Pop'n Pop is an arcade

Video arcade

An amusement arcade or video arcade is a venue where people play arcade games such as video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers , or coin-operated billiards or air hockey tables...

 and console

Console game

A console game is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment. The game consists of manipulable images generated by a video game console, and displayed on a television or similar audio-video system. The game itself is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld device connected...

 puzzle game by Taito Corporation

Taito Corporation

The is a Japanese publisher of video game software and arcade hardware wholly owned by publisher Square Enix. Taito has their headquarters in the Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, sharing the facility with its parent company....

. It has been ported to the PlayStation and Game Boy Color

Game Boy Color

The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...

 formats.

Gameplay

Its gameplay can be described as a hybrid of Puzzle Bobble

Puzzle Bobble

, also known as Bust-a-Move, is a 1994 arcade puzzle game created by Taito Corporation, based on Taito's popular 1986 arcade game Bubble Bobble, featuring characters and themes from the original...

 and Space Invaders

Space Invaders

is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...

. Rows of coloured balloons advance down the screen, and the player must shoot their own balloons at them. When three balloons of the same colour match up, they disappear.

Versions

The original version of the game featured characters from Taito games such as Rainbow Islands

Rainbow Islands

is a 1987 arcade game developed and published by Taito. The game is subtitled "The Story of Bubble Bobble 2" and is the sequel to Taito's hit game Bubble Bobble from the previous year...

, Kiki Kaikai

KiKi KaiKai

is a multi-directional shooter developed and published by Taito Corporation originally for Japanese arcades in 1986. Since then, the game has received a number of console and home computer ports in and outside of Japan, both as a stand-alone title and as part of compilations...

, Don Doko Don

Don Doko Don

Don Doko Don is a 1–2 player platform arcade game by Taito made in 1989.The players are bearded dwarves who must defeat various enemies by using a mallet to stun them. Players can pick stunned enemies up and throw them at other enemies to destroy them. Destroyed enemies leave behind fruit...

 and The New Zealand Story, and was released worldwide in arcades and in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color. Both the PlayStation and Game Boy Color versions added additional characters from other Taito games, such as Bubblun, Ptolemy from The Fairyland Story, Chackn from Chack'n Pop

Chack'n Pop

is an arcade game released by Taito in 1983, considered to be an ancestor of Bubble Bobble due to the appearance of many similar enemies and Bubble Bobble's duplication of a Chack'n Pop level. The arcade rom set also contains unused graphics for the mechanical wind-up "Zen-Chan" that later appeared...

, Hipopo from Liquid Kids

Liquid Kids

is an arcade video game released by Taito in 1990.-Gameplay:Liquid Kids is a single player platform game that features Hipopo, a platypus who must fight his way through a large number of enemy-packed levels in search of his missing girlfriend - rescuing other hippopotamus-like creatures along the way...

 and Drunk from Bubble Bobble

Bubble Bobble

is an arcade game by Taito, first released in 1986 and later ported to numerous home computers and game consoles. The game, starring the twin Bubble Dragons and , is an action-platform game in which players travel through one hundred different stages, blowing and bursting bubbles, avoiding...

. Chackn, Hipopo and Drunk are hidden in the PlayStation version, but initially playable in the Game Boy Color version. The Game Boy Color

Game Boy Color

The is Nintendo's successor to the 8-bit Game Boy handheld game console, and was released on October 21, 1998 in Japan, November 19, 1998 in North America, November 23, 1998 in Europe and November 27, 1998 in the United Kingdom. It features a color screen and is slightly thicker and taller than...

 version was released in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 with Yogi Bear

Yogi Bear

Yogi Bear is a fictional bear who appears in animated cartoons created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show. Yogi Bear was the first breakout character created by Hanna-Barbera, and was eventually more popular than...

 characters, under the title Yogi Bear: Great Balloon Blast . A PC version of Pop'n'pop was released in the UK by Vektorlogic Ltd in 2001, under license from Taito, with reworked graphics.

The original arcade version also appeared in the Xbox

Xbox

The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...

 and PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 versions of Taito Legends 2

Taito Legends 2

Taito Legends 2 is the sequel to Taito Legends and is a follow-up collection of 39 Taito arcade games for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC....

, but to date has not been collected in any of the Japanese Taito Memories compilations. The PlayStation version was re-released on the PlayStation Network on January 13, 2009 in Japan.

Wii update

A version was also announced for the Wii

Wii

The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...

 console. for release in Europe in 2007, according to the Q2 Update posted by Nintendo of Europe. However, in common with other planned updates of Taito franchises such as Kiki KaiKai 2, Taito appear to have withdrawn their license for unknown reasons, and the game was reworked and released under the name Balloon Pop

Balloon Pop

Balloon Pop is a video game released for the Wii in North America on October 23, 2007. It is the first puzzle strategy game released for the Wii. The objective of the game is to pop balloons using the Wii Remote. There are various modes including Story Mode, Puzzle Mode, and VS CPU mode. Balloon...

in North America and Pop! in Europe.