I found that bomberman hardball for Playstation 2 is much harder than any nintendo DS bomberman game. They kick bombs like mad! They Throw bombs like mad! But in DS, they only do this rarely. And they get trapped easily.

So, i'm wondering what is the hardest computer player from all the time. Don't count any power ups or other enemies but bombermans. I want to see the smartest computer player.

I recall Bomberman Blast having a rather decent AI, I don't remember how exactly well it fared without that crapload of items the game had on by default though.

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Power Bomberman -- Discord

I found in bomberman hardball that the computer player with Time Bomb is really challenging. Put a handicap for a computer player with 1 Max Fire, Time Bomb and lots of speed ups and see the AI blasting really fast! I think it's almost impossible to beat this one. x_x"

Bomberman Blast? You mean the Wiiware game? I actually recall it having terribly stupid AI for some reason. Or maybe you're talking about something else completely. berrybob, have you tried playing against Super Bomberman 5 super AI? They abuse items to hell so they're quite challenging.

I never tried it. Maybe i will try to play against it.

I played bomberman 93, and it's a super stupid AI. Seriously. And it doesn't have multiple difficulty levels either.

Edit: Super Bomberman 5's super AI is in my skill level. Because i lost the same times as i won. So, bomberman hardball is still the hardest multiplayer bomberman game. o_O

I'll second Bomberman Hardball, it's pretty tough in all modes - I'm sure I've scored a few victories in the battle mode, but I don't think I've EVER gotten won in the sports modes!
Atomic Bomberman is also really challenging, though I don't know if that's down to the AI or simply how blisteringly fast the game is.

On the contrary, what would you say is the easiest AI? Mega Bomberman's AI is pretty standard, but its black CPU is almost always guaranteed to trap itself with its first bomb... so I think that's a big count against it.

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If I remember correctly, Bomberman '94 actually had unique AI behaviors for each playable character, much like Super Bomberman 3 and some others. Maybe you just always had the second player set to a dumb character? (I'm assuming that Mega Bomberman only lost graphical and audio quality in the porting process).

I actually went and tested this in emulation yesterday, trying the Black CPU with all characters, on all the stages, even seeing if there was a difference between the NTSC and PAL versions... and I couldn't replicate it. The darn thing played just fine. I'm a bit miffed!
Because when I had the game on cartridge, the Black CPU would almost consistently trap itself with the first bomb it placed. It happened mostly in 4-player matches, but it was possible to face it one-on-one and it'd kill itself in the first move. It makes me wonder if my cart had a banged-up chip or something.

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That is... super bizarre.  

I've played '94 far more than Mega (only played the latter a little), but I don't remember anything like that happening when I played. Now I'm actually curious as to what could have caused it.

This is what happened in my Bomberman 93 (The black bomber just killed himself on the first bomb). My version is Wii's virtual console. Maybe plasm got a better copy of bomberman 94?  

I also found that Bomberman DS battle mode is a little harder than bomberman land touch battle pack's multiplayer mode. I think it's because the big number of items you (And the opponents) can get. I also found that Bomberman DS's easy difficulty is easier than Land touch. That's why i want to buy bomberman DS... But this is another history.

Bomberman '93 is not Bomberman '94

Bomberman '93 AI is funny, if you leave a 5 CPU match on, the bots set up a bomb right away and instantly kill themselves more often than not. Such faults are kinda understandable considering it might be the first Bomberman game with CPU players in Battle Mode though

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Power Bomberman -- Discord

I'd say that Bomberman '93's AI is the best at replicating human behavior. Everytime I try to get somebody who has never played Bomberman to play, that's exactly what happens. Then they never play the game again... :(

I've played both a ROM and the Wii Virtual Console version of Bomberman '94. Although that isn't really relevant since you seem to be referring to Bomberman '93...?

I don't remember what the AI is like in Bomberman '93. I haven't played that game in... perhaps years.

From what you guys are saying, it sounds as if Ragey may have possibly been misremembering his experiences with Bomberman '93 rather than Bomberman '94. Possibly. It would make more sense than one random copy of Bomberman '94 playing differently, anyway (gaining sentience and punishing the humans?).

I'm wondering how balanced are the computer player's difficulty settings.

For example, I have found that bomberman land touch 1 battle pack's computer players doesn't have much of a difference between the difficulty levels. The only thing that changes is how many bombs the computer puts in. But more bombs=more dangerous game. That's why the hard computer players kills itself and the easy computer wins sometimes.

But in bomberman DS is more balanced i think. The easy computer kills itself more often than the hard computer. The second bombnerman land touch's battle mode is more balanced too.

In Bomberman hardball, all computer players looks the same! And they are super hard compared to other bomberman games. I can't win the easy computers in this game because of this.

Difficulty balance only counts if there are more than 1 difficulty level for computer players though.

Bomberman Generations has one of the better AI in the series. In that they really know how to avoid blasts and are pretty aggressive compared to other games.

I'll try it one day.

I found out that in bomberman land touch 2, the computers are too defensive! I put no sudden death for 9 minutes, but no computer player won or lost... Just a bunch of draws.

In bomberman hardball, the computer is very offensive. But they only become very hard if you remove all special bombs and put only the 3 standard items (bomb, fire and speed) and kick bomb. They become pretty stupid otherwise, and they often kill themselves.

In bomberman land touch 1 and bomberman DS, the easy computer is just a slower version of the hard computer. The normal computer is just a little faster. That's why you can see the easy computer win the hard one: The AI is the same. The only thing that changes is it's speed.

For super bomberman 5, the AI is very intelligent, but it does have a certain pattern. One example is setting two bombs in a horizontal or vertical way and then kicking them. Once you learn it's pattern, it's pretty easy. But the patterns are well choosen, so it's a very intelligent AI.

I wonder how intelligent bomberman generations' AI is?

Bomberman Blitz for the DSi had some really good AI. They were tricky on lower levels.

Not really, on very easy they killed themselves quite often. On Easy, well, it's easy to trap them because they don't kick bombs.

The Normal and Hard computers are quite smart, but they are way too defensive. Put 9 minutes and no sudden death and you will see many, many draws. You will only see a victor if you put sudden death. This isn't awesome, but they are smart.

Edit: I have been playing bomberman land 3 (japanese only), and the battle mode is nearly the same as hardball´s.

I found too (in hardball) that the computer likes to get items that are near, but if you are near a item, the computer tries to explode your item or trap you.

The computer likes to kick bombs and it stops in a way that it explodes soft blocks or other players. It´s really smart!

Also, the computer never gets bad items, except if it´s in danger and stuck with a dead end or bombs.

Edit 2: New discovery: the computer players seems to use items differently depending on it´s game.

Bomberman DS/Land Touch 1: They only kick or punch to get out of a dead end. They doesn´t use other items.

Land Touch 2/Blitz/Story DS Battle mode/2 DS battle mode: They uses every item in the game. Unlike the older Land Touch 1 and old DS, they do kick bombs for attacking and throw bombs. But they are perfect dodgers on normal/hard difficulty and very rarely they kill themselves.

Super Bomberman 5: They uses every item in the game. And a lot! They uses many good patterns that i think they are the smartest item-user AI.

Hardball: They are good as Super Bomberman 5, but they are faster than that game. And they are skilled Kick Bomb Stoppers. But they aren´t the smartest because they are very stupid if one gets the Power Bomb. Still they are much harder than any other game. And you can remove Power Bomb if you want to.

Bomberman 93: They just wander around and put bombs to destroy any nearby soft block, without trapping itself. But they still wander around near the bomb until miliseconds before exploding. If they find a Bomberman, they just run to that bomberman and put bombs near him. The stupidiest AI because they kill themselves a lot. Also, on Conveyor belt stage, if they put bombs in that belt, they often kill themselves.

I´m going to make a ranking. From best to worst.

Bomberman AI Ranking:
1-Bomberman Hardball/Land 3
2-Super Bomberman 5
3-Bomberman Blast
4-Bomberman Blitz and other similar games.
5-Bomberman Land Touch 1 and DS.
6-Bomberman ´93

To make the game better, if you can edit items from soft blocks, put many different items and remove those that the computer doesn´t use or that the computer becomes stupid with it. I like to remove game breaker items like Remote Bomb or the Spring in Hardball.

Edit 3: I forgot Bomberman Blast. D:

I´m going to add it on the ranking above. And i´m going to tell how the AI works for that game.

Bomberman Blast: They seems to play more humanly and makes mistakes more frequently, but reacts fast, like a normal human player does. They seems to use items well, but does not attack the opponents well like hardball does, because they make mistakes often. At least it isn´t too dumb like Bomberman 93, because they correct mistakes.