So well, long time since I unleashed my verbal whip, and this time I review a jRPG (or ARPG I don't really know how to classify this crap), but not the one you might have suspected...
If the cryptic title didn't suggest anything to you, well please bear some more lines as I write my introduction...
So, as I was saying, recently I decided to play with my DS again, since I assigned the noble task of being my MP3 player to my PSP. And between sessions of Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival, and waiting for Streer Fighter IV in front of SSF2THDR on my 360, I decided to search in my DS games collection to find one I didn't dare try yet and see what gives during my daily train rides to my office... And out came one that reminded me of bad memories from the GameBoy Color, where a bland ripoff of zelda felt boring and tedious enough to discourage me around the first boss... It was called Bomberman Quest, and was quite a failed attempt at mixing Bomberman and the Action-RPG concept, fortunately it wasn't mine...
And so, against all bad memories and the perspective of having to pretend I care about the outer world, I started playing Bomberman Story DS.
Bomberman Story DS is another one of those Bomberman games that feel like a story is mandatory to justify the simple fun of blowing up people with cherry bombs in underground labyrinths, like they tried with Bomberman Max (and the funny anime Bomberman Jetterz, which is set in the same continuity) on the GBA. Surprisingly, here the story at least vaguely makes sense. Basicallyn evil space criminals broke free from their jail, and some evil doctor is trying to do some evil thing (I forgot most of the plot quite quickly, it's really standard My First RPG Plot® for the most part) in outer space, so you'll play as Timothy White (the well-known White Bomber), the #1 hero of the Space Police, and you'll have to save the world by lobbing bombs all over the place. You were supposed to tag with some kinda medium, but she got stupidly kidnapped...
The game is split between planets you'll travel to with your trusty rocket ship, and on each one you'll have some fetch quests and labyrinths to conquer to advance, but first of all you'll have to endure a short tutorial that will teach you the handy basics.
I already hear you cringe... "Wait" you're telling me, profoundly miffed at the perspective of a Bomberman game teaching you how to play, "I thought you hated lenghty, condescending turotials, how can you not bitchslap that ?"
Well, at first I wanted to insult the game for it, but there is a particular feature in the game that made this tutorial mandatory : the bombs.
Ok so now a quick run on the game system : You don't have a single bomb that adapts to your power-ups, you carry an array of different bombs with abilities.
So far I have played with 3 bombs, but there are like 10 different bombs :
- The normal bomb (infinite supply, round blast radius, good damage)
- The lure bomb (I play this in French, it's called bombe-appât, anyone can confirm ? -weak damage, but attracts all enemies to it, consumable)
- The cross bomb (consumable, good damage, cross-shaped explosion, the classic Bomberman bomb)
And here lies the strategy, by learning how to correctly aim your lobs, kick your bombs and throw decoys and special bombs, you can complete the puzzles, trap your enemies and progress in the game world (so far it's quite easy, but I think it will ramp up nicely, so far it's a really balanced game).
There are probably other ones to find, but I started playing only recently and I have just reached the second planet.
You can lay X bombs a first, initially with a very small blast radius, lob them at a weak angle, run like a turtle with arthritis, and kick them. Level up (classic level grinding) and you can improve, but there are malus items that lay beneath the block you'll have to blast to progress (each world is divided in free-roaming screens with blocks inside you'll have to blast to advance and release items, and lockboxes to search), so beware.
Kicking a bomb into a foe or hitting them with a thrown bomb stuns them, and combo kills (more than one enemy with the same bomb or chain reaction) nets a multiplied XP amount.
Enemies can drop loot you can sell at shops to get money and buy health packs, power pills (boost your blast radius or your running speed), teleporters or resurrection items, and some fetch quests involve collecting a certain amount of [stuff], so you might be in for some tedious questing, but usually it's worth something (money, game items, better loot to sell), and it's not really that annoying, since the game pacing is quite relaxed.
The game is of course easier than a regular Bomberman game, thanks also to the presence of a HP counter. You start with 5 HP, and you'll win some by leveling enough.
There's no denying this Bomberman RPG is geared towards kids who like adventure cartoons and forgiving gameplay (each room has its save point, and you can really easily stock up like crazy on every item available at a given shop, but it's still an enjoyable experience, the levels are colorful and pretty and the foes topical (first planet is a forest world, so you'll fight giant mantis, beetles or spiders, second one is a sea planet, so your foes are big jellyfishes and shrimps mainly, and so on), with some nasty robots (with a bad habit of kicking away your bombs with their beams or physically) in the dungeons.
For the first time I felt like a little story didn't hurt Bomberman at all (Bomberman 64 was bland, Bomberman Quest was a big mistake, and Bomberman Max was quite weak too), and in fact gave way to an interesting universe with friendly characters and no "over writing"...
I still have a nitpick or two :
The mini-games puzzles. Once again the DS feels compelled to offer some of its retarded gimmicky features as a "fun and exciting gameplay element". I. CALL. BULLSHIT !
So in the first level you'll find yourself lobbing bombs by pointing with the stylus to make logs running down a stream turn and lock on rocks to make a complete bridge, destroying the dead branches that might destroy your bridge without burning it with extra bombs (two bombs on the same log and it disappears, and if a dead branch hits a locked log it destroys it too), and it's quite annoying without bringing anything to the game.
Also you'll have to position your character on a spinning disc to lob bombs into a basketball net, but the further from the center you are the faster you spin out of the disc (centrifugal force at work). There was also some kind of simon mini-game (lay bombs of some color on the tiles that blinked the same color), and a treadmill mini-game I didn't understand so I didn't even try winning it (throw your colored bombs on the same-colored plates on the treadmill)...
It's needlessly annoying while never being really infuriating, but it detracted me from my main task : explosions ahoy !
All in all I'm having fun playing Bomberman Story DS, the story elements add some flesh without ever stealing the limelight from the bombs, the bombs are cleverly used, the game is cute, colorful and completely in line with the "Bomberman Spirit", and even if it's not a hardcore jRPG with angst, improbable hairdos and swords, angst, androgynous prepubescen teen heroes, a shitty romance subplot, angsty metaphysical dialogues, soulless characters and more angst, it's still worth a try, and I found myself grinding for more items so I could just stock up on bombs and Explosion Pills to try new ways of luring enemies to their demise.
Try it, but don't complain if you feel it's for kids, I warned you.
Oh yeah, and there is a Battle Mode for multiplayer games, but I haven't tried it yet, so no multiplayer review.
If the cryptic title didn't suggest anything to you, well please bear some more lines as I write my introduction...
So, as I was saying, recently I decided to play with my DS again, since I assigned the noble task of being my MP3 player to my PSP. And between sessions of Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival, and waiting for Streer Fighter IV in front of SSF2THDR on my 360, I decided to search in my DS games collection to find one I didn't dare try yet and see what gives during my daily train rides to my office... And out came one that reminded me of bad memories from the GameBoy Color, where a bland ripoff of zelda felt boring and tedious enough to discourage me around the first boss... It was called Bomberman Quest, and was quite a failed attempt at mixing Bomberman and the Action-RPG concept, fortunately it wasn't mine...
And so, against all bad memories and the perspective of having to pretend I care about the outer world, I started playing Bomberman Story DS.
Bomberman Story DS is another one of those Bomberman games that feel like a story is mandatory to justify the simple fun of blowing up people with cherry bombs in underground labyrinths, like they tried with Bomberman Max (and the funny anime Bomberman Jetterz, which is set in the same continuity) on the GBA. Surprisingly, here the story at least vaguely makes sense. Basicallyn evil space criminals broke free from their jail, and some evil doctor is trying to do some evil thing (I forgot most of the plot quite quickly, it's really standard My First RPG Plot® for the most part) in outer space, so you'll play as Timothy White (the well-known White Bomber), the #1 hero of the Space Police, and you'll have to save the world by lobbing bombs all over the place. You were supposed to tag with some kinda medium, but she got stupidly kidnapped...
The game is split between planets you'll travel to with your trusty rocket ship, and on each one you'll have some fetch quests and labyrinths to conquer to advance, but first of all you'll have to endure a short tutorial that will teach you the handy basics.
I already hear you cringe... "Wait" you're telling me, profoundly miffed at the perspective of a Bomberman game teaching you how to play, "I thought you hated lenghty, condescending turotials, how can you not bitchslap that ?"
Well, at first I wanted to insult the game for it, but there is a particular feature in the game that made this tutorial mandatory : the bombs.
Ok so now a quick run on the game system : You don't have a single bomb that adapts to your power-ups, you carry an array of different bombs with abilities.
So far I have played with 3 bombs, but there are like 10 different bombs :
- The normal bomb (infinite supply, round blast radius, good damage)
- The lure bomb (I play this in French, it's called bombe-appât, anyone can confirm ? -weak damage, but attracts all enemies to it, consumable)
- The cross bomb (consumable, good damage, cross-shaped explosion, the classic Bomberman bomb)
And here lies the strategy, by learning how to correctly aim your lobs, kick your bombs and throw decoys and special bombs, you can complete the puzzles, trap your enemies and progress in the game world (so far it's quite easy, but I think it will ramp up nicely, so far it's a really balanced game).
There are probably other ones to find, but I started playing only recently and I have just reached the second planet.
You can lay X bombs a first, initially with a very small blast radius, lob them at a weak angle, run like a turtle with arthritis, and kick them. Level up (classic level grinding) and you can improve, but there are malus items that lay beneath the block you'll have to blast to progress (each world is divided in free-roaming screens with blocks inside you'll have to blast to advance and release items, and lockboxes to search), so beware.
Kicking a bomb into a foe or hitting them with a thrown bomb stuns them, and combo kills (more than one enemy with the same bomb or chain reaction) nets a multiplied XP amount.
Enemies can drop loot you can sell at shops to get money and buy health packs, power pills (boost your blast radius or your running speed), teleporters or resurrection items, and some fetch quests involve collecting a certain amount of [stuff], so you might be in for some tedious questing, but usually it's worth something (money, game items, better loot to sell), and it's not really that annoying, since the game pacing is quite relaxed.
The game is of course easier than a regular Bomberman game, thanks also to the presence of a HP counter. You start with 5 HP, and you'll win some by leveling enough.
There's no denying this Bomberman RPG is geared towards kids who like adventure cartoons and forgiving gameplay (each room has its save point, and you can really easily stock up like crazy on every item available at a given shop, but it's still an enjoyable experience, the levels are colorful and pretty and the foes topical (first planet is a forest world, so you'll fight giant mantis, beetles or spiders, second one is a sea planet, so your foes are big jellyfishes and shrimps mainly, and so on), with some nasty robots (with a bad habit of kicking away your bombs with their beams or physically) in the dungeons.
For the first time I felt like a little story didn't hurt Bomberman at all (Bomberman 64 was bland, Bomberman Quest was a big mistake, and Bomberman Max was quite weak too), and in fact gave way to an interesting universe with friendly characters and no "over writing"...
I still have a nitpick or two :
The mini-games puzzles. Once again the DS feels compelled to offer some of its retarded gimmicky features as a "fun and exciting gameplay element". I. CALL. BULLSHIT !
So in the first level you'll find yourself lobbing bombs by pointing with the stylus to make logs running down a stream turn and lock on rocks to make a complete bridge, destroying the dead branches that might destroy your bridge without burning it with extra bombs (two bombs on the same log and it disappears, and if a dead branch hits a locked log it destroys it too), and it's quite annoying without bringing anything to the game.
Also you'll have to position your character on a spinning disc to lob bombs into a basketball net, but the further from the center you are the faster you spin out of the disc (centrifugal force at work). There was also some kind of simon mini-game (lay bombs of some color on the tiles that blinked the same color), and a treadmill mini-game I didn't understand so I didn't even try winning it (throw your colored bombs on the same-colored plates on the treadmill)...
It's needlessly annoying while never being really infuriating, but it detracted me from my main task : explosions ahoy !
All in all I'm having fun playing Bomberman Story DS, the story elements add some flesh without ever stealing the limelight from the bombs, the bombs are cleverly used, the game is cute, colorful and completely in line with the "Bomberman Spirit", and even if it's not a hardcore jRPG with angst, improbable hairdos and swords, angst, androgynous prepubescen teen heroes, a shitty romance subplot, angsty metaphysical dialogues, soulless characters and more angst, it's still worth a try, and I found myself grinding for more items so I could just stock up on bombs and Explosion Pills to try new ways of luring enemies to their demise.
Try it, but don't complain if you feel it's for kids, I warned you.
Oh yeah, and there is a Battle Mode for multiplayer games, but I haven't tried it yet, so no multiplayer review.