BombermanBoard

DragonBomber · #31 Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 7:52 am

Duke Serkol wrote:

I can never get over how loltastic it is that they used Bomberking's artwork for the original Bomberman (both American NES and the GBA re-release)

Well, it isn't just the artwork. There are a couple similar characters, and misc people have brought this up at random times. The crystal podiums you normally see stationary but other times see creeping around in Bomberman '94/Mega Bomberman, appear as an enemy in the first level of NES RoboWarrior/Famicom Bomber King. They were both Hudson Soft games in Japan, tho RoboWarrior was distributed by Sunsoft here I believe, who was behind GB Bomber King: Scenario 2/Blaster Master Boy. I don't know if anyone from Hudson has explained this but some people tend to think the same artists were used for artwork and thus it happened. Though there has to be more to it if there are characters in the game that are similar as well, as they were both Hudson games and someone had to have known.

This is why I think the Japanese-capable of us should find a way to interview all the former coders, musicians, developers and such for a huge Bomberman documentary/additional website fodder. These stories are lost, and every other big series this long running has some of them. There is probably some data in the Super Famicom Strategy Guides, but I have not tried to translate any of it with my inferior non-skills.

Arnie, a fellow from Sweden I have mentioned before on the board and whom I tried to get join here before (if he hasn't yet or was here before) compared sprites in some of the games and posted on Hudson Entertainment with the following graphic linked below:
http://androidarts.com/bomber/bomberman_history.jpg

Arnie's case is more that Hudson borrowed from Dig Dug's design, with Blaster Master being similarly created. Not sure where you can decide what was honest creation and what was inspiration, since Dig Dug has design aspects found in other games of the time as well, such as Mr. Do! The industry borrows and builds on a lot, tweaking and making new content from misc similarities every day. It's not usually outright copying, and for Bomberman I know that isn't the case as even Bomb Jack has a different feeling entirely and gameplay design. I think games of this period especially on the Famicom and other computer systems of the day had this robot fellow in a suit with gear her used to take down enemies. It was a thing for a while and comes back often. It's the same as these suit-wearing mighty battle shows on television being designed like one another. I would say the trend of cybermen (not to be confused all the way with Doctor Who foes) in that era of videogames is quite sound and many examples could be compared for sprite similarities, game design commonalities, along with weapon and enemy similarities.

I mean, the characters in Cratermaze can be said to look similar to ones in this vein. Air Zonk or whatever looks a lot like the Bomberman character of the Atomic Punk/Atomic Kid games, and there are more if I was less tired to ramble.