Bubble Ghost Remake review: Busting makes me feel kind of sad, actually

I had no idea what Bubble Ghost was, when Bubble Ghost Remake came across my desk. When I looked it up, I was surprised to see such a creative, little puzzle game dating all the way back to the Atari ST. Remake looks nothing like it, with a more colorful, heavily designed, and narratively expanded world that looks inspired by children’s books or old cartoons. All the additions are interesting, but ultimately Bubble Ghost Remake feels like it uses the original like a stepping stool to do its own thing, in a way that misses what made it a classic for those who know it.

What is Bubble Ghost anyway?

The O.G. Bubble Ghost, created for Atari ST (and ported to other, similar platforms) by French developer Christophe Andréani, is about a traditional, white and floaty, funny-faced ghost who wanders into a haunted castle. The ghost finds a trapped bubble, and is compelled to guide it through dozens of deranged hallways full of traps and equally dangerous (for a bubble) household appliances. Since ghosts can't touch things, our hero can only guide the bubble by blowing at it. Using the mouse to move and left/right clicks to rotate, you’re essentially moving backwards through a series of “don’t touch anything” puzzles. The ghost eventually makes it outside, and the bubble floats away to freedom. Adorable.

Speaking of adorable, our ghost pal got a super cute makeover in Bubble Ghost for the Game Boy, which, after being introduced to it because of this review, is now one of my favorite Game Boy games. Ported/developed by Japanese company Pony Canyon, some smart changes and adjustments are made to make an old Atari game more appealing, and fit it on a handheld. The ghost now kind of attaches to the bubble when you float near it, rotating around it automatically as you move.

You’d think having less manual control would be an issue, but the rotation has a speed and accuracy that’s just so, and it ends up feeling a lot better than the alternative. Also there’s music, one of the first game compositions from Hitoshi Sakimoto of Final Fantasy Tactics fame. It starts with a reference to Ghostbusters, then transitions into a serious bop for a small Game Boy joint.

Ok. The new one, though?

I explained all that because first of all, discovering neat, old games for the first time is a rare joy these days and second, because Remake has an interesting approach to these controls. It offers both, but not at the same time or in a menu. On the normal difficulty, you rotate the ghost with the shoulder buttons, and can do a 180-degree flip with a button press. On the easier mode you get the automatic, rotating option (on top of manual), perhaps (hopefully) accidentally throwing a little shade on the Game Boy version. Easy mode also provides checkpoints, and we will absolutely come back to that one in a bit. I didn’t like what this cutesy-looking puzzle game was suggesting about my gamer skills, so I mostly stuck to normal. I did try out easy for science, and unfortunately the automatic part isn’t nearly as well-tuned as the Game Boy controls, with the ghost snapping to angles that weren’t always helpful.

Controls aside, Remake is a full reimagining of the concept. It’s full of color and has a very different style, which is carried into a full-on story being told around the bubble-guiding action. Our ghost has a name and a face this time! Heinrich was an English scientist who lived in a cool castle, had wacky animal friends, and most recently a lady. Unfortunately, our academic protagonist is drafted to fight in the World War, and isn’t quite able to keep his promise to come home. He returns, in a new form, to a dilapidated castle and no signs of those he loved. All of this is narrated by text that insists on rhyming, storybook style. It’s cute but has to reach more than once to make the rhymes happen.

Anyway, Heinrich finds a pink bubble that seems to be housing a familiar song, but the song leaves the bubble behind as it flees deeper into the castle. Heinrich decides to pursue, and bring the bubble along with him, making his way through the damaged, overgrown, and video game hazard-fied rooms of his old home. Also, his animal buddies didn’t take the loss well, and are ready to cause problems and pop that bubble. It’s quite a lot for a game that was just an old school puzzle game with a quick and simple premise, to say the least.

Bigger adventure, same bubble

The whole thing here with Remake is bigger is better. The story is bigger, the visuals are bigger, and the levels… the levels are much bigger. Throw in some enemies and boss fights and you get a remake that, again, barely resembles the original on a conceptual level. If it weren’t for the core mechanics of a ghost blowing around a helpless bubble, we’d be somewhere else. While the new style and story didn’t do much for me I can still see a level of charm and endearment to it, and who can say no to pretty colors? But when it comes to going through the levels, I did not have a good time. Several times I’d trudge through a level, then look longingly at my Analogue Pocket, tempted to hop over to Bubble Ghost on Game Boy for a mood-boosting hit of those poppy chiptunes.

So, checkpoints. Most of these levels are massive. Huge! It often felt like I was gliding around an environment originally meant for a platformer or something. The levels are often complex with branching paths, secrets, enemies, door puzzles, and more. And if that wasn’t enough, this game has the audacity to have a time attack target that makes noises at you while it expires, regardless of where it is in the level. But really, hazards are one thing. We can deal with hazards. It’s the length that’s the real problem. Some of these levels can go on for quite a while, justifying those easy mode checkpoints for scale alone. But don’t forget: Bubble Ghost. We are dealing with a bubble here. A soapy, watery miracle of awe and wonder that is beautiful to look at. Unfortunately looking at a bubble the wrong way tends to pop it, no matter how carefully you blew that sucker out of the little wand gimmick. It’s fragile, is what I’m saying. That bubble pops when it touches anything, if it so much as clips the edge of a jagged piece of environment, grazes the pixel at the corner of a stair, or lightly brushes the ear of a giant mouse. Pop! Then all the way back to the beginning.

Boiling to the surface

The key that makes the original Bubble Ghost a fun game, is that it is specifically not an adventure. It’s a stage-clearing, score-building, Atari-ass puzzle game. When you start a new level, you can see the whole level, process what the problems are, then work on pushing that precious bubble to the exit. This is a game with a novel control scheme that really sings when you navigate one challenge at a time, on a clear board, with a clear goal. When the bubble pops, you lose a life, then are able to get right back to work and try again. It's the classic loop.

Dropping these specific mechanics into a blown-up Donkey Kong Country level is antithetical, especially with all the (nicely-drawn) complex terrain and huge, moving enemies demanding the utmost precision at nearly all times, no way to plan ahead, and vibe-shattering backtracking after a tragic pop right before the end. I respect the ambition, but it just doesn’t work. It's not that Remake is too hard, but it's too much.

I see and respect what Bubble Ghost Remake attempted here. Take an obscure game, reimagine it, make it big and beautiful, and offer something fresh to puzzle fans. But as it turns out, “bigger” was a crucial mistake. Not everyone will see this and seek out the original, but if they do, they’ll plainly observe how a smaller, stage-based challenge structure turns something kind of wonky and frustrating into a true hidden gem. And considering how my biggest takeaway is how grateful I am to have Game Boy Bubble Ghost in my rotation now, I suggest anyone and everyone do just that.

Bubble Ghost Remake is available for the PC and Nintendo Switch on March 27, 2025. A Nintendo Switch code was provided by the publisher for this review.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.