Super Bomberman 5

With Bagura defeated in Super Bomberman 4 and the Nintendo 64 releasing in 1996, you’d think that would have been the end of the franchise’s run on the Super Famicom. Well, Hudson Soft decided to give the long running platform one last adventure in 1997 in the form of Super Bomberman 5, the true finale of the original Super subseries. Even moreso than Super Bomberman 4, this game is an overt celebration of the Super games that came before it, going as far as to remix music, enemies, and level themes from the first four Super games for a majority of its runtime. Don’t let this asset reusetrick you into thinking this was a quick cash grab, though, because Super Bomberman 5 is chock full of varied stages to clear, new Bombers to do battle with, comprehensive multiplayer options, and fresh ideas that would go on to be used in future entries like the Bomberman Max games.

For this one game only, a new villain with a clock-shaped head called Terrorin takes the stage. To aid him in his conquest of Planet Bomber and the rest of the galaxy, he enlists the help of the nine Fiendish Bombers, some of the most feared criminals around, by breaking them out of Bomber Prison. These Bombers are an interesting batch, including a dog named Bomber Woof, the serial killer-looking axe wielder called Iron Mask Bomber, an outlaw known as Plunder Bomber, and the wrestler-inspired Muscle Bomber.This game also experiments with themed pairs of villains within their ranks through the stylishly dressed Dave and Gary Bombers and the aptly named Pirate Bomber, who comes with his very own Subordinate Bomber that fights alongside him. Their job of saving the day remains the same, but White and Black Bomberman’s journey is a bit more complicated this time around.

Super Bomberman 5 features a whopping 100 levels and two different endings to earn, making it feel much bigger than everything before it despite the fact that levels no longer scroll or contain multiple screens. Rather than having to play every level in a row, the game has a nonlinear structure that provides many branching paths to choose from. Whenever you clear a level of its foes, portals can be found (usually at least two) that bring you to different levels. Depending on your choices, you may end up playing several levels in the same world or as few as three levels before you end up at the boss fight of the world. The bosses vary depending on your choices as well, so it’s impossible to fight them all within a single run. They’re much more devious this time and some of the tougher ones employ tricks like invisible mines, infinitely respawning minions, and the ability to conjure soft blocks to shield against your attacks. If you’re (un)lucky, you may even end up in a surprise 2v1 battle against Honey and Kotetsu, who evade bombs like it’s nothing and attack with quick gunshots and katana slashes!

In general, the new approach makes a single playthrough breezily paced and varied, but it also takes multiple runs to really get the most out of the game. The “bad” ending leaves you with a shortened final boss and an unresolved plot, and it’s also very easy to skip over several biomes and their respective foes based on the route you take. Though it’s a celebratory title, those who played the previous games to death may find the recap tiresome and will just want to get to the new levels. World five has by far the most stages of any of the worlds (30 compared to 15 each for worlds 1-4, not counting bosses) and it’s all entirely original, high-quality stuff. Some of the challenges include taking down enemy generators that pump out creepy dancing dolls, dodging spikes that protrude out of hard blocks, dealing with magnets that change polarity at a moment’s notice, and sticky tiles that restrict your movement. Once you’ve beaten the game, you can use the world map to see what levels you’ve completed and pick your desired starting point. If you manage to beat every single level and achieve 100% completion, you unlock perks like a new game + mode of sorts that rearranges the locations of power-upsand the Gold Bomber for multiplayer.

Super Bomberman 5 doesn’t push the Super Famicom to its limits, but it does take the opportunity to freshen up the Bomberman aesthetic with a slightly different art direction. Bomberman himself looks thinner, lankier, and sleeker, similar to the look he would end up using in games like Bomberman 64 (the Japan-exclusive 2000 one) and the Bomberman Land series. Louies have finally returned and though their abilities are mostly the same, they feature far more diverse looks beyond color swaps. The line bomb Louie is a magician who pulls the bombs out of a hat, the jumping one uses a pogo stick, and the one that dashes forward is now a large Louie that rolls along the ground. There’s even a new evil Louie with spiked accessories (reminiscent of Boshi in Super Mario RPG) called Warui that’s reserved for some of the Fiendish Bombers to use against you. It’s a shame these particular Louies aren’t carried forward because their designs are great across the board.

Multiplayer works similarly to how it did in Super Bomberman 4 with a variety of levels to choose from and your playable characters being limited to Bomberman and the villains of the week. The ideas offered in each level have been done before, including elements like conveyor belts, roofs that obscure the action, spotlights, high-speed zones, and bomb redirection, but they’re still just as enjoyable and effective at encouraging chaos as they always have been. The game has ten maps by default, but three more are unlocked either by using an esoteric cheat code or by playing the golden cartridge version of the game that was advertised in and sold throughCoroCoro Comic. These maps throw in tiles that teleport players around, tunnels that only bombs can go through, and remix the minecart level to include said teleporters. The one feature unique to this game’s multiplayer is the ability to create a custom character using one of the default characters as a template. You can change their colors and assign items for them to start with, granting them a significant advantage over a standard character.

Super Bomberman 5 succeeds in sending off the Super Famicom in a way that does the illustrious platform justice. Its campaign is among the best in the franchise up to this point, its multiplayer lives up to what came before it (Saturn Bomberman aside), and its new ideas are more than one-off gimmicks that serve as the backbone of future games. It doesn’t offer the most “new content” compared to previous games, but what’s there is quality and the remixed elements arestill interesting within the contextof a different game. Going forward, new 2D Bomberman games would still be released; however, there is a noticeable shift in design and they often migrate to portable platforms, making this particular game feel like the end of an era.

Links

https://www.zoidsland.com/1rebyu-/koro97-3.html – A scan of the March 1997 issue of Monthly CoroCoro Comic that shows the gold cartridge version of Super Bomberman 5

https://web.archive.org/web/20090417053423/http://www.hudson.co.jp/gamenavi/gamedb/softinfo/supabom5/rooi.html – Archived version of the Hudson Soft website for the game that shows off the new Louies

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/snes/562899-super-bomberman-5/map/17193-zone-map – Gamefaqs map by zfreeman that shows how every level connects

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