Retroulette #8: Mighty Bomb Jack

Today, the Rand-O-Mizer serves up a heaping helping of Mighty Bomb Jack for the NES. This might be good. In the past, any game I've played with "bomb" in the title has turned out to be a jolly good time. Though I realize that is limited to Bomberman games. But maybe this is like that.

It's not like that. It's not like that even a little bit.

The only set up we're given for this game is Mighty Bomb Jack flying behind a pyramid.

This of course is the beginning of any good adventure.

Why is he going behind that pyramid? Was his sweetie kidnapped by a mummy? Is he just straight up going to rob the place? The game answers the question with a "Fuck you, you play now".

The game begins with you inside of the pyramid (I guess) and the first thing you see are treasure chests and some bombs. Of course I'm taking whatever shit is in the treasure chest, that stuff's mine now, but I've been conditioned to avoid bombs in games. But I'm Mighty Bomb Jack, so I assume  that I can just gobble those things up.

On second thought maybe they're cherries. Either way, that shit's going in my mouth.

So I jump to get the bombs and-HOLY SHIT-this dude jumps way too fucking high. The instant you press the jump button, his head is scraping the ceiling. And he just does that, all the time. There's no way to jump lower. If you jump, you're committing yourself to at least 10 seconds before he lands. If you want to get those treasure chests open, you've gotta jump on them. So you have to jump 50 feet in the air so you can land on them, and then jump another 50 feet once you're on it to open it.

The music in this level is pretty all right. I'm humming along with it in my head. Anyway, In the chests there's little tokens that raise my score, which of course I don't give any shits about. All of a sudden some mummies start appearing out of nowhere. This is a pyramid, so I just nod my head. Then some weird green demon heads show up, and some birds, and this thing.

With hovering brain technology, how did the ancient Egyptian civilization die out?

I try to kill them with bombs, but I can't use any bombs. There's only two buttons on an NES pad, so I'm fairly certain I've tried everything. The bombs seem to have absolutely no purpose. Why am I spending all my time collecting them then! Now a decision has to be made. Do I avoid all the enemies, or does jumping on them kill them, like in any platformer ever. Jumping on a locked chest blows it right the fuck open so my feet can probably hurt a dusty old corpse.

No. No they can't.

Ok, take two, bombs and chests are clearly pointless so I just race to the end. It's much easier that way. After getting to the end of the stage, I'm placed in a small closed room with a bunch of bombs. The door doesn't open until you collect all the bombs, so now all of a sudden bombs are the most important thing ever. Enemies constantly spawn here so you have to race to get all the bombs and get to the end before you're swimming in mummies. A token appears that turns all the enemies into coins and I enjoy absorbing their power.

Your soul, is mine.

In the next level some bastard bird spawns inside of me and I die. Also, the music in this level is the same as the last level. I don't enjoy it as much now. So I race through the level ignoring everything and at the end is another closed room with bombs. I try to get all the bombs but now some mummy jerk kills me and it's game over.

I have no idea what the hell GDV is. After playing I did a search and I came up with Gas Discharge Visualization. So...yeah....mine's 47. Beat that. I do everything I just did over again (minus the deaths), because there's no way I'm letting that asshole mummy get the last laugh. This time I beat that room and it's on to the next level. As soon as I enter the level the same freaking music starts to play and now I hate it. This level has a bunch of trees, which I find odd, being as far away from sunlight as you can be above sea level. But I race through there and the next room only dying a little bit. This level is-Wait, is that the same song!?-MUTE! Anyway, at the end of this level is two doors.

Whoa whoa whoa Mighty Bomb Jack. Slow down, you're losing me here.

I take the top door and now there's just doors all over the place. I race through like three stages and then I get to a fire pit.

Tell my wife I love her!

It's here, as I'm frantically mashing buttons to prevent my impending death, that I find out if you mash the jump button after you jump you can glide. This changes everything!

Well, not really.

I die a whole bunch of times after that. Like, a lot of times. I keep going the same path, because who knows what's behind those other doors. Then after awhile I go to the other doors, and it only leads to more death. This game is hard, and I hate it.

HOW MUCH DID THE COVER ART LIE?

4 exciting endings? I think they could have put "1,000 incredible endings that will change your whole life" and no one could have argued. They probably didn't even program an ending because no one would ever reach it.