Game

Another PC88 game here, this one is Bomb Jack, a port of the classic arcade game. Bomb Jack is one of those Tecmo games that’s more of like, a b-tier. People who play it like it but it’s not even CLOSE to the top when people name Tecmo properties. He got a few more games after this, including the sick NES game “Mighty Bomb Jack”, but is mostly remembered TODAY because of the game “Mighty Jill Off” which pays homage to it, and I had a LOT of people going “oh shit is this Mighty Jill Off” in the chat as I played it.

Game

In Bomb Jack you play as the titular Bomb Jack, who is attempting to collect all the bombs on the screen. Get them all, move to the next level. Once you get a bomb, a bomb on screen becomes lit, based on which bomb you picked up. There’s a pattern and order to the bombs, but you never know what it is until you pick up a bomb (or look it up). If you get enough lit bombs you can get bonuses and things, including an item that makes you super and lets you defeat enemies. SPEAKING of enemies, there are a few kinds. A bird is always slowly chasing you through the air, but skeletons spawn near the top and fall to the bottom off platforms. Once they reach the bottom they transform into a new flying enemy, and a new skeleton spawns.

As Bomb Jack, you can jump and hover. You can do a super jump by holding up, and hover my tapping the jump button in the air. It’s pretty intuitive in the arcade, but a little jank here. and that, sadly is how I’d describe this port. It’s very, very jank. A good game hampered by the hardware its on, which honestly describes MOST PC88 games I’ve played. Everything is on a kind of grid, which y’know, makes sense, but it also means hit detection is FUCKED. I’ve gone right through pwoer up coins and died hitting enemies I thought I’d be invulnerable to. And I STILL have no idea how to get an extra life, I guess I just got lucky for the achievement.

Bomb Jack is a good arcade game, but is sadly let down by the PC88. Just play the PC88 version. Or the NES version, which is completely different.