Bomberman Generation

"Ooo. A deep title"

The title ‘Bomberman Generation’ signifies how this GameCube edition molds all of the past into one. It takes the aspects that made the Nintendo 64 series editions single player tour-de-forces, and what made the Super Nintendo multiplayer modes kings of the console, and combines it into one cel shaded package. Such is the state of the industry today.

Bomberman Generation’s single player adventures are forays into six distinctly different environments. The hero of our quest must navigate his way through everything from the murky blue depths of oceans, to the oppressive heat and quicksand laden deserts. But regardless of the environmental differences, the action is pretty straightforward, and has a whole the game is extremely linear. Notwithstanding the fact that you can choose which levels to do at what time. Blocking his way are countless flammable foes, dozens of simplistic puzzles, and power-ups aplenty -- but only one way to really progress through all of it.

The multiplayer modes are far more open-ended, and the variety in them is striking. Options range from the classic battle and battles with bombs falling from the sky, to battles with strength and speed upgraded to the max and with coins filling the arena and spilling out of foes a la Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s a rare game whose multiplayer is deeper than the single player, but Hudson tends to have a monopoly on games that fit those qualifications, developing the Mario Party series as well as the Bomberman series for which they are best known. However, the purpose in all is still to destroy before one can be destroyed themselves, so depth is still limited.

In a wonderful show of irony, the switch to flat, cel shaded graphics is another showcase for the lack of depth in Bomberman Generation. The move to these richly animated designs doesn’t hamper the three-dimensional action we’ve become accustomed to in the past three installments of the series. But what it does is give the game a much more lighthearted look, at times seeming almost as if a kiddie game.

Yes, Bomberman has been all dolled up, and so have the foes. Generations has almost a Pokemon-complex, in which the enemies are too sickeningly cute for you to actually want to beat them -- causing lackluster play -- so that the vastly inferior enemies can guilt you into essentially defeating yourself. Luckily you’ve got Charabombs on your side, Pokemon-esque creatures, each with different attributes, which you can breed to create a Charabomb to fit your style of play perfectly. These cutesy assistants are primarily collected through defeating them in battle with your existing Charabomb supply, furthering the Pokemon aspect. You gotta catch ‘em all!

The environments also fit in with the childlike theme, representing the area with some accuracy, but in a stylized way. Features are exaggerated, but never so much so that you don’t recognize them. (For example, the desert level is populated with large Saguaro cacti.) In other words, the developers designed the levels like a seven year old would draw them -- the undersea level contains tons of fish and seaweed, forests house oversized trees and peaceful streams, deserts have exaggerated sand dunes and pools of quicksand to suck one Bomberman down in his quest to save Planet Bomber once again.

Also in the childlike style that Bomberman Generation exudes are the background songs. While the fashion works well visually, when applied to the audio the music suffers. The hired composers dumbed down the music to fit in with the graphical age group, resulting in simplistic keyboard drivel -- entirely comparable to a MIDI file -- that’s an insult to one’s ears.

The sound effects are substantially better then their partner in the audio department, but improvement still could have been made. Bomberman screams like an even more obnoxious version of Margaret from Dennis the Menace with each life he loses. The ‘deafening’ roar of the explosions is barely audible over the stereo playing at a standard volume in the next room, regardless of the radius of the blast. Despite these flaws, all that money they blew on the sound effects was not totally wasted. The touched up versions of classic sounds, especially in the multiplayer modes, are welcome additions, and they further the overwhelming feeling of nostalgia already brought on by playing the classic versions again. Familiar noises also resonate through the menus and single player modes, truly making Bomberman Generation feel like a member of the family, regardless of the new stylizations that its black sheep status has brought it.

Sticking with the apparent pattern of dumbing down aspects of a classic series, Hudson Soft has altered the control scheme that players have become used to through installments on the Nintendo 64. Using the numerous skills that Bomberman boasts is sometimes next to impossible in tight situations. First of all, now instead of pressing a button to kick a bomb that’s on the ground, Bomberman must now run away from the bomb, then return to kick it. And there’s no forgiveness with the aim either -- you’ve got to line up your shot perfectly if you expect the bomb to do any damage. And even when taking our fair hero to charge the bomb to kick it, sometimes he inexplicably doesn’t kick it. Fried Bomberman wasn’t the dish on the menu that I ordered, thank you very much.
Kicking bombs around isn’t the only new problem that emerged with the series’ shift to the 128-bit era. Bombs are now harder to pick up, to throw. It is also much more of a challenge to bounce bombs off one another, and then bounce along them yourself. It seems as if Hudson has added more directions in which Bomberman and his exploding projectile weapons may maneuver, which causes aiming to be much more vital, and the sensitivity of it can cause even the slightest twitch of the controller to cause you to miss your target. A system that is more forgiving would be a great asset to the next version.

Yes, Bomberman Generation is childlike. Yes, Bomberman Generation is difficult to control. Yes, Bomberman Generation is fun as hell. The variety in the multiplayer modes will make sure you and your friends are playing for hours, and the individuality of each arena will keep every match from turning into monotony. Now battle arenas have been upgraded to include quirks like tunnels and warp squares to keep the action frantic and the arrogant players honest. And instead of merely blowing up other Bombermen in battle arenas, now one must contend with falling bombs from the sky, or misers that box themselves into a corner in Coin Battle and chuck bombs out at the other players, sniping to get more dough than everyone else. Multiplayer in Bomberman Generation has ended up being as much as an affair in strategy as in hardcore action.

The difficulty in Bomberman Generation is hard to judge. Oddly enough, I found the tutorial level to be more difficult than many of the other ones, because of the new added difficulty in bouncing bombs. Puzzles are mindless, enemies run away from you rather than fighting, but the problems with the control and the Charabomb battles keep the game from becoming too easy.

And of course Bomberman Generation won’t become too easy if you’ve got plenty of talented friends to play all the multiplayer modes with. The featured multiplayer modes can easily keep you playing for hours on end, for days on end. Chances are that you will never have to search for reasons to play through the Coin Battle Mode again and again.

Bomberman Generation has many things going for it, nearly all of which involve the use of more than one controller. But this series incarnation is enough of a radical departure from the versions on both the Super Nintendo and the Nintendo 64, that it may through off some fans of the series weaned on previous games. Hudson Soft tried admirably, but perhaps it would have been a better decision to focus on one of the two themes of past lore and improve upon it, rather than giving haphazard, though usually fun, versions of both. Despite the flaws, and the newly discovered controlling quirks, the multiplayer will keep you coming back for more, and will be the sole reason for most people’s purchase of the game. But that’s just the series’ lineage shining through.

PROS
*Classic Bomberman multiplayer returns triumphantly.
*The longest and most engaging single player Bomberman quest yet.
*Bomberman meets Sonic in Coin Battle Mode.

CONS
*Control quirks negatively affect gameplay and make utilizing Bomberman’s numerous skills quite difficult.
*Charabombs could have been a much more vital part of gameplay.
*MIDI caliber music is too simplistic.

SCORE SUMMARY

GAMEPLAY--8
GRAPHICS--8
MUSIC--5
SOUND--6
CONTROL--4
FUN--8
CHALLENGE--MEDIUM
REPLAY VALUE--MEDIUM TO HIGH

OVERALL--7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/19/02, Updated 07/19/02