Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2 (NES, Taito)

A severely cut down port of the arcade original, although with cutscenes, different level designs, and "KiKi KaiKai Island", which replaces Magical Island in whole.

A different NES port was released by Ocean only in Europe.

Unused Text#

The Japanese version of this game contains leftovers from an early development stage. The string "SAMPLE VERSION" still exists among other strings in the game.

0001DAF0: 1B 18 10 1B 0A 16 16 0E 0D 26 0B 22 26 0D 12 1C ROGRAMMED]BY]DIS
0001DB00: 0C 18 1C 0A 16 19 15 0E 26 1F 0E 1B 1C 12 18 17 COSAMPLE]VERSION
0001DB10: A5 20 29 18 AA A0 00 BD 2A DB 99 E4 07 E8 C8 C0 .W`O..7.a...>...

Sound Select#

Press Up, Left, Right, Down, A, B, A, Up when the word "START" begins flashing on the title screen. Press A or B to select a melody, then press Start to play it.

World Select#

Press Left, B, Right, Up, Down, Left, Right, B when the word "START" begins flashing on the title screen. Press A to select a world, then press Start to play it.

Regional Differences#

Title Screen#

Japan	US

The US version added a trademark symbol to the title screen and changed some copyright information. The US title screen continues to animate after the sound test code are entered but not after the world select code, while the Japanese version stops animating after both codes instead.

The title screen theme was also changed, originally it sounded exactly like the arcade version's High Score name entry, the US version still features some notes untouched though.

Islands 1-4#

The first four islands have all had their music changed from the arcade version's very "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"-ish motif to something a bit less infringing. Only the parts of the music that could have gotten Taito in legal trouble were changed; the bridges and bass line remain unaltered.

The altered theme went on to be used in future ports and rereleases of the arcade game, including the Master System, Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands, US Sega Genesis Mini 2, J2ME and Arcade Archives versions.

Bubble Island#

Due to an oversight in the sound code, the music for this stage was broken! The triangle channel in the US version breaks and starts playing garbage shortly after the song begins.

When loading song pointers, a value of 00 is treated as "end of data", which means that no part of a song may start at address $xx00. In the US version, the broken part of this track starts at $8E00, which causes the game to lose its place in the song data and play garbage.

Staff Roll#

The US version's staff roll was completely redone.

NES RAINBOW PROJECT

- STAFF -

- PRODUCER -
KHK

- PLANNER -
SLEEPY TAKASE

- PROGRAMMER -
YUICHIRO.KAWAMUKI
OMAKE KZM
JYOJI.TAKAHASHI

- GRAPHICS -
SLEEPY TAKASE
YAMANA NONO
ITO

- SOUND -
MASAHIKO.TAKAKI
KAZUYUKI.ONUI
MR.YAGISHITA
SHOTARO
P.M.D.C.

- SPECIAL THANKS TO -
MTJ
I.F
MR.M
MR.YASUDA
IKASAMA
TEA
TOUCHAN

STAFF

ぷろぐらま〜
JYOJI,TAKAHASHI
DUNKER,KZM
YUICHIRO,KAWAMUKI

きゃらくた〜
やまな のの
BAITO,TAKASE

さうんど
SHOTARO
MASAHIKO,TAKAKI
KAZUYUKI,ONUI
MR,YAGISHITA

きかく
TAKASE

すぺしゃる さんくす つ〜
MTJ
I,F
ROOM 206
SUPER M
NANNO KHK
♥ TAITO FAMICOM TEAM ♥
かっちゃん、たっちゃん
ろむやき ばぐちえっく
おじゃまむし
げんばかんとく 
SHO,TAKAHASI

P,M,D,C,

STAFF

PROGRAMMER
JYOJI,TAKAHASHI
DUNKER,KZM
YUICHIRO,KAWAMUKI

CHARACTER
YAMANA NONO
BAITO,TAKASE

SOUND
SHOTARO
MASAHIKO TAKAKI
KAZUYUKI ONUI
MR,YAGISHITA

PLANNING
TAKASE

SPECIAL THANKS TO
MTJ
I,F
ROOM 206
SUPER M
NANNO KHK
♥ TAITO FAMICOM TEAM ♥
KACCHAN,TACCHAN
ROM YAKI BUGCHECK
OJAMAMUSHI
SITE SUPERVISOR
SHO,TAKAHASI

P,M,D,C