This review contains spoilers
Bomberman was one of those franchises that I didn’t get into until I think the beginning of 2017. I always knew of the dude but never really sat down to play his games. Since then I’ve played a decent amount of them but nothing amazing. Some of the games I really enjoy like Bomberman 94 but Super Bomberman R was a weird one for me. I’d only had the first Super Famicom game beaten for the series so I wasn’t really aware of what it got wrong in fact it took me until playing more games to realize what it did do wrong. I still have it as a 7/10 and idk if that’ll ever change because I don’t feel like replaying it. When the sequel was announced via a Nintendo Direct, I was disappointed and it made me say something that didn’t age well but I’ll save that till the end. I just wanted something brand new and not more of the same. I wasn’t going to buy it at first but I like Bomberman so I thought why not, surely it’ll be good!
Now it should be noted this review will mostly be about the story mode. I’m going to get the story out of the way because the story itself is decent and I’d argue it’s better than the story of the previous game. I do like the new villain but my only gripe is the story is very been there, done that when it comes to what happens in the later half. The game also decides to not really give much until a big lore dump by the end. There are logs you can read but I’m dumb and didn’t read them. Maybe it was because of the actual story mode that’ll go over but I didn’t really feel much watching the cutscenes. I’m also sick of the whole, most of the team is bad at saving the day besides White Bomber they keep doing. They also feel very oddly placed at times like they weren’t sure where to place them all. While new characters are great, it’s a shame there’s no Dastardly Bombers because I saw them on the box art wondering what they’d be doing. They’re also in the credits for some reason. Pretty Bomber is also just gone entirely from the story, what happened to her?
The story mode in this game has you traveling through 3 worlds as White Bomber to rescue a species called the Ellon. The rooms are structured similar to a normal level but to be more open. You also no longer collect power ups as it’s now given to you via level ups. Grab EXP from enemies or soft blocks to level up to 15 times. You even can get more parts to use for the Castle mode and more extra lives. Be warned that you’ll start back at level 1 at the start of each world. Sometimes you’ll also need Ellons to open up warps for the area or to go to challenges to get more Ellons. The challenges are okay but there’s many of the ones where you just have to place bombs in the right spot. I think having these be more like how Bomberman levels used to be or maybe having battles would have been a cooler idea. That’s really all there is to this mode when doing each 3 worlds as besides the gimmicks here and there, you’ll be doing the same thing everytime. Even the enemy variety is probably one of the lowest I’ve seen in the franchise, even doing a couple of variants despite again the very low enemy count. Fighting enemies also just isn’t that fun when they are in the more open areas. Another disappointing thing is there’s no way to get new bombs so the only non stat rising powerups you get are the punch glove, the kick, and the throw glove.
Sometimes when you reach a new room, you’ll be reported to come back as these species called Lugion have come to steal an item you found earlier that’s needed for the Ellons. This is where the new Castle Mode comes in where you need to protect the treasure from the Lugion. They need to collect keys to obtain them and you need to fend them off for about 3 minutes. You’ll also be given a special weapon, the first being a laser, second being a sword, and lastly a barrier that can prevent going through a pathway or even the treasure. Now you may think that sounds hectic and entertaining but sadly the AI for the Lugion is so horrible that you don’t have to try for any of them meaning they can feel like a slog to get through. You know you’re gonna win but it just feels like it takes forever. They eventually have like 18 people on their team and they still can’t play confidently. You can customize your castle to make it optimal to stop them but I only ever used it once in each world because again, there’s really no reason to get experimental with it. What’s worse is if you’re just going ahead to maybe get an Ellon to backtrack to open a warp, you’ll be alerted and have to return, you can’t explore when this happens and I wish they gave you a warning, I got screwed over by it so many times.
You also sometimes have to be the attacker and get the treasure from the Lugions. You’ll work with the other Bomberman Brothers to get it. These are very easy as again, the AI is stupid. I could finish the very last one and show the whole thing in a clip which can only go up to 30 seconds on Switch. I’m sure it’s more fun with real people but it just feels nothing to me here.I never wanted to play it again afterwards, especially with AI. Also why can’t the other people on my team get the treasure, if you let one of them get to it, you lose! What is it because White Bomber said he needed to do it himself and feels ashamed? Also you actually get warned for these ones before entering making me wonder why doesn’t the other ones do this!
You’ll also fight bosses at the end of each world. They are awful. They’re not only boring but they take forever and have such simple and easy patterns that you’re more likely to die from scattered enemies. You want to hit them a bunch and then grab Ellons to put them into a cannon to attack the boss. This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t feel so uninteresting. They have attacks that I’m not sure who would avoid dodging them, especially the 2nd time around. Even worse, the game makes you refight them all at the end of the game with a boss rush, WHY!? Even the final boss is painfully easy. I only died once because I didn’t realize the size of his hitbox when it started. Probably some of the worst bosses I’ve seen in the series so far.
The single player at best is just boring, it’s not the worst thing but I don’t feel much from it. You then got multiplayer which I didn’t do much of where you can do the modes from the first and second game along with the battle mode from Online that’s now been taken down. Sadly they didn’t fix the Rooey problem where it’s only the green one and no additional abilities. For god's sake, they did this back in their debut game, how do the team not fix this. The roster is also mostly Konami guest stars and I couldn't care less and some of them are just awful. Who the hell even is Old Snake? Is that a thing? Does anyone know? I don’t care enough to look it up. Seeing Richter Belmont Bomber just made me wish I was playing Rondo of Blood again. We don’t even have Max back which is such a shame, I’m not the biggest lore person when it comes to Bomberman but it’s a shame to still see it be so ignored. It’s especially jarring when Bombergirl doesn’t do this and that’s a degenerate fanservice waifu game. Also why the hell is there a Bean Bomber from Fall Guys? Really Konami? This is so lame.
There’s also Online which I didn’t even do because I don’t have my ethernet connected at the moment and I don’t wanna lie about the online being ass because it could just be my fault. I did notice there’s a thing called a Season? Idk what that means, I think Fortnite does stuff like that. I also noticed modes go through hourly rotations so when I was doing battles, I couldn’t even do normal online battles. Also I know Steam reviews aren’t the highest caliber of quality but some said there’s actually bots in the Online meaning there’s barely anyone playing this game! It even has crossplay which shocked the hell out of me. You can’t even do public lobbies, couldn’t you do that in the first game? I can’t remember. You can also buy tons of outfits and stuff at the shop but I ain’t bothering with that, Bomberman looks stupid in Richter’s outfit from Symphony of the Night anyway.
The game looks awful for a 2023 game. It still looks like it was made the same year as the first one which was 6 years ago! Also do not get this on the Switch as it looks even worse and the framerate isn’t even good. Ok idk if my switch is broken or something but for the first half of the game, it was running horribly. Like we’re talking maybe choppy 20 FPS. It was even giving me a headache but then by the 2nd half it never did it again even in the areas where it was that bad. What happened? It still doesn’t run that well anyway but still, it made me have to play Smash Ultimate just to see if maybe it was my Switch which I still don’t know because that still ran fine like usual. Loading can also take forever sometimes like almost 30 seconds. The shop when buying characters I swear runs at like 15 FPS. It even crashed after I finished shopping! The music is once again just sounds like noise to me because I still don’t feel anything from it like the previous game. It’s not bad but I wouldn’t listen to it outside of the game. They also for some reason reuse the same vocal theme for the credits that was in the previous game. The mix for it was different but it pretty much is the same song which is lame and I just wanna point out there was a section in the shop for music and one of the only Bomberman songs from a past game was the main theme from Bomber King. WHO EVEN REMEMBERS THAT GAME BESIDES ME!? The voice acting is also atrocious once again. How the hell has the guy who voiced X and Flame Hyenard in X7 still can’t voice Bomberman well at all in the year 2023!? I really hope it’s just bad voice direction. The voice acting in general got so bad I had to switch to Japanese which thankfully you can just switch the voices and it still isn’t good. It’s like really generic Japanese voice acting to me but I’m not a good opinion for stuff like that. The presentation is just a mess and the Switch version only makes it worse.
Super Bomberman R 2 is a disappointment. Do I have buyer’s remorse for this game? Maybe, I’m not really sure. It’s not the worst example of it I’ve had before but the game is nothing special. At best, it’s decent but at its worst, it’s really boring. I can’t in good faith recommend the game unless you’re just a big Bomberman fan. Really the game just makes me sad thinking about it. You know what I called this game before it came out, when they announced it? I called it the “Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 of Bomberman” , a safe sequel that barely does anything to improve on its predecessor because it sold a lot on the Switch. Look I do think this one warrants being a sequel a little more over PPT2 now that I’ve played it but it annoys me that these companies do not realize why it even sold in the first place. I’m going to say it, it only sold well before because there was barely anything out on the Switch. I get Bomberman is not some super niche series but Konami should have seen this coming with this title. It was dead on arrival, it got barely any advertisements and most people were just saying how no one is talking about it or not even knowing it existed. Super Bomberman R 2 might live down as the game to show Konami isn’t listening and probably never will. I’d say wait for a price drop if you can, some may like this game and for the record that’s 100% OK I won’t shame you but to me all it does is painfully remind me how much I despise Konami.
F*ck you Konami, I hope karma hits you hard someday for doing this series disservice!
Now it should be noted this review will mostly be about the story mode. I’m going to get the story out of the way because the story itself is decent and I’d argue it’s better than the story of the previous game. I do like the new villain but my only gripe is the story is very been there, done that when it comes to what happens in the later half. The game also decides to not really give much until a big lore dump by the end. There are logs you can read but I’m dumb and didn’t read them. Maybe it was because of the actual story mode that’ll go over but I didn’t really feel much watching the cutscenes. I’m also sick of the whole, most of the team is bad at saving the day besides White Bomber they keep doing. They also feel very oddly placed at times like they weren’t sure where to place them all. While new characters are great, it’s a shame there’s no Dastardly Bombers because I saw them on the box art wondering what they’d be doing. They’re also in the credits for some reason. Pretty Bomber is also just gone entirely from the story, what happened to her?
The story mode in this game has you traveling through 3 worlds as White Bomber to rescue a species called the Ellon. The rooms are structured similar to a normal level but to be more open. You also no longer collect power ups as it’s now given to you via level ups. Grab EXP from enemies or soft blocks to level up to 15 times. You even can get more parts to use for the Castle mode and more extra lives. Be warned that you’ll start back at level 1 at the start of each world. Sometimes you’ll also need Ellons to open up warps for the area or to go to challenges to get more Ellons. The challenges are okay but there’s many of the ones where you just have to place bombs in the right spot. I think having these be more like how Bomberman levels used to be or maybe having battles would have been a cooler idea. That’s really all there is to this mode when doing each 3 worlds as besides the gimmicks here and there, you’ll be doing the same thing everytime. Even the enemy variety is probably one of the lowest I’ve seen in the franchise, even doing a couple of variants despite again the very low enemy count. Fighting enemies also just isn’t that fun when they are in the more open areas. Another disappointing thing is there’s no way to get new bombs so the only non stat rising powerups you get are the punch glove, the kick, and the throw glove.
Sometimes when you reach a new room, you’ll be reported to come back as these species called Lugion have come to steal an item you found earlier that’s needed for the Ellons. This is where the new Castle Mode comes in where you need to protect the treasure from the Lugion. They need to collect keys to obtain them and you need to fend them off for about 3 minutes. You’ll also be given a special weapon, the first being a laser, second being a sword, and lastly a barrier that can prevent going through a pathway or even the treasure. Now you may think that sounds hectic and entertaining but sadly the AI for the Lugion is so horrible that you don’t have to try for any of them meaning they can feel like a slog to get through. You know you’re gonna win but it just feels like it takes forever. They eventually have like 18 people on their team and they still can’t play confidently. You can customize your castle to make it optimal to stop them but I only ever used it once in each world because again, there’s really no reason to get experimental with it. What’s worse is if you’re just going ahead to maybe get an Ellon to backtrack to open a warp, you’ll be alerted and have to return, you can’t explore when this happens and I wish they gave you a warning, I got screwed over by it so many times.
You also sometimes have to be the attacker and get the treasure from the Lugions. You’ll work with the other Bomberman Brothers to get it. These are very easy as again, the AI is stupid. I could finish the very last one and show the whole thing in a clip which can only go up to 30 seconds on Switch. I’m sure it’s more fun with real people but it just feels nothing to me here.I never wanted to play it again afterwards, especially with AI. Also why can’t the other people on my team get the treasure, if you let one of them get to it, you lose! What is it because White Bomber said he needed to do it himself and feels ashamed? Also you actually get warned for these ones before entering making me wonder why doesn’t the other ones do this!
You’ll also fight bosses at the end of each world. They are awful. They’re not only boring but they take forever and have such simple and easy patterns that you’re more likely to die from scattered enemies. You want to hit them a bunch and then grab Ellons to put them into a cannon to attack the boss. This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t feel so uninteresting. They have attacks that I’m not sure who would avoid dodging them, especially the 2nd time around. Even worse, the game makes you refight them all at the end of the game with a boss rush, WHY!? Even the final boss is painfully easy. I only died once because I didn’t realize the size of his hitbox when it started. Probably some of the worst bosses I’ve seen in the series so far.
The single player at best is just boring, it’s not the worst thing but I don’t feel much from it. You then got multiplayer which I didn’t do much of where you can do the modes from the first and second game along with the battle mode from Online that’s now been taken down. Sadly they didn’t fix the Rooey problem where it’s only the green one and no additional abilities. For god's sake, they did this back in their debut game, how do the team not fix this. The roster is also mostly Konami guest stars and I couldn't care less and some of them are just awful. Who the hell even is Old Snake? Is that a thing? Does anyone know? I don’t care enough to look it up. Seeing Richter Belmont Bomber just made me wish I was playing Rondo of Blood again. We don’t even have Max back which is such a shame, I’m not the biggest lore person when it comes to Bomberman but it’s a shame to still see it be so ignored. It’s especially jarring when Bombergirl doesn’t do this and that’s a degenerate fanservice waifu game. Also why the hell is there a Bean Bomber from Fall Guys? Really Konami? This is so lame.
There’s also Online which I didn’t even do because I don’t have my ethernet connected at the moment and I don’t wanna lie about the online being ass because it could just be my fault. I did notice there’s a thing called a Season? Idk what that means, I think Fortnite does stuff like that. I also noticed modes go through hourly rotations so when I was doing battles, I couldn’t even do normal online battles. Also I know Steam reviews aren’t the highest caliber of quality but some said there’s actually bots in the Online meaning there’s barely anyone playing this game! It even has crossplay which shocked the hell out of me. You can’t even do public lobbies, couldn’t you do that in the first game? I can’t remember. You can also buy tons of outfits and stuff at the shop but I ain’t bothering with that, Bomberman looks stupid in Richter’s outfit from Symphony of the Night anyway.
The game looks awful for a 2023 game. It still looks like it was made the same year as the first one which was 6 years ago! Also do not get this on the Switch as it looks even worse and the framerate isn’t even good. Ok idk if my switch is broken or something but for the first half of the game, it was running horribly. Like we’re talking maybe choppy 20 FPS. It was even giving me a headache but then by the 2nd half it never did it again even in the areas where it was that bad. What happened? It still doesn’t run that well anyway but still, it made me have to play Smash Ultimate just to see if maybe it was my Switch which I still don’t know because that still ran fine like usual. Loading can also take forever sometimes like almost 30 seconds. The shop when buying characters I swear runs at like 15 FPS. It even crashed after I finished shopping! The music is once again just sounds like noise to me because I still don’t feel anything from it like the previous game. It’s not bad but I wouldn’t listen to it outside of the game. They also for some reason reuse the same vocal theme for the credits that was in the previous game. The mix for it was different but it pretty much is the same song which is lame and I just wanna point out there was a section in the shop for music and one of the only Bomberman songs from a past game was the main theme from Bomber King. WHO EVEN REMEMBERS THAT GAME BESIDES ME!? The voice acting is also atrocious once again. How the hell has the guy who voiced X and Flame Hyenard in X7 still can’t voice Bomberman well at all in the year 2023!? I really hope it’s just bad voice direction. The voice acting in general got so bad I had to switch to Japanese which thankfully you can just switch the voices and it still isn’t good. It’s like really generic Japanese voice acting to me but I’m not a good opinion for stuff like that. The presentation is just a mess and the Switch version only makes it worse.
Super Bomberman R 2 is a disappointment. Do I have buyer’s remorse for this game? Maybe, I’m not really sure. It’s not the worst example of it I’ve had before but the game is nothing special. At best, it’s decent but at its worst, it’s really boring. I can’t in good faith recommend the game unless you’re just a big Bomberman fan. Really the game just makes me sad thinking about it. You know what I called this game before it came out, when they announced it? I called it the “Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 of Bomberman” , a safe sequel that barely does anything to improve on its predecessor because it sold a lot on the Switch. Look I do think this one warrants being a sequel a little more over PPT2 now that I’ve played it but it annoys me that these companies do not realize why it even sold in the first place. I’m going to say it, it only sold well before because there was barely anything out on the Switch. I get Bomberman is not some super niche series but Konami should have seen this coming with this title. It was dead on arrival, it got barely any advertisements and most people were just saying how no one is talking about it or not even knowing it existed. Super Bomberman R 2 might live down as the game to show Konami isn’t listening and probably never will. I’d say wait for a price drop if you can, some may like this game and for the record that’s 100% OK I won’t shame you but to me all it does is painfully remind me how much I despise Konami.
F*ck you Konami, I hope karma hits you hard someday for doing this series disservice!
Angel_Arle
6 months ago