Bomberman (1990 video game)

Bomberman

TurboGrafx-16 - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Hudson Soft, Actionamics Publisher Hudson Soft, Ubi Soft, SystemSoft, NEC Published 1990-12-07 Platforms Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Sharp X68000, TurboGrafx-16 Genres Action, Maze Themes Action, Cartoon Series Bomberman Multiplayer Simultaneous versus Distribution Commercial

Bomberman is an action strategy game developed and published by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16 on 1990-12-07, then ported to four 16-bit home computers. It is the fifth game in the Bomberman series, but the first for each of the platforms on which it was released, thus the title not having any numbers.

In the game's story mode, Black Bomberman has kidnapped Dr Mitsumori's daughter Lisa and flown her to his distant Mechanical Castle. It's up to the player to control White Bomberman and rescue her. To do this, he must use his bombs to burn up the monsters and blow through walls and find doors that let him travel to the next stage. The game also features a multiplayer mode which requires the TurboTap adapter allowing up to 5 players to battle simultaneously.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	2023-11-30.

Wanting to expand my knowledge of the TurboGrafx-16, I did a search for the best games on the platform, and this game frequently came up and also wasn't an extremely difficult shooter like most of the others. Already familiar with later games in the series, I was curious to see what an earlier title was like. After verifying that it had a password system, I set about trying to beat it.

Review

6	8	7	6	8

Best Version: TurboGrafx-16

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The art, drawn by Hideyuki Ogura and Mika Sasaki looks great and the TG16 yields the best resolution and highest color depth the series has seen up to this point.
• Jun Chikuma's music and sound effects are quite enjoyable and fit the theme well.
• Simultaneous five-person multiplayer was very impressive for 1990. It can even link to a TurboExpress!
• The game has passwords to record your progress, or, if using a TurboGrafx-CD or TurboBooster-Plus, can save your game.

Bad

• The new worlds only introduce new monsters and background skins. I would have liked to see some variety with each world.
• Most of the monsters are effectively the same, and having to fight the same two bosses for the first six stages gets boring.
• Strangely, the US manual doesn't describe the power-ups. This isn't too big of a problem, since they're fairly self-explanatory.
• Since you have a password and/or save game, continues are pointless.
• Since your score is reset when you continue, points are pretty much irrelevant.

Ugly

• There is a major difficulty spike in world 8 with the appearance of Boyon, the disc-shaped monster that can walk through walls and starts each round by homing in on the player. Because you often start with very little space to move, if you don't have the wall walking ability, it's very likely that you will be killed before you can clear out enough space to stay alive.
• The final boss battle is also extremely difficult, much harder than the rest of the game.

Media

Box Art

All of the covers look terrible to me.

• 

  Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS - Europe. All European home computers use this cover with the alternate title. It's pretty amateur.

• 

  PC Engine - Japan. The original release. Extremely minimalist. I don't care for it.

• 

  Sharp X68000 - Japan. Also dull.

• 

  TurboGrafx-16 - USA. Absolutely terrifying. The artist really took the "man" part of the title literally.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - TurboGrafx-16 - USA.

• 

  Manual - Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS - Europe.

Font

See Video game font collection.

Videos

Longplay - Amiga.

Longplay - Atari ST.

Longplay - MS-DOS.

Longplay - TurboGrafx-16.

Play Online

MS-DOS, PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	The only woman is a damsel in distress
Bechdel test?	Fail	There is only one woman.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	The humans are Japanese, but they're very minor.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

Roles	Staff
Game Designer	Tsukasa Kuwahara
Main Programmer	Atsuo Nagata
Sub Programmer	Yuji Muroya (as Wrecker Muroya)
Graphics Designers	Hideyuki Ogura, Mika Sasaki
Music Composer	Jun Chikuma (as Atsushi Chikuma)
Sound Programmer	Keita Hoshi

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English (Europe)	Dynablaster
English (USA)	Bomberman
Japanese	ボンバーマン	Bonbaman	Bomberman

Links