Everyone has that one game from their childhood that was just the scourge from hell.
And if you grew up in the NES generation, you had your pick.
Everyone had their kryptonite.
For me, it was Bomberman.
It’s a simple premise at first: You’re a little robot guy, you’re in a maze filled
with bricks and hostiles, and you can produce explosives with which to deal with these things.
Unfortunately, as the great Shinya Arino once commented, “This is a game that requires
your complete concentration.”
And six-year-old me often had more important things to attend to, like a spark of Lego-related
inspiration.
It didn’t hurt that this game could be the definition of brutal.
50 stages long, full of mobs with weird AI, and if you die, all your good power-ups went
PIFF.
It remained in the periphery of my gaming experience, on the outside looking in, as
I devoted myself to plumbing the depths of Bubble Bobble and the Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle.
So I find myself now revisiting this madness, and realizing...
yeah, it’s still hardcore as all get out.
It’s seen a couple forms over the years, and some gameplay improvements, but there’s
still no replacement for this, the NES original.
(Or, in this case, the NES Classics release on the GBA.)
Here was our introduction to the White-and-a-little-bit-of-Blue Bomber, who, admittedly, was just a sprite
ganked from Hudson’s port of the Broderbund classic Lode Runner.
All the stages look identical, with the same green background and grey blocks; the only
differences are in the distribution of hostiles.
Granted, this alone doesn’t make for a huge challenge... but the real issues are a little
more peripheral.
For example, unless you have the corresponding power-up, your bombs are blocking terrain.
With fuses.
It’s not uncommon for a Bomber, in his usual panic, to accidentally trap himself in a corner,
leading to a few uncomfortable seconds of quiet resignation before the inevitable explosion
and a nine-note “You suck” fanfare.
Accidentally bomb a power-up, or the doors leading to the next stage?
Welcome to hell, kid, ‘cuz you’re now swarmed with more mobs.
Fail in any way, and your precious remote control, any manuverability powers, and your
general will to live will disappear before your eyes.
And if you should run out of lives...
Well, here’s the blessing of the NES Classics version: A save feature for your high score
and password.
And it’s your salvation, too, because if not for that you’d have to enter the entire
20-character password, manually scrolling through each letter, with no backspace.
Make a mistake on letter 19?
You get to re-input the entire thing.
Yeah.
Not only that, this version came before Bomberman discovered multiplayer.
It’s kinda like Street Fighter 1 in that respect: You see the beginnings of the epic
experience you know, but it hasn’t quite figured itself out yet.
For the NES-style experience with the potential for deathmatches, check out Bomberman Party
Edition for the original PlayStation.