Known in the West as Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, it's always been weird to me how this is often a 500 yen game in Japan but in the West it's easily in the $200-range. So last weekend I finally took the plunge on giving this game a go, as I'm really in the mood for some N64 stuff, I suppose. Now, I eventually realized with the help of TCRF that the Japanese and American versions are significantly different, and that was further driven home by looking at the HLTB time. The HLTB time for just beating the game was 6.5 hours, and this game easily took me over 20 hours to finish with the good ending in Japanese XD. This was definitely a game I didn't wanna let beat me, but it certainly was never something quite as bad as Maken X.
Baku Bomberman 2 is another in the series of more action-adventure spins on the Bomberman formula that Hudson became so obsessed with in the 5th console generation, and the 3rd of such games on the N64. Bomberman found an egg at some point and he brought it with him because he thought it was cool. Then, flying along in his spaceship, he gets sucked into a black hole and captured by a mysterious group known as the B.H.B. Gang. The egg hatches to reveal Pomyu, a little Kirby-like (extremely Kirby-like) alien who was just napping inside the egg and whom Bomberman has effectively unintentionally kidnapped XD. They fight a sentai-esque bad guy to escape this prison planet and begin their mission to fight the Seven Elemental Knights (the heads of the B.H.B.), destroy the black hole generators, and escape from this black hole dimension.
There's a really weird amount of text in this game for a Bomberman game, but I wouldn't say it's all bad. Some of it is quite weird, like there being a good and bad ending for the game each with its own final boss (and the conditions for activating each ending are just how you defeat the sub-boss in the final mission), and the credits being like 15-20 minutes long with the cutscene that happens after the final battle. Some of it is also quite funny, like how the Seven Elemental Knights all seem to hate each other and never get along despite being part of the same organization XD. But for the most part, it's silly, sentai fun with Bomberman fighting different campy elemental-themed bad guys. It's nothing to write home about, sure, but it's not a drag on the game either.
The game itself is made up of 8 stages which have a first and second part, with each part split by a boss fight against one of the Seven Elemental Knights. You beat a Knight, then use the new element you get from it to solve more puzzles between that and the puzzle room at the end where you need to destroy the black hole generator. The platforming (although given that Bomberman can't really jump, it's kinda odd to call them that) sections are generally pretty fun. Some of the puzzles are signposted terribly (particularly one in the final level regarding a lava pit), and I had to look up what to do/where to go more than once, but it has the same basic powerups of bombs, power, speed, remote detonation, throw, and kick that Bomberman usually has. If you keep an eye out and return to some past stages, you can even get armor that permanently gives you the throw, kick, and remote detonation powers! Although the remote detonation does deactivate during boss battles, unfortunately.
And the boss battles are the best but worst parts of the game, largely for reasons that were thankfully fixed in the English version. The bosses tend to have at least two forms, and all of them have a sort of super saiyan-looking charge up move they do when they get to low health that will instantly kill you if they hit you (ouch). The biggest problem the bosses have, in either version (so far as I can tell) is that their invincibility frames are utterly unfair garbage (particularly the wind boss). It makes hitting them really awkward and difficult to do, and that's already a difficult task when you have to hit them with only bombs that you can't remotely detonate. They're thankfully learnable and for the most part do have readable patterns.
I would say the final boss of the good ending is one of the best fights in the game in that regard. I was on voice chat with a friend at the time, and upon beating it I told her "this must be what people who like Dark Souls feel like with those games" with just how proud I was of myself that I stuck through it, learned the patterns, and conquered that final challenge. But there are also some bosses, most notably the final boss of the bad ending, who have nearly (or outright) undodgeable attacks and are horrible, unfun fights (the reason I went for the good ending in the first place is because I didn't see myself ever beating that bastard). On the whole, I would say the boss fights are the highlights of the game, but a combination of weird I-frames and sometimes painful backtracking to their locations sours that a fair bit.
Now would be as good a time as ever to clarify the significant changes made to the Western port of this game and explain the large differences between the HLTB times. One of the first big changes is that the Western game has a life system. While this may sound bad at first, the weird way it's implemented means it makes the game a lot easier and at the very least saves you a lot of time. In the Japanese version, whenever you die, you get a continue screen where you can back out to the world map (and lose all progress in the level) or continue from your last checkpoint (usually either the start of the level, or just after beating the mid-boss). There's also a really mean and unnecessary countdown timer on that screen that more than once sent me totally out of a level because I forgot it was there and looked away for a little bit too long XP. But in the Japanese version, you always lose your powerups when you activate one of these infinite continues. In the Western version, as long as you have an extra life to expend, you keep your powerups. This means you spend a lot less time going around re-collecting them before boss fights and hard enemy rooms.
The most significant change, however, is definitely the fact that Bomberman simply moves far faster in the Western release of the game. In the Japanese version, with a speed powerup (as only the first one you collect seems to do anything), you're just about barely fast enough to dodge what's coming at you, particularly in boss fights. The reason the bad ending final boss is so hard is that he has a rapid laser fire move that you just aren't fast enough to dodge, and lots of bosses have attacks that you need to barely juke them out of by doing hard-corners since they're so much faster than you when they do faster attacks. Moving faster means you not only die to bosses less (since you can dodge easier), but you also just move through the levels a lot faster too (it's genuinely like 75% to 100% faster than the Japanese version). For example, you can actually run fast enough to dodge the bad ending final boss' laser attacks in the Western version, where that just isn't ever possible in Japanese.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. While I did complain a fair bit about this game to friends over Discord and Slack in the course of playing it, I stuck with it because I was genuinely enjoying my time with it and really wanted to see it through to the end (even if that was at least partially because I just didn't want the game to beat me XD). The game isn't impossible in Japanese, but from everything I researched, the Western release definitely seems to be the version to go with if you're gonna play it. It's a 3D game typically rough for this time period, but it's closer to the "still enjoyable" end of the 3D-jank spectrum of 5th generation games. Certainly not for everyone, but worth a try via emulation if you want something a little different, and especially if you enjoyed the other N64 Bomberman games at all.
Baku Bomberman 2 is another in the series of more action-adventure spins on the Bomberman formula that Hudson became so obsessed with in the 5th console generation, and the 3rd of such games on the N64. Bomberman found an egg at some point and he brought it with him because he thought it was cool. Then, flying along in his spaceship, he gets sucked into a black hole and captured by a mysterious group known as the B.H.B. Gang. The egg hatches to reveal Pomyu, a little Kirby-like (extremely Kirby-like) alien who was just napping inside the egg and whom Bomberman has effectively unintentionally kidnapped XD. They fight a sentai-esque bad guy to escape this prison planet and begin their mission to fight the Seven Elemental Knights (the heads of the B.H.B.), destroy the black hole generators, and escape from this black hole dimension.
There's a really weird amount of text in this game for a Bomberman game, but I wouldn't say it's all bad. Some of it is quite weird, like there being a good and bad ending for the game each with its own final boss (and the conditions for activating each ending are just how you defeat the sub-boss in the final mission), and the credits being like 15-20 minutes long with the cutscene that happens after the final battle. Some of it is also quite funny, like how the Seven Elemental Knights all seem to hate each other and never get along despite being part of the same organization XD. But for the most part, it's silly, sentai fun with Bomberman fighting different campy elemental-themed bad guys. It's nothing to write home about, sure, but it's not a drag on the game either.
The game itself is made up of 8 stages which have a first and second part, with each part split by a boss fight against one of the Seven Elemental Knights. You beat a Knight, then use the new element you get from it to solve more puzzles between that and the puzzle room at the end where you need to destroy the black hole generator. The platforming (although given that Bomberman can't really jump, it's kinda odd to call them that) sections are generally pretty fun. Some of the puzzles are signposted terribly (particularly one in the final level regarding a lava pit), and I had to look up what to do/where to go more than once, but it has the same basic powerups of bombs, power, speed, remote detonation, throw, and kick that Bomberman usually has. If you keep an eye out and return to some past stages, you can even get armor that permanently gives you the throw, kick, and remote detonation powers! Although the remote detonation does deactivate during boss battles, unfortunately.
And the boss battles are the best but worst parts of the game, largely for reasons that were thankfully fixed in the English version. The bosses tend to have at least two forms, and all of them have a sort of super saiyan-looking charge up move they do when they get to low health that will instantly kill you if they hit you (ouch). The biggest problem the bosses have, in either version (so far as I can tell) is that their invincibility frames are utterly unfair garbage (particularly the wind boss). It makes hitting them really awkward and difficult to do, and that's already a difficult task when you have to hit them with only bombs that you can't remotely detonate. They're thankfully learnable and for the most part do have readable patterns.
I would say the final boss of the good ending is one of the best fights in the game in that regard. I was on voice chat with a friend at the time, and upon beating it I told her "this must be what people who like Dark Souls feel like with those games" with just how proud I was of myself that I stuck through it, learned the patterns, and conquered that final challenge. But there are also some bosses, most notably the final boss of the bad ending, who have nearly (or outright) undodgeable attacks and are horrible, unfun fights (the reason I went for the good ending in the first place is because I didn't see myself ever beating that bastard). On the whole, I would say the boss fights are the highlights of the game, but a combination of weird I-frames and sometimes painful backtracking to their locations sours that a fair bit.
Now would be as good a time as ever to clarify the significant changes made to the Western port of this game and explain the large differences between the HLTB times. One of the first big changes is that the Western game has a life system. While this may sound bad at first, the weird way it's implemented means it makes the game a lot easier and at the very least saves you a lot of time. In the Japanese version, whenever you die, you get a continue screen where you can back out to the world map (and lose all progress in the level) or continue from your last checkpoint (usually either the start of the level, or just after beating the mid-boss). There's also a really mean and unnecessary countdown timer on that screen that more than once sent me totally out of a level because I forgot it was there and looked away for a little bit too long XP. But in the Japanese version, you always lose your powerups when you activate one of these infinite continues. In the Western version, as long as you have an extra life to expend, you keep your powerups. This means you spend a lot less time going around re-collecting them before boss fights and hard enemy rooms.
The most significant change, however, is definitely the fact that Bomberman simply moves far faster in the Western release of the game. In the Japanese version, with a speed powerup (as only the first one you collect seems to do anything), you're just about barely fast enough to dodge what's coming at you, particularly in boss fights. The reason the bad ending final boss is so hard is that he has a rapid laser fire move that you just aren't fast enough to dodge, and lots of bosses have attacks that you need to barely juke them out of by doing hard-corners since they're so much faster than you when they do faster attacks. Moving faster means you not only die to bosses less (since you can dodge easier), but you also just move through the levels a lot faster too (it's genuinely like 75% to 100% faster than the Japanese version). For example, you can actually run fast enough to dodge the bad ending final boss' laser attacks in the Western version, where that just isn't ever possible in Japanese.
Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. While I did complain a fair bit about this game to friends over Discord and Slack in the course of playing it, I stuck with it because I was genuinely enjoying my time with it and really wanted to see it through to the end (even if that was at least partially because I just didn't want the game to beat me XD). The game isn't impossible in Japanese, but from everything I researched, the Western release definitely seems to be the version to go with if you're gonna play it. It's a 3D game typically rough for this time period, but it's closer to the "still enjoyable" end of the 3D-jank spectrum of 5th generation games. Certainly not for everyone, but worth a try via emulation if you want something a little different, and especially if you enjoyed the other N64 Bomberman games at all.