According to the fanbase of Touhou Spell Bubble, QQQbeats!!! can be described as a spiritual follow-up to it, as it lifts its Puzzle Bobble-mixed-with-rhythm-game foundation almost wholesale, adding an original cast, while also fusing it together with anime streamer culture aesthetics. This critic is a total newbie to this colourful, upbeat realm, so if looking for a pro’s comparison between the two, look elsewhere. This is just a quick look from the perspective of a newcomer, as he struggles to burst his bubbles in sync with some catchy and fast-paced J-pop.
The one writing this won’t pretend he has paid attention to the fluff-filled story of aspiring streamers or influencers Ceena and Ame. It’s a (fully-voiced) lightweight tale with plenty of cute shenanigans and goofy humour that can be safely skipped. Visually it leans heavily into the colourful, anime-flavoured VTuber/streaming culture, and while this critic is slightly allergic to that, the art is clean and decently animated, and the pretty lengthy accompanying OST is very fun to listen to, so fans will love what’s on offer.
The soundtrack is definitely one of the best aspects here, with over 30 tracks spanning anime hits, vocaloid staples, VTubers, Touhou arrangements, and original songs. Most will have to be unlocked by playing matches, but luckily not much grinding will be required. Back to the story, this mode mainly exists to learn the basics, while also unlocking many of the characters (including Hatsune Miku and some Touhou Project heroines like Marisa and Reimu) that can be used in the simple offline or online matches. What is QQQbeats!!! all about, though?
A mix of bubble-busting puzzle-gameplay and rhythm game mechanics, this game has players matching coloured bubbles in groups of three or more to clear the board. Since this is mainly a versus kind of deal, you are also sending “junk,” grey bubbles to the opponent while bubble busting, but large chains trigger brief rhythm segments where precise timing boosts the attack power. There’s no traditional game over here, as having the board overflow simply sends your unbusted bubbles to the score of your enemy, so don’t expect any quick wins – the clock keeps on ticking up until the song reaches its end.
QQQbeats!!! keeps things pleasantly simple, with just one button doing all the hard work and only three coloured bubbles making it easy to just…well, play. Having said that, this simple premise happens to have a pretty high skill ceiling, as it expects the ones holding the gamepad to be fast with their reflexes and decision making, with the rhythm aspect adding a “rub your belly and tap your head at the same time” layer to the difficulty. It never becomes too complex, but that means that you have to be extra good, as said lack of complexity applies to your rivals as well.
Unfortunately, this is one of those titles that, apart from genre fans, few will really keep on playing till the sun sets. What you do here is fun, but it’s the kind of fun that could do with a little more variety. There are 15 or so playable characters, each with unique skills, but while these abilities add strategic flavour they aren’t really enough to differentiate one match from another. In terms of content there are plenty of things to unlock, but it’s mainly “cosmetics” in the form of titles, banners and the like. Tons of them to gather, but this means that the same kind of matches have to be played again and again.
Apart from the story, which most will complete and never touch again, there are two modes. First there’s DUOps, where two people must work together to defeat a boss kind of character. By all means, though, it’s Versus where most will end up after some time. Versus can be played against the CPU, via local multiplayer, or in online matches (casual or ranked). This is the end game of QQQbeats!!!, so if you don’t really care about that and want something less competitive, this probably isn’t for you. Also note that although ranked matches are where QQQbeats!!! shines the brightest, as of now the online community is pretty thin, so it would probably be better to wait for some time – and a decent discount.
