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glassmarcus · 3 months

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Konami gave me an excuse to write about the trajectory of Bomberman campaigns

*Played in November 2023, Written in December 2023

For those who know me, it’s apparent that I’m one of those deviants who plays Bomberman games FOR the story mode. We’ve all played multiplayer Bomberman games, and we all had a blast doing so (Pun intended, the pun will always be intended). Multiplayer Bomberman just works and as long as you don’t fuck it up, it guarantees a Bomberman game is at least a 7/10 if you staple it to the side of any of them. It is pure distilled chaos in its most enjoyable form. But it’s also kind of perfected at this point. Yea, you can add a few more mechanics and characters to play at once, but nothing you can do really changes the feelings that multiplayer elicits. That’s why Single Player modes have always been more intriguing to me. There’s so much potential there, and every few games there’s a new take on the gameplay that could be pushed a little bit further.

Bomberman started out as a Single Player home computer game. The goal was to erradicate the enemies on the screen and then proceed to the next level. This became the default Bomberman Single Player format and didn’t die out until Bomberman Portable on the PSP. In fact it was basically the only gameplay type for a decade. I refer to this style of gameplay as “Genocide” as the goal is to completely clear out the map with no exception. It is the most plentiful Single Player mode and has honestly run its course. Having the goal be to kill every enemy really pins down what the level design and objectives have to be and just ends up dragging out the content. It was probably done the best in Super Bomberman 4 and by then the other gameplay types it created were inherently more interesting, so it was weird that they kept making them for a decade afterwards. There are many more types of Bomberman Single Player modes, and I’m about to break em down and bestow a title corresponding to whatever crime can best describe them.

After Multiplayer modes started getting added to Bomberman games, they pretty much took over the franchise and became the focus going forward. Some games decided to take the Multiplayer and pass it as a Single Player experience by pitting you against AI opponents. This gameplay type I refer to as “Homicide” as it focuses on killing players who have the same abilities as you. The first one to do this was Bomberman Gameboy, also known as Wario Blast in North America. Why is it called Wario Blast? Because they added Wario as a playable character and opponent. Why did they do that? I...I don’t have any answers for that. It still puzzles me to this day.

Homicide is far and away the worst Gameplay type for Single Player Bomberman games. Single Player Bomberman is fun because it’s for the most part Asymmetric. Multiplayer is fun because everyone is on the same level and has to navigate through the same chaos. These games take the worst of both worlds. The inherent equality is stripped from you as you’re forced to play with at least one AI opponent who will dodge every one of your bombs flawlessly, yet will accidentally kill themselves 80% of the time. Defeating them is not satisfying because it always feels like there’s no behavior or strategy you had to learn in order to win, you got lucky because the AI decided not to read your inputs or blow themselves up. And this is all in exchange of potentially great level layouts, varied enemy design, and a genuine feeling of progression. I don’t say this a lot, because I try to appreciate the hands I'm dealt with in life, but I’d truly rather have nothing.

Around the same time as the Homicide gameplay type was created, Bomberman 94 for the Turbo Grafx 16 blessed the world with a new style as well. Instead of the goal being to kill every enemy on the screen, it was to destroy certain enemy structures to open the exit of the level. Due to the goal being shifted to destruction of objects rather than enemies, I title this style as “Property Damage”. I’m a big fan of Property Damage. It gives you more options for how to handle the level now that you don’t have to kill every single thing on the map. Having certain points that the player must travel to allows for more creative map design as well.

It’s a better version of the Genocide gameplay style in every way. Super Bomberman 4 is a dynamite game on in a vacuum, but was ultimately disappointing because Super Bomberman 3 was a Property Damage Game. I would say the gameplay in Super Bomberman 4 is a step up from 3, but its inferior structure drags it down. Property Damage is the best gameplay style that I don’t have a desire to see again. I earnestly believe the formula was perfected in Saturn Bomberman, Aka The Best Bomberman Game. After playing it I was truly satisfied. They don’t need to go back to this well again, just re-release it on modern hardware. It’s the definitive Classic Bomberman Experience.

Not all styles can be as fully realized as Property Damage though. I think the most known gameplay style that fans clamor to make a comeback for is what I’ve come to refer to as “Loitering”. This is the gameplay style created by the N64 Bomberman Games. There is no specific requirement to unlock the exit, you only have to figure out how to get to it while goofing off on the way there. Adventure is the main focus and while all these games have had their problems, they were all solvable problems. A truly amazing Bomberman title is waiting to be made under the Loitering frame work.

Bomberman 64 has some undeniably gilded level design and is an impressive first attempt at a 3D Bomberman game. It frustrates the hell out me when I play it because of the camera and how stupid punishing it is, but that can all be fixed in a follow up or remake. I can say the same for every game of this style. Bomberman Hero would be amazing if it had a slight double jump action to spruce up movement. Bomberman 64: The Second Attack might become one of the best Bomberman Games if it explained and utilized its mechanics with a hint of sanity. Bomberman Generation has the least problems out of any 3D Bomberman game, but feels a bit sterile and safe compared to its predecessors. I’d love to see a version of the game with more open and creative levels. Bomberman Jetters...is a lost cause, but 80% of them are still bursting with potential. I’d prefer they return to this style, but due to it being the most resource intensive option, I doubt that will happen.

Over the years, Konami/Hudsoft has occasionally opted to lean towards somewhat of a fusion of the Property Damage and Genocide archetypes. Games where instead of the objective being to destroy an amount of enemies or objects, the objective differs in every level. This assures variety in level structure and gameplay and it’s basically what I expect Bomberman story modes to be at a bare minimum now. When Super Bomberman R came out and had this gameplay type in place, It felt as if that was the story mode that won out in the end after years of evolution. It’s not my favorite style, but “Crime Spree” felt like the future to me and I fully expected Super Bomberman R 2 to follow suit. The frame work had to be similar to classic Bomberman due to being a sequel to R, so the Loitering games I pined for were assuredly not going to return. The most I could hope for was a Bomberman Blast Story mode scenario where it’s still top down gameplay but with linear levels. Of course there are more options for the series to return to, but I deem those as even less likely. But that won’t stop me from writing about them though.

I will never not be salty about the fate of the Top Down Bomberman Adventure games. This series is at it’s best and most interesting when it’s shamelessly emulating The Legend of Zelda and I wholehearted wish they leaned in harder. Bomberman Quest is a wonderful game buried by a mountain of embarrassing technical issues. The bombs are literally transparency.jpgs and it’s the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. This game is barely held together, but traversing the world at your leisure and finding new abilities to use just feels right for the series. Its Gameboy Advance follow up, Bomberman Tournament is hands down one of the best games in the franchise because it cribs even more from Zelda including the tendency for Zelda games to perform decently. Tournament is the best Zelda game on the GBA, hands down. And this sub series peaks here, as its only follow up was Bomberman Story DS, which is a bad game I don’t want to talk about because it makes me VERY angry.

There’s a quality to Bomberman that lends itself to collection and exploration more than other franchises. I think it’s due to the work you put in to collecting and clearing out an area. Most adventure games have you travel to a place, do a quest, and then you have what you need for your quest. In Bomberman though, you have to do those same things...without accidentally killing yourself. It feels a bit more earned and exciting that way. Blasting the land and fracking resources fills me with glee, and that glee is all the better when those power ups and rewards are permanent. This is why I call this gameplay type “Looting”. The tools you acquire have lasting impact on your journey and a lot of the fun is indulging in the grind.

Now there are tons of other gameplay types that I don’t expect to return in any way because they are very unconventional for Bomberman gameplay and are essentially spin offs. I say essentially and not definitely in this case because I don’t know how to split a franchise as unfocused as this one into mainline and spin off categories. Basically, when the gameplay strongly diverges from the norm is when I don’t expect any return. So all those Bomberman Racing games that came out are irrelevant, as well as the Bomberman Land party games. But there is one spin off that I feel doesn’t stray from the norm too much and I still have some hope it can return in a future game. In the past we’ve had Genocide and Homicide, but neither of these crimes comes close to one of my favorite Gameplay Styles: “Regicide”.

Bomberman Wars is a goddamned gem of a strategy game that doesn’t deserve to be stuck on the Japanese PSX catalog. Many games back in the day didn’t get localized because they were too hard or didn’t have a tone that appealed to target demographics enough. This one I’m pretty sure was held back because they thought Americans simply weren’t smart enough. My brain was forced to expand when I played this game. If you don’t think 4 steps ahead at least, you can lose it all in a mere instant. Understanding each unit on the map and their function is key to victory and when you execute your assassination plan of the opposing team’s king, it's euphoric. The thing is, it’s still Bomberman gameplay. Only now it’s turn based. Bomberman games being on a grid makes it convert into a strategy game seamlessly. It’s not a strategy game with a Bomberman coat of paint; It’s a Bomberman game that is slowed down so you can plan for all the chaos that a 5 v 5 Bomberman match might entail. It might never come to the forefront of the franchise, but I believe that if the balance of Bomberman Wars is ironed out, we will have created Chess 2. I regret to inform you that these last two paragraphs are irrelevant to the main point of this write up and my motive was to gush about Bomberman Wars.

So with all this knowledge of Bomberman gameplay, I came into the newly released Super Bomberman R 2 fully expecting a Crime Spree game. There was no reason for it to not be that. But to my surprise...Konami cooked up something entirely different. To be fair the original Super Bomberman series shook things up a bit too between games. Sure, Super Bomberman 2 is pretty much the same as the first, but 3 shook things up by being a Property Damage game, 4 added mechanics that added value to the genocide gameplay style, and Super Bomberman 5 set itself apart by being a completely impenetrable cluster fuck. So there is precedent set in the series they are attempting to reboot, but not to this extent. When you boot up Super Bomberman R 2, you are not greeted with a mission to complete. You are not tasked with an object to destroy. You aren’t even given a hit list on who to kill. Because Super Bomberman R2 is a Looting game.

Now, it’s not a Looter the same way the previous 3 games are. You don’t get any unique abilities or bombs along the way which is a huge bummer. But by following the description I gave earlier, this clearly fits. The whole game is centered around collecting. You bomb softblocks and enemies to gain experience points which grant you basic power ups that last for the entire world. It’s not much, but it is an RPG mechanic and I’ll take all I can get. Exploration is at the forefront of story mode, as your objective is to comb the area and search for alien creatures called Ellons. Ellons look similar to Chao and have the same surface level appeal. They even have a discount Chao Garden on each planet you visit. But mechanically they work much more like Maiamais from The Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds. Each planet is gerrymandered into districts that have a certain amount of Ellons. Ellons are hidden all over the place and their locations can be sussed out by listening to their squeaks in the distance. When a district has all of it’s Ellons collected, it will be indicated on the map, and each Planet has 100 total. These are functionally Maiamais and again I must praise Bomberman for shameless cribbing off Zelda. This aspect of the gameplay loop shoots this game up to being one of my favorite Bomberman Campaigns.

Find a bunch of collectibles in an open world with no direction? I sleep. Find a moderate amount of collectibles in a series of divided areas? You have my undivided attention. Completing each section one by one hits that anxious spot in my brain real nice because once I’ve completed a section, I don’t have to worry about it again. More games need to do this and I’m glad Bomberman caught on. It also helps that searching for them in soft blocks isn’t the only way to obtain Ellons. There are also small puzzles and mini challenges you find throughout the level that award you with multiple Ellons at a time. Bomberman Story DS had puzzles like this too, but I’m pretty sure they were all awful. I can’t be sure, I prefer to not remember that game. The puzzles add a lot to the gameplay loop so it never feels stale. It would get tiring if the entire game was blasting soft blocks to find Chao and level up stats. What’s interesting about this stat element is that it’s not simply the standard fire, speed, and bomb amounts that increase. After a while, your gimmick maximum increases too, which is a stat that doesn’t appear to be relevant to the story mode at all.

As it turns out, this Story Mode is only half of a Looting game. The other half is comprised of a new gameplay type. One of the main selling points of Super Bomberman R2 was a new multiplayer mode that involved some sort of tower defense. The way it works is that there are two teams, one defending their treasures and another attempting to steal them. When time runs out and the defending team still has treasures left, they win. If the invading team successfully captures all the treasures before the time runs out, they win. This game mode in implemented into the Single Player campaign using AI opponents with some twist. Now, based on my feelings on Homicide style Bomberman games, this seems like something I’d hate. It’s a chaotic multiplayer mode being slapped onto the Single Player. But there are a few things about this implementation that make it not only work, but be a really fun experience.

My main issues with the Homicide Bomberman games was how there was no asymmetry and the AI were a little too slick at times. This is not a problem here. For one, the AI opponents are kinda dumb compared to previous titles, which I’m not sure was the intention, but I appreciate it at points. There is also no issue with symmetry, as this game mode is inherently asymmetrical. When you are on defense, you have the entire map working in your favor as you can adjust the fortress design to funnel enemies into traps(gimmicks) that push them away from the objective or kill them. You can also achieve special abilities such as a sword that kills enemies directly or a shield that takes a certain amount of hits. When you are on the invading side, you don’t have a lot going for you aside from numbers. Sure you’re likelier to die, but there are far more invaders than defenders. Because you don’t need to be stronger than the opposing side to win, you only need to be sneaky and clever with how you move around the fortress. While Looting also wouldn’t be a bad term for this gameplay type, due to both defense and offense being required, I think “Home Invasion” fits better.

For Home Invasion’s first outing it doesn’t do too shabby. The gimmicks and gimmick limits you obtain and increase throughout story mode allow you to bolster your defenses whenever enemies attempt to raid you. It’s hilarious to build your own fortress and watch the opposing forces fail to navigate your house of horrors. A lot of the time I felt like I was just blocking enemy paths with bombs though, so maybe the AI could have stood to be a little smarter. On the invading side of things where you have to take the enemy’s treasure, many elements don’t transfer over perfectly. You are on a team of 8, but they aren’t really your team. There is a single treasure to steal when you play in story mode and if you aren’t the one who steals it, you lose. White Bomberman has to be the main character. I think the idea was to assure the player character didn’t stand still and wait for the AI to maybe take care of the problem. Instead of an 8 v 3 it ends up being a 1 v 10, which isn’t even a challenge anyway. Most matches last 30 seconds if you know where the treasure actually is. The raiding side of things feels half baked and it’s really disappointing how you have to compete with your siblings instead of work with them.

One big change Super Bomberman R made was reestablish lore and make all the Bombermen be siblings with distinct personalities and I’m still not sure I’m a fan of this decision. While it’s great they are distinct, they can also get very annoying. There’s not a ton of story in this game, so they are all fighting for screen time due to 8 characters being an absurdly high number for a main cast. I think the story of this game integrates the individual characters better into the plot, but a lot of the time they do often come off as White Bomberman’s wacky side kicks. On the first invasion I did, I was kinda hyped to see all the Bomberman siblings together about to wreak havoc. They actually felt like a team. For a split second. Then you realize they are only getting in your way. I couldn’t help but imagine how cool it would be if these characters had their own little gameplay segments or maybe individual campaigns. Maybe then they could be cured of the annoying sidekick syndrome they’ve been bedridden with for 2 games. I desperately want to be endeared to these characters, but this game isn’t built for that. For as ambitious as it is, it’s only ambitious compared to the past few story modes.

I really need Konami to make the next Bomberman Story Mode with a budget. Aside from some qualms I have with the raiding side of Home Invasion, all issues with the game stem from a suffocation of new assets. You explore 3 planets in this game, which mean only 3 motifs. That’s on the lower end of Bomberman Games. 5 motifs is the expected minimum. While I never tired of the gameplay, I did tire of the visuals after a while. 3 Planets means only 3 over world themes, and while they do good to provide multiple mixes of those themes, that means there’s only 3 unique melodies for the majority of the campaign. It’s not even half as many as its predecessor. Sadly, I’ll take the soundtrack of the first game over this one any day. Asset diversity is the one thing I feel R1 completely trumps its sequel in.

3 planets also means a limited number of bosses. The Boss fights in this game have the quality and bombast I desire from this series. Well the third one is kinda bad, the rest are pretty great. There are clear patterns the boss goes through and the better you are at reading the boss and knowing what their openings and weak points are, the faster you can finish the fight. But because the story wants to do a cool finale with a multi-phase final boss fight, they decide to throw in a boss rush instead of a what they clearly wanted to do. It’s a bit deflating to have to slog through all these past bosses to get to the new content which there isn’t much of. And it’s shame because I was actually a bit invested in this villain’s motive and the lore they built here.

This Home Invasion Looter hybrid feels like a promising proof of concept for the future of the franchise, but I’m not confident it will be followed through. I don’t think this game is gonna sell as well as Konami wants it to, so it might be a while for an R3 to happen. But even after enjoying what they created, I would still prefer they make a pure Looting or Loitering type story mode next. I’m mainly just happy this team is trying new things. While Home Invasion has potential, it’s not the end of the world if it isn’t followed up on. But this game has really convinced me of something that I’ve always known deep down.

I can’t hide it anymore. I just want Bomberman to become the new Zelda. I’m not kidding. For a decade I have hungered for a new traditional Zelda game and Nintendo seems to have no plans for making them. I’m playing through The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom savoring every morsel of traditional Zelda shavings it leaves behind, but it’s not enough. If you’re ever curious why I’m obsessed with this franchise, it’s because I’m a Zelda fan who is projecting. There has been a lonely rift in gaming for years now and it’s begging to be mended. Bomberman can fill that spot, I promise. Look at the level design in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack. Some of those are straight up Zelda dungeons! Tournament is the second best Bomberman game because it thinks it’s a Zelda game. The potential has always been there and I binged 40 Bomberman games in 2021 to see if there was anything else in the franchise that pushed the concepts those games introduced further. But I found nothing but a pile of mezzanine single player modes, a few gems, and Saturn Bomberman, the Best game I will never play again because Saturn Emulation is a nightmare.

Because Bomberman is such an unfocused franchise and because its multiplayer has subsumed its identity, I know it’s just not gonna happen. But the heart wants what the heart wants. My heart wants a different type of bomb in each dungeon that you use to solve complex puzzles. My heart wants consistent lore and culture between games. My heart wants a sick Rival Boss Fight between Max and Bomberman. My heart wants to use Louies and Tirras as mounts as you roam the overworld. My heart wants to place a bomb on a suspicious wall and find a secret, because that’s what both franchises are really about at the end of the day. Maybe my brain is still fried from the Great Bomber Binge of 2021, but I really do think this makes sense. This franchise has been around for over 40 years, yet feels like it never truly exploded. But it’s not too late Bomberman. The mantle is yours to take. Seek the throne, for it is now empty and calling out to you.

Anyway, here’s a diagram of all the categories I’ve divided the games I’m familiar with into. You’re Welcome.

#Bomberman #super bomberman r 2

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