FiPH: Bomberman Hero
Article by Toby Jones
Footnotes in Platformer History looks at my favorite genre's dusty, mostly-forgotten relics. The focus, for now, is on the countless platformers that were released in response to Super Mario 64 during the 32/64 bit era.
All right, I seriously didn't plan for this website to be a showcase for the many video game-related drawings I did as a kid. It's a complete coincidence that after I began playing Bomberman Hero for the first time since fifth grade, I happened upon a notebook full of comics I created about it. Here's the cover.
I had never played the game when I made these, instead basing the content on some previews I read in Nintendo Power and my ever active young imagination. I created my own stories, featuring Bomberman and his rival Nitros engaging in a slapstick, Spy vs, Spy-esque back and forth with their bombs. Usually, a story would end with Bomberman outwitting (and exploding) Nitros. These comics were pretty standard fare for someone that age, but it turns out they were actually far more creative and interesting than their source material. This is not a compliment to my fifth-grade comics, but a slight against Bomberman Hero.
Playing through it eleven years later, it's now clear to me why many of the games I intend to touch upon in this series aren't really talked about anymore: most of them aren't very good. Hero eschews the obtuse puzzle-platformery of its predecessor Bomberman 64 for a more traditional (read: derivative) hop-n-bop affair. My younger self, having been thoroughly baffled by the jump-free headiness of 64, was very excited about this. The levels are pretty linear, more closely resembling Crash Bandicoot than Mario 64, and the graphics are poor.
Basically, what we have here is an extremely rudimentary 3D platformer that looks and feels like a first generation effort despite being released in 1998, months after the far more impressive and polished Banjo-Kazooie. You walk through three-dimensional stages in search of an exit, dodging and blowing up enemies along the way, and very rarely does anything even remotely interesting happen.
At best the player is very passably entertained and at worst the experience is tedious and grueling. The controls are mostly just a lazy copy-and-paste of those from Mario 64, with the only difference being the maddeningly imprecise bomb-throwing. Breaking up the action are the occasional vehicular levels, where Bomberman morphs into some sort of submarine, jet, or helicopter creature. These do little more than temporarily change the game from a mediocre platformer to a mediocre shooter.
One of the only areas in which Hero is different from any other platformer is its bizarre music. Just listen to this weirdness. The bizarre drone of the music combined with the blurry textures and sluggish gameplay cause the whole experience of playing the game to take on a strange, dream-like aura. Unfortunately, this only makes it even more likely that you will doze off while playing, as I did several times. Falling asleep was easiest during a level called Waterway, though, where the "music" is literally an endless loop of running water. On a somewhat related note, why the heck does Bomberman have such an absurdly high-pitched, girly voice? I thought this was supposed to be a game starring Bomberman, not Bomberpreteen!
Hero was the first single-player Bomberman adventure game, making the mistake of focusing so much on the one player experience that it doesn't even include a multiplayer battle mode. Really, they could have at least brought over the battle mode from Bomberman 64- at least then there would have been fun somewhere deep inside the cartridge. My memories of playing the game as a youngin' are generally positive; it didn't live up to my expectations for a Mario or Banjo-level platformer with bombs, but I had a nice time with it. I'm not sure if my standards were lower then or if we just put up with a more back in that era, but I now see the game for the bore that it really is. The real tragedy here is not that I spent a few hours playing a dumpy game, but rather that a once warm memory of mine has been sullied.
My time with Bomberman Hero was miserable, making me a little bit nervous about the long list of 32 and 64 bit platformers I have ahead of me. We'll see how long I can keep this up. Next time: Tonic Trouble.
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Footnotes in Platformer History looks at my favorite genre's dusty, mostly-forgotten relics. The focus, for now, is on the countless platformers that were released in response to Super Mario 64 during the 32/64 bit era.
All right, I seriously didn't plan for this website to be a showcase for the many video game-related drawings I did as a kid. It's a complete coincidence that after I began playing Bomberman Hero for the first time since fifth grade, I happened upon a notebook full of comics I created about it. Here's the cover.
I had never played the game when I made these, instead basing the content on some previews I read in Nintendo Power and my ever active young imagination. I created my own stories, featuring Bomberman and his rival Nitros engaging in a slapstick, Spy vs, Spy-esque back and forth with their bombs. Usually, a story would end with Bomberman outwitting (and exploding) Nitros. These comics were pretty standard fare for someone that age, but it turns out they were actually far more creative and interesting than their source material. This is not a compliment to my fifth-grade comics, but a slight against Bomberman Hero.
Playing through it eleven years later, it's now clear to me why many of the games I intend to touch upon in this series aren't really talked about anymore: most of them aren't very good. Hero eschews the obtuse puzzle-platformery of its predecessor Bomberman 64 for a more traditional (read: derivative) hop-n-bop affair. My younger self, having been thoroughly baffled by the jump-free headiness of 64, was very excited about this. The levels are pretty linear, more closely resembling Crash Bandicoot than Mario 64, and the graphics are poor.
Basically, what we have here is an extremely rudimentary 3D platformer that looks and feels like a first generation effort despite being released in 1998, months after the far more impressive and polished Banjo-Kazooie. You walk through three-dimensional stages in search of an exit, dodging and blowing up enemies along the way, and very rarely does anything even remotely interesting happen.
At best the player is very passably entertained and at worst the experience is tedious and grueling. The controls are mostly just a lazy copy-and-paste of those from Mario 64, with the only difference being the maddeningly imprecise bomb-throwing. Breaking up the action are the occasional vehicular levels, where Bomberman morphs into some sort of submarine, jet, or helicopter creature. These do little more than temporarily change the game from a mediocre platformer to a mediocre shooter.
One of the only areas in which Hero is different from any other platformer is its bizarre music. Just listen to this weirdness. The bizarre drone of the music combined with the blurry textures and sluggish gameplay cause the whole experience of playing the game to take on a strange, dream-like aura. Unfortunately, this only makes it even more likely that you will doze off while playing, as I did several times. Falling asleep was easiest during a level called Waterway, though, where the "music" is literally an endless loop of running water. On a somewhat related note, why the heck does Bomberman have such an absurdly high-pitched, girly voice? I thought this was supposed to be a game starring Bomberman, not Bomberpreteen!
Hero was the first single-player Bomberman adventure game, making the mistake of focusing so much on the one player experience that it doesn't even include a multiplayer battle mode. Really, they could have at least brought over the battle mode from Bomberman 64- at least then there would have been fun somewhere deep inside the cartridge. My memories of playing the game as a youngin' are generally positive; it didn't live up to my expectations for a Mario or Banjo-level platformer with bombs, but I had a nice time with it. I'm not sure if my standards were lower then or if we just put up with a more back in that era, but I now see the game for the bore that it really is. The real tragedy here is not that I spent a few hours playing a dumpy game, but rather that a once warm memory of mine has been sullied.
My time with Bomberman Hero was miserable, making me a little bit nervous about the long list of 32 and 64 bit platformers I have ahead of me. We'll see how long I can keep this up. Next time: Tonic Trouble.
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Share and Discuss on Facebook