Kaboomania Review (Switch)

We are used to seeing retro styled games based on older franchises appear. What is a little less common is for new games made for original hardware to appear on the Switch. There have been a few of course such as Astebros, but they tend to stay in the realm of the Evercade. Kaboomania, is a new Amiga 1200 game with some very clear influences from the Bomberman series.

The aim of the game is clearly to try and recapture the spark that the original Bomberman franchise was known for. There are 4 player local vs battles and even a password system for the single player instead of an auto save. The levels themselves are generally quite a lot bigger than with the Bomberman games as well. It all sounds promising but somewhere along the way it seems to lose the magic.

First, the password system probably sounded like a great nostalgic kick to begin with, but in practice its incredibly annoying. Having to remember to write down or take a screen shot of your pass code every time you play will likely see you losing progress in the single player game. It’s something we have really moved beyond and including a save function as well would have made a lot more sense.

Single player suffers in the same way a lot of the single player campaigns of its inspiration suffer from. Single player Bomberman was never something that held attention for long. While the Bomberman franchise tried to keep mixing things up it never quite got the mix of clearing enemies and puzzles to the level of the multiplayer draw. There was a reason that when the game came out on Xbox Live that it was multiplayer only. Kaboomania suffers much the same fate. You move around a grided maze, clearing blocks, picking up powerups and looking for exit. Aside from the look it’s pretty much identical. However, as the levels are bigger it just becomes a drawn-out experience very quickly. As soon as level ten we were getting bored with it.

Unfortunately, it also has some technical issues. There is a lot of juddering and frame rate dropping. This occurs when bombs go off or when enemies are exploded. In a game this precise it makes things very frustrating at times as you jump around the screen. It also makes levels with a large number of enemies near unplayable at times. It’s something that really needs addressing. There is a powerup that drops a load of bombs all over the map which just results in the game pretty much grinding to a halt. An Amiga 1200 game really should not be stressing the Switch 2 out quite this much.

The other major issue for this is that The Bomberman Collection is also readily available. This is cheaper but when you can go and get a whole bundle of retro games that present a much slicker experience It’s hard to see who will be drawn to this. As a physical disc to be used with the Amiga 1200 this has merit, out in the wider world it really does begin to fall short.

Overall, it’s a shame Kaboomania can’t quite capture the magic of the games it is emulating. Without the technical issues this would be a fun distraction. But with the frame skips and general lack of polish in the movement and controls it just becomes too easy to ignore when there are better options available.

Overall 5/10