There was Hi-Ten Bomberman (1993) and Hi-Ten Chara-Bom (1994). The later version featured Bonk as a playable character.

These HD Bomberman games were designed for Japan's analog HDTV standard called Hi-Vision which used a resolution of 1035i with a 16:9 widescreen format. Yes, HDTV existed in Japan in the early 1990s even though it was super expensive and there was not much programming. NHK developed Japan's analog HDTV standard during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. By 1991 or so, everything was in place. HDTV sets and test/trial HD broadcasts via satellite.


Hi-Ten Bomberman's controller input was handled by two NEC PC-Engine CoreGrafx consoles (TurboGrafx-16 in the U.S.), each handling 5 players via multi-taps.

The actual game running in the HD resolution of 1035i and 16:9 widescreen format was handled by some custom high-end PC / workstation / custom boards, which later became Hudson's 32-Bit 'Project Tatsujin' (aka Iron Man) prototype which was later stripped down & modified into the PC-FX console that released in 1994. The PC-FX was not capable of running games in HD.

Only a total of 5 Hi-Ten Bomberman units were built, each costing a small fortune, the equivalent of.around 2 million U.S. dollars back then, and I thought high-end 3D arcade games were expensive!

Footage from the first version at an actual Summer Caravan event in 1993

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KVoPogwVts

That video has been upscaled to 1080p but the native resolution of the recording itself is obviously very low res--so it is impossible to fully appreciate the HD resolution of the game, but you can still see what it looked like and the plasma display.

More videos of the two versions of the game (Hi-Ten Bomberman & Hi-Ten Chara-Bom) running on various HD sets and computer monitors. This is recently uploaded footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5bZz5Xofi8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ryRP26QNtk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGVJTJSz9Xg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MvS0OH3_tw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtH8wZSKSkA



Hudson article from Next Generation magazine, number 3
http://archives.tg-16.com/NG/NG_1995_03_078.jpg
http://archives.tg-16.com/NG/NG_1995_03_080.jpg
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/bomb/arc-hiten/img/edge17d.JPG

Probably the most comprehensive web page about Hi-Ten anywhere
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/bomb/arc-hiten/



It is important that those videos stay online, as they are precious.


The Hi-Ten Bomberman units were sold and/or destroyed. At least some of them were supposedly thrown in the trash. It is very unlikely that the game(s) will ever be leaked to the internet so that we might be able to play them via some sort of emulator. That will never happen. It's very much a sad state of affairs but at least the footage can be preserved.

The large field and multiple players on-stage strikes me as a very attractive twist on the classic Bomberman battle formula. I'm glad the developers thought at least of putting a Wide stage into the first Saturn game, but considering that current generation of consoles supports high resolution display, it's a real shame that this concept wasn't looked back at.

Also, soundtrack of Hi-Ten Bomberman is boss. I wish they released that particular version of the theme.

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Power Bomberman -- Discord

Even though Saturn Bomberman's multi-player mode with upto 10 players was inspired by Hi-Ten, it is clear to me that Hi-Ten's graphics, as far as detail is concerned, is somewhat nicer looking. That's in addition to Hi-Ten using a far higher resolution and true widescreen 16:9 format.


Hi-Ten, 1993/1994


Saturn version multi-player, 1996/1997



It's too bad Hudson isn't alive to grace us with a reworked 2D Bomberman game based directly on Hi-Ten at 1080p, for Xbox Live Arcade / 360/ Xbox One, PSN / PS3 / PS4 and Wii U.

lol, those were some pretty cool videos.They were fun to watch. It's pretty awesome how they used to have this kind of stuff and what they used it for.

Thanks for sharing dood!

And I agree it looks a lot prettier and that music is pretty awesome.

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Makes you wonder what a lot of older games would've been capable of if HD was around a lot earlier. That's really cool.

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I haven't yet taken the time to watch all of these yet, but from what I've seen, it looks like a great find. It's nice to see more content about a game that has been lost to the ages. Thanks for the post.

Really bummed out by the reality that I'll never get to experience this.

Heh, Is that from some kind of flier or more likely a magazine? Neat stuff. I love how 90's it all looks.

It is a bummer though when you couldn't be there to experience something, that you see and think is really cool looking after the fact.

At least in most cases its waaay after the fact and you can at least live with the fact that you being there was either impossible or you wouldn't have been able to fully appreciate it anyway.(Too young/what have you)

I know I'm always digging up stuff from the past and it constantly grabs my interest. I spent a chunk of my night today reading up on old Anime themed Mahjong games. I have a feeling I'm gonna buy one off Amazon soon.... Thankfully I already have a Import ready PC Engine Duo and Sega Saturn.

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They're from some Japanese magazine I found on this really cool Hi-Ten Bomberman page that I linked to in my first post.

There's a lot of great Hi-Ten stuff here:
http://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/bomb/arc-hiten/


Can hardly believe this was from two decades ago.

Wait a minute. You got all of this stuff from Ragey's page? Wow. I didn't realize that he'd amassed so much more information on the game...

Or maybe I just have a terrible memory...

Someone should save all those videos just in case they go down for some reason.   Possibly even share them on the wiki.