Bomberman Hero is not the Bomberman most players knew in 1998. The Nintendo 64 follow-up to Bomberman 64 swaps the series’ top-down strategy roots for full platforming: jumping, a life meter, bombs thrown farther, and a hero chasing a kidnapped princess across the galaxy. It works more often than it stumbles.
Princess Millian and the Garaden Empire
The plot starts fast. The Garaden Empire attacks Primus Star, and its leader, Princess Millian, smuggles a secret data disk out through her robot servant Pibot before she is captured. On Planet Bomber, Bomberman is training at his Bomber Base headquarters when Pibot’s shuttle crash-lands outside.
Bomberman learns what happened and agrees to rescue her. He travels through four worlds: Planet Bomber, Primus Star, Kanatia Star, and Mazone Star. Along the way he keeps running into Nitros, a Garaden soldier who looks like him.
Six Planets, Fourteen Areas
The structure is generous. Bomberman Hero spreads 14 areas across six planets, one of them secret. Each area holds five to seven stages. The stages are not all the same shape, and that variety is the game’s best argument for itself.
Power Gears change how a stage plays. The Bomber Marine gear sends Bomberman swimming through underwater sections. Bomber Jet turns a stage into rail shooting. Bomber Copter lets him fly above the level. Bomber Slider stages are snowboarding runs.
Ice Bombs, Salt Bombs and Remote Control
The bomb types carry real tactical weight. Ice bombs freeze enemies into blocks of ice that can be pushed around and used as platforms to reach higher ground. Salt bombs hurt slugs, which are invulnerable to everything else, but they do nothing to any other enemy. Remote control bombs explode on command. Every bomb type also detonates automatically on contact with an enemy or a stage object.
Most stages hide collectables and enemies. Picking up the collectables and destroying the enemies adds to a running score, and each stage sets a score target. Boss stages measure speed instead, asking for the fastest defeat possible.
| Mechanic | What it does | Where it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Ice bombs | Freeze enemies into movable blocks | Platforming and higher ledges |
| Salt bombs | Harm slugs only | Slug-heavy stages |
| Remote control bombs | Detonate on command | Timed positions |
| Bomber Marine | Swim underwater | Underwater stages |
| Bomber Jet | Rail shooting | Shooter stages |
| Bomber Copter | Fly above the stage | Vertical stages |
| Bomber Slider | Snowboarding sections | Snow stages |
After each stage, the game hands out one to five stage points based on how close the final score came to the target. Medals are awarded per planet, based on total stage points.
The Twist on Mazone Star
The story has more on its mind than a rescue. For the first three worlds, Bomberman chases Princess Millian and finds she has already been moved to the next one. Each time, he has to fight one of the Four Devils of Garaden, the Empire’s strongest soldiers.
On Mazone Star, he finds Millian safe in a laboratory. She tells him to retrieve the rest of the disks. When he hands them over, she reveals herself as Natia, the last of the Big Four, and sends the disks to the Garaden base. Bomberman beats her, frees the real princess, and heads for Garaden Star.
There, Nitros uses the disks to resurrect Bagular, the Empire’s leader, whose body Bomberman had destroyed before. Nitros turns out to be a Bomber Base trainee the Empire brainwashed until their fight freed him, and he offers his power to Bomberman. Bomberman defeats Bagular, who blows up Garaden Star trying to kill him. Bomberman escapes and returns to Primus Star, where Princess Millian rewards him.
What the Score Targets Get Right
The scoring system is the sharpest thing here. A stage target forces a player to sweep every collectable and every enemy rather than sprint to the exit, and the one-to-five stage points turn that into a per-planet medal chase. It gives a short platformer a reason to be replayed.
The deviation from series tradition costs something, though. Bomberman 64 had multiplayer. Bomberman Hero has single player only, and the absence is felt every time a stage ends.
The Wii Virtual Console Return
A.I Co., Ltd. developed the game, and Hudson Soft published it for the Nintendo 64. It was the second Bomberman title on the system, after Bomberman 64 in 1997. Nintendo, Hudson Soft, Konami and Gradiente appear across its publishing history. The Wii Virtual Console service re-released it in 2011.
Our Verdict on Bomberman Hero
Bomberman Hero earns its place as the odd one in the series. The Power Gears keep 14 areas from blurring together, and the salt bomb and ice bomb rules are small, clean ideas that make the platforming think. Nitros is a better character than the genre usually bothers with.
The complaints that followed the game are fair. Its graphics have not aged well, and the missing multiplayer mode leaves a hole a Nintendo 64 owner would notice immediately. But the stage scoring and the gear variety do the work that matters.
The 7.3 out of 10 is GameSpot’s user average, not this paper’s score. Treat it as a snapshot of how players felt, not a verdict.
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