BombermanBoard

Sora G. Silverwind · #1 Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2017 8:11 pm

I'm in the midst of doing some other things now, including potentially a write-up for the Base (haven't fully decided on it yet; not sure that anyone there really cares about what I think), so I'll refrain from gameplay commentary (of which I have Some Things to say) for the moment and go for a list of story/aesthetic/random stuff to start things off.

1) Welp, looks like now we know why Karasexy got her name change. I had to admit I wasn't expecting anything along those lines. Once again Konami displays more effort and thought than I was expecting.

2) I also hadn't been expecting the complete Heel-Face Turn of the Dastardlies, although I will say that having one big bomberbotfam was super cute so I'm not really complaining. Doesn't leave much of a sequel hook with them, but considering that Buggler is apparently some eldritch abomination formed from "the evil in the hearts of lifeforms across the universe" or something, it's open for him to come back as a recurring villain if Konami decides to make SBR its own 'verse, either as the outright antagonist or maybe something along the lines of Hijacked by Ganon.

3) While the English voice-acting as a whole leaves something to be desired, the writing in general is quite charmingly tongue-in-cheek. BDR went and looked things up and I guess Wikipedia (probably the Japanese one, though he didn't specify) already has the names of the three writers who worked on this game. Not sure yet if they've done anything else.
3a) The music was done by Elements Garden, which is a duo/group(?) better known for producing for artists than for video games. (Apparently they worked with T.M.Revolution before?) Seems like Konami pulled from some slightly unorthodox places when it came to creating this game's vibe. It served them well in the cartoony cutscenes, but I have to admit I was thoroughly underwhelmed by the soundtrack here, and even annoyed in some parts. It gets a little better for the final boss fights, and there's a Japanese ED song that's actually quite endearing and cute. I was too busy texting BDR to read who was responsible for the ED though.
3b) Contrary to my impression, it looks like each character was voiced by a single voice actor (again, was texting with BDR, so I did sort of miss fully reading the credits, but considering how short this game is it won't be a problem to get to the credits again). In contrast to the Japanese version, though, there weren't any names that I immediately recognized, so no "all-star voice acting" for us English-speakers. (Imagine if they got like Steve Blum to do Buggler...)

4) Speaking of the bosses! We saw pretty much all of the Dastardlies' mech forms in screenshots, but the final boss forms (Great Gattaida and Ultimate Buggler) are frakkin' awesome too. This definitely feels like the next-level of SNES-style bosses, moreso than in BM64 and even in Generation. Of course, I'm speaking from the POV from someone who hasn't properly played a SuperBomb game yet; the closest one would be Tournament, mainly because that was where the Dastardlies showed up again.

5) I have yet to see if the Konami Code works in this game.