Hi I’m Pam and I’m here to talk about
retro video games.
Today I’m going back to the Sega Saturn
and looking at one of the really rare console
exclusives - Saturn Bomberman.
Saturn Bomberman was developed by Hudsonsoft
and released for Sega Saturn in North America
in 1997. It’s a puzzle game that offers
a few different game modes. Bomberman must
defeat Mr. Meanie, who has released the monster
Crator and is trying to take over the world.
Four crystals must be collected to restore
the planet and Mr. Meanie must be stopped.
I had not played a Bomberman game before,
but I love puzzle games and this one caught
my interest right away.
The puzzles in Bomberman take the form of
mazes that you must work your way through
by planting and blowing up bombs to remove
obstacles and enemies. Each level has a certain
amount of Zorfs, which are some kind of towers,
once all Zorfs are destroyed, the level exit
is revealed.
Enemies will block your way, and if you get
hit, you lose a life and have to start again.
Enemies start out fairly predictable, slow
and easy to avoid, but soon become more difficult.
Some enemies will shoot projectiles, some
can fly over the obstacles that stop you and
everything else, and some will eat your bombs.
While initially your bombs aren’t too powerful
and cover only a small range, there are a
lot of items that can drop from exploded enemies
or obstacles that power you up.
There are items that increase the range on
your bombs, allow you to drop more than one
bomb at a time, or increase your speed. There
are items that let you walk through your bombs,
kick your bombs, or remote detonate them.
There are also items that give you negative
status effects like slowing you down or making
your bombs detonate prematurely.
In fact, there may be too many different drops,
there are nearly 30 of them and unless you’re
playing with the manual on your lap it can
be hard to tell what exactly the thing you’re
picking up does.
There are also dinosaur eggs which will give
you a dinosaur to ride. Each of the 5 different
dinos offers a different ability - some can
jump over obstacles, some can attack enemies
or dash. These dinosaurs can level up and
get more powerful will use, and if you get
hit while riding one, you’ll lose the dinosaur
rather than a life. I never managed to hold
on to my dinosaurs for very long, so I never
saw them at full power.
The placement of obstacles and enemies as
well as the particular drops you get in randomized
from attempt to attempt so progress is more
a matter of learning to react rather than
memorizing a path through the level.
Occasionally you can get screwed by enemy
placement, but for the most part everything
is avoidable.
In fact, in Bomberman, I was usually my own
worst enemy. I died a lot more from boxing
myself in with my own bomb than I did getting
hit by enemies.
Gameplay-wise, I have very few complaints.
This is a puzzler that’s both fun and challenging
with a lot of variety in the levels, enemies
and boss fights.
There are five different worlds in the game.
There’s Amusement world, which takes place
in a carnival and is populated by ice cream
cones, rides, and fairy tale castles; Samurai
World where the backgrounds are made up of
beautiful cherry blossoms and bamboo forests,
There’s a level that takes place in the
old West, where enemies can shoot at you and
you have to avoid speeding trains, and pre-historic
level populated by dinosaurs. When all those
are completed, you travel to the future to
assault Mr. Meanie in his secret base.
Each world finishes off with a boss fight.
I generally found these much more difficult
than the levels that preceded them, as you
not only had to find the right strategy to
defeat them, but they were also much more
aggressive towards you than any other enemies.
They ended up being fun puzzles themselves,
though facing them with limited powerups was
often an exercise in frustration. If I died
on a boss, I’d sometimes have to go back
and replay a previous level to get better
bombs before taking it on again. The boss
of the Wild West stage was one of the better
bosses and had you using your bombs to fire
cannons at him, which provided something a
little different.
One of the things that stands out about Bomberman
is how good it looks. While many games in
this generation where taking advantage of
polygons, and now look like garbage, Bomberman
sticks to pixels and it looks fantastic.
Each of the five worlds is unique and looks
really great. There are a ton of cute little
details in the backgrounds, from fountains
spouting, to gears spinning to animals pacing
around. There’s a ton of movement and little
animations happening all the time and everything
is really bright and colourful.
The sound effects are top notch and the music
provides a perfect accompaniment to each level.
I’m really very impressed with the presentation
of the game.
There’s more to the game than just one game
mode though. You can play the normal mode
co-op and there’s also a battle mode and
a master game.
2 person normal mode gives you all the normal
levels but lets you play couch co-op. But
are two Bombermans better than one? This mode
is a lot of fun, but I found that keeping
track of and avoiding another person’s set
of bombs was more challenging than playing
solo. On larger levels that require scrolling,
you also have to be careful not to leave player
2 behind or they’ll be playing blind. Still,
I always appreciate games that offer co-op.
In Master game you work your way through a
series of maze levels where you need to kill
every enemy in order to open the way to the
next. There are also boss fights throughout.
Lose a life and you have to go all the way
back to level 1. The Master Game is a tough
and fun alternative to normal mode if you’re
looking for more solo play options.
In battle mode, players enter an area and
try to blow each other up. The last person
standing wins. This can be played with up
to 10 human players if you’ve got the sega
6 player multiplayer adapter. You can also
play against AI opponents, which is what I
did, and play either individually or split
into teams. With so many players, these levels
are quite hectic.
Overall, Saturn Bomberman is a ton of fun.
IT’s a cute and clever puzzler to play alone
or with a friend. Or 9 friends.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you next
time.
