Bomberman (NES) Playthrough - NintendoComplete
394A playthrough of Hudson Soft's 1987 action/maze game for the NES, Bomberman.
For as many classic games Hudson released over the years, the one that speaks to their legacy more than any other has got to be Bomberman. The NES game marked the first major release for the mascot, and it established most of the hallmarks he's still known for today.
Created by Shinichi Nakamoto, the Famicom version, based on an ancient PC game, was written in a three-day-long marathon coding session. It was a massive update to the bare-bones original: the classic power-ups, the enemy types, and the "Green Acres" stage all are introduced here, as is the ever immortal Bomberman theme, written specifically for this version by Chikuma Jun in her first ever game soundtrack.
The concept is simple, and it makes for some brilliantly addictive gameplay. There are fifty stages in all, and the goal in each is to kill all of the bad guys, uncover the exit door, and escape before you're killed. Every level has a power-up item to be collected to build up Bomberman's ability to lay waste to everything in his path: he can boost the number of bombs that he can drop as well as the reach of their blasts, and he can find skates to increase his movement speed and a detonator to control when the bombs go off. With enough upgrades, Bomberman can also walk through walls, bombs, and the blasts of his own bombs. It takes a bit of strategy and practice, but if you can collect enough without dying, Bomberman becomes a nigh-indestructable death dispensary on legs.
There is also one secret power-up that appears in each stage once certain secret conditions have been met, and these are usually worth far more points than anything else in the game. I got several of them in this video.
The NES's Bomberman ultimately became one of the pillars that held up the mighty Hudson name, and though later iterations would improve on it in a multitude of ways, it's still a whole of fun to go back to this landmark title.
(And just think, this one didn't even have a multiplayer component!)
And who would've ever figured that Lode Runner would've been so explicitly tied to Bomberman with that crazy ending?
Here are a few links if you're a fan of Bomberman:
Bomberman 2 (NES): https://youtu.be/1_1r8G15thU
Super Bomberman (SNES): https://youtu.be/9-E4u4fIsi0
Bomberman Party Edition (remake of Bomberman for PS1): https://youtu.be/uDADXxFvdB8
Saturn Bomberman (Sega Saturn): https://youtu.be/eJornSIIM6Q
There are way more than that, but those are a good start!
_____________
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
NintendoComplete (http://www.nintendocomplete.com/) punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!