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64 in 64: Episode 26

By Mento January 24, 2023 5 Comments

Man, I'm not sure the timing on bringing this back for another season was all that auspicious but I guess if you're in a grim mood then a bunch of random N64 games is the perfect complement. So, yes, hi and welcome back to another season of 64 in 64: the internet's best and only written feature about the Nintendo 64 if you don't count most of the other ones. As with my other old game feature from earlier this month (that would be the Mega Archive, found yonder) I'm going to stick to a monthly schedule over the previous weekly one so I can keep on diversifyin' my portfolio and what have you. Same system as always, though I might push it back up to three per episode if it's a slim month for ideas. After all, I've still got around 310 of these things still left to process. And process them I will(n't)!

Anyhoo, I wanted to start this season on a positive note given all the corporate fuckery afoot this month so I'm booting up a game I've never played before or really heard too much about yet I'm fairly sure I'm going to find something about it to enjoy anyway, given the pedigree. As for the random choice? Hoping for any joy from that cold, unfeeling machine intelligence is perhaps asking for too much but at the very, very least it picked out a game from a genre I've yet to explore on 64 in 64 so I guess I'll thank it for the smallest of mercies. It's also a sports game but then that's half the N64 library so I better get used to it.

Speaking of getting used to things, you guys get used to the rules yet? Here they are again anyway:

Each episode of 64 in 64 looks at two N64 games for exactly sixty-four minutes apiece. Is that an ideal amount of time to figure out if a game is any good or has held up particularly well? Not really, but it matches the other number so I'm sticking with it. I'll have quarterly updates—four in total because that's how quarters work—so you can see my impressions trend downward in real time.
The first game is pre-selected by me from the whole of the N64 library. I tend to look at a mix of high-rated or otherwise notable games I've yet to play along with a small (and much smaller now) group of personal favorites from back in the day. The second game is selected by a random choice app that is fated to one day become Skynet, albeit a version of Skynet that will destroy the human race by forcing them all to play 50 turns in Mario Party. (Not the last Mario Party dig today either.)
Each game also gets two extra blurbs at the end for a conclusive post-script: the first determines whether the game has held up or, crucially, was ever any good in the first place. The second is my "expert" "opinion" on the likelihood of Nintendo adding it to the N64 library of the Nintendo Switch Online service. I'm also adding Retro Achievements back in for flavor: if I earn any, or if there's any to earn, I'll let you know.
Speaking of Switch Online, I'm not covering any game that is already available on the service or announced to be coming. No longer my jurisdiction. Normally this rule creates programming issues after a long hiatus between episodes, but I guess Nintendo hasn't felt like adding anything to that premium subscription tier of theirs for almost two months? Sounds like value for money to me. Waiting patiently for my input, is what I'm guessing is going on.

Be sure to get all caught up with the 64 in 64 fun by consulting the episode guide here (or via the ranking list at the very end):

Episode 1	Episode 2	Episode 3	Episode 4	Episode 5
Episode 6	Episode 7	Episode 8	Episode 9	Episode 10
Episode 11	Episode 12	Episode 13	Episode 14	Episode 15
Episode 16	Episode 17	Episode 18	Episode 19	Episode 20
Episode 21	Episode 22	Episode 23	Episode 24	Episode 25
Episode 26	Episode 27	Episode 28	Episode 29	Episode 30
Episode 31	Episode 32	Episode 33	Episode 34	Episode 35

Bomberman Hero (Pre-Selected)

A.I / Hudson Soft (JP) & Nintendo (NA/EU)
1998-04-30 (JP), 1998-08-31 (NA), 1998-10-23 (EU)
=93rd N64 Game Released

History: Bomberman Hero is the second of four N64 games in Hudson's franchise of cutesy demolition sims following 1997's Bomberman 64, covered in a previous episode. It's also a considerable departure from its predecessor with a heavier emphasis on platforming and a completely different set of power-ups and features. The only thing it retains is the scoring system: you can earn up to five points on any one stage, and getting the maximum unlocks new content on the main menu by way of mini-games. Bomberman Hero also lacks a multiplayer mode, which might be a first for a Bomberman game and was probably a pleasant surprise for anyone buying the game new along with three other controllers.

Publishers Hudson Soft and Nintendo shouldn't need an introduction: the two were busy putting the finishing touches on the first Mario Party when Bomberman Hero came out, and by finishing touches I mean summoning Baphomet to ensure it met the demon's approval for the amount of suffering it would soon inflict upon the world. So let's talk about A.I instead. Thought to be named after its two co-founders Arai and Innai, both formerly of frequent Sega collaborators Sanritsu, A.I's most prolific output comes from being the recurring contract developer for Banpresto's Super Robot Taisen/Wars SRPG franchise. In fact, we do have an N64 Super Robot Taisen game developed by them still out there that I'm slightly worried about drawing for the Random slot (on top of being a very involved strategy game with an impenetrable amount of mecha anime lore, it's also Japanese language only). Prior to that cushy gig, though, A.I regularly worked with Hudson and Atlus on many of their games including many from the Bonk and Bomberman franchises in the case of the former. Turns out this game was, at one point in development, meant to be the N64 debut of Bonk (a.k.a. PC Genjin, the erstwhile mascot of the PC Engine) but I guess they switched tracks for the sake of the stronger brand? They developed six N64 games in total, so there's a good chance we'll meet them again eventually. In fact, I can guarantee it because I've another of theirs coming up real soon as a Pre-Select pick.

So... Bomberman 64 was my shit back in the day, though by "my shit" I guess it was more of a low-key appreciation of a so-so game where you acknowledged there were many better titles out there but grew attached to its modest charms regardless (something that I feel, to a much lesser extent, towards Chameleon Twist and a few others I've not had the courage to revisit for this feature yet), but conversely I had zero exposure to Bomberman Hero back then. I guess I always confused the two? Or maybe I just never saw it on shelves back in the brick-and-mortar days of my video game acquisitions. Reading about its backstory as a Bonk game really piqued my intrigue further as a fan of that hydrocephalic toothy cavebaby and the chaotic prehistoric platformer world he inhabits, so now I'm wondering if I made the right choice back then. Well, guess now's as good a time as any to find out.

16 Minutes In

Here's our good buddy on one of those travelators they have at airports. Bombs and airports, huh? Sounds like a good mix.

Well, now, this is a pleasant surprise. If Bomberman 64 has something similar to Super Mario 64's more open world approach to its levels (and it doesn't really so much, but those stages can be fairly broad) then Bomberman Hero is much more like Super Mario 3D World with its linear courses that still have 3D geography but mostly uses it to hide secrets in the foreground and background.

Bomberman has two main attacks here: R bumper drops a bomb at his feet which he can optionally kick around, while the B button has him throw the bomb a fair distance (ideal, since it explodes on impact and can still hurt you). Meanwhile, the A button lets you jump which isn't something most Bomberman games let you do. I've only played the first two levels so far—the scoring system means you need every point in a level to get the perfect five out of five, so I may or may not have replayed the first stage for the sake of 100% completion—but I'm already sold on the game. There looks to be a lot of stages so maybe I need to fight my own completionist nature here if I want a better cross-section of the game's features and level design.

32 Minutes In

This is the exit to the stage, but 4100 doesn't really strike me as a sufficiently rounded number for the stage goal. Maybe if I jump on that narrow window frame to the left and follow it there'll be more to collect? (The answer is yes. This game is preeeeetty sneaky.)

So the deal with this game is that the levels are relatively short but you really have to dig deep if you want that vaunted full score. The game's been real clever about hiding stuff in various spots and I've already seen a few cases where you might destroy some blocks to reveal a gem only to discover there's like three more gems right above it that you needed those same blocks to reach. It's around this time that platformers starting experimenting with this "100% completion" aspect and it makes a lot of sense with a 3D game for two reasons I can fathom: the first is that it teaches players unversed in 3D to take in these environments a bit more thoroughly due to tricks regarding perspective (Bomberman Hero has a fixed camera, so it likes hiding stuff behind platforms) while the second is what I assume to be an issue of scale, as creating 3D environments can't be cheap so it's best to make them all small and intricate like this instead. Personally, I've zero issue with a truncated approach as it's making replaying those stages much more palatable.

In addition to random score junk, Bomberman Hero also has secret exits. The standard exit on the second stage (Hyper Room) takes you to the fourth (of five) stages on the stage select menu (Heavy Room) though a more subtle one takes you to the third (Secret Room). Actually, the second exit was easier to reach than the first so maybe that was meant to be the standard one? Either way, there might be reasons to return to levels beyond trying to beat your highscore. Since I'm almost done with the first world here, I also wanted to shout out its BGM real quick. I miss when games had a chill drum 'n bass thing going on; last game I played with something similar was probably Falcom's Gurumin or those Toree throwbacks from Siactro. Real big late '90s and early '00s vibe.

48 Minutes In

Do a Bomber roll!

Cool, so, a couple of new developments here. The first is that each world is split up into multiple zones but I figured there was an uniform number of stages within those zones: instead, the second zone of Planet Bomber has seven stages rather than the first's five. The other thing is that upon starting the second of those stages, Hole Lake (aren't most lakes just holes with a lot of water in them?), Bomber got upgraded with "Bomber Marine" that replaced his legs with a propellor so he could travel underwater. The resulting stage was an almost on-rails sort of thing where you moved towards the screen fighting and dodging enemies all the while, similar to that one underwater Star Fox 64 level. It also meant inverse controls were back (yay) but it wasn't too unpleasant, fortunately.

Wait, I lied, I learned a couple other things too. There are these weird purple orb things that I think the game called "Adok bombs". Once you grab them they stop appearing, and you can see how many you have total on the pause menu. There's six per world, which means there's way fewer of them then there are stages which might get annoying if I end up missing one. The second relates to the first as collecting Adok bombs increases the score for that level: in some levels, including Hole Lake, you can actually score higher than the target for a 5 star rating so maybe the requirements aren't as stringent as I was led to believe. Hole Lake was a tricky level to navigate for score items because the game's draw distance for 3D objects is extremely low: you have to be within a few feet of something to actually see it. Not an issue with those early levels and their narrower designs, but a bit more troublesome for a relatively open level like Hole Lake. (I gotta stop typing "Hole Lake" already, it sounds like the world's grossest pornography store.)

64 Minutes In

Accidentally snapped this during a fade to white, but you can see that sometimes the stage goal isn't always so all-inclusive. Grateful there were some developers of that era that realized how nightmarish collecting 100% on an on-rails level can be.

Got about halfway through the second zone's levels so I guess no second world for me (or even a boss fight). I learned that you can game over in this game—it eliminates any and all power-ups you might've found, including getting a health bar extension once you've collected enough the otherwise low-scoring blue gems—so I guess the game's still stuck in the '90s in some ways. The above screenshot also came from another on-rails Z-axis shoot 'em up level, though with the Bomber Jet power-up. You can't reverse course with the Bomber Jet otherwise it controls identically to the Bomber Marine. The bar for the five stars rating is also lower on the on-rails missions to make up for the fact that you can easily miss enemies and collectibles if you whizz past them; I think the regular on-foot levels still require you to find everything.

I'm not sure an hour was enough for this one but I will say that I quickly adapted to its wavelength as the sort of platformer I'm into: one that doesn't just value your platforming skills but also your perception and thoroughness as an explorer. Stripping me of every power-up after dying too many times is kind of a bummer as is the fact that any death kicks you back to the start of the current stage with all progress removed: since you can die instantly from falling into a pit, it's more than a little punitive though not exactly unheard of in a game of this vintage (Banjo-Kazooie and Mario 64 did the same thing after all with their notes and coins). It also really doesn't feel too much like a Bomberman game despite all the bombs and such: I can totally see another brand like Bonk being slapped on top of it, provided there's a graphical overhaul.

How Well Has It Aged?: Heroically. Some archaic practices here and there but otherwise Bomberman Hero was an early example of what has become a much more prominent style of 3D platformer, one where the stages are linear and a bit more considered in terms of finding challenges and new obstacles for players to overcome. I know I would've been fully invested in getting the top score in every level had I played this new (and still might find myself going back to it if I run out of stuff to play next month). Visually the simple style of Bomberman translates pretty well to this early polygonal era without looking too ancient and, as stated before, the drum n' base soundtrack is nostalgic while being novel enough to still hold up.

Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: Konami. My catch-all response to any Konami game (or any Hudson game given Konami bought their IPs) is a shrugsome "Konami". Who can even say what sinister plans they might have for their back catalog? Bomberman seems like one of the few brands they're happy to maintain if the recent Super Bomberman R 2 is any indication, but I'm not sure if that enthusiasm extends to the older games since there's usually not a whole lot of variation between one Bomberman game and the next. The oddball N64 games might be the exceptions though, so I hope one of their executives between spa days decides to give them a new lease of life. Given how this month has been going though I expect Konami to just jettison 30% of their workforce instead.

Retro Achievements Earned: 2 out of 43. It's a long game and the achievements seem fairly split between compulsory boss fights (didn't see any of those), getting all five stars in each stage of each zone, and completing certain courses within a time limit. (There's also an intriguing one just called "Wah!" that I have no idea how to find.)

Madden Football 64 (Random)

EA Tiburon / EA Sports
1997-10-31 (NA), 1997-12 (EU)
=46th N64 Game Released

History: I guess this was inevitable, huh? There are four Madden NFL games on N64 after all, this being the first, and thirteen football games total if you factor in Acclaim's NFL Quarterback Club and Midway's NFL Blitz franchises. I'm not sure how much time and preparation EA Tiburon had to make a football game specific to the N64's strengths, so what they've done here is taken Madden NFL 98—the last of the 16-bit/32-bit cross-gens in the series—and gave it some presentational bells and whistles to test the limits of Nintendo's (then-)new state-of-the-art system. In the process though they lost out on the NFL license, as Activision had already snapped it up for N64 games during the system's first few years, but they did somehow retain the NFLPA license. That meant all your favorite footsballmen were here and working for teams with names like "Foxboro" and "Anaheim" (I'm guessing it wouldn't take fans much digging to figure out which real NFL teams those represented).

I thought for the longest time—up to just prior to researching them for this episode, in fact—that Tiburon was a real place somewhere that EA had founded a studio in, maybe down in California since it sounded Spanish. Turns out it is Spanish, but for "shark": the developers were a pre-existing contract studio over on the opposite coast in Orlando before EA bought them. However, they'd been working with EA to develop the Madden NFL series almost from the moment they were founded. EA bought a major share in the company in 1996 and acquired them in full in 1998. To this day they continue to make Madden NFL games for the EA Sports label (along with NBA Live) but they've dabbled in a few other, non-sports titles over the years. Anyone remember Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure for DS? That was them. As far as their N64 output is concerned, well, you might be surprised to hear they put out a total of four games on the system and all four are those aforementioned (a-four-mentioned?) Madden NFL titles.

Can't say I'm all that pleased that I've finally had to play a football game for this feature, but at the same time it's like a dentist appointment: you know it's coming and you can't put it off forever so you might as well pluck up your courage, sit in that chair, and let John Madden stick his hands in your mouth. At least the Madden games are somewhat polished after so many iterations so it doesn't feel like I'm wandering into a no-budget mess named after the one famous sportsperson involved. That said, Nintendo consoles have always proven to the best place to play sports games with a more arcade feel over a simulation feel, whether it involves Mario or not, so Madden's never felt like a great fit. I guess I'll see if that theory pans out in just a moment (or sixty-four).