Bombing Quest – Preview
If you call yourself a gamer and you never heard of Bomberman you must have been living under a rock. Not only has the game been around since 1983, initially under the name ”Eric and the Floaters”, but it inspired an entire genre. There’s a good chance that you ever did a Bomberman knockoff in some web browsers as it was a popular genre to clone. Yes, not the game but the genre, cause Bomberman games are unique in their own way and very recognizable. That being said, aside from a few releases, it’s been eerily quiet with bomb-blasting releases, so it’s nice to see that Bombing Quest picks up the pace again.
At the time of writing this article, Bombing Quest just got released for Early Access on Steam. Now here’s a game that’s smart about what it’s doing. Instead of overflowing the market with bad copies, it takes the best parts of something that works and adapts it to a new product that can truly be called original instead of a bad clone. Bombing Quest does this by combining the classic Bomberman gameplay with RPG and story elements. You play as a Dwarven explorer who goes around ”digging” in ruins to discover ancient history, belongings, and creatures, and the game names you a guardian of this realm. Essentially this means you partially run around to explore areas and talk to people who might or might not give you quests, and partially you blow up monsters as in a classic Bomberman game.
The game accomplishes this by dividing the gameplay into battle areas and explorable paths. As soon as you enter a battle area, the entrance and exit close on you and you first have to destroy all hostile monsters. You do so by planting bombs that explode after a few seconds. Over the course of the game, you can gather and craft upgrades for your gear to get more bombs or be able to take more hits, and more like such expansions. Also, you get active abilities to use such as healing.
The best part about Bombing Quest is that it throws in some adventure with platforming on a single floor, and that it tests your wits with dangerous traps and monsters with timing. The downside is that there is generally too little of such platforming going on compared to the generous amount of bombing. This while the tricky timing makes it all feel more like an adventure and therefore is a valuable addition to the game. Sure the bombing combat is fun and gets harder quite fast, but so far Bombing Quest just feels a little light on the RPG and adventure elements.
Graphically Bombing Quest is largely made so all ages can enjoy it. Whenever you kill an enemy it just leaves behind sparkles without too much violence, and you can collect these sparkles to use your special ability. Overall, graphically it could use a bit of polish here and there because it feels a bit rough around certain edges and the animations of mainly NPCs are dull to non-existent, but it gives off an explorative vibe of discovering long-forgotten temples and ruins, and it works well. The soundtrack also helps with creating an adventurous atmosphere, so there’s probably little to change on that part.
Conclusion
Bombing Quest in Early Access is already a heap of fun that combines classic, strong gameplay with a more modern RPG approach. So far though, the RPG and adventure elements are a bit on the light side compared to the battles you will go through, but as far as we can tell, Bombing Quest brings forth a solid game that just could use a bit more love and attention before it’s fully released.
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