Few video game characters are remembered as fondly as Bomberman. With more than 40 years' worth of releases under his belt, chances are, like me, you've played at least one of his titles. If you haven't, Super Bomberman Collection ($19.99, reviewed on PC but also available on PlayStation 5, Switch, Switch 2, and Xbox Series) is a good place to start. It's a compilation of the character's earliest outings, presented at high resolution and packed with artwork, music, and general game improvements. It's a great package for fans, and even casuals like me who may be taking a look at these older titles for the first time. The limited online multiplayer battles sting a bit, but Super Bomberman Collection is an overall satisfying action-strategy bundle that showcases why Bomberman is an icon.

What Is Super Bomberman Collection?

Super Bomberman Collection features seven games, including the 8-bit Bomberman and Bomberman II, as well as all the 16-bit Super Nintendo/Super Famicom Bomberman releases. Two titles (Super Bomberman 4 and 5) are localized in English for the first time, which I appreciate. Each title is lovingly presented in 4K resolution and includes the option to switch to the Japanese and European versions where applicable.

(Credit: Konami/PCMag)

Now, I didn't grow up playing these Bomberman games, but I still consider the series near and dear to my heart. I distinctly remember renting Bomberman 64 from Blockbuster and playing it all night. However, the series' gameplay hasn't changed much since the original title, so I jumped into the Super Bomberman Collection without experiencing much of a learning curve.

Gameplay: Classic Maze-Based Bombing Action

Most Bomberman games begin with you in a corner of a maze. From there, you navigate the stage, using bombs to blow up barriers and defeat enemies. The objectives vary from level to level, but they usually involve clearing the screen of enemies, finding the exit hidden behind a destructible wall, or flipping switches to open a door. What I like most about playing the titles back-to-back is that you can see the concept evolve from one entry to the next. New characters, power-ups, and abilities are introduced in each title in this collection. In just four short years, the Super Bomberman games laid the groundwork for the series.

(Credit: Konami/PCMag)

That's both good and bad. The simple gameplay makes the Bomberman titles easy to play, but they're not particularly deep or complex (and they get repetitive pretty quickly). The games are better suited to short, 15-20 minute pick-up-and-play sessions rather than extended play. Bomberman's beat-by-beat gameplay is similar to Lode Runner, a classic puzzle-platformer from yesteryear. However, you don't directly attack enemies. Instead, you try to trap them between your bombs and the maze barriers to wipe them out.

This is sometimes easier said than done, especially as the maze opens and enemies have more room to evade your explosive attacks. However, you'll find power-ups hidden in walls that give you new abilities, like being able to kick bombs, drop multiple bombs at once, or extend your bomb blast radius. These help you clear enemies and stages faster, but you must be careful that you don't accidentally blast yourself in the process.

(Credit: Konami/PCMag)

Super Bomberman Collection's audio and visuals impressed me. Each entry has bright, colorful sprites and bouncy, catchy music. The later releases are among the best examples of titles leveraging the Super Nintendo/Famicom's power, with colorful, creative mazes and fun animations that add personality to these textless titles. The original Bombman and Bomberman II are less impressive, but the 8-bit classics are still welcome additions to the collection.

Collection Features: Rewind, Saves, and Online Multiplayer

Like most classic compilation releases, Super Bomberman Collection is packed with many improvements. Two notable additions are rewind and save states. These changes, albeit simple, help smooth out the sometimes frustrating gameplay that's a byproduct of the 8- and 16-bit generations. In the past, I'd often turn a corner too fast and get caught in the tail end of an explosion. Now, instead of resetting the level, I can simply rewind and correct my tempo. Save states let you save and load a title at any point, something you couldn't do with the original releases.

(Credit: Konami/PCMag)

The collection introduces a new boss rush mode, a simple time attack mode where you battle bosses from each game in turn. I don't dig this mode, as I'm just not a fan of Bomberman’s boss encounters. The bosses sometimes come in the form of large, screen-filling enemies, or sometimes come as smaller, more annoying foes that scamper around the maze and harm you from afar. These fights are usually the most frustrating aspects of Bomberman. In addition, the boss rush is designed for you to chase high scores, so the rewind feature is disabled, making the encounters extra challenging.

Super Bomberman Collection comes with more than 200 pieces of art from across all five 16-bit Super Bomberman entries, a jukebox that lets you listen to tracks from the various games and create your own music playlist, and retro-style CRT filters for old school visual flair. There's no music from the two 8-bit games, but you can apply CRT filters to them. The games are presented in 4:3, but you can choose wide and native-ratio displays, and even a pixel-perfect mode meant to emulate how the games would've looked on a CRT TV. I appreciate the work that went into preserving these titles and making them playable on contemporary gaming platforms.

(Credit: Konami/PCMag)

A lot of care also went into the collection's presentation. The menus are bright and colorful, and I even spotted new art and animations in the Bomb Radio section. I especially liked the 3D renderings of each game's box art and cartridges from each region. You even get instruction booklets for each Super Bomberman entry.

Super Bomberman Collection includes the original games' local multiplayer modes against bots or buds. However, there's no online multiplayer—in the traditional sense. You can't play random bombers, but you can battle people on your friend list using Steam Remote Play (or using GameShare and GameChat with Switch 2). I understand that adding online multiplayer to a classic collection is a heavy lift, but it would be nice to play strangers when my buddies aren't around.

(Credit: Konami/PCMag)

Bomberman die-hards may lament the missing releases. Fan-favorite 2D titles, including Atomic Bomberman, Bomberman '93, Bomberman '94, Saturn Bomberman, and Wario Blast Featuring Bomberman (a Nintendo crossover), are absent. The same goes for 3D games, such as Bomberman 64 and Bomberman Hero. But in the same way Capcom has released a half dozen Mega Man collections (like Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection), I'm sure Konami will revisit other Bomberman titles for future collections if this one does well. 

PC Requirements: Minimum and Recommended Specs

Naturally, the sprite-based Super Bomberman Collection isn't very demanding on your PC. The minimum requirements are an Intel Core i5 6400 CPU, an Intel HD 630 or Nvidia GT 740 GPU, 2GB of storage, Windows 10, and, surprisingly, 16GB of RAM. The recommended requirements up the components to an Intel Core i5 8400 CPU and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU. Your PC will also need Windows 11. My rig easily surpassed that, and I enjoyed a locked 60fps with no dropped frames.

Super Bomberman Collection runs fine on PC handhelds as well. I played the majority of my review on an Asus ROG Xbox Ally X without any significant issues. That said, I ran into an occasional audio bug that caused the audio to desync with the on-screen gameplay. Likewise, the game also experienced sudden speed increases at seemingly random times. I fixed these issues by resetting the system.

The game's Steam page lists Super Bomberman Collection's Steam Deck compatibility as "Playable" instead of "Verified." That's likely because the compilation doesn't support the Steam Deck's 1,200-by-800 screen resolution.