There are certain franchises out there that have attempted the make the move to 3D and struggled or flat out failed completely along the way. Bomberman is one of those games that’s best when its being itself and not trying to mix it up for the sake of moving into the current generation. Enter Bomberman Blast, a downloadable WiiWare title that takes the series back to its roots and does what it does best. Fast, frantic multiplayer fun.

Bomberman is a simple concept, excellently executed. Controlling a Bomberman, you can lay bombs along a small battle field blowing up rocks and trying to take out your opposition. Taking a bird’s eye view each stage is split into a grid of squares with solid blocks to hide behind and breakable ones to destroy littered throughout. Bombs cause explosions that will reach a certain number of squares vertically and horizontally depending on their strength and the idea is to avoid these or face a quick elimination. Power-ups are scattered throughout each stage helping and hindering your abilities to fight such as slowing you down, allowing you to drop more bombs, kick bombs and my personal favourite a virus that makes your character go crazy. The controls are extremely simple and offer a few control schemes. The remote on its side is the preferred option offering accurate movement via the D-pad while the classic and Gamecube controller are more than capable as well.

This would have been my overview on the single player / story mode but oddly enough there isn’t one at all. While many will see this as laziness on the developer’s part I see it as rather a thankful decision. Rarely are Bomberman titles worthwhile in terms of playing it alone. The stories are often awful and too much is changed of the formula that it simply becomes a bore to play.

Instead the focus has been made on fine tuning the multiplayer which really has paid off offering perhaps the greatest Bomberman package to date. While four player would have been good enough, Hudson have gone one better and decided to double the battle count taking the participants to eight. Sure it can make things hectic, but it’s still great fun. The amount of options and customizable modes is impressive and at first it can be a little daunting, but gradually as you make your way through the list, you’ll pick your favorite preferences.

As mentioned before, you can play with up to eight players on or offline on a range of modes. While most of you are likely not to have seven friends handy every time you load the game up, computers can be easily put in their place or their presence excluded altogether. As for the modes themselves, these are varied and fun too. Standard does exactly what it says on the tin, while countdown, king and air raid mix things up with weird rule types. Air raid for example sees groups of bombs rain down from the heavens every few seconds while king is a mass scramble to attack the person holding onto a golden crown and keep it till the end of the round.

There are a healthy amount of stages to select from in all that can be toggled to normal size (for fewer player sessions) or larger (if you want the space when playing with a full party.) While simple stages with no gimmicks are the best way you can play, the new features are pretty fun too and definitely worth checking out. One stage sees UFOs flying overhead that can be boarded and used to drop bombs on unsuspecting opponents below while another is set in a giant graveyard with ghoulish hands breaking through the earth and trying to grab you. If you thought things were hectic enough on a basic battlefield, things can get especially crazy on these stages and at points it’s hard to even tell what is going on resulting in harsh deaths before you can even blink. They’re a nice distraction but its likely you’ll return to the basic classic stages.

Visually the game has been given a nice lick of paint while still retaining a two dimension sort of look. The stages are bright and colourful while the action on screen is constantly busy without a single moment of slowdown. As for the music, it is often cheerful in the background with explosions taking over more often than not.

Bomberman isn’t trying to revolutionise the formula nor is it even trying to mix things up slightly, it’s simply touching up on what it is known for, and that’s simple, basic multiplayer fun. With up to eight players and an online mode, Bomberman Blast is perhaps the best group experience you can find for a thousand points on WiiWare.