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Parasol Stars Amiga 1992 Ocean Software Mick West


Parasol Stars Amiga 1992



Ocean Software ported Taito's TurboGrafx-16 Parasol Stars aka Bubble Bobble 3 of 1991 to the Amiga in 1992. Sequel to Bubble Bobble of 1988 and successor to Rainbow Islands of 1990, Parasol Stars is a technically impressive one-player or two-player simultaneous fixed-screen and horizontally-scrolling platformer.

Parasol Stars consists of eight worlds of seven rounds each and a boss-fight at the end of each of the seventh rounds. Players control either Bub or Bob wielding a parasol that, when primed, can stun monsters as well as collect elemental droplets (water, fire, lightning, star) that drip down from the platforms. Once balanced atop the parasol, the stunned monster or droplet can be fired at active monsters, temporarily stunning, injuring or outright slaying them.

When five droplets accumulate on a parasol held aloft, a mega-droplet forms. In the case of water, the mega-droplet is unleashed as a torrent that washes Bub, Bob and the monsters down through a rounds' mazes (a form of getting around).

Stunned monsters can be balanced atop the parasol, carried about and then thrown at other monsters or better yet at rows of other stunned monsters, thereby yielding bonus points based on how many monsters were taken out in a single action: line them up and let loose for 100,000-point Clears. Or quadruple 100,000-point Clears!


Thrown droplets are also used to collect items and reveal hidden items that progressively increase in points up to 10,000. An extra life aka 1-Up is awarded at 100,000 points and for each 1,000,000 points attained thereafter.

After collecting a power-up potion elemental droplets can be charged on the parasol during end-stage boss fights.


Parasol Stars rounds are effectively time-limited by an invincible Death enemy that zeroes-in on players after the Hurry message appears on-screen (cf. Rainbow Islands rounds are time-limited by the island sinking into the water).

In keeping with the two other Bub and Bob games by Taito, the concept and execution of Parasol Stars constitutes a work of genius: the games are fun and addictive. Parasol Stars is perhaps the pick of the bunch in terms of replayability and audiovisuals; certainly, it employs the Amiga's capacities more than Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands, which were hamstrung by 8-bit and ST considerations.

It is a nice touch how the engine scrolls the screen from round to round, with Bub and Bob hovering in the air via parasol.

The Amiga version of Parasol Stars was programmed by Mick West; its graphics were drawn by Don McDermott; its audio composed by Matthew Cannon and Keith Tinman.

The controls, collision detection and audiovisuals are all but perfect; they can barely be faulted. Amiga Parasol Stars runs at full-frames; that is, 50 FPS.

Parasol Stars was distributed on 1x 3.5" 880 kB diskette. It was not installable to hard disk drive.

List of Parasol Stars Worlds


  • World One: Music World (One-man Band)
  • World Two: Woodland World (Pot-plant Bird)
  • World Three: Ocean World (Volcano Turtle)
  • World Four: Machine World (Jet-robot transformer)
  • World Five: Casino World (cash-throwing woman on chariot slot-machine)
  • World Six: Cloud World (UFO)
  • World Seven: Giant World (Boomerang-throwing Robot-giant)
  • World Eight: Rainbow World (Armored giant Bubble Dragon)
  • World Nine (Secret World): Bubble World (Super Drunk: Bubble Bobble boss)
  • World Ten (Secret World): Underworld (Black Maita - Chaostikhan)

To access Parasol Stars Secret Worlds players need to collect Miracle Icons that appear sometime during the rounds.


A giant golden key appears at the end of Rainbow World if players collect 3x Star Icons in Rainbow World, which grants access to Bubble World. A secret door can then be accessed at the end of Bubble World if players collect 3x Star Icons in Bubble World, which leads to a secret room containing an Orb that grants access to Underworld.


Of the Bub and Bob platformers Rainbow Islands offers the best single-player gameplay whereas Parasol Stars offers the best 2-player gameplay. Parasol Stars gameplay is much faster and smoother than Rainbow Islands gameplay, but Parasol Stars does not need to scroll the screen as much as Rainbow Islands does.

Criticism of Parasol Stars: The worlds are not labelled on the map and the rounds are not numbered. Also, the name of the boss should appear during boss fights.

cf. Platform games:


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