Bomberman II

Hudson Soft created many popular games in Japan. They're one of the big game developers that made use of popular media to make their games very popular in Japanese culture. They've made games for pretty much every console and continue to create and publish games today... sort of. Konami bought them and pretty much squashed most of their 3DS titles. I've enjoyed Hudson games, and I wouldn't mind playing more in the future.. if it be on the 3DS or Wii U.

My first introduction to Bomberman was Super Bomberman for the SNES in the early 90's. It was the first multi-player game that I played with up to four people (it was the first 4 player game on that console too). And while I believe that I was skeptical at first because the game looked simple, I soon found that it was so freaking awesome. Bomberman is one of the most popular multi-player series of all time.

Multi-player games up until that point were either platformers or fighting games, and my friends and I were amazed at the simplistic enjoyment we found from blowing each other to smithereens with bombs. I don't even remember actually playing the real game, I think we spent hours and hours just on the battle-mode.

Bomberman is one of the most prolific game franchises with over seventy titles and over 10 million games sold. The game follows a simple formula: a random grid is created for every level, and you have to beat the timer, blow up the enemies and find an exit... without blowing yourself up. Power-ups allow for more bombs, bigger blasts, timers, and other things to allow ultimate destruction.

I decided to play Bomberman 2 for a few reasons. I've played the original game before and  the game itself is really dated. Games made back in 1984 just aren't as friendly to the player in my opinion. Bomberman 2 was made in 1991 and features better graphics, sound, and game play. Bomberman 2 is a better game is what I'm trying to say. It supports three player battle-mode with the NES Satellite! Besides sports games, there weren't many others that allowed for more than two players at once.

Advertising

I wasn't able to find anything for Bomberman 2. Not sure why. I did find a funny Sega Saturn Bomberman commercial though. Enjoy.

The Art

The box art is different for each region's release. The North America version suffers from logo overload. It blocks the artwork and seems strange to have a large yellow bar covering up most of the front. The European art looks the best in my opinion, but is also covered with logos, text, and other licensing information. The Japanese box art makes the game look like a fighting brawler type game. Seriously. Where are the bombs?

North America version

European version

I'm not sure why they changed the name to Dynablaster for the European release. I'm not sure if they got the original Bomberman in Europe... so a sequel might be strange? Marketing people are weird.

Japanese version. 

The Graphics: 

Bomberman 2's graphics establish the cute feel for the series. The first game was kinda clunky and looks like a game made in 1984. The sprite design and levels are pretty simple, the cut-scenes are pretty standard for an NES game. I like the graphical changes in color and textures between areas.

The Music:

The sound is unique to the Bomberman series. Jun Chikuma composed the music for Bomberman and many other Hudson games. According to wikipedia: "Since 1992, she has studied ney composition and Tunisian music under professors Slah Manaa, Ali Sriti and Zakia Hannashi at l'Institut Superieur de la Musique, and studied req under Haytham Farghaly of the same institute. She curates Arab-music.com with Yoshiko Matsuda, and has also made music for TV, CM, and movies."

The simple melodies for each stage, items, and game overs are staples of the series. The style for some of the songs almost evokes similarities modern chip music... making it almost more musically oriented rather than just ordinary game music found on many NES games. I'm probably over analyzing it. He's a ska-ish, down tempo version of the main theme:

Looking over some of the games I've played it seems that there were many female composers working in the video game industry early on. That's great, and shows that even in a typically male dominated video game industry, female composers have repeatedly created some of the best soundtracks to games.

The Results: 

Framed for a robbery he didn't commit, Bomberman is thrown in prison. Using his explosive abilities, he's busting out of jail to right the wrongs that have been committed.

One of the first things I noticed is that I like that there's always a randomly generated room. For a puzzle type game and on the NES especially, it allows for some measure of forgiveness when you die. I like randomly generated stuff in general. The object is to kill everything without blowing yourself up. I find that most of my deaths are  from getting cornered by enemies, or by putting down too many bombs, underestimating the blast length, and being careless by blowing up everything. I'll clear a level and then carelessly blow myself up for no reason. There's nothing worse than blocking your only exit with a bomb. And I keep doing it... over and over and over.

Each time you die you have to complete the stage all over again. All blocks, monsters, and the exit is randomly generated again. That sucks if you accidentally kill yourself looking for the exit. Besides that the game is relatively simple. There's a total lack of items though. One power-up per level.. Sometimes you won't find it unless you take the time to blow up every block, and with the timer ticking down... that isn't always an option. If you die, power-ups go away so it makes the game tough towards the end.

Each area consists of 8 stages. All of them are pretty much easy, and I happily blew myself up over and over. I didn't reach a wall until level 6-5. Much of it had to do with my own carelessness. There's something awesome about lining up a row of bombs and watching them take out half the screen. For as much as I died, I didn't feel like I was getting discouraged, which is weird. Other games totally frustrate the hell out of me, and with Bomberman 2, it didn't feel that way.

You aren't given much time to blow up the enemies and find the exit. There are so many blocks in your way, that it gets really difficult. Here's where the random level generation begins to work against you. Sometimes you're walled in from the start, and with two minutes to clear the level... it just isn't enough time. With random luck on my side, I was able to finally complete all forty two levels.

In the end you break out of jail and track down the Black Bomberman who framed you. He immediately gives  up and then the credits start to roll. There was no end boss fight, all I had to do was beat every level. Kind of different than other NES games.

Black Bomberman gives up.

 During the end credits there's a password that comes towards the end, it is K3456712 and it opens up a sound test menu when you enter it. Kinda neat to hear all the songs and sound effects. Many old games had this feature.

VICTORY!

Statistics:

Deaths: 123 Continues: 41 Game Overs: 41 Time Overs: 3 Levels Completed: 42 Approximate Time: 4 Hours High Score: 74200

The Legend of Zelda (Second Quest)

The Legend of Zelda is one of my favorite games of all time. I've played many Zeldas, but the first one has a special place in my heart. I don't know if it was the open world style game play, or all the items and monsters. It was a great game because it wasn't burdened with endless dialog or plot lines. You just went around and collected the Triforce. That was it. It has a simplicity that was inevitably lost in later games of the series. It stands the test of time because it is a freaking awesome game.

The game was first released in 1986 on the Famicom Disk System in Japan, and ported to the NES in 1987. It was developed during the same time as the original Super Mario Bros. by Shigeru Miyamoto to be this non-linear adventure type game. The very opposite of what Mario was.

I will attempt to complete the Second Quest. I've never finished it before.

Once you press start, if you enter your name as "ZELDA", you can immediately skip to the Second Quest, which is a much harder version of the Legend of Zelda, and something I've attempted but never finished before. The other way of getting there is by beating the first quest, and I don't want to do that again. So I'm skipping ahead!

What makes the Second Quest hard? Everything gets switched around. Things aren't where they should be... items, labyrinth locations, and enemies. For the most part, its the same game, just a little harder. I've beaten the original game over and over before (maybe twice), but trying to beat the Second Quest is almost cruel. Death is a certainty.

The Art

Once again the box art is different between the Japanese and North American releases. I like the later Famicom reissue box. It gives better detail to the Hyrule Landscape. Inside of the manual we find anime style cartoons describing the game and items, etc.

     Famicom Disk System                       NES                   1994 Famicom reissue

And then there was the gold cartridge. Nintendo made a few of these gold cartridges for various games, but the Zelda series has always had them. Kinda awesome, considering that other games in the US was made of the same gray plastic. Famicom games were multicolored but they never brought that idea over here. Weird.

The manual came with this cool fold out map... it showed most of the world with some areas for the player to draw in when they got explored. I like the low resolution television photos for each item and the monsters.

Here's a Commercial:

I remember watching this commercial. It amazes me that it probably helped sell copies of the game in North America. Let's put a guy in a dark room and have him wig out on hallucinogenics and scream "Zelda!" over and over. To this day if I mention the game Zelda, my mom instinctively says "ZELDA!" with the same tone and inflection as the man in this video.

The Music:

The music was composed by Nintendo sound master Koji Kondo. He's the guy that did Super Mario Bros. and many others for Nintendo. His strength in composition lies in his ability to make repeatable tunes that aren't annoying after they've been looped three thousand times. The music for the game is good, but there are really only five tunes in the entire game. Two of which, the overworld theme, and the labyrinth music that are really played over and over and over.

There are noted differences in sound between the Famicom Disk version and the NES version. The FDS version was able to utilized additional sound chips, making it sound... better. The NES wasn't able to do that, so North American audiences didn't get to hear the full range of sound effects, and other minor sound details that were in the Japanese version. There are millions of remixes, remakes, and symphonic renditions.

The Results:

I started the game and as I entered the first Labyrinth I was surprised. I totally forgot that I was playing the 2nd Quest. Two screens later I was dead. Game over one minute and forty three seconds into the game... Death number one. Some of the early levels pack monsters in there than can kill in two hits. I leave piles of dead Links all over levels one and two.

 My complaint halfway through the game is that it requires more time spent hunting for money because I have to play defensively. I had to spend time gathering up money for the ring, a shield or two, and other items just to be able to survive levels two and three. Not only that, there aren't enough keys in the game, so I come to a locked door and have to shell out another 100 rupees to get past it. That equates to me mindlessly murdering the monsters of Hyrule so I can plunder their corpses.

By level four I've finally started to use maps because my foggy memory can't remember where the levels are and where some important items are located. Even with the use of maps, levels 5-7 were difficult. I changed my strategy from trying to clear room after room, and just relying on avoidance to save my health for the boss fights.

Unbelievably (or not), I am forced to stop what I'm doing and pay the extortion price of a stupid old man, or to feed the appetite of a monster. I have to leave the level I'm working on and go kill more helpless, innocent   monsters for cash. Then I have to battle back to the point I was at just to pay the toll. Totally lame... and kinda funny at the same time.

The final level number nine is the last obstacle. It is a maze of doors that lock behind you, secret passages, and hard enemies. If you can get through that mess and defeat Ganon... you win.

The fight with Ganon is tough because he turns invisible and you have to blindly stab with your sword in the hopes that you'll connect. After doing that a few times he turns awesome brown, which means you have to finish him off with a silver arrow. BAM! He then crumbles to dust and you can pick up the Triforce and go to the next room and rescue Princess Zelda. Victory was mine!

VICTORY

Epilogue: 

I thought that the hardest part in the game was around levels 2 through 5. With the lack of hearts and items there's a strong difficulty curve that you have to get over, and then it tapers off. After I had enough life, the rest of the game became easier because I could literally avoid monsters and walk pretty much to the boss of every level. I did have to use a few maps to get around... so I cheated a little, but I still ended up dying 5 times on the last level. This tactic of avoidance made it almost seem easier than the First Quest, because the levels were smaller. Most of my time was spent killing things for money, which sucked. You get penalized around every corner for not having enough keys, bombs, or money to proceed. I won!

Statistics: 

Deaths: 19 Continues: 17 Saves: 2  Game Overs: 19 Time: Approx 6 hours (whew!)

The Legend of Zelda®, and all associated video games, music, characters, etc. are owned by Nintendo - all rights reserved.