Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands.

Finding a well-made port of a classic arcade game isn’t always easy. Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands, however, brings in not just one but two great arcade games that look and play nearly identical to their original arcade versions. In Bubble Bobble, every level has a bunch of enemies that you have to fire bubbles at, trapping them inside. Once you do this, you have to pop the bubbles before they escape, killing them and dropping bonus items. There are also power ups to collect, like a bubble that unleashes a flood of water that takes out every enemy in its path. It’s a pretty tough game but it’s still pretty fun, especially with a second player.

Rainbow Islands, the games sequel, changes your goal to making it up to the top of each level while avoiding or killing enemies with rainbows you can create at will. You can also use rainbows as platforms and bridges or you can jump on them to drop them on enemies. Like on the original game, there are plenty of power ups lying around to make your rainbows faster, more numerous, and more deadly. Sadly this particular port, much like a lot of the home ports of this game, is missing the secret levels you could uncover by finding all seven diamonds on each of the islands. Just like Bubble Bobble, it’ll take a lot of time and practice to get to the end.

There’s also an enhanced version of Rainbow Islands on the disc, but since all this does is make the graphics look a little more 16-bit, it’s best left skipped. Overall, while it’s not pixel-perfect to the arcade, this is a nice port of two great games on one disc, and if you’re looking for a good port for home computers, you’ve found it.