Super Bomberman

The game takes place on a single non-scrolling screen. The screen shows the top-down view of a grid of 143 (13 x 11) squares. The grid restricts the movement of characters so they can only move horizontally or vertically around the screen. Pressing a button will make Bomberman drop a bomb at his feet.

This bomb will pulse for a few seconds (giving the player time to run away) and then explode, shooting flames horizontally and vertically. The game revolves around the idea of using these bomb blasts to destroy walls and enemies. If a bomb explodes and the flame hits another bomb it will cause this second bomb to detonate early. This can cause large chain reactions.

The game's story takes place in Diamond City, far to the north of Bomberman's home city, Peace Town. There, the evil Carat Diamond and his cohort, scientist Dr. Mook, are holding a Robot Tournament with robots specially designed for their combat and offensive capabilities. They hope to steal Bomberman's advanced combat capabilities, Diamond has created a fake Bomberman to go to Peace Town and kidnap the real Bomberman.

They're aware of Diamond's plot, Black Bomberman heads out alone to face the fake Bomberman. But Black Bomberman is defeated and his castle is taken. However, Black Bomberman escapes and seeks refuge with White Bomberman, and warns him of Diamond's evil plan. Later, hordes of enemy robots begin their advance toward Peace Town.

Super Bomberman was originally bundled with a multitap device to allow more than two players to play simultaneously. The Super Multitap was long and grey with four controller ports in a row on one side. It plugged into either of the controller ports on the SNES deck. This meant a total of five controllers could be plugged in with the fifth controller plugged into the second port on the SNES. Although Super Bomberman, as well as Super Bomberman 2, only allowed the use of the first four controllers to play the game, other Bomberman games: Super Bomberman 3, Super Bomberman 4 and Super Bomberman 5 allowed to use three to five controllers and the fifth controller would allow a sound test to be accessed by pressing the right shoulder button on the options screen.

Hudson Soft later released a second multitap (the Super Multitap 2) on its own for people that had purchased Super Bomberman unbundled, or one of the other multitap-enabled games. This second version was designed in the shape of a Bomberman's head and had the two controller ports on the front and one on each side. It was also designed to be used with future games. Eventually there were 54 Super NES games that utilised the multitap. However, they were predominantly sports games.

According to Famitsu, Super Bomberman sold 117,322 copies in its first week on the market and 497,000 copies during its lifetime in Japan. The game received a 24.02/30 score in a 1993 readers' poll conducted by Super Famicom Magazine, ranking among Super Famicom titles at the number 20 spot. It also received acclaim from critics. Electronic Gaming Monthly's four editors named it "Game of the Month" and it received a "Platinum Editor's Choice", stating that its addictiveness is on par with that of Tetris. They highlighted its multiplayer, but commented that the game is fun even in single-player mode.

Game Informer ranked it the 90th best game ever made in 2001. They claimed that its multi-player mode resulted in missed deadlines at video game magazines and development studios due to its quality. In 2011, IGN rated the game 49th on their "Top 100 SNES Games of All Time". In 2018, Complex rated Super Bomberman 37th on their The Best Super Nintendo Games of All Time and they opined the game is "probably best four-player game for the SNES."