Bomberman :
Party Edition
Ultra Cool Game #2
Type of Game
An attempt to get the word ‘Bomberman’ into the dictionary, with the definition: unspeakable chaos with a tendency towards apocalyptic maelstrom.
Release date on our Machines
July 1999, around the same time as the coronation of Mohamed VI in Morocco. No connection? No connection, but there must have been a... PARTY!
Developer
Metro Corporation, a Japanese studio that has developed almost no other Bomberman games, but rather a few Bust a Move, the only games I know of from their CV.
Publisher
Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Europe) Ltd. Hudson Soft in Japan, to put a familiar name to the Bomberman licence.
Bomberman Party Edition : NOWHERE TO BE FOUND ! WHAT THE HECK ??? How could such a banger disappear into oblivion?
Thinking he was very clever, my father-in-law bought this game for my little sister Rebecca Vestibule, no doubt in the hope that she would have fun without me, and that I would move away from the PlayStation, which was HIS console for HIM! Darn it! Unfortunately, Bomberman can only be fully appreciated when played with others. It wasn't hard to guess, though, how dumb was he, this guy? Soon, with my cadet, we couldn't get through a day without having a duel. And as she was the one asking for it, well, her dad wasn't going to upset her, was he? Well, I'm only guessing, since he would never have admitted such a strategy to me. Maybe there was no ill intent or ulterior motive behind this purchase. If in doubt... given the man's history, and the look on his face when I was playing with his daughter... it didn't take much thinking to come to this kind of conclusion. At least, thanks to step-dad, I've finally given this franchise the attention it deserved.
Mission Failed
Apart from a short playtime on Nintendo 64, and even shorter on Super NES, I really hadn't explored the concept enough. With Party Edition, I was even going to explore it a little too much. Except... too bad for me, my step-dad ended up finding a way to put an end to Rebecca and I's shared enthusiasm. He had to buy Spyro the Dragon and A Bug's Life, spending around seven hundred francs to do it. Serves you right, mate.
​Bazarman: Perfect Emulsion
Who still needs me to explain what Bomberman is all about? You drop bombs on the ground to smash walls that release bonuses, which in turn improve the bombs (or the avatar itself), which can then blow up opponents, causing even more mayhem. In this title, which wears its Party Edition suffix very well, I can just imagine the developers coming up with the idea of the century: ‘Hey, what if we added as many things as possible to the game, mixed everything up and put it on sale without looking at the results first? The outcome: a complete mess. Dozens of different power-ups that change the gameplay for better or worse, animals you can climb on that have their own abilities, characters with special powers that are not balanced at all, levels with treadmills, teleporters, secret passages, interactive zones and... Even when you die, you can still throw bombs from outside the arena! And resurrect if you shoot an opponent that way! Who's hyperventilating?
In fact, some of the features had been around since the 16-bit era, but I hadn't played them enough to remember. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The avalanche of content is just too much fun, as are the customisable options, the championships taking place over several stages, and the ability to play with up to five people at the same time! Yes, with equipment that no one else had, but even with two humans and three AIs... To! Tal! Blast! The deeper you dive into the chaos, the more fun you have. The devs were right to go all out. You could set off some pretty serious chain reactions, like planting ten ultra-powerful bombs in a row, kicking two or three of them to send them to the other end of the arena, grabbing another one and hurling it at an enemy's head, then fleeing to the other end of the field with the jet-pack-equipped character. Calm eventually returned, but only because no-one was left standing. Still, everyone had a great time.
Brothelman : Potential Exasperation
I don't know if it's possible to define a specific atmosphere, as no levels resemble another. Well yes, generally speaking, you're in for a frenzied ride all the time. Dozens of things are moving around the screen, fire is burning everywhere, and lighting effects are overlapping, blurring your vision. You need to have had a good night's sleep before jumping in. And you have to like the Kawaii style, with a symphony of high-pitched voices chirping even louder than the bombs. It all flows together perfectly, but some people might have a hard time if they're not warned beforehand. Bomberman is one of those games you pick up in three seconds, but can spend a lifetime perfecting. All the more so when the different arenas force you to adapt your way of playing via a unique feature of their own. I loved the one where you could hide in tubes (or throw bombs into them, huhuhu), the ice level that cracks in places, or the one where a giant robot is trying to crush everyone.
It's impossible to get bored of this ecstatic version of Bomberman for several weeks. And for veterans of the licence already allergic to sprites made up of more than three pixels, the single-player mode already offered a trip back in time, allowing you to play in the conditions of the 1987 NES version.
But why are we listening ?
Unsurprisingly, the music was composed by a clown on acid who loved children (or hated them, more likely). No offense, June Chikuma, but you've got to admit... well, yeah. Some of the tracks are not only short and repetitive, they're also very hard to take! The others may last longer, but they hurt just as much. Add to that the incessant sounds of explosions, the characters who won't stop bawling... Er, eh, oh! My eardrums are bleeding, how come? Not because I'm hearing bad sound, but because it's spinning out of control! Anyway, um... it fits in with the cataclysmic theme of the game, that's the point, isn't it? Didn't I say that earlier? I'm not sure of anything any more, and what I need right now is silence and tranquillity. I have to admit one thing, though: whether the tracks sound carefree, dangerous or love of life, they all give you a real feeling of excitement. There's no denying that, even if you plug your ears, close your eyes and shout ‘Blah, blah, blah, I can't hear a thing!’ If I have a bit of trouble listening to them when they're jumping out at me in my video game nostalgia playlist launched in random mode, I wouldn't change them for anything else in the middle of a game of Bomberman. I know, I'll probably never play it again, but you don't have to play anything to make up your mind, otherwise you might as well leave this place straight away.
Banquetman : Please cut it short
At my father-in-law's parents' house, family meals lasted an eternity! And on a very regular basis at that. Very quickly, with my sisters Elena and Rebecca, and my cousin Walter, we had to figure out how to keep busy so as not to fall into juvenile depression. Fortunately, there was a maze-like garden to explore and a huge basement full of cans of Oasis (which we couldn't explore too much, though), as well as a kitchen with a TV and built-in videocassette player. Luckily, the grown-ups kept the kids in this same kitchen so they could eat without having them around. Except that watching Beauty and the Beast three times in a row wasn't enough for us after a while. When I say that the meals were never-ending, we arrived at eleven in the morning and left at half past seven in the evening. When we asked to take the PlayStation with us, the parents didn't protest too much; no doubt they thought we'd leave them alone even more, instead of whining at them that we were bored out of our minds, even though they were only eating their fourth starter. In short, Bomberman literally saved our lives.
Sony's console has become a kind of extension of ourselves. If we were unlucky enough to forget it, our day would fall into a huge pit of despair. Or the even more frustrating variant; remembering to pick up the console and realising that there's no CD-ROM in it, once you've plugged it in and all. Then, when Rebecca imposed her Spyro, A Bug's Life and the like, with dad-in-law's agreement that we couldn't take back control, we decided never to attend those long Sundays of food and drink again. Before giving in, I tried to suggest Street Fighter Ex Plus Alpha to relieve some of the pressure, or Final Fantasy VIII in the hope of validating a quest or two, but no one wanted to watch me farm for half the adult meal. A beautiful page of our childhood was being turned. A very, very long one.
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