Pirate Pop Plus Review

In the world of indie gaming, one of the most popular subcategories of it is retro style. The games call back to a time when full orchestrated soundtracks weren't possible and the game characters were pixelated instead of full 3D polygons. One recently released, Pirate Pop Plus, calls back to the classic era of gaming, specifically the Gameboy-era, in an interesting, yet simplistic, game play style.

In Pirate Pop Plus, you play as the pirate Pete Jr. who arrives on a small island to find all the residents are trapped in bubbles. He discovers it is the work of the evil Bubble Pirate and he must grab his trusty anchor and pop all the bubbles. This is all the story the game has to offer, only needing to set up a framework for why the characters are doing what they are doing.  

The gameplay consists of Peter Jr. popping bubbles by throwing his anchor into the air. He pops a big bubble (brought out by Bubble Pirate), which breaks into two smaller bubbles, then another two. The main pull of the gameplay is the gravity switching mechanic, in which Bubble Pirate will sometimes appear and switch gravity, causing Pete Jr. and the bubbles to head toward one of the other sides of the screen. The game has a limited story, as mentioned earlier, and is mainly about getting a better high score. There are two game modes: Regular and Hyper. In Hyper mode, the score is doubled, but the player only has one heart. There are many power-ups including a shield, an anchor that separates the bubbles on two opposite sides of a chain, and a BB gun. In addition to power ups, the player also collects coins that can be used to buy many unlockables.

As the game mainly about high scores, a big part of it is the unlockables. There are many unlockables to buy using the coins found in normal gameplay. There are stickers to decorate the fictional handheld console (some even featuring a character from 13 AM's previous game, Runbow). There are also characters to buy such as Satura (who is faster and a guest from Runbow), Dave (who has another life) and Shynut (a coconut with legs). The player can also buy different colors for the handheld, including different button colors, a different color background, and different music for gameplay.

For what Pirate Pop Plus is trying to do, it is successful. It has an interesting gameplay mechanic, which is enough to keep me playing. It might not be everyone's type of game, but for 5 dollars, I would say Pirate Pop Plus is worth it.