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you know what would be really cool?. a bomberman crossover game that has characters from the legend of zelda, like a hack of bomberman but you could choose different zelda characters, and different stages based on hyrule.

unfortunately, this is NOT that.

what this is, is an ill-conceived "concept" hack that fails to deliver a finished product, and ultimately breaks the game in the process.

first of all, in the main story mode, bomberman is replaced by a Link sprite, that you cannot change. except it doesn't actually look like Link. it looks like some fat dude wearing a funny hat. if you played "Torneko No Daibuken", or are fimilar with Dragon Quest IV and the character "Torneko Taloon" the merchant, that's what it looks like. the sprite doesn't even have the right colors. its brown hair and a blue tunic.

the battle mode, is just broken. for some odd reason, that only the creator of this hack knows why, the "CPU Level" select has been completely removed, and an "items number" select put in its place. the CPU Difficultly therefore, is set at a LOW level by default, which is a huge problem for single player battles since it makes it way too easy, and if you accidentally blow yourself up you will basically be waiting for the timer to run out, since the AI is completely useless, and won't even move towards the other CPU player.

Stage 1 is completely removed. you cannot play stage 1. it has been replaced by a Zelda themed stage, which honestly isn't all that great. there are supposedly two more zelda stages you can select by... holding down the L or R button while starting a stage, (ah, what?), but both are exactly the same stage, just with teleport tunnels on either side.

the controls to change things are just mind-boggling. you select a different stage 1 variation by holding R button or L button. not pressing once, no, holding it down until the stage starts. to change characters, you "Hold Y and Press Select" at the same time, but only on the battle options screen. you can kick bombs faster by holding R and slower by holding L while kicking. why you need such convoluted button combos to do simple things like change the character is anybody's guess.

speaking of character select, the Link sprites are just bad. they really don't look normal. every one is the exact same sprite, with a color swap. But even the yellow hair and green tunic sprite, doesn't even look like a normal Link sprite. it's weird and poorly drawn. why couldn't the hack have used actual Legend of Zelda Link to the Past sprites?. why couldn't it have a selection of different zelda characters to choose from?. who knows. very odd design choices all around.

ultimately this hack was clearly made for local multiplayer only, and the actual functionality of the rest of the game was an afterthought. but even judging it by just the real human multiplayer aspect, its hard to see the value prospect of this. the novelty of playing ONE zelda themed stage wears off quickly, and its hard to justify the time and effort to even bother applying the patch to try it in the first place.

i should also mention that it causes issues with the other hacks listed here. so there is even less incentive. just apply the Less Blocky Bomberman and the Extra Stages Unlocked patches to your base rom instead, and call it a day.

Very fun sprite swaps cool options and the ability to select Link is great! This hack is an excellent way to mix up the Super Bomberman 2 experience and is sure to be a delight to legend of Zelda enthusiasts!

The character selection and the sprites change make the game have a new breath of life, is nice to have the ability to kick the bomb faster or slower, make battle mode more fun. Every change was creative choice. I expect to have a new version with more stuff, but is a nice hack, 8/10.

I think I set my sights too high when I downloaded this ROM hack.

The good stuff about this hack is the major upgrades to Battle Mode. With the ability to slightly alter stages (once per-battle set) and more control over kicking bombs, matches are sure to be far more interesting than they were before! The ability to change what set of items you can get independently of what stage you select is also a huge plus and the ability to add warp zones (a'la later games) to the sides of the stage is pretty neat. The Double Bomb power-up, though, I can take or leave. It probably makes for faster matches, but it seems like an unnecessary addition.

Now for the bad stuff. The trade-off for picking and choosing item sets now is, oddly, losing the ability to choose CPU opponent difficulty. This tells me that the patch was geared more toward human players than anything, which make sense. I was also hoping that with the addition of the character select hack, you'd be able to play as the Dastardly Bombers. Sadly, the only additional character the creator added was (for some bizarre reason) Link, from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Some of the palettes look rather bizarre on him and he, along with the graphical revamp/overhaul of Stage 1, seem entirely unnecessary and pretty silly.

All in all, I feel this ROM hack has its up and its downs, but for the most part, it's just a good place to start on a much more complex Battle Mode hack. More characters, new stages, and maybe even some new items (which aren't just duplicates of existing items) would really make this hack shine!