Mega Bomberman (Genesis/Mega Drive)

In discussions of which Bomberman game is best, Bomberman ’94 tends to place rather highly, the Japanese only game never making the jump from the PC Engine to its American equivalent, the Turbografx-16. However, from 2009 onward, rereleases of the title on things like the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles as well as the PlayStation Network did make this classic playable in the United States… although it had already been playable since 1995. Mega Bomberman is Bomberman ’94 with a few tweaks, meaning this beloved Bomberman game has truly been available in the West almost as long as Bomberman ’94 has been available in Japan.

Like most entries in the series, Mega Bomberman carries over much of the basic formula of the series and seeks to tweak it in some new and interesting way. Levels are grid-like and viewed in a top down perspective, Bomberman and any enemies, be they monsters or other players, blocked from accessing each other both by indestructible blocks and ones that can be blown apart by bombs. Every stage will inevitably begin with the players needing to open up the design some, placing bombs and seeking cover from the cross-shaped blasts as you start carving you way into areas of interest. When a bombable block is shattered, a power-up may appear in its place, Bomberman able to build up his stats by scooping up upgrades to the reach of his bomb’s explosions, the amount of bombs he can place at one time, and his personal movement speed. Even at his weakest Bomberman can instantly kill opposing players and weaker monsters with a bomb blast, and outside of bosses, regular foes who can take that first hit and survive don’t take many more blasts to put down. Since dying yourself will reduce your power on respawn it is a vital feature that Bomberman’s baseline power is acceptable for any fight, but as long as you can start blasting apart blocks again, you can start building up your stats once more.

There are special power-ups to be found as well that can completely change how the bomb-placing process goes, and this is definitely one area where Mega Bomberman outshines earlier Bomberman games. Louies are perhaps the star attraction, these kangaroo creatures hatching out of eggs and proving to be one of the rarer but more beneficial finds. Not only do they essentially add an extra hit by taking an explosion for you if you’re sloppy, but each coloration packs a different ability that can help overcome some of the typical Bomberman issues. Sometimes the block placement of a level can make reaching an opponent difficult without risking your safety, but a Blue Louie can kick a bomb right over an indestructible wall and catch a foe by surprise. Purple Louie can hop right over those unbreakable blocks instead, and if you want to get somewhere fast, Green Louie has a dash that can zip you from one end of an open lane to another. Something that can turn the tables or make you feel more powerful at the caveat it can be taken from you for getting sloppy really spices up the sometimes slow play of Bomberman, but there are a few more power-ups that can add some spice to a battle as well.

Remote Bombs are still one of the best power-ups to get in a Bomberman game here, the ability to place a bomb and detonate it at will a great way of overcoming the reliance on explosives whose fuses give players time to dodge the attack. Some extra abilities gained from power-ups like the Line Bomb that lets you throw down a row of bombs instead of one at a time and the Kick that lets you send a bomb flying down the lane can also overcome the troubles with having your means of attack easily spotted and avoided, and powers like the temporary invincibility of the Fire Suit or the ability to walk through Bombs instead of getting boxed in by them can really change the flow of a fight. These all contribute greatly to the single player monster fighting, with that danger of losing those powers on death encouraging careful and strategic play, but the multiplayer of Mega Bomberman still feels like it hasn’t quite gotten over the hump that all Bomberman games face. When it’s up to four players fighting a maze, the fuses of bombs and guaranteed safe spots beside indestructible blocks can mean games stagnate as players drop their bombs, retreat, no one gets hurt, and the process repeats itself. Louies and power-ups can force more aggression and add twists to how this exchange goes, and the maps you can play on will throw in things like conveyor belts and trap doors you can use to teleport around the maze, but despite the popularity of multiplayer Bomberman, it still feels like it mostly comes down to who will make a mistake first rather than someone outfoxing the other players.

While Bomberman games are known for their multiplayer action and having AI controlled opponents with different personalities does allow this option to shine if you have no one to play with, Mega Bomberman actually has an enjoyable single player adventure that makes good use of its gameplay mechanics against foes who fight with things besides bombs. The story goes that Planet Bomber is split into five separate pieces when an invader named Bagulaa and his cronies shatter the magical Spirit Pictures that held it together. Bomberman must travel to each of the sections and restore the Spirit Pictures, the pieces sealed inside devices scattered across jungles, volcanic plains, and even the sea floor. These new areas introduce new considerations like minecarts that can carry you quickly across levels and penguins that launch rockets at you from the sidelines, Bomberman blasting his way through rocks and gathering power-ups all the same to break the towers that power the shard protecting devices.

The monsters are really what make the single player shine, the game rolling out new foes for the small batch of levels that each segment of the fractured Planet Bomber contains. Some like the submarines underwater will go beneath the sand, making them harder to bomb, but the big blue goofy looking creatures in the tundra levels are easy to hit because they are meant to burst into a batch of tinier and speedier versions of it. Some foes can fly right over barrier blocks meaning it’s harder to get away from them, fire spitting robots can activate bombs prematurely so you can’t carelessly plop them beside them and expect to run away scot-free, and some monsters even carry the towers of power around themselves, meaning you have to engage with the foe instead of finding the quickest way to your objective. Bosses take things a step further, the mazes featured packing no blocks to blow up and only the indestructible ones to separate the field. This means you come in with only the powers you carried over from the previous level and can lose them if the boss hits you, and their moves do a lot more to influence the battlefield than regular baddies. Attacks that fly all across the battlefield necessitate dodging of fast moving projectiles, the crab boss can nearly invalidate bombs by sealing them in bubbles, and the ice mage boss can freeze you in place, giving her time to head over and potentially corner you. The multi-phase final boss can catch you unawares with its ability to attack large swathes of the arena, but these serve as challenging action finishes to the more strategic pushes into enemy territory found in the regular levels. Multiplayer may still be where most of the conversation on Bomberman seems to go, but the single player is an enjoyable adventure on its own and shows the potential for the play style outside of a competitive format.

THE VERDICT: Mega Bomberman has a sound mix of power-ups and twists to spice up the bomb battles the series is known for, the mazes enhanced by additions like the Louies who can get around barriers and add unique abilities to the battles. Multiplayer still can feel like waiting for the opponent to make a mistake, but a few power-ups and gimmicks can sometimes make it a more skill-focused fight, and the additions that enhance the multiplayer find even better footing in the single player adventure. Monsters and bosses who engage with your bomb laying abilities in interesting ways makes for an entertaining and challenging adventure where more active dangers keep the action moving and diverse.

And so, I give Mega Bomberman for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive…

A GOOD rating. If a multiplayer setup where it’s mostly about surviving until an opponent slips up is your speed, Mega Bomberman will certainly rate higher than merely Good, but the gameplay features that make that work are strong whether they’re featuring in the adventure or the competitive play. Louies are such a simple but appreciated addition to the formula, able to work around the barriers that can lead to occasional stagnation, and having a power-up that is both strong and satisfying to use while easily lost makes theses a good tide turner. When Louies or special power-ups are in play a multiplayer match can certainly turn more strategic, but they add a lot to the story mode as well, the extra lives featured here making such boons hard to part with. You can still fight well enough at your weakest, but the cherished power of Louies or flexibility of Remote Bombs stings to lose, encouraging smarter play against foes who already interact with the battle mazes in interesting manners. The single player stages break away from the basic grid design a lot more and feature multi-screen areas, and while some of this wouldn’t transfer well to multiplayer, greater flexibility in design beyond just adding in small gimmicks could go a long way to fighting the stagnation some multiplayer matches reach when players have little incentive to take risks or upper hands to exploit.

Much like in my coverage of Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!, Mega Bomberman shows the potential of a format I once didn’t see the appeal of, but that’s again because I had been exposed mostly to the multiplayer that even here, in one of the series’s supposedly best games, boils down to waiting on the opponent to mess up more than properly outmaneuvering them. Mega Bomberman does get closer with its set of power-ups, but it’s the single-player that really helps Mega Bomberman shine, contextualizing the bomb dropping powers in a battle against varied enemy types. A greater willingness to bring that creativity to the multiplayer could certainly spice up that side of things, but both sides of Mega Bomberman still come out fairly good thanks to what twists are present, just one half of it does so to greater effect.