So like a lot of people, the first time I heard of this game was on Seanbaby's worst NES game list. Most people I've encountered since seemed to agree with his assessment. But then I watched Chrontendo, a series made by someone playing every Famicom/NES game in chronological order, and he seemed to like it, praising it as one of the first Super Mario Bros. inspired games to be any fun to play. So I became curious, and when I saw it on the eshop, I figured I'd give it a shot.

So having played it, I have to say that it really is pretty decent, and it's interesting to see how designers experimented with platformer mechanics and level design before it became set in stone. Like rather than your jump height being based on how long you hold the button, hitting the button causes you to jump up as far as you can, but hitting the button again during your ascent will end the jump early. It's really weird at first, but after a few minutes, it becomes second nature to double tap A to do a small jump. There's also this weird mechanic where you spend coins to change color in order to interact with treasure chests differently. This is weird and unintuitive, and you really do need to look up how it works to play. I'm guessing a lot of the hate this game receives comes from people picking this up or downloading a ROM without a manual and not getting how the above mechanics are supposed to work.

That said, there are some annoying features in this game. The big one is the "torture room." Basically, if you get more than 9 of those "coins" (which are the things that look like Bomb Jack's head) or use time extending items to bring your time above 99, you get sent to what the game calls a "torture room", which is a one screen room in which you need to jump 50 times or die to leave. And when you do, you start the level over again with no coins and 60 seconds on the timer. This is another issue where it kills the game for people who haven't read up on it, but it still is annoying when you know and accidentally grab that 10th coin. And honestly, I don't know why this mechanic is there at all. Another thing people have problems with are the enemies. The spawn in seemingly random places on the screen constantly rather than at set points like most platformers. You won't get killed if you start over one, since they give you some warning before they can do damage, but it's not the best design, and they can spawn in awkward areas. These enemies start off as these simple walking zombie things, but then turn into other enemies that can fly. I've heard reviewers say that they seem to move randomly, but most of them just move in a slow straight line toward you, so they're easy to manipulate once you play a little. And while you can't directly attack them, they despawn the second you get them off screen. Using this makes your life a lot easier.

So I wouldn't call Mighty Bomb Jack a lost classic or one of the best games on the NES, but it's a much better game than its reputation would suggest. It's not a must have, but if you're willing to have some patience and read up on it a little, you can have fun with this.