40 years of Bomberman: Bomberman '94
40 years of Bomberman: Bomberman '94
Also known as Mega Bomberman in the west, Bomberman '94 was a transition point for the series that truly kicked off its golden age.
July marks 40 years of Hudson Soft’s (and Konami’s) Bomberman franchise. Throughout the month, I’ll be covering Bomberman games, the versatility of its protagonist, and the legacy of both. Previous entries in the series can be found through this link.
There’s a clear before Bomberman ‘94 and after Bomberman ‘94 point in the franchise’s history, and not just chronologically speaking. The Bomberman games that released before ‘94 — which actually released in 1993 in Japan — have plenty of their own fun, though, much of it is on the multiplayer side. There’s a little bit of tedium in the single-player portions of those titles: not enough to make these games bad or boring, by any stretch of the imagination, but defeating all of the enemies in another square-shaped arena and then slowly walking around blowing up every soft block you see until an exit appears can wear on you over the course of a game’s runtime.
Japan- and PC Engine-exclusive Bomberman ‘94, though, refined the gameplay of Bomberman ‘93, which a year prior had refined Bomberman II on the NES, which had followed the remake of the original Bomberman that released on the PC Engine and Turbografx-16 in 1990. With its introduction of Louie, a ridable kangaroo-like creature, the shift away from those square (and rectangular) maps that were often very similar to the last ones you played on, just arranged and drawn differently, and an overhaul of how a level was actually completed, Bomberman ‘94 took everything great about Bomberman and made it better.
It’s a shame that Bomberman ‘94 wasn’t released on the Turbografx-16 as well, as it was clearly made for that system. It was taking a year (or more) to port PC Engine games from Japan to North America at the time, and since the Turbgrafx was discontinued in 1994, well, Hudson might not have thought it was worth the effort, especially given that the install base was low to begin with, and it was maybe a better idea to support the Bomberman games on the platforms people in North America did own, be it Mega Bomberman on the Genesis, or the slate of titles that had released (and were set to release) on the Game Boy and SNES.
Still, it’s a shame, as graphically and on the audio side, Bomberman ‘94 shined on the PC Engine, both facts made more apparent by its eventual porting to the Genesis and Mega Drive. Mega Bomberman, as it was known on those systems, still has the same gameplay improvements, but its looks (and graphical effects) pale in comparison, and while the rearranged (or rewritten, in some cases) soundtrack better fits the Genesis’ audio capabilities, the clearly superior version of the soundtrack is also the PC Engine’s. Given it was Bomberman ‘94 and not Mega Bomberman that received later re-releases on Virtual Console and the Playstation Network, chances are good that Hudson Soft (and Konami) agreed about which was the better edition of the game. It’s about more than the fact that Bomberman ‘94 was the in-house developed version of the game, while Mega Bomberman’s development was outsourced: Bomberman ‘94 is just the better version of the game, no matter what an individual’s nostalgia and familiarity might say on the subject.
Speaking of Mega Bomberman, here’s a fun little note. Sega published the game — the very first Bomberman title on a Sega system, which would lead in more ways than one to the incredible Saturn Bomberman on the Sega… well, you can probably guess the second word there — but the developer of the port was Westone. The Wonder Boy series was Westone’s, and since the original was developed on Sega’s arcade hardware, which was very similar to the tech that powered the Master System, they negotiated a deal to retain exclusive rights to the series: third-party exclusives were hard to come by on the Master System, with Nintendo’s contracts stipulating that games developed by third parties for the NES would stay there, so Sega pounced where they could to make up ground.
Westone sold the characters and series’ name to Sega in the deal, as well, which meant that when Hudson Soft wanted to port Wonder Boy to the NES, they could not legally do so… not in its original form, anyway. Which is how a partial licensing deal allowed Hudson Soft to develop Wonder Boy again from the ground up, on their own, as Adventure Island. Both Westone and Hudson ended up with popular series from their respective deals, and then the two — well, three — parties ended up with a different licensing arrangement down the road that benefited everyone involved, as well.
All that aside, the Westone version of Bomberman ‘94 really does look worse. It’s not even necessarily their fault, though, as the PC Engine had the brighter color palette, and Bomberman is meant to be brighter: Bomberman (1990) didn’t just look better on the Turbografx than its NES inspiration because of the additional horsepower, but stylistically it was also a step up. In addition to the graphics, which manage to somehow be both muted in comparison to the PC Engine’s but also harsher to look at, some graphical effects and flourishes are missing from Mega Bomberman, as well. It’s probably not great that Bomberman ‘94 emulated on the Turbografx-16 Mini looks better with the use of a filter approximating scanlines than Mega Bomberman does on original hardware, played through a quality CRT. That sentence either crystallized something for you or lost you completely, but for the latter crowd, just trust me when I say that’s not supposed to happen.
And the last point of comparison between the two: the soundtrack. Much of it is pretty similar, other than coming through the Genesis’ audio hardware or the PC Engine’s, but two tracks — Jammin’ Jungle and Vector Volcano — have been rewritten since they were composed with specific hardware in mind. Here’s the original Jammin’ Jungle on the PC Engine:
You don’t need to listen to that for an hour on a loop like the video lets you, but hey, if you want to. Here’s Jammin’ Jungle on the Genesis and Mega Bomberman:
It’s still great, but the more “Eastern” influences are gone, replaced with bass- and FM Synth-heavy music that sounds more like it belongs in… well, a Sega-published video game, really. So it’s fitting for its new context, and the change in sound also better fits the darkened scenery, too. This is what Jammin’ Jungle looks like on the PC Engine:
I wasn’t kidding about the change in brightness from system to system — that screenshot looks overly bright, even, but please remember it was designed with dark CRT monitors in mind, so played there (or with proper scanline filters), it looks right instead of too bright. The sound also being “brighter” makes sense within this context. The Genesis edition of Jammin’ Jungle — the theme — isn’t wrong, it’s just different.
And then there’s Vexin’ Volcano, which is also incredibly bass-heavy and has that clear to hear Sega signature on it, as well:
Again, it’s a quality track, but this is Bomberman ‘94’s Vexin’ Volcano:
June Chikuma, the composer behind Bomberman ‘94, has been trained in Arabian-style music and composition. She plays the Arabic Nay, has performed with a classical Arabian ensemble, Le Club Bachraf, and curates music for arab-music.com. What you’re hearing there, in the Bomberman ‘94 version of Vexin’ Volcano’s theme, is the synthesis of Chikuma’s various expertise into one amazing track — one of the best in the whole catalog. It’s perfect for levels set inside of a mountain mine full of fire, and it’s just great outside of the context in which it’s used. The Mega Bomberman version of the song is good, but it’s good in a way loads of other video game songs, especially ones found on the Genesis or whatever systems were powered by FM Synth, were good. Your mileage may vary and all, but to me, one of these is a special track, and the other is just doing its job, albeit well.
As for the gameplay of Bomberman ‘94, it’s still very much Bomberman, but different in ways that would carry forward through the series. Stages became larger, as they were split into segments: you might have to clear one room to open a door to make it into a second room, for instance, and even some of the single-room stages were split by different kinds of barriers, like in Vexin’ Volcano, where you can ride a mine cart through soft blocks to the other side of the stage, then double back later as necessary. (And the length of these levels — length caused by active design rather than incorrectly guessing where the exit was hidden again and again — made up for the drop in level count this time around, too.) Rather than destroying 90 percent of the destructable blocks in the level in order to find the exit, now, you want to show some restraint, as you’re incentivized to do so. There are orbs you destroy with your bombs scattered across each stage: blow them all up, and the shield breaks on the fragment you’re supposed to collect to end the stage. And be mindful of your explosions while you do this, because every soft block you don’t blow up will convert into a coin that’s worth points. And since points are how you get extra lives, you’ll want to take the opportunity to score more of them.
This completely changed the pacing of Bomberman’s single-player campaigns, which, previously, could sometimes feel as if they needed co-op in order to move things along. Now you can concentrate on eliminating enemies to get to the orbs in relative safety, while not just dropping bombs everywhere you can in order to maximize the number of points you can score at the end of a level. You’re out once you’ve blown up those protective orbs, rather than walking around a foe-less environment for another minute or 90 seconds while a clock winds down and you’re punished for guessing wrong. And even the act of collecting coins is a little enjoyable game unto itself, as you have a countdown timer that might not give you enough leeway to nab them all, so you have to prioritize and plan your paths, and fast.
Throw in that Bomberman now has a pal born from an egg he can ride — as was the style at the time — and Bomberman ‘94 feels even more different. Louie, the kangaroo-like animal friend, let Bomberman move around a level faster, but maybe even more importantly, also allowed him to absorb one hit instead of dying the second he took damage. Bombs are risky business, you know, a little insurance doesn’t hurt. Especially since, like in previous (and future) Bomberman games, the size of explosions, and the number of them, can be upgraded over time.
When you lose your lives and face a game over, you can continue from the stage you left off at with your points reset, or quit. There’s also a short, four-digit password for you to write down and use later if you want to continue. Nothing is lost with this, since you only have the password available when your score is being reset, anyway, but it does keep you from posting a True High Score unless you complete the campaign in one go. There are six areas with three levels and a boss in each, so it’s not an overly lengthy game, but still. If you were hoping for a real impressive score to impress your friends and family with, you’ll have to do it in one go. Or play on a system with save states, like the Turbografx-16 Mini.
The multiplayer Battle Mode is of course here, as it had become the standard for this kind of Bomberman title by this point. And it is also — again, of course — a whole lot of fun. It’s Bomberman multiplayer, people, the only thing it knows is fun. It maxes out at five players — a multitap is necessary for that if we’re talking real players and not computer-controlled ones — and you can setup teams, too, so it’s not just all-out warfare. And, with the kind of design that would later be seen in first-person shooters with multiplayer bots like Perfect Dark, if you do face off against the computer, the character you choose for them will actually determine how they play against you. Construction Bomber will focus on opening up pathways by blowing up soft blocks rather than hunting you down. Grampa Bomber focuses on defense over offense. Bomber Lady also holds back on offense — if you’ve ever had a hard time catching someone in a trap in Bomberman because they keep running away and saving themselves, you know exactly what this means. Kamikaze Bomber sets bombs wherever, regardless of whether it’ll hurt him, too, while Bookworm Bomber is more balanced and strategic. If a human chooses any of these characters, the choice is just an aesthetic one, but controlled by the computer, the choice can change the entire dynamic of a match.
Bomberman ‘94 is a true classic: it’s no wonder it was included in the Turbografx-16 Mini along with Bomberman ‘93, and that it’s the one of the bunch where, if only one PC Engine/Turbgrafx Bomberman is going to be for sale again, it’ll be this one. It’s right up there with its successor, Saturn Bomberman, in quality, and even after decades of follow-up games, is still worth going back to. The single-player campaign is breezy in the right ways, the multiplayer remains a blast thanks to the Bomber Family, and it looks just as great as the Bomberman swan song on the PC Engine should have. A classic, and a refinement of the series that was well-timed, considering Hudson was soon to be without its own console to sell its own games on
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