Parasol Stars

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Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III
Japanese PC Engine boxart
Developer(s)	Taito (PC-Engine)
Publisher(s)	Working Designs (TurboGrafx-16) Ocean (Amiga, Atari ST, Game Boy) Hudson Soft (Famicom)
Platform(s)	TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine, Amiga, Atari ST, Game Boy, Famicom, NES
Release date	1991
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Parasol Stars (パラソルスター, Parasoru Sutā^?) is a video game by Taito released in 1991. It is a sequel to Rainbow Islands (see below paragraph). It is technically the third game in the Bubble Bobble series.

Straight to home systems

Unlike many of the other games in the series, this game was never released to arcades - it was first released on the PC Engine, and has been ported to a number of other home systems. There are rumors about prototypes for an arcade version, which appear to be false; Taito has officially stated that an arcade game was never produced. Mick West (who was the programmer of the Amiga and Atari ST versions) stated that they ported the game directly from the PC Engine and that "no coin-op of the game exists".

Relation to other games

The game's subtitle is The Story of Bubble Bobble III, which was also used as the subtitle for Bubble Memories, released in 1995. Bubble Memories is a prequel (given the "Memories" part of the name) to the 1994 game Bubble Symphony, which was released as Bubble Bobble 2 in some countries. Nonetheless, Rainbow Islands is indeed the sequel to the original Bubble Bobble, even if it (Rainbow Islands) doesn't retain the same gameplay as the first game (similar to how Blaster is the sequel to Robotron even though both are completely different games), and since Bubble Memories was released years after Parasol Stars, this may be a retcon in which Parasol Stars never happened, whereby after the events of Rainbow Islands, Bubby and Bobby (their human names) are once again transformed into Bubblun and Bobblun (their names as bubble dragons). It is also possible however, that Parasol Stars could be a side story, or "gaiden" to the series occurring after Rainbow Islands, but before Bubble Memories.

Gameplay

Bubby and Bobby (the characters' human names) star once again as the main characters, retaining their human forms from Rainbow Islands. However, Parasol Stars is a take on Rainbow Islands than Bubble Bobble.

The game takes place on a number of different planets, each with a distinct theme. There are ten rounds on each planet, and at the end of these rounds is a boss that must be defeated to progress to the next planet. There are eight main planets; however, in order to complete the game properly, the player must open a secret door on the final planet by collecting three of the Star items - allowing access to two extra planets, themed around Bubble Bobble and Chack 'n Pop that are not initially visible on the main screen. Completing these two lead to the final boss, Chaostikhan (the one responsible for stealing color from the worlds, and supposedly the mastermind behind the previous game's villains) and the true ending.

The rounds are simple arrangements of platforms. On every round, droplets fall down from the ceiling and flow through the level. These are of strategic importance to the player.

Parasols

The player is armed with a parasol. While it is normally closed, the player can deploy it in two ways; either open in front of them, or open above the head.

The parasol is a multi-purpose device, it can block as a shield, stun enemies, capture droplets or hurl enemies. At many points it can be used as a parachute.

Droplets

Almost every level has droplets which drip from points in the level. They fall under the influence of gravity and roll along the platforms within the screen. The player can capture these on their parasol and throw them at enemies.

The parasol can hold more than one droplet at once; if five are held, they merge into a large droplet with a special power.

There are four different kinds of droplets, with a mostly elemental theme. Some of them are inherited from Bubble Bobble,

Ports

Trivia

Working Designs translated and released the PC Engine original for the TurboGrafx-16 in the United States. All other cartridge-based ports were published by Ocean Software. A Commodore 64 port was planned but scrapped. Allegedly, this happened because the disk containing the work-in-progress game was destroyed by the programmer's girlfriend in a domestic row.

A North American NES port was never released. However, the game was released for the European PAL format.

The game files are only around 350kb and the protection is 300 kb alone,