anymore?

I've heard on millions of forums and top ten lists that Bomberman is an icon to the gaming industry. Yet when news of a new bomberman title is in the rise, it usually gets no attention. Discussions usually involve the other icons (mario, Sonic, Mega Man) more so than bomberman. Heck, this is about the only fansite I could find on bomberman (most icons get millions.) Even Bloody Roar has at least two-four fansites.

Anyone else feel or fear that the franchise may be dying more so than sonic?

Personally, I love Bomberman. Older. I hate what Hudson is doing to series and if it's going this way, I don't care if it ends. It'll probably be for the best... If they do release a decent game sometime, then we're talking, period.

Even though the franchise may not be doing very well, it's not too bad now. I liked the new BOJ for example, they seemed to be going in the right direction with that. The one that's coming out later this year in japan for the wii has a story mode, atleast some form of one- perhaps they've realized that fans have had enough of the newer style that they were going for with it.

_________________
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."

I'm pretty sure Bomberman has always been way more popular in Japan.... years ago when I first got into it there was virtually no one else I had met that liked Bomberman, online or off.

And I do agree with Shiro. And yeah, the new Wii Bomberman looks good, though I can't say this early, and I still despise Bomberman Online. To me, it had good concepts, I mean, adding new Battle modes like Panel Attack and such, but it was bad implementation in my mind. I mostly didn't like the engine, plus there was horrendous lag that wasn't really the game's fault, but more likely either the server or the locations of everyone else who played it.... and if it were the latter, that would have to mean that nobody I ever played against lived in North America.

I do think Bomberman is incredibly popular.... When it comes to multiplayer, that is. Most look back on the Adventure games in the series as flops (don't care what they say, 'cause the three N64 games happen to be my favorite in the series), and most other classic games are only remembered because of their battle mode. Look at Super Bomberman 2 on the SNES, for example; when a critic is talking about that, hardly are they recounting the single-player experience, but rather, the fun they had playing the game with their friends.

It isn't always a bad thing, but I do think Hudson needs to step up to these platforming games again, and stray away from these mini-game compilations. They're starting to act like Ubisoft.

_________________

Bomberman blast is doing just that Axis.

Though it's going to be more like the super bomberman games in terms of single player.

I was really hoping for a better Generations.

Well, I do think Bomberman isn't getting the attention you'd think he used to. I mean half the extreme hardcore gamers at my school don't even know what Bomberman is or if they do, they are all like "oh yeah that really old game!"

To say the least it's gone downhill some, but I think that it has its fans. Many bomberman fansites have been made but they all fail. One of the better attempts that didn't make it was Bomberman Land Forums.

To say the least we as Bombermans need to hold it together and keep a fanbase alive and visible. This place would be much better off if it could be better found. I mean I wanted to find a bomberman fansite/forum for a long time before I found this place.

Taking the EarthBound/Mother series and using it as an example they probably don't have as many fans in the US as Bomberman does. I couldn't swear that, butt I'm pretty sure. Anyway, they are all pretty much united as fans, and the Bomberman fans really are not. Starmen.net can be found in a web search, and Bomberman Board is extremely difficult to find. I didn't find it in a web search, and the only way I got here was a lucky link in the signature of a Kirby fansite.

You can find this forum by searching for Bomberman board in Google (first link), but it won't show up if you type in Bomberman forum. I agree that the Bomberman fans aren't really united, but I don't know of other Bomberman groups outside of this place. I don't go out in the dark, what can I say.

If you really want to, instead of just advertising, you can try finding more Bomberman fans by looking for Bomberman groups elsewhere - not just forums, but any kind of groups. For example, searching on, say Yahoo groups comes up with at least a few Bomberman groups on the second page. Are they active? I don't know, I'm not even sure how a Yahoo group functions, but there are people there that like Bomberman.

I'm not making any suggestions, I'm just showing you other options.

Although, now that I think about it, I do wonder why there seems to be new users every now and then, but they never post.

I see my avvie came in handy  

_________________
Metroid: Other M - As in "There's the good Metroid games... we chose to do one of some Other Make altogether."

Lol, no offense but your voice kind of reminds me of Heath Ledger's Joker every now and then, with the pauses and tongue smacking.

But yeah you have a point there. I'm not sure what you mean about Bomberman bringing in new characters, except that yeah it's kind of weird that they introduce more "good guys" only for you to never see them again, like the TSA characters and those guys from the new Bomberman Story DS (haven't played that though so....). But the villains are usually new because they just kill 'em off in the same game they're introduced in almost always. Hudson doesn't have much to say about its characters' backgrounds.... makes it kind of hard to care about them.

Well, I think we might have to work at bringing some people together. I mean I've met a lot of people by searching the corners of the internet that are Bomberman fans but everything is so hard to get to and find that they don't really know where to go...

I think I'm going to bring some of these such people here. If we can get 10 new fans to come here, that'd be a good step in the right direction.

I really don't know how it's hard to find as sometimes when I'm searching for something Bomberman related a topic from this forum will appear as one of the top matches. Case in point.

I think one of the major things that turns people off from this place is that it seems "inactive" to them. Like I said before, there seems to be a somewhat steady supply of new members but none of them post.

I would agree with that statement. I remember finding this board via someone's image map of links on a fan site somewhere, visited it a several times years ago, and somehow forgot about it. I don't think I registered back then and only recently registered during a discussion with Ven on Hudson Entertainment's forum about the views of "hardcore fans". As I work for a college I talk to students regularly and many of them know of Bomberman but they are not fans per say like many of us are. My IRC life is nothing but people who know about games in general, so that's a bad gauge as only the dim ones don't know anything about Bomberman. Facebook is full of people but again, they join the groups and then never say a word. Maybe people like being a part of something but not being involved? I know once I get home I shudder to sit down at the PC as I'm at one all day long for work.  

Yet, in real life I stream data about Bomberman titles like he's some historical figure.

_________________

I should add that places like Hudson Entertainment's board is full of inactivity. You might post a brilliant query and never have an admin respond with anything, not even a "No idea, dude". I know Bomberman is big at conventions, and you always see people taking photos and videos of themselves for Flickr and YouTube, but somehow these people fail to find the fan hubs or are silent lurkers. *shrug*

_________________

I get what your saying. Years ago, whenever I used to tell people I'm into Bomberman, they'd either laugh or say they don't know what it is. So far, this is the only site, or better yet, the ONLY place I see other Bomberman fans at. To me, Bomberman should be an icon, but I feel that nobody else even bothers with it.

_________________

Well, I'm here now, and I must say I'm lucky I found this place. I've been making some sort of effort to document as much of Bomberman's history as possible and I definitely couldn't do it alone.

I want to make this happen, and you guys will definitely be a big help.