A Review: Bomberman 64 - The Second Attack!, N64 1999
Bomberman 64: The Second Attack is an action-adventure game and the direct sequel to Bomberman 64. A game that was never released in Europe, the only way to play this game is to download a ROM and play through an emulator. This is due to a combination of factors, such as releasing late in the N64's life cycle, minimal advertising, and medicore reviews. Thus making this game one of the rarest titles ever for the Nintendo 64. The play is much the same as the first game and sees the player once again taking on the role of Bomberman. This time around, though, the story is set after the events of the battles with Altair and Sirius and takes on a much more platformer-like style.
I felt that this game fell horribly flat on its face and with a sickening thud. It seemed that there was some sort of identity crisis going on with The Second Attack; it wanted to be so many different things but couldn't seem to do any of them particularly well. There were platformer elements that were more of a chore than an actual feature. The tiny scale of the various screens that this game had was annoying and meant that near-constant transitions were a must. Then, when you had to backtrack, the game never saved your progress from screen to screen and would respawn all the enemies and such, turning play into a boring, frustrating grind towards the end. Then there were battler/RPG elements that seemed to get in the way more than anything else. There were also item collections throughout that made little to no sense for me and felt like something of an afterthought. I will say that I did like the new bombs that could be used but found that after a while, it was just easier to pick one type and 'get good' with it until you were forced to use another. It was horribly frustrating that no matter how you ended the previous stage, Bomberman would always start a new one in his weakest form. Losing what could have been hours of effort finding the best bombs and upgrades just made me angry. The first time that this happened, I thought that it was a bug, but then I learned that it was an intended feature and that the game was designed that way. Boss battles were unnecessarily hard, and at times they were invulnerable to the players attacks until a certain point in their attack sequences, which made some of those battles near impossible. I also found that this game was decidedly shorter than the first, with less to do and see. I liked Pommy and thought that he added in some interesting new ideas and gameplay mechanics to explore, but that there just wasn't enough of a use for him. I also really appreciated that Bomberman had an actual health gauge in this game; it was nice not getting one shotted by everything. Feeding Pommy to get him to grow into useful incarnations was a nice touch, but again, I felt that it was underused and somewhat unbalanced too. I quickly realised that it was just easier to not bother unless I absolutely had to, and I felt that was a shame and a waste of a possibly great concept.
Visually, this game was a solid step down the looks ladder and was borderline ugly at times. The textures and models looked like a Gameboy port up to the N64, with almost all in-game objects losing a few polygons. During close-ups and in-game cinematics, the various assets blurred and lost distinction. Yes, the enemy's, Pommy and Bomberman looked a little better, but everything else seemed to suffer as a result. The smaller screens or 'rooms' were of a generally lower quality too and very much appeared to have constant repeating textures tiled around with no variation. For want of a better way to put it, they looked lifeless and dull. The water on various levels looked more like grey sludge than actual water, and the shadow and lighting effects were also of poorer quality. For me, this whole game was a graphical downgrade compared to the original, with more effort given to the characters and NPC's at the detriment of all else.
Overall, I feel that this game had some big boots to fill and ultimately failed to do so. Is this the worst thing that you could play? No, but it is far from the best.
4/10 – Could've Been Better!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
I felt that this game fell horribly flat on its face and with a sickening thud. It seemed that there was some sort of identity crisis going on with The Second Attack; it wanted to be so many different things but couldn't seem to do any of them particularly well. There were platformer elements that were more of a chore than an actual feature. The tiny scale of the various screens that this game had was annoying and meant that near-constant transitions were a must. Then, when you had to backtrack, the game never saved your progress from screen to screen and would respawn all the enemies and such, turning play into a boring, frustrating grind towards the end. Then there were battler/RPG elements that seemed to get in the way more than anything else. There were also item collections throughout that made little to no sense for me and felt like something of an afterthought. I will say that I did like the new bombs that could be used but found that after a while, it was just easier to pick one type and 'get good' with it until you were forced to use another. It was horribly frustrating that no matter how you ended the previous stage, Bomberman would always start a new one in his weakest form. Losing what could have been hours of effort finding the best bombs and upgrades just made me angry. The first time that this happened, I thought that it was a bug, but then I learned that it was an intended feature and that the game was designed that way. Boss battles were unnecessarily hard, and at times they were invulnerable to the players attacks until a certain point in their attack sequences, which made some of those battles near impossible. I also found that this game was decidedly shorter than the first, with less to do and see. I liked Pommy and thought that he added in some interesting new ideas and gameplay mechanics to explore, but that there just wasn't enough of a use for him. I also really appreciated that Bomberman had an actual health gauge in this game; it was nice not getting one shotted by everything. Feeding Pommy to get him to grow into useful incarnations was a nice touch, but again, I felt that it was underused and somewhat unbalanced too. I quickly realised that it was just easier to not bother unless I absolutely had to, and I felt that was a shame and a waste of a possibly great concept.
Visually, this game was a solid step down the looks ladder and was borderline ugly at times. The textures and models looked like a Gameboy port up to the N64, with almost all in-game objects losing a few polygons. During close-ups and in-game cinematics, the various assets blurred and lost distinction. Yes, the enemy's, Pommy and Bomberman looked a little better, but everything else seemed to suffer as a result. The smaller screens or 'rooms' were of a generally lower quality too and very much appeared to have constant repeating textures tiled around with no variation. For want of a better way to put it, they looked lifeless and dull. The water on various levels looked more like grey sludge than actual water, and the shadow and lighting effects were also of poorer quality. For me, this whole game was a graphical downgrade compared to the original, with more effort given to the characters and NPC's at the detriment of all else.
Overall, I feel that this game had some big boots to fill and ultimately failed to do so. Is this the worst thing that you could play? No, but it is far from the best.
4/10 – Could've Been Better!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ
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