Super Bomberman R review for Nintendo Switch

If you’ve never played a Bomberman game, or had the unfortunate experience of playing Bomberman: Act Zero, than you may not understand the concept of this great series. The premise is simple, drop bombs to destroy your enemies on the grid-like battlefield, while picking up power-ups and strive to be the last man standing. The Nintendo Switch edition, Super Bomberman R, takes the tried and true gameplay of the series and gives it a few fresh twists that are fun, but at the same time a bit hard to swallow.

The single player campaign begins places the Bomberman family in a 50-stage, Story where they must save the universe from a bad Bomber The cut scenes introduce you to the entire quirky Bomberman family in cute fashion. Sometimes the story can be funny, but most of the time it feels tacked on, thankfully the story bits can be skipped. Boss battles happen every 10th round and really change up the formula of just placing bombs. Here, you really have to figure out the best strategy to win the fight. One wrong move, you will either blow yourself up, or get caught by the enemy bombs. You have a limited number of continues you can “buy” with coins you earn from playing. These coins can be used to get new costumes and new multiplayer levels as well, but it will take a while to build up enough to get everything offered. I like that it is based on in-game currency rather than tons of paid DLC, but it’s still not a perfect system.

Speaking of Multiplayer, this is where the game really shines. It’s so much fun to play on the switch with 7 other people in a free for all battle. This game allows for 8 controllers to be connected even in tabletop mode! I had a blast with this, bringing the console to a local game center, connecting with 7 opponents. Granted the screen can zoom out a bit too much when all players are engaged, but playing it on the TV makes this a bit more bearable. Online play is the same as Local, only the screen tends to behave better with a little less zooming in and out. This was my first time using online play on the Switch, and I must say that Nintendo is finally getting it down. No disconnects or lag from what I saw, however it did take a bit of time finding other players, which is to be expected.

Graphically, Super Bomberman R looks great. Superb detail on the battlefield maps and the animations of the characters. It’s definitely one of the best looking Bomberman games out there. Sound isn’t too bad, with the tons of explosions constantly going off, it was hard to notice the music or other voices during game play, but what is there fits really well.  I wasn’t a fan of some of the character voices in the cut scenes and boss battles, but I’ve heard worse, even in other Bomberman games.

Super Bomberman R is a really great launch title for the Nintendo Switch. With any new console, it takes a while to gain a foothold in the marketplace, but if games of this quality continue to get released, the Switch will have a long life span. Yes, it does have it’s issues, but nothing to prevent you from enjoying your time with it. I would of liked to see a slightly smaller price tag though, as $49.99 is a little high for a game like this, but it’s still a good buy with the current limited library of the console. Pick this one up if you can, grab some friends and… have a blast. (Apologies for the bad pun.)