Bomberman Channel

  As if out of complete nowhere, more pieces of rare developmental information about the Bomberman series have finally come to light, and I'm all here for it. A channel I haven't been aware of until more recently is one titled C62-Hu.  Run by a former employee of Hudson Soft who I'm guessing was around for a good while, he's uploaded a few videos talking about the company and recalling his days there. I had come by his Hudson Soft HQ exploration videos sometime before, but initially brushed it off as some guy breaking into an old building. Anyway, as of late, he's been looking into scrounging up some old documents about certain games and providing nuggets of info about certain games. One of them in particular was Saturn Bomberman. For some context going into this, I'm unsure if I've ever stated this before, but we actually know next to nothing about the development of too many games. To my knowledge, the most we know about these days are Bomberman Live: Batt...

  On April 10th, 2023 (or 9th in other places), Konami would dump a bunch of info about the game in a new trailer and the opening of a website proper after half a year of nothing! Because there's just so much to talk about, I'm going to break everything down into a bunch of sections before breaking off to editorialize for a bit, visiting one or two other topics, and wrapping everything up. 1.) The trailer itself: Taken from IGN The trailer itself doesn't really show much that's new. The only really noteworthy thing here is that we now get to see the enhanced graphics and improved assets in other modes, including the story mode. Additionally, we learn that Castle Mode has received a major gameplay change. In initial media, we only saw player protecting the fortress while 15 others came after your treasure. Seen both here and on the website, it's now stated that up to 16 players are divided into two teams, meaning that there's now more than one person on the defen...

The latest character in Bombergirl has been introduced! Meet Chigusa, one of many members of the Bomber Police! The previous leader of the Shinsegumi's second division, as well as an admirer for the head, Asagi, she's an attacker who, in addition to wielding a blade, uses cursed voodoo dolls to poison her opponents. It's apparently rumored that she's far more dangerous than Asagi.  All of her attacks are purely based on playing the long game, with slashes/jabs and cursed dolls being thrown at whoever she manages to hit last, all to varying lengths depending on your level. [The following translations are offered by Google Images, which are subject to change] Skill 1: Mystery-Flying Required team level: 2 Quickly mows down whatever's in front of you with your sword. Gives a cursed doll to the last enemy hit and starts draining HP. Skill 2: "Secret Technique: Evil Mind Wave" Required team level: 4 After a charge, this ability allows you to slash opponents up ...

The clock is now ticking on Bombergirl, with around 4 characters left to be revealed before the full cast is complete! Meet Melora! After a bunch of Konami's usual vagueposting shenanigans on the game's Twitter, she was finally unveiled back at the beginning of November.  Based off of Princess Melora from Konami's Twinbee series, it's explained in-universe that she's the daughter of Melora and has been sent to Earth to deal with an oncoming threat. And who else would that threat be, then, than Platina, who's quite literally based off of Bomberman 64's Sirius? With Platina's debut (and us being made aware of the Cosmic Cube's existence here), we were introduced to an idol group called the "Pretty Bombers", who were essentially made aware of this threat. Something interesting worth noting, as pointed out by user @Shizen_Bomber, is that the four girls' main color schemes make up that of Super Bomberman 2's initial design for, well, Pre...

So, we've received quite an exciting announcement more recently.  I'm guessing the NES Bomberman 1 and 2 vinyls by producer Ship to PhonoCo must've sold quite well because, and completely out of nowhere, Konami actually shows us once again that they SORT OF care about legacy titles that aren't the NES ones. For some context, earlier this year, Konami and Jun Chikuma put out a vinyl containing the entirety of the 2 NES titles' soundtracks on Vinyl with some very neat visuals, including animated sprites on the disc, as well as a nice fusion between the Japanese and US styles present on the cover. While I feel this was a good direction, in addition to a whole music video featured in the Apple-exclusive rhythm game, Amazing Bomberman, dedicated to recalling the events of said first NES title, Super Bomberman and the ambitious sequel, the release was kind of menial in that it featured no composer commentary or any extra goodies that celebrate both the series and it's...

  With Hudson Soft's unfortunate closure back in 2012 following talks of becoming a subsidiary of partner Konami came an erasure of their immediate legacy. After the Wii U era, as many of us have since seen, we haven't seen too many of their IPs actually return. No, seriously.  It seems like ALL of the Hudson Soft franchises that weren't either Bomberman, or to a very light extent, Momotaro Dentetsu. None of their titles have gotten any re-releases or anything. Certainly not helping is what I've heard around about numerous of Hudson Soft's employees bailing ship in the months prior to their closure, including numerous big figures like the Kudo brothers or Yoshiyuki ('Takahashi') Meijin. If you're someone like me who really cares about the lasting legacy of a series, as well as the overall artistic integrity of a product, then the current state of Bomberman, as I've gone over numerous times before, has been a very sobering one.  Additionally, when mos...