Bomberman 64 - GrandmasterJ
How well does a game made for the N64 fit into Sven Co-op? Decently as it turns out, the whole map is interesting temple architecture that players must explore (and blow up) to unlock new areas. There are lots of weapons, not just grenades, and respawning enemies to use them on.
Author: Lymphoid
Date of release: 2022
Maps in package: 2
Map review of Bomberman 64
(originally posted on SCMapDB)
I've never played Bomberman 64 but I have seen parts of it and I grew up on a Nintendo 64, so the whole map was still very nostalgic for me. It was a bright, somewhat flatly textured, land with lots of platforms to jump on and explosives to toss around.
The map is very nonlinear, we start in a big open area with platforms, cages, breakables, there is a lot to get our attention right away. Despite all of this, the most important breakables are stone textured and don't look really breakable. There were some nondescript short pillars in the spawn room that we didn't break until much later when we were lost and looking for the next area. It is by breaking these stone things we find tons of ammo and gigantic gold keycards that will unlock switches in the first map and elevators in the second map (there are two maps). Then we step on switches to unlock the first area. There are lots of teleporters scattered around to side areas, usually with a key and definitely with supplies. The gameplay loop of this map is explore, break stuff, collect.
We get a shotgun and M16 pretty soon in the map and we definitely get a lot of use out of them, but the real stars of the show are the explosives. We have your standard grenade and they are everywhere, provided you break everything properly as most things spawn inside breakables. We have tripmines which have limited use and satchels which are great. We also get rockets but we don't get a rocket launcher until later. I really enjoy the loadout this map provides, I ended up tossing grenades at pretty much everything and it was my go-to to break stuff.
Enemies never stop coming, but they are mostly zombies in the beginning with some splashes of male assassin near the end. There are stukabats and headcrabs for special occasions and I think I remember some baby voltigores in the very beginning that didn't leave much of an impression. At the end of both maps there is a boss, a robogrunt and alien controller, that take a bit of a grind to kill.
The second map is a bit more structured than the first, we are shown a crystal and then we have to grab it. But every time we get close a stukabat takes it (the crystal is like 20 times the size of the skutabat) and carries it elsewhere. Eventually it stops at the top of a huge tower and a robogrunt kills it, which is great. In the first map we have switches, in this map we have elevators. Collect the keycards and unlock elevators. The elevators glow red when off and green when on, but after we collected the first keycard I jumped on a red elevator elsewhere in the map, and it worked. My teammate got another card and that elevator turned green, so I think there is a problem with the elevators locking in the latter half of the second map.
I thought at this point in the review I would have something definitive to say about how the level looks, but I think the good sort of balances the bad. It's all really bright, not fullbright but bright enough to make everything look a bit washed out. The textures are mostly variations on a grey stone and everything is a bit low resolution. But there is some really nice brushwork on display here, especially the big dinosaur mouths that serve as doors to other areas. They are closed until they take damage and then they open up, it is lovely. I also like how the level is put together, there are good uses of texture and geometry to evoke a kind of simple temple. I feel the visual style pretty much nails a Bomberman 64 feel. At a certain point my teammate and I were looking into the death water (insta-gib water in both maps) and wondering if we were supposed to drain that water or somehow get down to those platforms. Then my teammate had a revelation that it was a reflection, the water has a copies of parts of the level flipped around in it to give the impression that the water is reflecting the level. It's real fun to see even if it didn't quite work out.
This map is great fun. It suffers a bit from poor readability but once you realize the answer is blowing everything up you'll have no issues. Combat can get annoying after a while but there are good weapons and plenty of ammo about to make short work of them. If you like exploring and breaking stuff give this map a try.
Pros:
- Lots of eplosives and lots of breakables, a good combination
- lots to do and see
- fun stukabat sequence with the crystal
- some parts of the map looked really good, like the dinosaur heads and reflective water
- plenty of supplies throughout the map, even dead ends had goodies
Cons:
- combat got annoying after a while
- the breakables do not always appear to be breakable
- the map looked flat in a lot of places
- the elevators in the second map were broken
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