Bomberman Generation

Bomberman must retrieve the stolen Bomb Elements from the Bandits!

NA release: 5th June 2002
JP release: 27th June 2002
EU release: 6th December 2002
Developer: Game Arts
Publisher: Hudson Soft (JP), Majesco (NA), Vivendi (EU)
NGC Magazine Score: 70%
Mods Used: Widescreen Code

Continuing the trend of Bomberman games having no consistency, Bomberman Generation (which sounds strange without an “s” at the end – NGC Magazine and other publications accidentally added the s) sports a rather lovely cel-shaded visual style that works rather well for the franchise. Unfortunately, this is also another poor single-player game, bringing back one thing I hated about Bomberman 64: circular bombs. It’s much harder to judge the blast radius of these and don’t get close to the range of the classic plus shaped bombs.

These bombs make it annoying to hit enemies, which tend to just wander about in random patterns, rarely actually reacting to Bomberman – to the point that you may as well just walk past most of them. The various bomb types are also not often used for puzzles. There are a few interesting features, like powers being upgraded by strange creatures you find. I also felt like the camera was far too close.

Thankfully, the multiplayer mode is nothing like the singleplayer, other than the cel-shaded look. It’s classic Bomberman, and it’s still a ton of fun. Each stage has its own features – such as warps, conveyer belts and one frantic stage which features no blocks and everyone starts with fully powered bombs. It’s a ton of fun, even with CPU players.

It’s a shame they didn’t focus more on this gameplay for the main game, as it could have enhanced it a lot. While it’s admirable that they keep trying new things for Bomberman, I think that it would be much better if they used classic Bomberman as a template and thought up new ways of integrating that into single-player.

Fun

If you have to play alone, then at least Bomberman Generations offers computer-controlled opponents of various skill levels, as well as a selection of game variations – none of which work quite as intuitively as the plain old original mode. There’s a one-player adventure mode too, involving puzzles that don’t bear much resemblance to the pure-and-simple mechanics of the battle game.
Martin Kitts, NGC Magazine #76

Remake or remaster?

A Bomberman collection would be good.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Bomberman Generation.