Bomberman

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Bomberman

Post by DustStar »



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A series that's been around since 1983. It was reasonably popular in the 80's for its simple yet addictive maze games, but would explode (pun not intended) in the early 90s when the iconic multiplayer modes would make their debut. Bomberman is a series that was synonymous with multiplayer gaming for decades. The character himself essentially became the mascot of Hudson Soft after Bonk failed to catch on and has continued to have an entry on almost every single major and minor console from the NES all the way up to the Xbox 360 and arguably the 3DS before Konami shut down Hudson Soft. The series has made a comeback in recent years.

Since this is a franchise that spans 4 decades with titles on almost every console in that timespan, it can be intimidating to get into the series. That being said, here's a few personal recommendations from me to try if you're curious about the series (note that all of these are on older consoles as Konami has made no recent effort to make them available on modern hardware).

  • Bomberman 94 (TurboGrafx-16/PC-Engine) - This is the game where the series formula really took shape. It also introduces the Louies (those cute kangaroo things you sometimes see him riding)
  • the Super Bomberman series (SNES) - The games i see most people bringing up when they mention classic Bomberman games in the classic style. There are 5 entires with 2 and 5 especially being considered excellent titles.
  • Saturn Bomberman (Sega Saturn) - The one that most fans still consider the best one. Has a great single player mode with co-op as well as one of the most fleshed out and varied battle modes in the franchise with support for up to 10 players.
  • Bomberman 64 (N64) - An interesting experiment in translating the series to 3D. The game's single player seemingly embraces the weird jank of early 3D gaming and focuses its puzzles around exploiting said jank. The multiplayer is also unique for the series having open areas or stages with more focus on verticality.
  • Bomberman Tournament (Game Boy Advance) - The standard multiplayer, but also with a story mode heavily based on Legend of Zelda.
  • Bomberman Generation (Gamecube) - Possibly the best of the 3D style games. Theres a couple annoying quirks here and there but the game and level design is all really solid. Plus it has some of the best multiplayer modes in the series like Dodge Battle.
There's definitely others, but those are the big ones in my eyes.

Another thing to check out is Power Bomberman, a fan game heavily based on Super Bomberman 5 and Saturn Bomberman that has been actively worked on for over a decade with dedicated online servers and options to create custom ones, as well as having countless stages, items, and even characters from the franchise. Its honestly the best way to play the series online as of me making this post. You can download it here.

Feel free to post here to discuss the game or even try to play together.
Last edited by DustStar on Wed Jul 16, 2025 6:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by Trysdyn »

A couple months ago I played all the "Classic" ones and it's such a weird varied spectrum of stuff. In my opinion if you're just jumping in, starting Super Bomberman 3 on the SNES is the best play. It has some of the best atmosphere, best QoL, and introduces Louie, and Louie is both a staple going forward and just adorable.

Something to be aware of though is practically every Bomberman game in the 16-bit era has a final boss rush that's far harder than anything you experience prior in the game. I wholly recommend save states; the design here is purely trying to prevent you from finishing the game to pump that $/hr value up.

I didn't go past the SNES era in my exploration of things; I should look into some of the other strange stuff, like the GameBoy Bomberman platformer, and the N64 games.

The only game in the 16-bit era I found not really enjoyable was Super 4; I don't know what happened there. They tried a bunch of new stuff and none of it really worked.

Then you have the absolute weird curios of the SMS original Bomberman that has some of the worst music on the console, and the MSX 3D Bomberman that I think is a fangame, but is still somehow horrifying to behold (as in jumpscare warning if you go find a video).

But really, it's kind of amazing that from about 1988 to 1995 they were pumping out two Bomberman games a year. Just Super alone is a pretty stuffed series, but then you add in the Genesis game, the TG-16 games they were making at the same time, etc.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by Moot »

every so often i'm forced to remember Atomic Bomberman which i think might be the only time (up until Bomberman R) that they put one on PC? mostly i remember it being a huge time sink and having access to a lot of funny (to my childs ears) voice lines and a map editor to make horrible unplayable thunderdomes

that, and learning much later that there was an extraordinary amount of unused nsfw voice lines hiding away in the game files
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Re: Bomberman

Post by DustStar »

Moot wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:15 pm and learning much later that there was an extraordinary amount of unused nsfw voice lines hiding away in the game files
Hearing Billy West and Charlie Addler screaming things like "I'll bust your head in with a f***ing ratchet!" when voicing Bomberman of all characters will never fail to amuse me. These were not some random people they pulled out of the office to give a voice line or 2. Those were, and still are, two high profile voice actors.
Trysdyn wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:03 pm A couple months ago I played all the "Classic" ones and it's such a weird varied spectrum of stuff. In my opinion if you're just jumping in, starting Super Bomberman 3 on the SNES is the best play. It has some of the best atmosphere, best QoL, and introduces Louie, and Louie is both a staple going forward and just adorable.

Something to be aware of though is practically every Bomberman game in the 16-bit era has a final boss rush that's far harder than anything you experience prior in the game. I wholly recommend save states; the design here is purely trying to prevent you from finishing the game to pump that $/hr value up.

I didn't go past the SNES era in my exploration of things; I should look into some of the other strange stuff, like the GameBoy Bomberman platformer, and the N64 games.

The only game in the 16-bit era I found not really enjoyable was Super 4; I don't know what happened there. They tried a bunch of new stuff and none of it really worked.

Then you have the absolute weird curios of the SMS original Bomberman that has some of the worst music on the console, and the MSX 3D Bomberman that I think is a fangame, but is still somehow horrifying to behold (as in jumpscare warning if you go find a video).

But really, it's kind of amazing that from about 1988 to 1995 they were pumping out two Bomberman games a year. Just Super alone is a pretty stuffed series, but then you add in the Genesis game, the TG-16 games they were making at the same time, etc.
For what it's worth, the Genesis game is a port of one of the Turbografx games (the one I listed in the recommendations in the first post actually). The N64 entires are very interesting to experience since the first one was clearly a product of when 3D gaming was a new wild west thing. It had a sequel which tried to take that formula and make it more in line with earlier Bomberman games. And then there's Hero which apparently wasn't even supposed to be a Bomberman game and got changed into one halfway through.

The series goes in so many wild directions that half the fun is wondering what the hell you'll even get. Especially with the non-standard entries.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by Trysdyn »

DustStar wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:55 pm For what it's worth, the Genesis game is a port of one of the Turbografx games (the one I listed in the recommendations in the first post actually).
Yeah I knew Mega was a port/clone of another but couldn't remember which one! I played like 10 bomberman games in a month and they jumbled in my head a little. 94/Mega is super solid though.
DustStar wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:55 pm And then there's Hero which apparently wasn't even supposed to be a Bomberman game and got changed into one halfway through.
And there's rumor that Tournament was gonna be a new Neutopia game at first; I don't know if that ever got fully substantiated though.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by DustStar »

Trysdyn wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 7:10 pm And there's rumor that Tournament was gonna be a new Neutopia game at first; I don't know if that ever got fully substantiated though.
Would make sense since it borrows a lot of enemies from Neutopia, but also Hudson might have started off making a sequel to Bomberman Quest and used Neutopia as a base. Either way Neutopia was definitely a huge inspiration on it.
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Re: Bomberman

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Bimch when we Power Bomberman again
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Re: Bomberman

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Re: Bomberman

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Beancatte wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 9:34 pmlous.png
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Re: Bomberman

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Beancatte wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 10:09 pmlOwie.gif
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Re: Bomberman

Post by JarylGaren »

oh man, shout-outs to the PAL version of Bomberman World (which I grew up with back in the day), because the voice clips sound very dinstinctly different compared to the US and JP versions



other than that, I really like the Bomberman games! I really liked Bomberman Quest growing up, because it was very much like Zelda: Link's Awakening, which was another game I also liked a lot! It was so fun getting to play Bomberman in an action adventure setting, and I wanted more like that! Bomberman Tournament was also pretty fun, but I think afterwards they didn't really do that anymore?
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Re: Bomberman

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DustStar wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:14 pm Bomberman 64 (N64) - An interesting experiment in translating the series to 3D. The game's single player seemingly embraces the weird jank of early 3D gaming and focuses its puzzles around exploiting said jank.
Describing it embracing and exploiting jank good way to put it. This is a clip I like to show people that is just so over the top that it's really funny to me.
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Re: Bomberman

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NovaSquirrel wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 6:32 pm
DustStar wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:14 pm Bomberman 64 (N64) - An interesting experiment in translating the series to 3D. The game's single player seemingly embraces the weird jank of early 3D gaming and focuses its puzzles around exploiting said jank.
Describing it embracing and exploiting jank good way to put it. This is a clip I like to show people that is just so over the top that it's really funny to me.
Yuuup XD Bombjumping do make that game be what it is: brilliantly jank
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Re: Bomberman

Post by DustStar »

NovaSquirrel wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 6:32 pm
DustStar wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 5:14 pm Bomberman 64 (N64) - An interesting experiment in translating the series to 3D. The game's single player seemingly embraces the weird jank of early 3D gaming and focuses its puzzles around exploiting said jank.
Describing it embracing and exploiting jank good way to put it. This is a clip I like to show people that is just so over the top that it's really funny to me.
Bomberman 64 is still one of my favorite games to watch speedruns of for reasons like that. I'll likely never be able to do this stuff myself, but its amazing watching people who intimately know the game and the strategies theyre able to pull off because of it. Some look so goofy. Others are utterly insane. But they're all really interesting to watch. Which is good since LivelyRaccoon (who played it at SGDQ last year and I believe still holds the world record) still frequently streams himself playing the game. Though I think right now hes more focused on Chameleon Twist.

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Re: Bomberman

Post by takeajumpabunnyjump »

Once I knew someone who got extremely unhinged about Bomberman being an assist trophy instead of a full playable character in Smash Ultimate.

That mention aside, I'll still go to bat for the n64 games. Super Bomberman 5 on SNES is also really fun and I'm kinda sad it never came to the US.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by EdenCoven »

Bomberman Hero may not be a real normal Bomberman but it's Bomberman Hero
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Re: Bomberman

Post by Mandrake »

Moot wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:15 pm every so often i'm forced to remember Atomic Bomberman which i think might be the only time (up until Bomberman R) that they put one on PC? mostly i remember it being a huge time sink and having access to a lot of funny (to my childs ears) voice lines and a map editor to make horrible unplayable thunderdomes

that, and learning much later that there was an extraordinary amount of unused nsfw voice lines hiding away in the game files
Yep, Atomic Bomberman was one of my favourite multiplayer games as a kid. It's much "edgier" than most Bomberman games (Hudson licensed the franchise out to Interplay who wanted to make it "a little more modern") and it has the vibe of a Saturday morning cartoon, thanks in no small part to the hundreds of voice-lines recorded by Billy West and Charlie Adler. It's incredible that they left the outtakes on the CD-ROM and you could theoretically mod them back in.

The other thing I love about AB is the techno/acid house soundtrack, and pretty much every level's theme goes absolutely hard. I have a real soft spot for late 90s rave music and- well, just listen to it!
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Re: Bomberman

Post by ElTipejoLoco »

I love Hudson's in-house-developed Bomberman titles in general. The music always has at least one real catchy tune, the multiplayer's always experimenting when new titles come along and doesn't last too long even in games where the player count goes above 4, and the mechanics for the solo experience have something for completionists like myself to slave away into (i.e.- custom parts, the Charaboms various permutations in games that had them).

I recorded the gameplay on original hardware and co-commentated on TheStrawHatNO!'s Let's Play for Bomberman 64: The Second Attack back in the days when the Skype-to-Discord transition was barely beginning to happen. Hopefully my opinions within it still hold up today.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by Al Baron »

Bomberman 64 jank
Yeah I think the jank is probably the main reason this is my favorite N64 game.

But randomly, Super Bomberman R having both Shiori and Ayako as DLC characters is really apt if you know anything on how Tokimeki Memorial 1 does things.
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Re: Bomberman

Post by DustStar »

ElTipejoLoco wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 8:24 pm I recorded the gameplay on original hardware and co-commentated on TheStrawHatNO!'s Let's Play for Bomberman 64: The Second Attack back in the days when the Skype-to-Discord transition was barely beginning to happen. Hopefully my opinions within it still hold up today.
I remember watching that one ages ago. Their playthroughs of most of the franchise was one hell of a trip.
I should really rewatch that one again. I don't think they ended up liking the game, but it will be a nostalgic watch either way.
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Re: Bomberman

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Mandrake wrote: Wed Jul 16, 2025 8:23 pm The other thing I love about AB is the techno/acid house soundtrack, and pretty much every level's theme goes absolutely hard. I have a real soft spot for late 90s rave music and- well, just listen to it!
Oh wow this whips, this is on the same level as Bomberman Hero:

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Re: Bomberman

Post by Weasel »

Moot wrote: Tue Jul 15, 2025 6:15 pm every so often i'm forced to remember Atomic Bomberman which i think might be the only time (up until Bomberman R) that they put one on PC? mostly i remember it being a huge time sink and having access to a lot of funny (to my childs ears) voice lines and a map editor to make horrible unplayable thunderdomes
There was an earlier PC title for DOS, it was just titled Dyna Blaster. This was my first experience with the series, it's definitely the most basic one I played (pushing or throwing bombs? That's crazy talk!).

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Re: Bomberman

Post by redacted_cat »

Haven't kept up with the big post but I feel this big vid HAS to be linked in here for people, it's a good deep dive in itself and gives a good list for a journey into the series:

Back then when being 1st -fully- introduced in series Dust did send that vid to me so can confirm it's a very good starting point and with a seal of approval from users here
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Re: Bomberman

Post by Moot »

Weasel wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 7:12 pmThere was an earlier PC title for DOS, it was just titled Dyna Blaster. This was my first experience with the series, it's definitely the most basic one I played (pushing or throwing bombs? That's crazy talk!).

huh, I remember playing a completely legal version of that on my Amiga 600 way back when but I had no idea there was a dos version, with how much time I spent trawling abandonware websites I’m surprised I’ve never seen it lol
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