Game 477: Bomberman

 

Hudson Soft's first whale is, suitably, Bomberman for the Famicom, and now we're starting to actually see a game that resembles the series as we know it. We have powerups hidden in the walls. We have classic chain reaction physics. We have bombs that trap enemies inside their soon-to-be tombs. We have Bomberman's classic chubby robot man design. We have recognizable, albeit repetitive music. We have a crunchy "boom" sound on the PCM channel.

We just don't have multiplayer yet. And without that, Bomberman isn't very good.

 

There's not much strategy initially. Avoid the slow-moving balloon monsters, try to trap them with a bomb, and don't destroy too much terrain just yet. Once they're all dead, start bombing the terrain until you find the level's powerup and the exit. And don't leave until you've found the powerup (or accidentally bomb it or the exit).

Flame up. This extends your blast by one tile.

After that, repeat the process for a few more levels. There are several powerups available; bigger blasts, more bombs, more speed, ability to walk through bombs, even the ability to walk through walls, but the real reward is the remote detonator, first found on level 4. You'll need it to catch the quicker and more slippery monsters, some of whom can slip through walls themselves. And you'd better not die, because you'll lose it if you do, and the monsters won't relent just because you don't have it.

All isn't lost if you die; you lose the remote detonator, but not your extra bombs or blast powers, and you can find it again about every five levels. Did I mention the game has fifty levels, and very little to distinguish them? Bomberman is generous with extra lives, and effectively grants unlimited continues with a password system as long as you don't care about score (and you're insane if you do - more on that later). But you'll have a much easier time if you never lose it to begin with.

Find the fireproof vest on level 30 and you're basically unstoppable. Just don't let your nigh-invulnerability make you get reckless, because you lose it if you die.

 

With the remote detonator and firerpoof vest, the rest is trivial. Finish level 50 and Bomberman becomes just Man.

As for optimizing your score, there's a few things you can do beyond just finishing without continues. You have bonus rounds, in which enemies respawn indefinitely and can't hurt you. You can trigger additional enemy spawns by bombing the exit door, and this is repeatable until the clock runs down.

But this is insignificant compared to secret items, which are hidden on every level and can be worth millions.

Dezeniman makes a Bomberman cameo if you're Nuts enough.

 

All you got to do, is complete a level-specific Tower of Druaga-style challenge with zero hints or indications that this is a thing.  

 

Might be that you need to clear the level perimeter once. Might be that you need to chain-detonate exactly 248 bombs. The biggest reward of all comes from destroying every wall and then bombing the exit three times, all without killing a single monster, and grants you 20 million points.

Anyway, 

GAB rating: Below average. It's better than the BASIC original, which proved barely tolerable, but this early version gets boring really fast. At least it's also easy.

Game 476: Nuts & Milk

It's fine. You can snicker at the title.

 

It was third party developers that made Nintendo into a home entertainment juggernaut, and Hudson Soft was the first of many notables, debuting in 1984 with Nuts & Milk and a licensed port of Lode Runner, the latter of which, being a straight port, is of no interest to me, except for one little familiar visual detail.

Screenshot from Mobygames

As for Nuts & Milk, let me start by saying that this title screen looks exactly like every other first generation Famicom game. Same menu layout, same font, same set of options, including an editor mode like a handful of others, which can be saved to cassette tape using the Japan-only Famicom Data Recorder accessory.

Unlike Lode Runner, this is no port. In fact, while the Famicom versions of both Bomberman and Binary Land have some similarities to Hudson Soft's original computer versions, this game has none except for the recurring characters and the presence of a level editor. It's a 2D puzzle platformer with aspects of both Donkey Kong and Lode Runner. Also unlike Lode Runner, this game never left Japan, except an obscure PAL region C64 port renamed "Hot Pop."

Regarding the game modes, I quickly came to the conclusion that Game B, which in typical first-generation Nintendo fashion is the more difficult mode, is also the intended gameplay experience, with Game A a modified easy mode with fewer hazards. 2 Player Game is, as you might expect, just an alternating play mode.

Your challenge - collect all of the fruit while avoiding Nuts. Often easier said than done - Nuts can go anywhere you do, but moves slightly slower, and is really, really stupid. Even on Game B.

Nuts is suicidal but respawns quickly.

One advantage you have is that you can wrap-around on the horizontal edges of the screen, and Nuts will never do that, but take care; blimps will spawn on the left edge without warning and kill you on contact. Helicopters, on the other hand, spawn on the right edge and award bonus points on contact. Nobody ever said Nintendo games made consistent logic a priority.

Collect the last fruit and a girl Milk welcomes you home.

 

Every few levels is a bonus round with no Nuts and no penalty for failure.

  

There are over 50 levels, and for the most part they're pretty well designed, but each one can be beaten in a few seconds. Maybe not on your first try. Maybe not on several tries, they get difficult rather quickly. Nuts, much like the guards in Lode Runner, is stupid and predictable, but relentless, and figuring out how to get him out of your way so you can grab that last piece of fruit and live can be a trial in pathfinding logic or just plain trial and error. Often times, beating or failing a level comes down to making a tricky jump, which can demand pixel precision even when the point you must leap from to make the landing is straightforward, and it sometimes isn't.

You'll die a lot, but unless you care about score, and I don't, lives are meaningless. You can start on any level you like, with one very annoying caveat; you don't choose a level as in Wrecking Crew. You skip the level you're currently on by pressing the select button, and repeat until you're on the level you want to play. Got a game over on level 45 and want to try it again? Gotta start a new game and skip the level 44 times.

Because of this, I used save states, not to cheat through any level, but so that I could restart failed levels quickly.

Sometimes you have to deal with multiple Nuts.

 

Sometimes you have to manipulate Nuts to get him out of your way.

  

Did I mention Nuts is really stupid?

Sometimes the jump physics are a bigger threat than Nuts.

One of the simplest levels is also one of the trickiest yet.

 

Big difficulty spike in the 40's. Damn center fruit gets me every time.

 

This must be it!

Beat the last level and there's no ending; it just loops back to level 1.

GAB rating: Above average. It's a bit primitive, and often frustrating, but then again, so were all of the Famicom launch games. The visuals are cute and humorously animated, and for what it occasionally lacks in polish, it makes up for in generosity with 50 levels, about 30 of them good levels. It's no Lode Runner, but overall, not a bad waste of a few hours.