Super Bomberman R 2 Review
Gameplay in SuperBomberman R 2 is divided into two main modes, Story mode and battle mode. Each plays slightly differently but does so using the core Bomberman mechanics.
Story Mode
The story revolves around the Bomber Brothers sent to rid the universe of evil. It really is that simple. There are little skits between levels between the characters which are very light-hearted and try to explain the story with full voice acting.
The English vocal performances are particularly bad, borderline grating. I opted to switch to Japanese which sounded a lot better, although still not great. I hate to admit it, but on more than one occasion I found myself skipping these scenes, as quite frankly, I found them boring.
The story mode plays out on a segmented overworld, Similar to Bomberman Tournament on the GBA or Bomberman Quest on the GBC if you remember those games.
Throughout the story mode, you’ll meet lifeforms known as Ellon. Ellons are small little creatures you need to find to progress the story. There are some basic puzzles through the maps such as having a certain number of Ellons following you to be able to open gates etc.
They remind me a lot of the Chao from the Sonic adventure games and perhaps a little like Pikmin.
As you progress, you’ll find currency hidden behind blocks you destroy. These are essentially EXP and collecting a certain amount will allow you to level up increasing the number of bombs you can place at once, the blast radius and your character’s overall speed.
There are also secret puzzles you can find throughout the overworld which require Ellon to start.
At the end of each area, you’ll be thrown into Castle Mode, I’ll touch more on this in the Battle Mode section but it’s essentially a watered-down tower defence using the Bomberman mechanics and let’s just say it was not my favourite mode.
Battle Mode
Battle mode is where the Bomberman series has always thrived, I have many fond childhood memories of playing Super Bomberman 2 on the Super Nintendo and spending hours facing off against friends. I’m pleased to say that battle mode is very good here, there’s the normal modes with a handful of maps, along with some newly added modes.
All modes can be played locally and online, with crossplay enabled which is a nice bonus
The first new mode is Castle mode, an interesting take on a sort of tower defence game taken from the story mode where it’s one player vs a team of players. You have to lay out traps and devices to stop the opposing team from reaching your base and stealing your treasure chests. I didn’t really enjoy this mode, but I could imagine being more fun if you were playing against a team of people locally, instead of the AI like I did. It’s nice to see a new mode added, but I think it falls a little flat.
Battle 64 plays a little like a Tetris 99-type game where you compete in small maps with the winner ‘staying on’ until all 63 opponents are defeated. It’s a lot of fun but due to the nature of the game, finding a full 64 players playing this mode at once in a few years might become tricky even with the multisystem cross-play. Time will tell I guess.
Playing through the battle mode earns you a currency called gems, which can be used at the in-game shop to purchase unlockables.
Homage is paid to other Konami franchises with unlockable characters, background music and accessories for multiplayer. These are nice additions including characters from series such as Castlevania, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid and even Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom.
Background music can be unlocked from each game which features some nice remixed classic tunes to blast your friends away to in each map.
In terms of performance, I found Super Bomberman R 2 ran great overall. I experienced zero crashes even when playing on Steam Deck.
Loading times are longer side, sadly. Even when booting from an NVMe drive. I found that even simply loading up a quick match of the battle mode took over 20 seconds from selecting characters to entering the map, it’s not the longest wait in the world, but seems like an eternity when you are playing with someone else sitting beside you eager to play.
Apart from the long load times, the only other issue I had was with the in-game text. The text in Super Bomberman R 2 looks slightly low resolution. I tried various different settings, Screen resolutions etc. and nothing seemed to fix it. I am fully aware this could be down to my own incompetence, so I won’t hold it against the game.
Conclusion
Super Bomberman R 2 is a fun game if you ignore its Story Mode. Although nice to have, I found it to be poorly executed. The battle mode is truly where Super Bomberman R 2 shines and provides endless hours of entertainment, especially if, unlike me, you have a lot of friends to play with.
I really hope Konami lean away from the Story mode aspects in any future iterations and focuses on expanding and improving the already excellent battle mode.
6.5
Steam review code kindly provided by Konami
