otra plataforma, así que aunque mejoré con tiempo de juego nunca me llegué a sentir comodo moviendo a Chack'n. Similarmente, nunca me acostumbré a la forma de ataque, que consiste de dos bombas que podés lanzar a la izquierda o derecha y ruedan y caen y nuncá me acostumbré al timing y el tamaño de las explosiones, las cuales también pueden matar Chack'n. La mayoría de las veces mis bombas explotaban antes de que el enemigo llegue al radio de explosión o después de que lo pasarán. Los enemigos son extremadamente abundantes, hay demasiados, sus movimientos son dificiles de leer y predecir, y se pueden mover libremente mientras Chack'n se desliza incomodamente de plataforma a plataforma.
El juego es la mitad de largo que The Fairyland Story y me tomó el triple de tiempo completarlo usando un montón de savestates. Por cierto por "completarlo" quiero decir la primera vuelta. Solo el primer nivel de la segunda vuelta está tan exageradamente lleno de enemigos que se sintió casi imposible the terminar.
I have recently made a friend who is a big Bubble Bobble fan, so I decided to play Bubble Bobble. However, you obviously can't play Bubble Bobble without first playing The Fairyland Story, Taito's game from one year prior that directly influenced Bubble Bobble, so I did. Then I was ready to play Chack'n Pop, the other game you have to play to be ready to play Bubble Bobble
This is one of the hardest and most frustrating games I have ever played. The movement is like you're always in one of those ice levels everyone hates, when you move in one direction you slide until you turn around (and slide in that direction) or you reach a wall or you change platforms, so I even though I did get better at it, I never felt comfortable moving Chack'n. Similarly, I never got used to the way of attacking, which consists of two bombs you can throw to the left or right and they roll and fall and I never could quite figure out the timing and the size of the explosions, which can also kill Chack'n. Most of the times my bombs went off before the enemy reached the explosion radius or he was already pass it. The enemies are extremely abundant, there are entirely too many of them, their movement is hard to read and predict, and they can move freely around the mazes while Chack'n clunkily slides around from platform to platform.
The game is half as long as The Fairlyland Story and it took me thrice the time to beat using a lot of savestates. BTW by "beat" I mean just the first loop. Just the first level of the second loop is so exaggeratedly full of enemies it felt borderline impossible to complete.
Nevertheless Chack'n is pretty cute and I love his name and at the end he gets married which is pretty cute, so.
Recientemente hice un amigo que es fan de Bubble Bobble, así que decidí jugar a Bubble Bobble. Sin embargo, obviamente no podés jugar a Bubble Bobble sin antes jugar a The Fairyland Story, el juego de Taito de un año antes que influenció directamente a Bubble Bobble, así que lo hice. Ahora estoy listo para jugar a Chack'n Pop, el otro juego que tenés que jugar para estar listo para Bubble Bobble.
Este es uno de los juegos mas dificiles y frustrantes que jugué en mi vida. El movimiento es como si estuvieras siempre en uno de esos niveles de hielo que todos odian, cuando te moves en una dirección te deslizas sin parar a menos que te des vuelta o lleges a una pared o te pases a otra plataforma, así que aunque mejoré con tiempo de juego nunca me llegué a sentir comodo moviendo a Chack'n. Similarmente, nunca me acostumbré a la forma de ataque, que consiste de dos bombas que podés lanzar a la izquierda o derecha y ruedan y caen y nuncá me acostumbré al timing y el tamaño de las explosiones, las cuales también pueden matar Chack'n. La mayoría de las veces mis bombas explotaban antes de que el enemigo llegue al radio de explosión o después de que lo pasarán. Los enemigos son extremadamente abundantes, hay demasiados, sus movimientos son dificiles de leer y predecir, y se pueden mover libremente mientras Chack'n se desliza incomodamente de plataforma a plataforma.
El juego es la mitad de largo que The Fairyland Story y me tomó el triple de tiempo completarlo usando un montón de savestates. Por cierto por "completarlo" quiero decir la primera vuelta. Solo el primer nivel de la segunda vuelta está tan exageradamente lleno de enemigos que se sintió casi imposible the terminar.
It plays around with a lot of concepts from other maze games and while the results aren't always cohesive, it still feels creative.
2/4 SMTDR
Pobre Chak'n Pop. Para sempre visto como um predecessor de Bubble Bobble, raramente visto pelo o que realmente é: um dos maze games mais originais e carismáticos de sua época.
Cute game with some half hazard level and enemy design
Other than Chack'n himself, this game is terri-fucking-ble. I can see what they were going for with this (and indeed, it's honestly ahead of its time in some ways), but the execution is extremely poor, probably in part due to no real common design sensibilities for platformers being a thing yet, and also probably due to this being Taito's first crack at a single-screen platformer. It's only really worth looking at for being one of Bubble Bobble's ancestors and seeing how it derived from this. Otherwise play literally any other Taito platformer. The Sega SG-1000 port is admittedly an improvement, but it's still not quite enough to fix some of the odd design choices here.