Bomberman 64

released on Dec 20, 2001

Not to be confused with the 1997 game known in North America and Europe as "Bomberman 64," this 2D Bomberman title was the last N64 game to be released in Japan.


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Even outside of my recent kick of playing a bunch of N64 games, this is a game that I’ve had my eyes on for quite some time. Ever since I played through the other three N64 Bomberman games a few years back, I’ve had this one on my to do list, but it’s just been too expensive to justify picking it up. Recently, I finally decided that I’d waited more than long enough, and I bit the bullet on paying the 2300 yen for this bad boy to see what it was all about. This is a tricky one to call “beaten” in a couple ways, but the biggest reason is because there is actually no way of wiping the preexisting save data on the cartridge, so the previous owner’s memory was still there and there was nothing I could do about it ^^;. As such, I can’t really fairly give a time beaten for this one, though I did play both the mini-games and classic single player mode until I got the credits in each, so I’m comfortable calling that beaten enough. I did it all with the Japanese version of the game on real hardware.

Bomberman 64 doesn’t really have any story to speak of, so far as I’m aware. Perhaps there’s some in the manual, but at least as far as the game itself goes, there is no story here. The “Bomberman Land” (of which this would end up being one of the first in that sub-series) section has a sort of narrative as you collect more medals and unlock more of the park, but that’s really stretching it on what we’d call a “story” ^^;. But this is Bomberman! We don’t need a fancy story to enjoy our Bomberman, or at least I don’t, and it’s very hard to begrudge the game for focusing what it’s good at. This is a perfectly fine Bomberman delivery device, story or no story, and I’m plenty happy with what’s here.

Despite being on the N64, this is an entirely 2D Bomberman game, so if you want traditional Bomberman goodness on your N64, this is your only way to get it. It’s something of a compilation of different games and game modes that make it somewhere between a “Greatest Hits” compilation and a survey course of 16-bit era Bomberman stuff. As such, we have a single-player mode where you go through 10 stages and then fight a boss (where you’re ostensibly trying to get the fastest clear-time you can). You also have a 4-player battle mode that you can access alongside that one as well, and it will be very familiar to anyone who’s played a multiplayer Bomberman game before. After that, we have Panic Bomber, the Tetris-like falling block puzzle game that they made for Bomberman, which you can play whenever you like. You also have a SameGame puzzle game, and I’ll admit I have no idea why it’s here (at least in terms of its relation to Bomberman), but it’s here if you want to play it! XD. Lastly, you have Bomberman Land, which is a big theme park that you can walk around and play a couple dozen mini games in to unlock more games until you reach the end.

As far as Panic Bomber and SameGame go, they’re very good little adaptations of their respective games. It’s a bit of a shame there’s no multiplayer aspect to Panic Bomber, but if you want score attack, this game can give it to you. The Bomberman Land mini-games are also sadly all single-player. That in and of itself isn’t a crime, but with Bomberman as a franchise being SO obsessed with multiplayer, it’s a bit of a shame that all of these decent little mini-games (virtually all of which are put together with assets completely unique to themselves) have no party element to them beyond just trying to beat your friends’ scores.

There’s also the issue of justifying their inclusion in the first place. It’s a bit lost on me why the Bomberman Land stuff is even here in the first place. They’re not particularly Bomberman-y, and just tacking on a mini-game collection to a Bomberman game compilation seems like a very weird choice to me if it came at the cost of fleshing out the multiplayer or classic single-player modes a bit more. A lot of effort clearly went into this, but outside of the neat little spectacle of it existing in the first place, I’m not convinced it really adds much to the overall package. Speaking of which, the classic multiplayer mode itself is a pretty well put together thing for what it is, but anyone familiar with 16-bit era Bomberman games is going to find it very lacking. There aren’t many map types or power up types, and there’s even only one kind of Louie to find. It’s a perfectly serviceable multiplayer Bomberman game, mind you, and it having native 4-player support (without the need for a multitap) is in and of itself something to set it apart from basically all previous Bomberman games, but it’s not really going to wow anyone who’s even somewhat familiar with other games in this series from this or the previous console generation.

The classic single-player mode is what I went through a lot of myself, and properly beating it is when I was comfortable calling this game “beaten”. It’s only ten stages, but you go through them along a bit branching path system, where you go into either an up exit or a down exist after destroying all the enemies in the stages, and that will bring you to the corresponding next level on the tree. There are eight different end points on the tree, and getting to the end gets you one of four different bosses (with there being a respective easier and harder version of each, getting us a total of eight different fights). Beating every single level on the tree at least once gives you the final boss fight once you’ve beaten the boss typical to that route down the tree, and he’s a tougher fight against a big guy who has all of the powers of the other four bosses and then some.

As far as single-player classic Bomberman content goes, this is easily some of the easiest stuff they’d ever done, and I’m totally okay with that. With just how merciless the 16-bit era game final bosses always are, I was totally cool with the bosses here being glorified 1v1 multiplayer matches against special opponents, and it made for a really fun time! Like with the other modes, it’s certainly not going to match up content-wise to most other Bomberman games, but it’s a well put together and very fun version of this kind of Bomberman, and my five or so playthroughs through it (to mop up the stages the original owner had missed) were all good fun~.

The aesthetics of this game are very nice. They’re very Bomberman, especially in the modern style they’d start using in the 2000’s (especially in the Bomberman Land series), but they’re very cute and well done. The music is also very Bomberman, to put it as simply as I can. It’s nothing super awesome or unique to write home about, but really to be expected from a “Greatest Hits” Bomberman game like this. It’s all done very adequately, and there’s really nothing to criticize either way.

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. This is one where your mileage is really going to vary based on what you want from your Bomberman and how much other Bomberman you have available to you. If you only have an N64 and it’s your main multiplayer console of choice, you might have a lot of use for a survey course of 2D Bomberman stuff like this (especially with 4-player support that needs no multitap). However, if you’ve got one or two other Bomberman games (either older or newer), chances are there’s not much this game can offer you that you don’t already have. It’s certainly a neat oddity on the N64, especially when put aside the other Bomberman offerings on the console, but there’s just nothing particularly unique or worth experiencing for the price tag compared to all of the similarly priced Super Famicom, PS1, or Saturn Bomberman games out there (and that’s not even mentioning more modern Bomberman stuff). This game is a jack of all trades and master of none, and while it isn’t a bad game, if you’re at all familiar with Bomberman, the good times you have with this will likely just remind you of better Bomberman games you could be playing rather than continuing to play this ^^;.

this is a really good looking game!!!! i had no idea it existed, but well. it does! it has a theme park mode that's just like bomberman land and i love bomberman land!!! this is probably the first bomberman land game secretly.

An improved port of bomberman land for the ps1 and the last 2d bomberman for consoles. The main difference from the ps1 game is that it doesn't force you to go through the story mode to play the main game. Other than that it's a fairly shallow game collection aimed at younger kids.

The bomberman mode starts more like a remake of the original game and then goes into many branching paths doing its own thing, ending with a mini-boss fight. It's okay, but it requires you to play multiple times the same beginner levels to see all the content(similar problem of super bomberman 5), plus bomberman's movement feels a bit off. Also there is a panic bomber mode, is just a single endless game, but its fun enough.

It was weird but I liked it. I emulated it recently and now I know it's a bad game when compared with other games on the N64 or even other to Bomberman games. I think I liked it because the Bomberman racing game was really good.