SUPER BOMBERMAN R
Mostly a super bummer, man
The multiplayer mode that allows for classic Bomberman matches1 between four players on PlayStation 4 is already reason enough to want Super Bomberman R in your library. However, it might be the only reason you’d want it in your library, and considering that, the price tag might put you off impulse-buying it. These are standard battle mode matches, as you’d expect from Bomberman, where four bombers2 try to blow each other up in grid mazes. There’s also a new interesting twist: Grand Prix mode, which adds a 3v3 team element.
There is something in the game titled ‘story mode’ – a thinly veiled excuse to put you in some drab Bomberman mazes and make you accomplish goals like killing every enemy, activating a number of switches, or collecting some keys. As you progress through each stage in a world your power-ups carry over – these being of a similar sort to those you would collect in multiplayer: a bigger length on your bomb blasts, being able to drop more bombs at a time, and so on. Reach the end and you’ll have a boss battle against one of the Five Dastardly Bombers, who will then unleash a larger boss upon defeat, and they’re usually a bit of a pain to deal with. Co-op makes it marginally more fun.
The cute visual style of the cutscenes aside, the story mode is just plain ugly. For some reason, while battle mode includes some cool, cartoon-style maps, the story mode’s environments are just bland, presented in an awkward notquite-bird’s-eye view, and mostly just grey machinery and dull forests. Basic at best, boring at worst. Oscar Taylor-Kent