Developer: Jakub Lange
Publisher: Ultimate Games, Jakub Lange
Platforms: iOS, Android, Switch
Tested on: Switch
Billy Bomber – Review
Billy Bomber is one of the numerous mobile games in which you can progress through many levels and try to collect all three stars before reaching the finish line. You do this by placing bombs and springs and setting them off to get Billy where he needs to be. Now, this game has made its way to the Switch as a paid game, but it doesn’t turn out to be as good as its (free) mobile counterpart.
Story
Billy Bomber doesn’t feature a story at all. In Billy Bomber, Your only purpose is to blast Billy with bombs and springs to the finish line. By creatively placing these bombs and springs, you can make Billy fly and make him touch the stars. Reaching the finish line is enough to move on to the next level, but three stars are required to perfectly complete each level.
Graphics
The graphics of Billy Bomber are very basic. In the background, you’ll see a static landscape that appears to be quite blurry. The platforms in each level are comprised of squares and rectangles. Some of these platforms will have some grass on them. The colors used in the game are quite boring, just like the rest of the game’s appearance. Billy himself is just a ball, customized with a face, two hands and a red and blue overall. The menu itself is also quite dull with only a moving block with play, help, and credits on it. In the bottom right part of the screen, there are country flags that indicate in which language you’re playing the game.
Sound
The menu in Billy Bomber has a very monotone soundtrack that sounds alright for a while, but it’s also the only soundtrack in the whole game. When you start playing the game, the music will just continue to play and will constantly repeat itself. The sounds in the game are very meager as you’ll only hear a sound of the exploding TNT, a ‘bling’ when Billy touches a star and the sound of the springs that launch Billy when he touches them.
Gameplay
Billy Bomber is a puzzle arcade game that’s been ported to the Nintendo Switch. In Billy Bomber, you can complete levels and collect stars along the way. Each level will have three stars to collect, but it’s not necessary to collect even one star to move onto the next level as reaching the end flag will be enough to move on. Coming within a certain radius of the end flag will show the results screen with the number of stars you’ve collected. You can try to collect all the stars in a level, but there’s a big flaw in the latest Switch port of this game: you simply can’t collect all the stars in each level because of the way each level ends on the Switch. Some levels have their stars placed too close to the end flag, meaning the results screen will appear before you’ve touched the last star, which results in not having that last star. The worst thing is that you hear the sound of Billy gathering the last star while seeing the results screen, but it still doesn’t add up to your collected stars, which is a big flaw in the game and can be quite frustrating. This isn’t a problem in the mobile game, because of a difference in how the level end transition works.
Playing the game is divided into two phases. First, you have the preparation phase, where you place all your bombs and springs. In most levels, you can set as many bombs and springs as you like to reach the end flag. While you can place springs wherever you want, as they will stay where you’ve placed them, bombs will drop down until they touch a solid platform. When you accidentally place a bomb in the air, it will drop down into nothingness. Normally you can remove each placed item by clicking on them in the preparation phase, but when it has disappeared, you need to remove it with the delete command. The delete command will delete the last placed item, which can mean all items placed after the accidentally placed item will need to be deleted before the right one will be deleted, so you need to start all over again.
The bombs can be activated by clicking on them on the touchscreen in handheld mode or by using the activation command. Activating bombs with the touchscreen is possible, but isn’t all that accurate as you can easily miss the bombs while the screen is moving. This can result in failing the activation of your bombs and you need to start over again. It’s best to use the activation command for this, but you will be bound to the order you’ve set your bombs. A bomb that’s fallen off-screen will stay active and will be activated in the order you’ve placed it, so you need to delete it to prevent it from interfering with the timing of your bombs’ explosions.
Conclusion
Billy Bomber is an arcade puzzle mobile game that has made its way to the Nintendo Switch. This game definitely feels as an uncompleted game with it having the big flaw of not being able to collect all the stars in each level. What’s worse, is that the free to download mobile game doesn’t have any problems with this, while the paid Switch version is a mess compared to the mobile version. We would definitely not recommend this game because it feels like an unfinished game and you’d be better off just playing the free mobile version of the game which is without issues with completing levels.
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