Take Bomberman and cross it with Mario Party and you’ve got Bomberman Land Touch! 2 for Nintendo’s dual screen portable. Adventure Mode, the meat of this title, is shallow and easy. The player moves his bomber around the Bom Bom Kingdom, an amusement park for Bombermen, in order to play minigames against the computer to win coins and other assorted tokens to open up new areas of the park to play new minigames against the computer. Thankfully, Hudson hasn’t forgotten Bomberman’s roots and a classic Battle Mode is included.

Battle Mode is great. It is made even better by Bomberman Land Touch! 2‘s support for single-card multiplayer. As long as your friends each have a DS you can play four-player Bomberman with only one copy of the game. Also featured is Attraction Mode, where you and your friends can play the minigames unlocked in Adventure Mode.

Bomberman Land Touch! 2 looks like a SNES title, and it serves the game well. Bomberman isn’t supposed to be bump mapped and bloomed. Those things detract from the pure, unadulterated fun of blowing up your friends with cartoon bombs. There’s no story, there’s no character development, there’s just bombs, power bombs, and kick boots. And that’s why the Battle Mode is immeasurably more fun that the Adventure Mode. I don’t care about Bom Bom Kingdom. I bought a Bomberman game to blow up Bombermen, preferably controlled by my friends.

Bomberman Land Touch! 2 isn’t Bomberman. The Battle Mode is Bomberman. If you’re looking for a single-player Mario Party knock off then Bomberman Land Touch! 2 is the game for you, but if you just want to play Bomberman then dust off your SNES and plant bombs like you did in years past.