Bomberman is one of those ‘comeback’ mascots that never really left. He’s had a steady stream of releases across almost all platforms dating back to the early 80s, and was one of Hudson Soft’s best-known properties. Bomberman was always a platform-agnostic series, even during the lifespan of NEC/Hudson’s own TurboGrafx-16. One would hope the Bomberman games on their home console would be given the same quality assurance and care as the third-party games. And with a year-prominent marquee title, that’s a lot to live up to.
Fortunately, Bomberman ’93 is a worthy culmination of the games before it. And while it’s the best version of Bomberman it could be so far, ’93 maxes out the formula and opens the door for the series’ evolution.
Bomberman’s single-player campaigns always followed a strict ruleset: bomb your way through a series of block mazes, destroying all enemies (while not trapping yourself!), collect power-up items, and uncover/escape through the level’s exit. Lather, rinse, repeat. ’93 breaks up this monotony by setting up 7 worlds with 8 levels each, the last of which is a boss stage. Each world introduces a new level mechanic such as conveyor belts and turnstiles. The enemies get stronger and more aggressive, but the objective always remains the same. Though the worlds do a lot to spice things up visually, there’s a flatness to the stages that keeps them on the rigid side. Yes it’s top-down 2D, but the graphics could have had a little more dimension to them. I always found the green HUD a little basic, giving away the TurboGrafx's primitive roots. Many stages also maintain a perfect grid to their layout with no passageways or obstacles; it does nothing to keep the stages from bleeding into one another, and can make it quite difficult to trap fast-moving enemies with no natural chokepoints.
Each stage’s layout and their enemies stay the same each playthrough, but the bomb-able blocks and enemy placements are randomized. This is great for replay value as no stage is ever exactly the same, and with some enemies free and others blocked in, your assault plan will change every time. Each stage also has a single power-up item to be found under the blocks, the most important of which up your firepower and bomb limit. Unlike other Bomberman games, your power and limits are permanent for your run, but more powerful items (remote controls, passthroughs) will still be lost upon death. Upon killing all enemies, the block containing the stage’s item will flash. The stage’s exit however, will not and always needs to be stumbled upon (also randomized). Work quickly though, as that 3-minute stage times can close in pretty quick after focusing so much on enemies, and larger stages can have scores of blocks yet to be bombed.
The game starts off simple and has a gradual difficulty curve. But with 56 stages, there’s a lot of game to get through and that curve becomes as flat as the level layouts. Even though the worlds feature different graphics and music, 8 stages of anything gets redundant, and when you’re deep in the weeds of the game it almost gets boring. I meant to finish this game much sooner than I did, but had to break up the sessions due to my eyes glazing over.
Saving game progress in the early 90s was always a crapshoot, as games mostly either didn’t save at all (usually), utilized passwords (probably), or used a battery backup (uncommonly). Bomberman ’93 was an outlier that used passwords as well as saves, a generous gesture as the TurboGrafx required a separate accessory to keep save data that not everyone owned. Sometimes, dual-saving games would use passwords for vague progression and backup data would be more detailed, but ’93 makes no difference. I could see passwords not saving your firepower and bomb limits for example, but it appears the passwords bake in which items you would’ve collected by that point. To me this seems a little too… nice? The levels do seem to scale with your power levels so it’s kinda necessary, but it also gives zero consequences for losing. Continuing just puts you exactly back where you are, maybe not with stronger items but they’re offered in multiple stages. Why offer two continues before you must quit to the title screen, just to reload your save (or input your password) and get back in the action mere seconds later? In modern game design, this game wouldn’t have a life system at all, but back in this day, not having lives would be inconceivable. As such, it’s really interesting to go back in time and see how gaming went through these growing pains.
I’m conflicted in criticizing this game, because the core gameplay is proven, timeless fun! And having too much content is an odd thing to complain about, especially back when simplistic games had to find ways to be worth their while. By 1993 the TurboGrafx was all but dead in the US, but it continued to find ways to punch above its weight with its bright colors and bold outlines. It’s clear Bomberman ’93 is doing as much as it can to keep up visually with its rivals, and the game by no means looks bad, but it can’t shake the glossy 8-bit look that it really is. It looks cutting-edge and nostalgic at the same time, if that makes any sense.
The music is also another nice highlight. As one of the last TurboChip games running on stock hardware, ‘93 doesn’t have the luxury of CD audio and only has the stock system’s twangy soundscape at its disposal. But that doesn’t stop the game from coming out with some seriously catchy tunes. ’93 has a surprisingly worldly soundtrack, with each planet’s theme featuring motifs from different cultures. Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, even Arabic and French-sounding songs await! Special mention goes to the title theme, which is the most video-gamey track I’ve ever heard. It’s great but almost becomes self-parody—it sounds like what AI would invent a video game song to sound like.
I especially enjoyed tackling the bosses, if anything because they break up the pace. And this is coming from me, who (hot take incoming) never cares much for video game bosses. At the start of each world, a small cutscene plays where Bomberman pulls up the world’s boss on a computer, showing its name, picture, and a brief strategy. Unfortunately this comes way too soon, as after 7 rote stages with standard enemies you’ve already forgotten who the boss is, much less how to defeat it. The boss stages are definite spikes in difficulty and will take a few tries to clear, but they’re quite fun. Unfortunately, the have the same flaw all Bomberman bosses do, as their hitboxes are dwarfed by their sprites. They all float freely around the stage, obscuring what exact part of them is deadly or vulnerable. This may be intentional design, but it comes off a bit cheap. Defeating them rewards you with a cute mural of Bomberman playing with the boss character, presumably from happier times. It’s completely superfluous, but it goes a long way in giving ’93 its own flavor.
I would be remiss to leave out Bomberman ’93’s other half: its multiplayer battle mode. To many, the battle mode is Bomberman, and the solo campaign is an oft-maligned afterthought. Although multiplayer Bomberman could be found on other consoles, only on the TurboGrafx-16 could you enjoy 5-player simultaneous play with its multi-tap accessory. This was something you physically could not find anywhere else at the time, as multiplayer on other consoles generally served 4 players at most. I personally, past and present, always preferred single player over multiplayer, and even though you can play alone with computer players, the battle mode holds little value to me. But I do respect and appreciate multiplayer Bomberman as a paramount retrogaming experience. The TurboGrafx-16 mini does include a second controller port for 2-player (the original console had only a single port) and they did release a custom multi-tap for the mini, so 5-player glory is still in reach today. But good luck finding the multi-tap and 4 extra mini controllers for a fair price (if at all), as well as 4 friends willing to sit down and play a 33-year-old video game with you. Should you pull off this impossible setup, put it up on YouTube, I’d love to see it.
Bomberman ’93 is the most fully realized version of classic Bomberman you can find. It's elegant in its simplicity while also being held back by it. It’s got just enough added flair to keep from being outdated, but it was clear the eventual Bomberman ’94 would need a little shakeup to its flow. And whaddaya know, there would indeed be a Bomberman ’94, and it would do just that. And it’s also on the Turbo mini, so you know what that means!
No comments:
Post a Comment