BombermanBoard

Duke Serkol · #1 Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:48 pm

Bomberman 94 has been released on the Virtual Console in Europe as part of the hanabi festival. As such, all Japanese text in the game was left untouched, and don't expect the manual to offer any story either.

Unfortunate, but not all that imposrtant I guess.
So according to N-Europe, this would be the best Bomberman game ever. While it certainly is an excellent entry in the series, I can't help but wonder what these people were smoking when they wrote such an absurdity.

Bomberman 94 is memorable for one reason in particular: it introduced Louies.

Unfortunately it also suffers from a major setback: it introduced Louies. On the Turbografx.

How is this a problem? Well, simply enough because that system did not have any more buttons than a NES.
What does this mean? It means that if you get the remote control and a green Louie you had better be absolutely sure you are facing a wall before setting them off, otherwise your Louie will run in whatever direction you are facing, possibly getting you killed.
It's quite ridiculous actually. Other Louies also can cause all manners of trouble, like kicking a block, a bomb or lining up all remaining bombs you've got (which again can get you killed if they get caught in the explosion you just caused). Pure insanity.
In a way, this actually makes the usualless Louie (there is one that only makes a little dance... yeah big wtf there) somehow preferable to several others.
The button that sets off bombs is also the one used to stop bombs that you've kicked, so even if you ignore Louies there's still issues to contend with.

Then again, I guess you shouldn't worry about it too much since there is only one remote control power up in the game and it does not respawn. I mean, I'm pretty sure it does if you lose all your lives and get a game over, but if you just re-enter the level after you lost it, don't expect to find it there. This was probably done to make the game not as easy as some other title in which you can go back and collect any power ups you lost, but damn...
And it doesn't stop to just the remote control either. The wallpass, hearts and Lord knows what else receive the same treatment.
Oh and don't you think for a moment that it may be a good idea to kill yourself into a game over to get those bonuses. You are going to need as many lives as you can muster in your full playthrough against the last boss (he's pretty damn hard compared to the others!). Incidentally, this means you can't really get any passwords, unless you feel like replaying the game for as long (if not longer, you'll see why) as you did, in order to get back those lives. Thankfully, the Virtual Console allows you to suspend your game, so that's not so big a problem in this port, if not for the fact that once you beat the game you have to start back from the beginning (or get a password from GameFAQs and hope you can manage with just a few lives).

Considering all the above, it's absolutely absurd to even suggest that this could be the best Bomberman game ever. But it still is a very good classic, no doubt.

As many of us know, this game was essentially the prototype of Super Bomberman 3, which however did not suffer from any of the issues this one has and offered the additional benefit of two players co-op storymode (you'll be going at it all by yourself in 94).
But all of the above certainly does make 94 much more challenging than SBMan3. And an unique very interesting challenge the game offers is the blocks to coin mechanic.
Let me explain: the first time you will complete a level, all the blocks you didn't blow up will turn into coins and you will have a limited amount of time to collect them. These coins really make for a significant addition to your score, which in turn means you'll be able to collect lots of lives by exploiting this (the counter doesn't go past 9, but you can actually have more than that... and will likely need them for Bagular).
So the challenge is to clear the last part of the level (the block in the previous parts won't ever turn into coins) blowing up as few blocks as possible. Then you can always revisit the level and collect all power ups (since coins won't appear again anyway).
Quite a twist over the usual "blow up everything" gameplay style that is usually encouraged in the series.

The battle mode has some peculiarities too... it's clearly more advanced than the primitive battlemodes found in some of the old games (mostly on GameBoy) that would only give you the basic items, but some of the items that are never missing from the SuperBMan games are not found here, which makes for a different experience. For example, there's no punch or glove. The only way to make bombs fly is the blue Louie. This makes it far less likely for someone to immediately (right after the battle starts) throw bombs at you from the other side of the stage trapping you before you can create some room to move.
Incredibly enough, also one of the basic power ups is mising: the speed up (but it IS in the main game, and respawns too, don't worry about that). Now while getting a few bomb ups and fire ups is important to put up a good fight, in the other games it is often the amount of speed ups that ends up making the difference. In this one however all players move at the same speed, so that doesn't apply here.
It is certainly worth trying out.

In conclusion, a must download for fans of BMan (who don't already own a Turbografx with the game and several pads), but certainly it can't be called the series best.

...that's what Super Bomberman 5 is for