A Brief Guide to Playing Pop 'n Pop in the United States Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu) Created: March 30, 2001 Last update: Jul 27, 2003 Prologue -------- This text came out of two frustrations: the frustration in trying to find and play the game itself and the frustration of being ignored by the people at www.bubandbob.com. So without further ado: Intro ----- Pop 'n Pop is a sequel of sorts to Taito's Bust-a-Move series (properly called Puzzle Bobble in the rest of the known universe). The bubbles are replaced with balloons and the game is more like Space Invaders than either Bubble Bobble or Puzzle Bobble, but Pop 'n Pop is still quite good. It is colorful, has great music and is terribly addictive. Alas, Pop 'n Pop has never properly made it to the US. This country has seen every blasted "Bust-a-Move" sequel ever, but not Pop 'n Pop. What follows is my painful path exploring how to play this game without picking up and moving to Europe. How to Play Pop 'n Pop in the US -------------------------------- There are only a few ways to play Pop 'n Pop here, not all of them necessarily legal. Let's start with the arcade game itself: 1) import/buy a Pop 'n Pop arcade game or equivalent Pop 'n Pop uses the Taito F3 Arcade system; I've seen at least one F3 Pop 'n Pop cart on Ebay (one could buy it for $40). If you just bought the cart, you also need the main board, perhaps a cabinet and some kind of monitor. Perhaps you could hook up the whole mess (sans cabinet and monitor) to a Super Gun (a system with arcade joysticks that allows hooking JAMMA boards up to it and outputs to a monitor or TV). I have not tried this, due to lack of time and money as well as hating to have to go through all this trouble just to play it. Whether one goes this route or buys an entire arcade game (Pop 'n Pop was released as an arcade game in the US, but the run must have been exceedingly small; I've only ever seen it on ebay or in MAME), it is an expensive proposition at best. So what other ways can Pop 'n Pop be played? 2) modded PSX + NTSC J PSX Pop 'n Pop I bought a modded PSX for just this reason. A modded PSX is fairly inexpensive (mine was $139, bought in April 2000). Unfortunately, no one seems to have a Japanese copy of Pop 'n Pop. The cool front and back covers can be seen here: http://www.ncsx.com/ncs101998/popnpop.htm All of the online importers (ncsx, tronix, the rage, etc.) do not have it and can't get it. However, if you are lucky beyond measure (as I appear to be) and can be very patient, it will turn up. In my case, a very nice person who regularly imports games found a copy for me for $40. While the game plays somewhere between the PC version (see below) and the arcade version, the two player version is very good. There are also two additional game modes: one that looks like a practice mode and one that is a "continuous" mode. It's great fun, even if it isn't exactly like the arcade version. The PSX version does have one large annoyance: the time between the game ending and the continue/quit screen appearing is frightenly short. The last few controller inputs are sometimes interpreted on the continue/quit screen, leading to an unexpected end of game. 3) PAL TV, PAL PSX, PAL Pop 'n Pop While Pop 'n Pop seems to be impossible to find in NTSC format, it isn't too hard to come by in PAL format (I know, I have one) due to the game's popularity in Europe. So one could get PAL versions of everything, but this is expensive and annoying, just like 1). But here's something I hadn't expected. If you have a modded PSX and you try to run the PAL Pop 'n Pop on it, the PSX logo comes up as "Sony Europe" and the game runs. The music is fine but the screen rolls (and the colors may be off). This is similar to what happens when trying to play a PAL Atari 2600 game on an NTSC Atari 2600 with an NTSC TV. So, if you have a older TV that has a vertical hold knob, this may be workable. 3a) PSX Pop 'n Pop + PSX emulator for PC www.bubandbob.com has some information on running Pop 'n Pop via a PSX emulator on the PC. Alas, most of their information is from the NTSC version, not the PAL version. I don't know if any of the PSX emulators have PAL support. Without it, we're back to the problem of actually finding a copy of NTSC Pop 'n Pop. 4) PC version of Pop 'n Pop Imagine my joy when I found out that Vektorlogic was bringing out a PC version of Pop 'n Pop. According to the web page: http://www.vektorlogic.com/popnpop.htm the release date on the game is July 2000. However, when I wrote to them (in Dec 2000), I found out that while the game had already been released in Europe and Korea (!), the US version was still unreleased. To this day (AFAIK) the game has not been released in the US. Although the bubandbob people ignored my one email message to them, they recently noted that Vektorlogic is now selling the PC version of Pop 'n Pop (from England) for $18 including shipping. I've ordered the game and played it for a while. Here is what I've discovered. If you have never played the arcade Pop 'n Pop, either in real life or under MAME or Raine, run over to the Vektorlogic site and buy it. No kidding. It's a wonderful game and for only $18 shipped, you can't go wrong. That being said, if you really like the look and feel of the arcade version, you may be slightly disappointed. The game has been changed in much the same way a book is adapted for the big screen. For example: the opening is different there are many additional modes including a puzzle mode the names of characters have been changed there are more and different, but fuzzier graphics gameplay is slightly different: no balloons floating by, no ominous music when the balloons reach the second-to-last level, no timer on shooting balloons, the hurry-up bit seems to come much faster, etc. This doesn't, in any way make it a bad game, just a different one. I do so wish there was an arcade mode, but its absence is only a mild disappointment. So, even if you'd played the emulated Pop 'n Pop, buy the game anyway and try to deal with the changes. It's still a great game. 5) Emulating Pop 'n Pop The Raine people did a fine job of emulating Pop 'n Pop, except that it had no sound or music. While the game was still fun without them, Pop 'n Pop is greatly improved with them. Today, the latest versions of Raine and MAME emulate Pop 'n Pop with both sound and music. A Pentium running at 400 mhz is enough to play Pop 'n Pop very respectably under Raine, but it is still too slow under MAME. I don't know at what speed the MAME emulation becomes playable. A Pentium 200 is enough to play Pop 'n Pop under Raine without sound/music. 6) Gameboy Color Pop 'n Pop In the US? Not a chance. However, Amazon UK had it for sale: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000051WPS/europostershopco/026-3898124-2050023 Since there are no regional lockouts on the Gameboy, this may be another fairly painless way to play. Of course, the limitations of the Gameboy and its small screen and speaker may make this experience not worth the effort. What does the US get? This travesty: http://pocket.ign.com/articles/135/135455p1.html?fromint=1&submit.x=73&submit.y=22 Conclusion ---------- The only practical ways to play Pop 'n Pop in the US currently are: 1) Import the PC version -- only $18 and lots of fun but not a perfect port. 2) Raine or MAME -- easy and free but not necessary legal. 3) Import Gameboy version -- unclear how good the game is, unclear how the Gameboy itself affects play, more expensive than it would be if released here.