If you are a gamer since the early 90s, chances are that you have already played Bomberman. It is a tight, grid-based combat game where you use bombs to kill enemies and clear arenas after arenas. Team PUH has picked this excellent game as their inspiration and released their very own Bombing Quest which is essentially the same formula but brings with it tons of brand new features and mechanics to make it an entirely new and unique title currently available on Steam. This is our preview of Bombing Quest for Steam in which we try not to explode ourselves while blowing up some massive bosses.
In Bombing Quest, your main goal is to explode every enemy that comes in your way. You play as a Dwarf who wakes up to find humanity is gone and few humans living in the shadows of insects and massive beasts roaming the earth. Your partner is a small robot who helps you in various tasks such as guiding you through the game and upgrading you to make yourself better and more powerful in the game. The main story of the game is told pretty much through various shrines you found on your journey however the main aspect of the game is its gameplay and combat.
Bombing Quest plays out pretty much the game it is inspired on however it adds tons of more features to the whole mix. While Bomberman is simply bombing enemies in a closed arena, Bombing Quest adds a freeroam aspect to the game while giving you many reasons to explore its world. As you explore the world of Bombing Quest, you will come across many different NPCs that you can interact with and get side quests that will net you a sweet reward at the end. These side quests range from delivering items to exploration to killing certain powerful enemies. They are not really that necessary and you can easily skip them but some of them are right in the path and you do not have to go out of your way to complete them making them really easy to complete.
The core combat is exactly the same as that of Bomberman. You enter an arena and battle starts in the grid format. You place down bombs strategically and they explode to kill the enemies in the arena. However, Bombing Quests has plenty of unique types of enemies that are also smart when it comes to avoiding the bomb. Some of the enemies require more than one bombs to kill them however some of the enemies are really quick and you will need to be on your toes to avoid them and kill them. As you progress in the game, you will come across some really tough enemies and in great quantities that will really have you re-think your strategy on how to approach.
Boss battles are yet another one of the strongest aspects of the game. The boss battles are challenging and are greatly designed as well. You will come across bosses that can knock back your bombs, teleport to a location of their choice to remain close to you and elementals that can spawn multiple forms of themselves in the same arena. Each boss will require a different strategy and tactics to defeat them. However, as the game progresses, enemies and bosses are not the only things that get powerful. You acquire many gadgets and upgrades along the way as well which makes you more powerful to deal with the ever-evolving enemies. The enemy AI is also strong as they will change routes to avoid the bombs placed by you on the grid making things more challenging.
As you play the game, you will come across a lot of gadgets that you will acquire via completing side quests or random exploration in special boxes. You also get Dwarven components that help you unlock more of your suit’s potential with new abilities and upgrades. You can increase your slots as well which allows you to equip more gadgets and increase your soul carrying capacity. You will also be able to land and detonate more bombs at the same time as well. Along with this, you will also unlock the much-needed Dash and Punch ability which will save your life in certain scenarios.
Dash is one of the most important abilities in the game because in certain arenas and general locations, you will not have a ground access to certain areas. Here, you will use Dash to reach those inaccessible areas and get away from enemies or get closer to them to kill them. These abilities are crucial to your survival and add a great new way of playing the traditional Bomberman style game. All of these abilities, gadgets, and upgrades can be managed at special Maintenance Stations found all over the world. You can easily change your build at these stations.
The open-world of Bombing Quest feels really alive thanks to lots of enemies and different NPCs that you run into. The game does not force you to complete arena after arena filled with enemies. You can take your time and explore the game at your own pace. You can even engage and nab a few kills without actually entering an arena. This is one trick that I found while playing the game as it allowed me to thin the number of enemies before I entered the arena and it locked me in. The exploration sometimes allows you to find some hidden items and quest items even before you start the side quests saving time and skipping backtracking.
To save time traveling back and forth, Bombing Quest comes with a fast travel mechanic as well. As you explore the game, you will come across some Soul Beacons after every few arenas. You can save your game here and use these as fast travel points as well. Since enemies do not repopulate cleared arenas, it makes sense to simply use these Soul Beacons to go back to a location if you have to and save some time. You can also find and use Navigation Beacons to unlock colored maps for the region you are currently in. Without these beacons, the maps are empty and all you get are some icons on the map screen.
Bombing Quest also features decent visuals and audio design. I will not say that it is the prettiest game in the world but the visuals and animations are decent enough. You can easily run the game on a fairly low-spec PC as well making it a solid choice if you are currently not equipped with a pretty powerful machine. The gameplay is fun and this is the main aspect which you should be worried about with a game like Bombing Quest. Since we do not have a newer Bomberman game, Bombing Quest certainly fills that void until we can get a new Bomberman game. More features will arrive in the full version of the game once it is out of Early Access and we cannot wait to play the full version when it comes out.
