3/5 ★ – Supergamerguy's review of Bomberman 64.

Bomberman 64 is undoubtably a charming title. The music, above all else, has some of the best tracks in the entire franchise, and many of the areas (past the first world) are visually appealing throughout. If this was an early animation/short film, this title would easily brighten the days of all who watched it. Bomberman 64, however, is a game first and foremost, and unfortunately falls flat in several gameplay and level design areas. Despite using the N64's analog stick, the controls are merely 8-directional, which is only a slight advancement from previous titles in the series. A console with the capacity for 360-directional movement was not utilized to it's full potential here, and neither was the controller. The four C buttons are all used to manipulate the camera, and the L shoulder button and the D-Pad go completely unused, leaving the A and B buttons to serve more gameplay purposes than they really needed to. None of this helps when movement and action inputs are sluggish throughout the entire game, exacerbated by Bomberman 64's dull level design. In all fairness, there are clearly a lot of interesting ideas in play here, with most levels having unique gimmicks for the player to try out. Most of these gimmicks, however, involve just blowing up every item and suspicious-looking wall/obstacle in sight. A small bomb didn't work? Well, then just charge up a larger bomb and throw it at the target......over.......and over again. Each level turns into "What am I *supposed to do*," eventually turning to "thank god *that's* over." That leaves you spending just about every world in this game hoping that you'll eventually blow up the trigger to progress/end a stage, walking past docile, unengaging enemies all the while. Bosses, while visually interesting and varied, follow basically the same pattern of charging up a large bomb and throwing it at the boss at the right time, which just adds to the already growing tedium. I was left largely disappointed with Bomberman's first notable foray into the 3D space, and I can clearly see that Hudson Soft's design team had a lot to learn from their first outing on the N64. I would recommend listening to this game's wonderful soundtrack, and then playing one of the Super Bomberman titles on the SNES instead.