big bomberhead here. i got a bomberman plush a few years ago and its my traveling buddy. i also have two toys that i assume are from bomberman wars? theyre tiny wizard bombermen that are like one solid color and soft and rubbery. i have them stored somewhere. i bought them from an import toy shop like a decade ago.
my most formative bomberman memories are mainly 64 and Hero. i played a lot of one of the gbc games, i remember using the IR sensor for something. there was a couple other handhelds i played too, but besides that i played a ton of bomberman live on the 360 with friends and online. i remember wanting to unlock all the costume parts you could unlock.
during the early years of the pandemic i fell into a bomber hole. i watched the 8 hour video someone made of the entire bomberman series. i watched a few episodes of jetters, which was alright. i found representation in there being a grandma bomber named momo. also a dolphin with big tits. i played through bomberman quest which was real fun, as far as bomberman games go. played through all of 64 for real though i didnt get the real ending i think. i deep dived on all the references bombergirl had because thats the most fun i could have with it. i even started making a bomber oc but didnt get far before life got in the way. perhaps i should return…
i remember being torn on the lanky bomberman R designs and classic late 90s before / after jetters look. i think i like all the flourishes R added to its bombers but i do agres they are too lanky. even compared to jetters design its kinda weird…
final thoughts: i really kinda grapple with how much i enjoy single player bomberman because its a little faulty? theres a lot of waiting around for the enemy AI to run into your bomb explosions. you can kinda plan in advance but i never felt like i became a master strategizer in the games, even the ones where you had more freedom outside the grid maps most of the games have. it feels like there should be one definitive game with the best ssingle player but they all just kinda have their own faults and strengths that makes it hard for me to say one is clearly better than the other or that any one of them deserve to be considered as good as played a few rounds of multiplayer bomberman with friends. but, idk, i just really like the little guy and his pals. i like exploring his worlds. i like being the bomberman and watching him go
It’s still a good game tho. but Super Bomberman 2 is better. also if you max out your speed upgrades you go at LUDICROUS SPEED in both of them lol. that’s kind of the fun of the 8 and 16 bit Bman 1 player modes is you can accumulate a stupid number of power ups from level to level, they don’t reset, so eventually you become a terrifying high-speed remote bomber
Bomberman 1 and 2 (NES) are both weird compared to later games in that you only collect 1 power up per level (and it changes the background music when you do!) but again they accumulate, so that by endgame you can only be hurt by the enemies and can move through blocks and drop 8 remote bombs at maximum power that youre invulnerable to. It’s really empowering and fun, and almost makes up for those games being boring for like their first 1/2 and repetitive as fuck. (i kinda just got into the Zone with them and that’s why i bothered to finish, especially the first game)
Atomic Punk and GB2(j) get my votes for the most interesting classic-style Bomberman single player that ive played (classic style being “kill all enemies and find the exit door”). the former has a Mega Man ish level structure plus a shop and equippable power ups, the latter has upgrades to your moves after each world and you can choose between 2 unique goals per each level (so its not always just “kill all enemies”… it might also be like, hit all the switches, or kill the enemies in a specific order). ’94/Mega Bomberman and the Super Bomberman games also pretty neat for having levels that are a little more complex than just a big grid, though they don’t have the same meta progression other than the accumulating upgrades (assuming you dont die) that i mentioned earlier. But they do have Louie and that’s very important
I tried a little bit of Bomberman Max Blue Champion (which stars OG Shiro Bom like i want – the red version stars his Shadow-esque edgy rival Max who i don’t give a crap about) and it was kind of an intriguing mix of the unique goals from GB2 and the irregular shaped maps from Mega/Super. but the level progression was annoying/confusing and it was too easy to go backwards and repeat levels without knowing why?? so i didnt get too far with it. It does also i think have a Pokemon esque subgame and multiplayer mode (thus the multiple versions) which was a thing the series was trying for a minute. Pommy rep
I’ve never actually played any of the N64 games, and I didn’t know much about the non-Wario GB ones either. I’m going to finally figure out my gb flash cart and explore some of those.
I played through all of Super 1 on the Switch collection yesterday and that footstep noise was a big WTF for me at first. It really sounds more like a ‘time is running out’ alert, but there’s a separate sound for that.
After a while it kind of just blends into the background I think. Like some form of video game tinnitus
Oh yeah, I think I like the Super Bomberman R character designs, but them having regular people voices was really jarring for me. I’ve always been used to bomberman having that high pitch cute girl voice like in 64, or the super squeeky kids voice from the SNES games
will say another soundtrack i enjoy that doesnt get brought up as much as 64 and hero is bomberman world’s for the ps1 ( not to be confused with bomber man world for the arcade, where the main badguy takes over the un building and you have to fight a bunch of stereotypes). its similar to 64’s i feel.
I played a little bit of the Gameboy Color Bomberman games recently.
I was surprised Bomberman Quest is just straight up Link’s Awakening?? I can equip bombs and other gear to A/B and every enemy encounter is a unique creature that shows up in the Pokédex, has dialogue, may drop equipment or power ups, and once defeated disappears forever (it’s recaptured by Bomberman narratively, so he can take it back to space prison??).
Bomberman can walk freely in 8 directions but his walk speed is so slow. One of the first equipment I found is shoes to run faster, but in exchange I can’t use that button for an attack. I played for a little bit and also unlocked a landmine that only goes off if stepped on (kinda neat, kinda sucks bc unless it’s stepped on it just vanishes, if I place it too close to an enemy it blows up immediately and hurts Bomberman), gear that lets me dash and stun enemies (but is slower than running shoes), a yoyo that can push bombs one tile further (but also takes a long time to return to me if I miss, also has no effect on enemies). Never unlocked a flame power up so my bombs were 1x1.
It’s such an interesting mashup of ideas but it seems badly executed and hard to enjoy (at least in the beginning). Bomberman can move easily move around but he’s so slow it feels terrible to control. The enemies can also move freely and every screen is a wide open field so it’s really hard to hit them with a bomb, they can just casually wiggle away before the bomb explodes. Everyone is so talkative but Bomberman’s entire personality is just one dimensional: “I gotta fuckin arrest these space creatures” or “…” instead of having any whimsy or fun. I’m sure it gets better once Bomberman is more powered up but that first hour I played is just janky and unpolished.
I’m sure I would’ve played the shit out of it as a kid though with the only game system I could play without getting in trouble being the Gameboy.
Before playing the GBC Bomberman games, I was thinking: “what would be an interesting take on Bomberman?” And my conclusion was Bomberman x Tower of Druaga.
Here were my rough ideas:
The Bomberman Max GBC game kinda has backtracking but it’s more of a punishment and gamble with the random teleporters, maybe closer to Atlantis no Nazo.
Bomberman Quest has equipment but it’s limited by the Gameboy.
Do any other Bombergames cover any of these ideas?
I was just thinking it’d be interesting to really embrace the maze-like element, the obtuse secrets and fantasy world of Tower of Druaga and crossing that over with the brick-clearing, powering up into god style gameplay of Bomberman.
later than that, a bunch of pal versions were renamed dynablaster (which is how i first played bomberman, in a windowless bar with other kids, all of us being mildly neglected by drinking adults in the next room. there were also cabinets of altered beast, masked rider club race battle, and zing zing zip in there)
BOH!!
