Super Bomberman 4, Super Nintendo

Developed by Produce! and published by Hudson Soft – in Japan only – in 1996, Super Bomberman 4 thankfully does have a fan translation available, which makes the game fully playable in English.

The demented Professor Bagura survived the explosion at the end of Super Bomberman 3 – or at least his brain did – and he’s now been reduced to a floating brain in a jar. In revenge for this indignity, Bagura has summoned The Four Bomber Kings (Hammer Bomber, Jet Bomber, Lady Bomber and Bazooka Bomber), and their leader – Great Bomber – to assassinate White and Black Bomberman. The two heroes – along with Blue, Red, Green, Orange, Aqua and Gold Bombermen; Honey the Cowgirl and Kotetsu the Samurai – are sent back in time to fight through four different eras, and to ultimately confront Bagura in hyperspace in stage five.

Super Bomberman 4 plays similarly to previous games in the series, with a one or two-player cooperative Story Mode, or a multiplayer Battle Mode for up to five players.

The Story Mode game requires that you battle your way through six different levels, and then take on a boss battle on the seventh level. And – as is becoming ‘traditional’ in Super Bomberman games – the developers have tweaked the gameplay, and introduced a number of new ideas, to keep things interesting.

There are a number of different mounts and vehicles to ride, depending on the world you’re playing and the enemies you’re up against. And, of course, you can again ride different-coloured ‘Louies‘ that confer you some extra abilities. Crucially, you can now carry multiple eggs behind you at once, so if you’re knocked off you can immediately get back on. Bomb blasts will destroy any trailing eggs, though, so you have to take that into consideration as you play.

Exiting a level is different to previous games, and can also differ, depending on the world you’re playing. In the second world, for example, the exit only appears when you’ve destroyed the generators producing hostiles, and also killed all the enemies it has produced. If you don’t bomb the generator, it will just keep producing enemies until you run out of time. So it’s a good idea to target them as a priority.

There are some new power-ups (the clock power-up, for example, freezes enemies for a period of time), and you can free caged Bombermen by blowing up moving metal boxes (if you do that, however, they will wander the maze, dropping their own bombs, which can be hazardous to you – and you cannot destroy them). The developers have kept the fun mine cart rides from Super Bomberman 3 (although only on certain levels), and they have also introduced nine different bonus levels that can only be accessed via special entrances (note, though, that these can only be reached if two players are playing cooperatively).

Other new features in Super Bomberman 4 include: hidden springs that eject you to unexpected places; ninja that can jump over your blasts; enemies that – when blown up – turn into missiles that shoot upwards, and then drop down and explode bombs randomly in the maze, and ‘spiked’ bombs, which destroy all soft blocks in their blast, rather than just adjacent blocks (which you need to keep in mind as you use them).

The five-player Battle Game has three play modes: Battle Royale, Champion and Maniac, and can be played against human or bot opponents. Special Options include: Sudden Death, Bad Bomber and Dash Bomber (a drag racing minigame).

Super Bomberman 4 is another wonderful game in the Bomberman series, with great presentation and refined gameplay. It’s super fun for one, two or more players (making it an excellent party game), and it has aged like a fine wine – like all the Super Bomberman games have!