eurogamer.net
It's impossible to forget what a bona-fide platforming classic the 1987 original was.
it couldn't really be much simpler and yet still bears close scrutiny even now.
Once again starring Bub and Bob (free of the dinosaur curse, it seems), the idea was to work your way up to the top of a vertical-scrolling level avoiding the numerous roaming monsters, zapping them with your rainbow attack and traversing the many platforms - not to mentions the same rainbows that also operated as makeshift platforms. In common with Bubble Bobble, the array of random tat that spewed forth from downed enemies helped players gain temporary power-ups, and part of the fun was finding out what the collectables actually did. Some gave you double (or even triple) rainbows, others made you run faster, and some just gave you a mega point bonus. Some... well, we wouldn't want to spoil the fun.
Unlike Bubble Bobble (and latterly Parasol Stars) you couldn't play the game in co-op mode (still a novelty at the time), so you couldn't work your way through the dozens of levels and tackle the many bosses with a pal. Ripping off the rose-tinted specs, of course, it's extremely dated now (i.e. its waaaaay tougher than most contemporary platformers and therefore quite frustrating), but there's a purity of vision that still shines through more than other so-called classics. Plus it's got that theme tune. Suddenly I am a teenager again, full of hope that one day I'll own a machine with a disk drive. (And then suddenly my 14-week-old son screams from the other side of the room and normality is restored, but the tune plays on. Yes! The tune is back!)