Or: Hudson Soft Used Up Their Already-Pitiful Quota of "Cool Adventure Game" Points In Making This Game
When I first saw the announcements and screenshots for this game, I was, needless to say, excited. A Bomberman game with a single-player that wasn't just a half-assed rehash of the original NES concept or a minigame adventure, like most Bomberman single-players have been recently? Sign me
Then I found out that Hudson had no plans to localize this game to anywhere outside of Japan besides Europe. Fail.
But never fear, for that's why eBay is here! Miracles of miracles, I managed to find a (...possibly...bootleg...) copy of the European English version of this game on eBay, and snatched it up for half the price it would have taken me to import the thing from, say, the UK. Now here's where I got a bit miffed. I had this exchange with
kiirobon last night that essentially went like this:kiirobon: So, does the game use European spelling or whatever?cinnamonical: What?kiirobon: Like, does it use "colour" for "color", or "favourite" for "favorite".cinnamonical: (thinks about this) Not that I can remember.kiirobon: Dude. That means that this game is technically ready to be brought over to the US.cinnamonical: ...d'oh!Hudson! Hudson, mah homeboy! 'Sup wit dat, eh?
Anyway. It can be review tiemz nao. Disclaimer, though: I'm going to try my best to make clear when I'm discussing my opinion of the game as a Bomberman game, and when I'm discussing my opinion of the game as a game in general.
Story
When classified research secrets into a powerful substance known as Boratol are stolen from the Justice Department, our hero (known as Cheerful White/White in the game but called Bomberman by this reviewer) is called in to save the day! Working in tandem with the Justice Department's own investigative team and Professor Ein, he explores five different planets searching for any clue as to the whereabouts of the secrets, as well as looking into a string of kidnapping cases that have been happening lately. Standard action/adventure plot that's similar to Bomberman Generation and Bomberman Tournament in different ways, but it's something.
Most of the characters on both sides also, amazingly enough, have some backstory. Okay, so it's only a few throwaway lines here and there that never really come up again and don't have any bearing on how the story plays out (with the exception of the main bad guy), but again, it's something, especially for a Bomberman game. I must say, however, that the level of the character designs for the bad guys are...lacking...compared to the good guys. Taken from Rising Star's main site for this game: Left to right, you're looking at Bomberman, Ein and the Justice Department, and the Lords of the Galaxy. Yeaaaaaah. But I'm only nitpicking as a visual artist and as a neurotic Bomberman single-player fan, so you can disregard this part of the rant.
Gameplay
If you've played Bomberman Tournament for GBA (Bomberman Story in Japan), Bomberman Story DS should feel similar and yet new to you. (Bomberman Story: Now Charabom-free!) The game employs an isometric overworld view, with Bomberman being able to enter towns to talk to people and to explore dungeons. By defeating enemies, you gain items (not power-ups, though, and I'll expand more on that in a second) and experience points that can increase your level and give you new stats. Being that Bomberman's stats in this game are pretty simple, though, you stop gaining experience points once you hit Level 16. But the B-man is pretty tricked out by that point anyway, what with having a maximum bomb capacity of 7 and maximum firepower at 5, along with a hefty health meter that gives you around 35 hits before you go down. Ya rly. On one of the menu screens, you also have the ability to adjust how long it takes before your bombs go off and how far your bombs can go when you toss them. How far you can make adjustments is determined by your level. I never really had to use this feature, though, except for adjusting the detonation time from two seconds to one once I leveled up enough.
Items and power-ups work differently in this game. Most of what you pick up as you're walking around goes into your inventory, to be used at a later time (this includes health recovery items). If you pick up a Bomb-Up/Fire-Up/Speed-Up pill - yes, go ahead and make the jokes about Bomberman popping pills, I'll wait - and use it, the effect is only temporary, which...makes them pretty useless, in my opinion. The only one I could see having any possible use for is the Speed Up pill, and that's if you accidentally picked up too many sandal items and haven't been able to find any
In addition to power-ups and the Very Important Items that are pretty standard with any RPG, you also get various trade items that you can sell off or give to certain people for other things. In particular, there's a recurring character on each of the worlds that asks for something called Borad Coal, which enemies drop. If you keep on giving him the coal, he'll either give you gold, Story Cards (which you can access from the start-up screen to check pointless info about enemies, including the bosses), or a Very Important Item. It's a pain in the ass, but trust me, you don't want to get to the end of the last world and then find out that you're missing one of the Very Important Items that you get from this guy, so you'd best start getting your coaldiggers on. Other than that, though, the trade items are really just pretty pictures at best. (Star-shaped sand grains? What?) You can sell them off at the shops for gold, but once you sell enough, you really don't need to sell any more, and then the stuff just lazes about in your inventory. Especially those damn Core Chips and AI Chips that you get from beating up the robots in the dungeons.
The feature that I liked best about the gameplay, besides the RPG elements, was the bomb system. Over the course of the game, Bomberman gains seven different Color Bombs, each with a different attribute. In contrast to previous games like The Second Attack, Generation, and Jetters, the attributes aren't element-based, which is a nice change. Another nice change is that you can freely switch between bomb types without waiting for any previously-placed bombs to explode. So you can toss a yellow Bait Bomb to distract and attract enemies in an area, and then immediately switch over to your regular bombs to take out those enemies. Probably the best bomb in the game is the unfortunately-named Blow Bomb, which splits into multiple bombs upon being kicked or thrown; the number of bombs depends on whether you've set down any bombs beforehand and also what your maximum bomb capacity is.
Other bombs include:
Cross Bombs - Another useful bomb. It explodes in a cross radius (the default blast in this game is circular), and the flames will penetrate through series of breakable blocks to reveal item-y goodness.
Pile Bombs - Toss up to four into a pile to create a big-ass kablamafoo.
Barrier Bombs - Hold this bomb up, and you'll be temporarily invulnerable to attacks. If you try to move around while holding this bomb, though, you'll walk way slower than usual.
Remote Bombs - Self-explanatory. You actually don't use these as much as you think you would, since you can only carry up to 99 of each Color Bomb at a time.
Shining Bombs - One of the Very Important Items turned into a bomb. You only use this once near the end in a boss battle, and after that it's pretty much useless.
So all in all, the adventure mode is pretty nice. If you're a Bomberman fan, it's better than what we've been getting lately. If you're just a general gaming fan, it's good if you just need to waste some time.
As to what I didn't like about the gameplay, well...it looks like you just can't have a modern Bomberman game without minigames! Oh, yes, minigames abound in this one. If you're like me, annoyed at the influx of Bomberman Land games lately, you may have developed a slight eyetwitch upon reading the previous sentence. You play through minigames to either access new areas or to gain items. They're easy enough, except for this one sliding panel puzzle that made me want to throw my DS at the wall, but still, what the hell, Hudson? Haven't you gotten your minigame fix already?
Bomberman Story DS is also just too short. This likely comes from the fact that all of the challenges in the game (general enemies, tasks, dungeons, and bosses) are laughably easy, allowing me to finish the game by early Sunday afternoon when I'd received the game the day before in the late afternoon. The bosses especially were ridiculously easy to kick the crap out of. I did have a bit of trouble with the very last boss, but with the help of stocking up on health restoring items, I still beat him in one go.
Graphics
Bomberman Story DS features colorful anime-style graphics. Which I like. It's like if you adapted the graphics of Bomberman Generation to the DS. In addition to the cute overworld pixels, you also get 3D models of the characters whenever you get into a dialogue scene. Cute Bomberman is cute.
Music
Nice, upbeat music, but instantly forgettable.
Multiplayer
I only checked it out once just to see what there was. It's pretty standard from what I can tell. You play against seven other opponents, using both DS screens, and you can choose from a variety of stages and a few alternative game modes. Uh...yeah. Y'all already know that I'm the wrong person to ask about multiplayer.
Verdict in a nutshell: A decent adventure game that's unfortunately on the short side, with very little replay value outside of possible nostalgia. For Bomberman fans, though, it may be worth checking out just to have something to play that's not a clone of the original NES gameplay. Don't be like me and gear up to import it from the UK for $60+ (assuming that you live in the US, like I do), but if you check eBay every once in a while, you may be able to get it for $30 or less, including shipping.
Hudson Soft's official page for this game is here (in Japanese). Rising Star's official page for this game is here (in English).
