Bomberman Fantasy Race

After years of success, it was inevitable that Bomberman would get a racing spin-off of his own. Such a thing was a rite of passage for any successful mascot in the 90s and early 2000s, but while most were content to closely ride the coattails of the Mario Kart formula, Bomberman Fantasy Race is a different beast entirely. Instead of go-karts, Bomberman and his competitors ride upon Louies and Tirras. The bomb-tossing action of the main series is maintained here, granting races added depth in several ways. Instead of being so friendly that anyone can hop in, Fantasy Race demands time and patience to get used to its controls. It can be a frustrating experience, but it’s one that offers a satisfying skill ceiling and unique ideas if you give it a chance.

The racing takes place in Bomberman Fantasy Land, a massive amusement park-like facility built by Dr. Ein in the shape of White Bomberman. The Fantasy Race is the most exciting event it offers, attracting the attention of all sorts of characters who want money and fame. White and Black Bomberman get invited to participate on the event’s 10th anniversary and choose to do so to keep an eye on Bagura, who is also participating, and because they wouldn’t mind winning the prize money themselves. Fantasy Race offers six playable characters, none of which actually have an effect on the racing. Aside from the three mentioned, there’s also Pretty Bomber, a HigeHige Bandit, and Mach Bomber, a newcomer made just for this game. There’s no plot beyond this, but there’s an undercurrent of materialism that gives the game a curious vibe. Bomberman’s here for money moreso than justice, you’re encouraged to buy better mounts to replace his ever-reliable green Louie partner, and there’s even a menu dedicated to staring at all the money you’ve accumulated in a bank vault as if you were Scrooge McDuck. It makes Bomberman seem rather greedy!

In order to win the competition, you need to achieve first place in all seven courses, then do it again in mirror mode to unlock the eighth and final course. To even get the chance to race on a course, you need to buy its entry ticket first. Winning races naturally gets you money, but you’ll also have to consider buying items to bring into races and new mounts as you go to keep up with your opponents. Louies are generally more balanced and easier to handle, whereas Tirras are often faster at the cost of handling. Each type also gets a different effect when picking up the egg item, the former getting a speed boost and the latter getting temporary invincibility. There are five options for each animal and they excel in different things, which can be useful for certain courses. Once you buy all five mounts in either category, an extremely expensive but dominant sixth option becomes available. This economy is an interesting aspect of the game compared to other racers, but it was thrown out of wack for the game’s US and European releases.

The pricing of mounts was dramatically increased, forcing a significant grind that didn’t exist previously. You can win for a long time with the starting mounts in the Japanese version, but the English releases also suffer from significantly increased difficulty through more aggressive AI that rubberbands, throws bombs with reckless abandon, and makes flawless turns at impossible speeds. You’ll want to buy better mounts sooner to stay competitive, which hypothetically leads to hours spent grinding easy courses. Luckily, this can be circumvented with the game’s multiplayer mode, which allows two players to use their save data and bet money on races. Just create a copy of your save on a second memory card, do a race with the biggest bet possible, and repeat until you’re loaded!

Successful racing requires stamina management, an understanding of your potential options, and proper bomb control. You have an accelerate button, but you can press up on the D-pad to make your mount go even faster. This takes stamina to do and makes turning more difficult, so depending on the course, you need to find a balance between dashing and running normally to keep your stamina replenished. Bombs can be thrown behind you with a tap, but if you hold the button, you can throw them much further to hit other racers. Unlike most games in the series, getting hit by a bomb is only a minor setback, but it can be the difference between victory and defeat if done at the right time. If you throw a bomb, then run through the center of the explosion at just the right time, you’ll get a speed boost. It’s unintuitive and difficult to do, but if you get the hang of it, every straightaway becomes a juicy opportunity. Since you’re riding an animal, you can jump, which can be used to kick off certain walls for speed boosts and gain access to useful shortcuts. Multiple boosts can be chained in succession if they’re arranged as such, but if you mess up the timing, you’ll waste precious seconds recovering.

The trickiest thing about Fantasy Race is that getting comfortable with it is an uphill battle. Turning feels like it takes a bit too long to do, so turning sooner than you would normally think often gets the best results. Movement feels very loose as well, so it can be hard to maintain control at high speeds or straighten yourself in tight corridors. The physics are frequently bizarre and simply bumping up against a wall can get you stuck or bouncing in a different direction. The track design doesn’t always take the finicky controls into account, either. The earlier tracks avoid this problem by having wide roads, but once you reach the likes of Star Express and Bomber Castle, the tracks become so twisty and narrow that hugging the walls often feels like the only viable option. Bakuzan Ski Course is almost sadistically harsh for anyone not used to the controls; patches of ice make you go flying at the slightest tap, winding turns beg for a mount with good handling, and there are multiple jumps that’ll force you to repeat parts of the course if you mess them up.

There’s a large pool of items to use, many of which are from previous Bomberman games, but making use of them is more difficult than you’d think. Classics like the line bomb, power bomb, and remote bomb all essentially do the same thing here, but because it’s so difficult to stay in range of opponents, let alone aim at them, they rarely do anything to help you get out of last place. Powerful items do exist, such as the homing bomb (the Mario Kart red shell equivalent) and the stopwatch (freezes all opponents for three seconds), but the former can be unreliable and the latter is quite rare. The skull is back to cause trouble as usual and it has a really nasty selection of effects, ranging from disabling bombs to reversing your controls. If you’re really unlucky, you’ll get the “Poopie” item, which forces your mount to relieve themselves and waste several seconds! Between the skull and the randomized item boxes offering nothing of value if you’re in first place, you’re often better off avoiding items entirely and sticking to purchase-only items like roller skates for speed boosts.

If you’re willing to put up with the game’s merciless expectations, there are definitely things to appreciate about it. The track design at its best does a good job of making each track feel unique and educational in different ways. Bomber Coaster Lake and Wacca Island Beach Side are great early courses, providing you with a healthy balance of items, jumps, and shortcuts that can be discovered through experimentation and different mounts to shave significant time off subsequent runs. Dyna Mountain has plenty of hazards, ranging from wind gusts to a minefield, but it also offers ways to bypass these through bounce pads and taking risks on useful shortcuts. In general, Fantasy Race has personality and visually holds up in an appealing way even now thanks to a constantly bubbly presentation.

Bomberman Fantasy Race is the kind of game where the difference between a skilled player and a novice is immediately obvious. If you put in the time, you can blast through the game in style, bouncing around all over the place as you use walls and bombs to leave opponents in the dust. However, getting there is going to require a lot of losing and learning, something that people are less likely to put up with now than they were in 1998. In the world of racing games, there really isn’t anything like it, so it’s a shame that there was never a second attempt. There would be another Bomberman racing game just a few years later in the form of Bomberman Kart, and while that game’s conventional approach is perfectly valid, it’s lacking this one’s creative spark.

Japanese

North American

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