You have probably heard of Mario Builder 64 or Sonic Ring Racers, released earlier this year. But there’s another excellent fan game you may not have heard of, especially as it has only been made available on BombermanBoard and doesn’t boast an official website: Power Bomberman.
After Konami acquired and merged Hudson in 2012, the west hasn’t seen Bomberman around as much as it used to. But as it turns out, the Bomberman series is much bigger than you may realize. At least 1/3 of its entries were only released in Japan, especially spin-offs and arcade machines like Bombergirl.
One of Power Bomberman’s coolest features is a testament to that: there are over 650 characters to choose from, just a small portion of them being cameos such as Halo’s Master Chief, Ape Escape’s Pipo Saru and Wario — who’s not a stranger to the sport, having starred a game called Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! on the original Game Boy.
However, what makes Power Bomberman truly special is its commitment on being the most accessible and complete multiplayer Bomberman experience to date. It’s shareware, highly customizable, content-rich, and very easy to get into even if you’re a newcomer to the series. Perfect for a game night with up to 6 friends and a couple share of unfair bots.
Old Power-ups and Louies make a comeback as well as new ones are added, with a creative and visually rich Item Help menu section to let you know how they work. When it comes to stages, it’s possible to pick between almost 60 of them, even more if you consider their Wide, Classic and Saturn variations throughout each of the 6 battle modes available. According to the game’s description, this leaves us with around 500 stage variants. Having so many items and Louies available together lead to all sorts of crazy combos you can possibly think of.
Official Bomberman games are usually rather inconsistent on the content and visual style/control feel they offer, leading a lot of its fans to stick with Sega Saturn’s Saturn Bomberman when they want the best experience playing with friends. Power Bomberman is not only just as resourceful, but much more handy for obvious reasons.
So far, Power Bomberman features no singleplayer campaign and the online mode is a bit disappointing, with less settings to mess up with and much more crowded menus, so you’re better off playing local mode remotely with friends. Needless to say, there’s still work to be done, and unfortunately, we have no information on the progress towards the next update or the launch version. But when it comes to multiplayer mayhem (what the series has always been known for), I’d pick Power Bomberman over Super Bomberman R or Super Bomberman R 2 without a second thought.
