Over the last several years, we’ve seen a number of collections from Konami that have brought many of its classics to modern platforms like the Nintendo Switch. Castlevania, Contra, Gradius, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Metal Gear, and even Yu-Gi-Oh have all seen a number of their classic entries brought into the present, and that’s nothing but a good thing. May that work carry on with continuing success. But Konami doesn’t just own the rights to its own library. It also owns the library of one of the earliest Japanese third-party publishers: Hudson Soft. That mountain of classics is finally getting a little love on Switch via the Super Bomberman Collection.
The title of this collection is important to note. Bomberman has had a ton of releases over the years on a wide array of platforms, and everyone has their favorites. It would be nice if we had all of the games up to a certain point on here, but this is the Super Bomberman Collection. It’s primarily a set including the five Super NES entries in the series, with the two NES games tossed in as a bonus. No TurboGrafx-16, no Mega Drive, certainly no SEGA Saturn. The Super NES installments are great, but know what you’re getting into.
One cool thing is that two of these games had, up until now, only been available in Japanese. They’ve been fully localized here, and while none of these games are text-heavy RPGs or anything, the effort is appreciated. Speaking of which, the front-end for the Super NES games is terrific. You’ve got virtual recreations of the packaging that you can open up, with manual scans to comb through and a virtual cartridge to feast your eyes on. This is available for every region of each game, and it’s neat to see how those materials differ from place to place. You can also see at a glance from the game selection menu what each game offers for its multiplayer modes, with more details available at the push of a button. The Super Bonus section houses the two NES games, plus a rather well-stocked art gallery and a music player.
In terms of options for the games themselves, you get most of what you would expect from these kinds of emulated collections. There’s a rewind feature, the ability to save and load up to three states per game, the ability to remap controls, and a small array of display options. Those display options are a little disappointing, as many of them have pixel scaling issues that result in shimmering images. Hopefully that will get fixed at some point. You can also consult the instruction booklet at any time, which is nice. This Nintendo Switch 2 version of Super Bomberman Collection also supports GameShare, and that’s very welcome indeed. No online play, but there’s already a Switch Bomberman for that. Each of the Super NES games also has an optional boss rush mode you can challenge.
Display issues aside, this all seems quite good so far. This collection was developed by Red Art Games, a new partner for Konami for this kind of thing. It’s clear a lot of care went into Super Bomberman Collection’s presentation and extras, and I’m always happy to see developers go the additional mile in that regard. The problem comes once you’re actually in-game. There is some obvious input lag present in the games that doesn’t reflect the original experience. Some lag is unavoidable with emulation, but there’s enough of it here to throw off your play during tense matches. It’s not enough to render the games unplayable by any means, but something to be aware of if you are sensitive to input lag. I ran into a few small emulation bugs during my time playing this collection, but nothing consistent or severe enough to gripe much about.
As to the included games themselves, I think it’s a great bunch. I mean, you have to like Bomberman, but I’d imagine you’re not reading a review of a Bomberman collection if you don’t. The original NES Bomberman is probably the only clunker of the lot, and surely that’s understandable. The series hadn’t found its feet yet, after all. The second NES game and all five Super NES Bomberman games are all well-worth playing, offering up hours upon hours of bombing thrills. The multiplayer is the main event, of course. With that said, I’ve always found the single-player modes of Bomberman to be a nice way to chill out in bursts here and there.
The display issues, input lag, and little bugs here and there detract from what is otherwise a rather well put-together assortment of games. Super Bomberman Collection might not have your favorite Bomberman game in it, but there’s plenty here for any fan to find some fun with. I really appreciate all the extra touches in the UI, and having two newly-translated games is nothing to sneeze at. The GameShare option is a natural fit here, provided you have Switch-owning Bomberman fans in your vicinity. I wish the actual play experience was a little better than it is, but I’d imagine most players will find this to serve their needs well enough.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Konami Digital Entertainment
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