You can imagine my excitement when I saw a Bomberman arcade game last weekend. Not only did it have the bright visuals of the recent Super Bomberman R game, it was also 8-player multiplayer! I was so ready for wacky shenanigans with my friends as we berated each other with bombs.

You can imagine my disappointment when I put money into the machine and then realized it was a redemption game. And not only that, it didn’t even have the frantic multiplayer action the Bomberman franchise has been synonymous with for the past, I don’t know, 25 years.

Bomberman Arcade is a ticket redemption game that has you spending your credits to use normal or special bombs to try to blow up ticket-bearing enemies in a traditional block maze. If you see an enemy or certain area you want to blow up, you guide your cursor there, pick a bomb, and watch it explode. That’s it.

Well, watch it hopefully explode is more accurate. As is the case with a lot of redemption games, you might not always get what you want the first time, meaning you’ll have to put in more money to guarantee your victory. It feels really cheap to me though. And I know as an adult this is not a game made for me. But it’s Bomberman, dammit! If it’s not made for NES kids then who is it made for?

To give the game credit, if I had let’s say infinity money, I could imagine this one being pretty fun to play with seven other people. You’re all blasting away, trying to get the killing blow on your big ticket enemy. But knowing you could just get the game on Switch or PS4 and do essentially the same thing for incredibly cheaper is hard to get over.

Laters,
Jsick

Played at Round 1 Entertainment in San Jose, CA 2021