- NA release: 30th April 1998
- PAL release: June 1998
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Taito, Probe
- Publisher: Acclaim
- N64 Magazine Score: 80%


Another colour match puzzle game, Bust-a-Move (or the much better named Puzzle Bobble in Japan) is a well renowned puzzle series, with this being a port of the popular arcade version of Bust-a-Move 2.
Unfortunately, I had issues with this as quite a few colours looked similar to me. The game does use shapes as well – but they’re partly obscured by the puzzles, and the shapes spin around (and out of sync), so it takes me too long to properly check I’m aiming at the right colour.

If it wasn’t for this, then Bust-A-Move 2 would be a puzzle game that I would enjoy, and on top of competing against more difficult enemies (with little animations before each “battle”), there’s also a puzzle mode – but this is also against a timer, so my issue with colours persisted in this mode.
I’m sure this is a good puzzle game, but unfortunately my colourblindness gets in the way.

?
The fact of the matter is that you can start to play Bust-a-Move on Tuesday evening, stand up to go to the toilet five minutes later, and find out for some reason it’s now eight-o-clock on Wednesday morning. Capable of tardis-like time-and-space distortion, Bust-a-Move can take over your life and hoover up your spare time like a giant Dyson
James Ashton, N64 Magazine #17
Remake or remaster?
It doesn’t really need a remake and the newest name in the series, Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! (they’ve moved to using the Japanese name worldwide) is out on Switch.
Official ways to get the game.
There is no official way to get Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Not true. The Saturn version is available on Switch as part of City Connection’s S-Tribute series.
The NeoGeo version is also available via Arcade Archives.
And the enhanced Taito F3 Arcade version (Puzzle Bobble 2X) is also available via the Egret 2 Mini.
Sorry Cube, but you’re triply wrong this time :p
That’s the one where you have to brutally murder a Bubble Dragon every time you start playing, isn’t it?
It most certainly is!
Huh, that’s curious. I distinctly remember arcade cabinets displaying Puzzle Bobble, both in Portugal and Spain. There was that cute opening where the dinos turn a bunch of spheres into the title screen, hence why it’s so vivid. Could it be that European arcades kept the JP name, but home console releases went with the US name?
Nope. Western Arcade releases went by the Bust A Move name… that being said though, Japanese NeoGeo MVS carts and systems were commonly imported because they were cheaper than their English counterparts (and all MVS carts contain both language versions of their respective games; the version of choice being determined by the MVS bios in use on the system itself), so you may well have seen Puzzle Bobble as the name in your local arcade!