Inspired by the recent Bomberman thread, I’ve decided to revisit and finally get closure on the Nintendo 64 trio Bomberman 64, Bomberman Hero, and Bomberman 64: The Second Attack.
I’d played these when I was a teen and never got close to beating any of them, but I remember liking them a lot. Why didn’t I ever finish them?
Well, having just beaten Bomberman 64, I can say that this is due to the fact that a whole bunch of levels keep going and going, stringing together 7 or 8 sections and becoming a massive pain in the balls as you wander about, bombing everything and everyone, trying to parse what is interactable and what isn’t. Lot of stretching of the taffy. Hudson Soft is not particularly good at level design, turns out.
I ended up starting to use save states due to the fairly punishing 3-lives-then-game-over setup they have, where you end up doing and re-doing long-ass sequences over and over where taking a single hit kills you, or having the camera shift around drops you off a ledge, losing all of your upgrades. It gets real old real quick.
That said, there’s fun to be had. The music rips, the graphics are super charming, and I really really liked the moveset you have - you can pick up and toss bombs, you can kick em and clink bombs off each other like it’s bocce ball, and you can pump em up to make little platforms. I think if the sequels can improve on the level design, this thing can really start coming together.
Another highlight were the boss fights, all of which I really had a ball with. You’re either facing another Bomberman in 1v1 multiplayer-style combat, kicking bombs and tossing them back and forth, or you’re doing big crazy set pieces with giant sea monsters or mechs or crystal spiders. This to me is the meat of the game.
I’m a bit taken aback by the design of the bad guys, who, like Max from the later GBC games, is this series of sentai-looking edgelord O.C.s that share no design philosophy with Bomberman himself. An example is Sirius, who like transforms into a plane likeeeeee Jetstorm from Beast Machines or something.
I honestly overall loved this guy because he’s a huge asshole and Bomberman takes the Mario approach of never saying a goddamned thing one way or the other. It makes this shit incredibly funny to me:
So, I enjoyed playing B64 but it definitely has too much tedious wandering to be all that great. I definitely understand why I never made it through as a kid. Looking forward to Hero next, chances seem decent the layouts will improve.