In a surprising turn of events, Konami has continued to work on making Super Bomberman R better. The first patch (1.2), released back on March 17th, made a few adjustments to improve the responsiveness of the controls and performance during online matches. Overall, the patch was welcomed but the changes were not too noticeable. Then, yesterday, April 21st, another patch (1.3) was released and significantly improved the game.

The game now runs at 60 frames per second (FPS)! This, coupled with further improvements to controls and reduction of lag in online battles, makes the game feel like a completely new and amazing experience. Everything is now tight and responsive, allowing players to make split second decisions and actually react to changes on the battlefield. “Reacting” was near impossible when the game first launched.

I personally noticed the graphics now look a bit (just a little bit) less defined which leads me to believe the resolution of the game might have been lowered a tad. If this is part of what was necessary to raise the frame rate, it was a good trade-off.

Players can now see other players’ network connectivity performance in the online lobby, allowing them the opportunity to leave potential lag-ridden matches before they start.

League Battle “increase/decrease rate” of rank points (BP) has been changed. It seems that more factors are taken into consideration to decide how much BP is gained or lost at the end of the match, like player ranking difference and amount of round wins within the match.

On Local and Wireless battles, players can now adjust the strength of CPU controlled Bombers.

Four new Battle Mode maps were added to the game’s shop! Each costs 4000 gems which, with the Story Mode improvements below, should no longer be too hard to farm.

Yes, Story Mode got a lot of love this patch. The heights and slopes of some maps were adjusted to improve visibility. If visibility is still “iffy”, players can now press “L/R” to change the inclination of the map.

Difficulty has been adjusted for Beginner and Normal mode to make them easier to beat. The strength of the Five Dastardly Bombers has also been adjusted. I have not tested them but assume their encounters have been balanced to feel less like “throw lives at the boss until they go down”. But, if losing a lot of lives is your thing, continuing the game in Story Mode will stop incurring a gem penalty after a certain number of continues has been spent during that run.

This is no slim list of changes; especially for a game that could have been a “one and done” deal and seen no improvements after initial launch. I spent a good hour playing online matches with a friend and we were pretty much babbling like little children, awestruck and giddy by how good the game feels now. More so, we both remarked how the game’s initial price tag is a little less of an issue now and, if Konami continues this trend of improvements, it might be completely worth it.

For a detailed list of patch notes, visit Super Bomberman R’s News section here.

Oh, thought we were done? Not quite! At the coattails of patch 1.3 being released, Konami announced that three new unlock-able Bombers are coming soon. And these are not you usual fare from other Bomberman titles, but characters from other Konami franchises. In this case: Silent Hill, Gradius and Castlevania.

In conclusion, Konami seems to be paying attention to their player base and making an honest effort to improve the overall experience in this game. If this trend continues, Super Bomberman R might become the powerhouse of a multiplayer title it was meant to be.