As a longtime fan of the franchise, I'm not sure if this the worst game in it's catalog, but it's certainly the one I dislike the most.

I don't know where to begin with this game, game development is tough and I hate using this term because I understand things regarding it aren't so simple, especially with publishers and deadlines, but SBR2 feels worthy of the claim regardless, this is one of the laziest releases in a long time, and I'm positive the series niche status is the only reason why this hasn't become more widespread.

85% or so of this game was simply lifted from SBR Online and pressed onto a disc(physical ver), and to begin with much of that game was lifted from SBR1.
I'm fully convinced this game was an attempt to salvage the remains of SBRO after it's failure, and isn't actually an original title of it's own, this is hardly worth calling a sequel and if it really is, it's astonishing how it could release 6 years later in this state, there are:

. No new or returning power-ups

. Next to no new customization features

. Missing features that SBR1 had

. No new battle stages and Less Battle Stages unfortunately(only the same 8 from SBRO, as opposed to the 22 or so from SBR1)

. Less characters,(24 additional ones from SBR1 are not present)

. No team standard battles,

. One stage for Battle 64(missing Orion Town)

. No CPU difficulty option(a standard for Bomberman games) and this game is home to the worst AI in the franchise.

. Less Grand Prix modes("Checkpoints" and "Civilians" are both absent.) and stages

. Dead Online

That's just the start sadly, What's "new" here?

Well Castle Mode, but let's talk about Story Mode, Since they're related, Story serves as a tutorial for Castle and is almost entirely built on assets from said mode, just with a few cinematics and text boxes slapped in, the game is exploration focused where you control White, and only White(baffling considering you could play as the entire roster in story mode in SBR1) and essentially collect a set number of creatures trapped in blocks or containers called "Ellons" to open up areas gating your progression with a required number of them saved to proceed. This is certainly different from other Bomberman games but I still would call it uninspired, open ended Adventure based Bomberman games were done before this over 2 decades prior in games like Bomberman Quest (GBC), Bomberman Tournament(GBA), and Bomberman Jetters Densetsu no Bomberman(GBA) all of those games had visually distinct worlds to roam full of fun puzzles and layouts that invited curiosity, and RPG elements that weren't temporary and gave the player the proper feeling of growth that you typically want from this kind of format, along with skills or abilities unseen that aren't simply the standard ones expected from Bomberman.

In SBR2 no matter where you venture, you're always looking at the same ugly and dull environments devoid of any character, there are no NPCs to talk to, villages or towns to check out, Item stores, and no caverns to discover, lakes to cross etc. everything is essentially one elongated castle map, you gain exp by blasting blocks or enemies and collecting it, and each time you reach a threshold you level up and get stat increases, extra lives, and/or skills such as bomb punch and bomb kick, but none of these are ever necessary to proceed, which is a shame there's no neat puzzles or obstacles that take advantage of your abilities like there were in those older games I mentioned, its just one monotonous slog to get stronger and there's really not too many ways to speed it up, killing multiple enemies at once does not give any multiplier bonus like I feel it should have given how scoring worked in older Bomberman games, that could've at least rewarded players for skilled or risky play.

Like the last game, I don't know why they keep doing this but your stats from one world do not carry over to the next, meaning you have to do all of this tedium again in each world, leaving the game with no proper difficulty curve and no genuine sense of momentum, seriously even if you were trying to speedrun this it would feel like playing 3 repetitive sessions rather than one cohesive run, oh yeah there's only 3 worlds btw a paltry number compared to just about any attempt at a single player mode in any of these games before this, to be fair they do pad out each world and on average they'll probably take 90 minutes to 2 hours each to complete, but quite frankly it's dreadful the game only has a pathetic total of 4 enemy types, shared across all 3 worlds and they all feel very uninvolved and basic, you can run past all of them and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing quite frankly considering this game isn't very enjoyable. no unique gimmicks or terrains or anything to shake up the gameplay loop, at best each world just utilizes different arrangements of the same castle gimmicks.

Occasionally as you progress your home base will be attacked and you're forced to drop whatever you're doing and play a 3 minute defense session of Castle Mode, all of which can be cheesed in hilarious ways thanks to the games abysmal AI, there's a community post showcasing this if you'd like to see for yourself but essentially when these happen, just put your controller down and go make a sandwich, you'll be fine.

I'm unsure when I'll hit the character limit so let me rush a bit, The boss fights are maybe the highlight of this mode but I'm not even sure because they're terrible, they reuse attack patterns from earlier Super Bomberman games, and unfortunately due to the rest of the game I don't think that's as an homage so much as it is the developers not bothering to think of new ones, and unfortunately these retreads are worse than their original forms because the boss design is much like SBR1 where you'll need to take out a bunch of weak points before you can actually access the bosses weak point, you do this 3 times or so and the fights end, there's a lot of aimless standing around and waiting while these bosses are out of frame or completely invincible until they're done attacking and then you get to make a move, slow and boring.

Co-op is gone, I want to say due to the nature of the story mode this time it's understandable, but it really isn't, if players got too far apart the screen could've just split, like the Lego games. if anything this story mode could've been 4 players, it would drastically make this otherwise tedious experience more enjoyable if everyone could focus on their own tasks, unlocking parts of the map together.

Story writing is bad, same problems as SBR1, but magnified, characters are still one note and annoying(Pink the sole exception in SBR1), but now they get more screen time and don't develop at all(and now there's pee humor) i still don't like the presentation, the artstyle is way too cutesy compared to Shoji Mizuno's work which had a balance of cute, cool and weird, and now everyone just looks like Bomberman instead of a range of designs for the cast, the cinematics are not really animation so much as tweening and playing around with vectors in Toon Boom, a lot of recycled art is used to the point where I don't know why they didn't just make text based scenes with dynamic portraits, could've saved space and allowed for 60fps.

Castle Mode feels like a draft of an idea coded in before it could be properly realized, seriously if attackers get a key and open a chest they simply stop playing until matches end, its weird when it happens early, also they finally add a stage builder for a modern Bomberman and its locked to this mode only for some reason.

No positives that weren't in older games.

There's so so much more I want to say but Steam reviews can only go so far sadly.
I love Bomberman(single and multi!) and I know it can be much more than this today, but it needs developers who care for it and unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the current folks chosen to lead.

Failed franchise ever since Hudson's end. No player base, 0 online gameplay happening. It's a bummer that kids these days won't have the opportunity to grow up with the fun exploding game that was Bomberman back then.