Bomberman Hero

"A different, but good change of gameplay for Bomberman."

Bomberman. The little dude with pink balls for hands and feet and no visible mouth....and creates bombs out of nowhere. Over 20 games and he still isn't letting up!!! For almost two decades now, he has graced us with his addictive game style, which was changed with the introduction of Bomberman 64. Although the style changed, it still kept its multiplayer originality. About 2 years later, Nintendo and Hudson created a whole new style for Bomberman....a single player 3-D platformer . Most hard-core Bomberman fans didn't adapt very well with the change and refused to treat it as a Bomberman game at all. But, I for one enjoyed this game, and I think people should give it a second chance.

Story - 6/10: A pretty good plot for a Bomberman game. It was well thought out, although not very original to say the least (i.e. SAVE THE PRINCESS). A horde of villans from the mechanical planet Garaden are trying to capture Princess Millian from the planet Primus. Millian's robot servant/companion, Pibot, is sent crashing into Bomber Star after their space ship was abducted by Garadin Warriors. Before crashing into the ground, Millian gave Pibot a compact disc and was told to call attention to Bomberman.....which he did. Bomberman set out on a Journey throughout the solar system in search of the Princess. Along the way he would come across a mysterious warrior knows as Nitros.....many many times. It is later found out that Nitros was an army trainee on Bomber Star, who brainwashed by Garaden's Forces and was used to stop Bomberman. Finally, Bomberman kicks everyone's butts and moves on to the planet Garaden, where the resurrection of Garaden's leader, Bagular (what kind of name is that?!?!?), was taking place. Bomberman had to plow through garadens army once again to stop the ressurection, but, of course he was too late. So Bomberman kicked his butt too. All was saved, yadda yadda yadda, but it turns out that "Sorry, but our princess is being held in another castle"....no not really, but the whole Princess saving thing IS driven into the ground...

Music/Sound - 8/10: Not too bad. (Hudson decided to put back the catchy little techno theme for Bomberman back in =D) The music is nice and calm for almost all of the levels, and I kinda like that. The sounds themselves are pretty much the same as every Bomberman game, except for the voices, which were pretty badly acted. Other than that, they're really nothing else to say about this.

Graphics - 9/10: Nice. What an improvement from Bomberman 64. A lot of things seem much smoother and less pixelated, and Bomberman's face is actually attached to his head this time! I gotta say, this looks beautiful for an N64 game. All of the scenery is nicely done, and there are no noticeable flaws. The camera is good too, you usually don't even need to mess with it. And to top it all off....the characters have facial expressions!!!!

Control - 10/10: Probably the highlight for this game. The control is very nice, and extremely easy to get used to. The first game that ever featured Bomberman to jump, or change modes of transportation, and it was very well done.

Replay Value - 10/10: This game is the perfect example of what a platform game SHOULD be. LOTS AND LOTS of things to do! You can beat the game, and go back to get a perfect score on every level, and beat it again. Then collect all the goodies, to get a completely new level! After that, you can go back and check everything so you can unlock all the secrets in the options menu. For its time, Bomberman Hero was one of the biggest and interactive games out there.

Overall - 9/10: A good game. A VERY good game. Although it's main problem was in the storyline and sounds, it was really so small of a problem that it made only a tiny scratch.

Buy or Rent: Buy! You can buy a used copy for a cheap price, and if you still aren't sure, rent it first. Although I highly doubt you'll complete the game %100.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/04