Platform	NES
	Genre	Platform
	Publisher	Temco
	Points	500
	Rating	6 / 10

Review

Mighty Bomb Jack is a NES platformer developed by Tecmo which was released back in 1987. In the game, you control the lone protagonist, Jack, who must fly (not literally) through 16 stages to defeat Belzebut, the evil demon and save a royal family. The story is obviously not original, but I’ll give props to the developer which creates one that overcompensates the shallow gameplay.Each level is broken up into two parts, one being an action zone in which the player must collect bombs and unlock treasure chests while avoiding baddies that magically poof out of thin air. The second part resembles what looks to be a bonus room, where you must collect all the bombs to unlock the door to exit the level. Hearing this gist makes people contemplate whether this takes the high road as a Super Mario resemblence. Mighty Bomb Jack does it’s best to make the comparison, but it falls flat on it’s face.

While the title of the game mentions bomb, that term is completely redundant, because they are nothing more than pick-ups to gain points. It’s the same as the coins in Super Mario and the beads in Pac-man. The bombs don’t serve their real purpose, so don’t expect any explosive action (pun not intended). Nevertheless, you must make sure you collect as much bombs and treasure before exiting a level and pray tell if you earn an extra life bonus. At the beginning, Mighty Bomb Jack leaves you to survive off three lives. When you lose them all, it’s game over. So spare them accordingly.

But it’s not that simplistic, because this game is frustrating at times. And because the bombs have no use, enemies can attract themselves to Jack and kill him instantly. Artificial intelligence wasn’t so great back in the day, but it almost seems as if he is wearing some devious perfume, and it’s luring all the baddies to follow him. Jack has absolutely no defense mechanism, weapons or items in his disposal to rid of the foul enemies. There is a helpful symbol flying through levels that turn them into coins (ahem…Pac-man) but that leaves you approximitely six seconds to get your butt out of there.

The visuals are quite impressive for a game of it’s time. The enviorments do look repetitive, but each differ from each other by color and design.

Mighty Bomb Jack is very short in length. If you decide to zoom through a level without collecting items, or you fear getting killed (like me), levels are no longer than 1-2 minutes. All in all, the game is a mediocre platformer, nothing significantly great comes out of this title. Mighty Bomb Jack isn’t broken, there are just so many in-game difficulties that make the experience bland and unforgiving.

Score: 6/10