BombermanBoard

Plasma Bomber · #4 Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 2:47 pm

I haven't voted because I can't strictly decide on one.

If I had to rank them, I'd say something like this:

1. SB3/5
2. SB1
3. SB2/4

My reasons are as follows:

Super Bomberman 3 is well-rounded. There are a variety of different enemies with all kinds of special abilities, the graphics are cute, the game has a decent length, and there is a decent amount of challenge involved. A noticable con is the lack of rival battles, which is glaring in the Super series beyond SB1.

Super Bomberman 5 incorporates a lot of different enemies and traps from the previous four games, and adds a slew of new ones in the end. There's a great deal of variety in content. Navigating through the routes is pretty fun, especially with a second player involved. I do feel that it's unfortunate that most of the game is just recycled material, though. The rivals are challenging and fun, but the lack of big bosses until the end leaves a strange void in the experience. And, of course, there is the terrible reward for 100% completion.

Super Bomberman 1 is safe, while still adding more content (the first rival battles of the franchise, as well as new enemy types and bigger bosses). This makes it a good choice. The safeness, though, holds it back amidst other choices in this series, in my personal opinion. Its only flaw is by comparison, though, which says something (the same goes for SB3).

Super Bomberman 4 has a great atmosphere, and I love the variety of enemy characters and mounts and new power-ups and really everything. But... and it's a big but... the game's biggest problem is how unbelievably unbalanced its Normal Game is. Roughly half of the enemy characters you encounter basically turn into HP when you fell them. Furthermore, the fact that you can hold a stock of eggs basically grants you more HP to work with. This already makes the game much easier than an ordinary Bomberman game. But it only gets worse from here. The rival AI is the worst in the Super series, and that's saying something since the SB2 AI is literally just "home in on the player and drop a bomb" while the SB1 AI lacks special abilities and cool power-ups. The Shitennou do a lot of pausing and just standing around, and are a major disappointment. The big bosses are far more interesting. But there are only five of them. And really, there are only four worlds in this game - the fifth world is just a boss rush of all the easy bosses you've already beaten. Lastly, this rushed, short adventure can be skipped over even more quickly if you have a player 2 involved, since you can access tons of bonus stages together, which allow you to become even more overpowered and skip entire levels without having to clear them.

Super Bomberman 2 ties for the bottom in my book for similar reasons. Like SB4, I enjoy the atmosphere and the variety of opponents, but there are glaring difficulty issues here. First and foremost, every single level in the game has exactly four enemy characters. No more, no less. It's a bizarre limitation given that the game is the only one in the Super series to include scrolling maps! Then, as I briefly mentioned, the rival AI is even more basic than that of SB1. Each rival has the same AI - move close to the player, drop bombs, hide from bombs if necessary. That's it. Some bosses are especially disappointing, like Pretty, whose Heart Bombs will generally lead to self-immolation, and Plasma, who is just a faster version of Golem. The big bosses are also very, very easy. I don't need to go into much detail for anybody who has played this game, but for starters, Fire Breast and Robo Bomber routinely blow themselves up, and the final boss does nothing but float around asking for punishment. The AI in the rest of them is extremely poor and easy to lock into a loop. The only challenging one is Skeleguard.

I have more to say on this subject but I've been in this conversation enough times that I'd rather keep it brief.