Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
One of the most pleasant surprises of this month’s Partner Direct was the reveal and shadow drop of the Super Bomberman Collection, a compilation of some of the eponymous hero’s earliest games with some extra goodies thrown in. Though it’s ultimately little more than the sum of its parts, Super Bomberman Collection does a great job of presenting these timeless games in their best possible light. If you’re looking for a great game to play with others for some excellent competitive couch multiplayer, read on.
So, let’s run through what’s included here. The headlining games are Super Bomberman 1-5 for the SNES, the latter three of which never even saw an official release in the US, while the first two NES Bomberman games and some boss rush modes are included on the side as fun extras. Additionally, there’s some cool museum content on display between an art gallery, music player, and original scans of the boxes and instruction manuals. It’s a comprehensive and content-rich package; retro collections like these are increasingly more common these days, but you don’t always see developers going the extra mile to include as much as Konami did here.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
Gameplay across all five of the SNES titles is roughly the same, with more features and gimmicks as you move through each sequel. If you’re playing in single player, the aim is typically to navigate the mazes and either trip switches or defeat all enemies on-screen by dropping bombs at intersections that send fiery might in every orthogonal direction. With each blast, more breakable walls fall away and leave more of the field open, and if you happen to get caught in a blast, Bomberman goes down.
It can be very easy to not realize until it’s too late that you didn’t leave yourself an exit after dropping a bomb, and there’s something delightfully thrilling about tensely tracking the movements of Bomberman, enemies on the field, and various hazards as you try to navigate safely while knocking everyone else out. These single player modes are fine, but it doesn’t take too long before the maps start to get a little repetitive and samey. Plus, there’s just something about the generally slower pace of these levels that makes them feel more like training for the real game that picks up when you have some friends nearby.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
Multiplayer is where the compilation really shines, pitting you and up to four other friends against each other in a brutal contest to be the last one standing. Balancing careful strategy with quick skill is necessary to win a given match, as you plot out how to box your foes in without accidentally blowing yourself up in the process. There’s something about the snappy nature of a two minute battle, fighting for control of power ups and scurrying away from bomb blasts left and right, that gets the blood pumping. Every match begins roughly the same, but it rapidly gets much more dynamic as the powerups keep accruing and opponents start finding increasingly more aggressive ways to corral each other into an early death.
It’d be enough fun on just “The Classic” map, but different stages add all sorts of new gimmicks, such as an ice level where cracks in the ice can destroy backtracking routes or a mining stage where mine carts allow players to zip around to different points. These go a long way in adding variety to the gameplay without distracting too much from the core mechanics, heaping on lots more replayability and naturally leading to the emergence of some favorites with a given friend or family group.
I think the real brilliance of Bomberman lies in the genius of its simplicity; although the powerups and environmental gimmicks add some welcome depth, anyone can pick it up and learn how to play in a matter of minutes due to the simple controls and concept. This makes it a very easy party game to break out when others are over, and it doesn’t take long for things to get joyously competitive in all the best ways.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
Yet, the main drawback with the multiplayer is that there’s a puzzling lack of a native online component. which feels like something that would’ve been relatively easy to implement here and would’ve gone a long way in adding to the replayability. The main caveat to this is the Switch 2 version has GameShare functionality, which allows you to play online if you set up a GameChat room with friends, but this feels like a hokey way of implementing something of that should be simpler.
This being an emulated collection, Konami also saw fit to include some welcome quality-of-life updates to present these games in their best possible light. Not only do you have an array of display options such as different borders and screen filters, but there’s also support for save states and an easily toggled rewind feature. The save states help to get around the somewhat antiquated password system for marking progress through each story mode, while dropping a bomb in the wrong spot is now something you can cleanly erase by just holding down a button to rewind time a few seconds back for a do-over.
Captured on Nintendo Switch 2 (Handheld/Undocked)
And though it’s certainly not the main draw of the experience, I want to point out the special attention that went into the museum content. Little touches like being able to ‘unbox’ each game and see a render of its original cartridge alongside the original box show how much the developers cared about small details. Plus, it’s really fun seeing all the handmade concept art from around the time each game launched. Game preservation is a big point of discussion these days with many games at risk of becoming lost media, and I think supplementary content like this museum is an important part of ensuring that future generations can receive these games, too.
One topic that bears discussion are the (few) upgrades you get with the Switch 2 Edition. Alongside the aforementioned GameShare functionality, the expected resolution bump is pretty forgettable given that you only really see it when you’re in the menus between the games themselves, and while the online gameplay via GameShare and GameChat is nice, it should’ve been in the base game to begin with. It’s only five dollars to upgrade, but I think the base Switch version is perfectly fine to play on either console.
Conclusion
Super Bomberman Collection showcases some of the very best gameplay that Bomberman has to offer. Between the various games on offer, there are dozens of hours of exciting couch multiplayer battles to be had, demonstrating that it doesn’t take the latest and greatest tech for a game to simply be fun to play with others.
Though the lack of native online is disappointing, the great gameplay coupled with some robust museum content that honors the legacy of these games makes this one a no brainer—especially given the relatively cheap price. If you’re looking for another game you can pull out on game nights with friends, I’d highly suggest you pick this one up.
