Super Bomberman R Review: Same Bombs At a High Price

Welcome to the wonderful world of Bomberman where the object is simple, don’t die. Bomberman have been one of the fun party games that always draw you in for the long haul, and now on the Nintendo Switch players can blow each other up on the go. Super Bomberman R, standing for Rebirth/Returns comes back as the same old classic that fans of the series love and enjoy. That’s a good thing and a bad thing.

Bomberman R comes equipped with a story mode as you attempt to protect your planet, Planet Bomber, and five others from Emperor Buggler and his army known as the Five Dastardly Bombers. Keeping the traditional play style, rather than only focusing on bombers there different types of enemies and obstacles required to blow up and/or activate to complete multiple waves leading up to the Dastardly Bombers.

The story is somewhat entertaining pertaining to the cutscenes, gameplay however loses its replay value rather quickly. Even with the twist of blowing up more than just other bombers, the sandbox environment is simply too limited.

The other mode available is VS Battle, the traditional mode for Bomberman where you play up to 8 characters in total with a simple concept, be the last man standing. You have the option between multiplayer (all on one system), local battle (separate Switch consoles) and online battle. Each map presents an obstacle making each takedown a bit of a challenge as you must maneuver between environmental, bricks and of course the occasional bomb.

Time isn’t necessarily your friend either as the final minute in each round becomes sudden death with the walls caving in block by block until the victor remains or the round ends in a draw. In total the Nintendo Switch allows up to players when enabling horizontal mode and 8 maps initially. As you win you earn coins that will eventually allow you to make purchases for additional stages and hats.