As a person born in 1992, I was graced with many splendid titles to grace the "CD" era of videogaming. This is one of the less recognized examples.
Developed by CyberConnect2 and published by Bandai, Silent Bomber is a more strategic answer to a typical 3D action/shoot-'em-up game.
The player takes the role of Jutah Fate, a war veteran/explosives professional/convict/one-man-army emotionally torn after unknowingly undertaking a military operation involving an indiscriminate massacre of a civilian town, being incarcerated as a result. Seven years later, Jutah is enlisted to a squadron of numerous strangers and is charged with the task of obliterating the spatial warship Dante, designed to destroy the planet Hornet. For a plot in a video game genre without too much focus on storytelling, it's rather insightful and decent, albeit clichéd. With traditional anime-inspired atmospheres and character archetypes here and there. However, despite the well-recognized names in the cast (Skip Stellrecht, Kirk Thornton, etc.), the same cannot be said about the English voicework.
Gameplay itself is Silent Bomber's strong point. As Jutah and making use of his bomb-dispensing E-Unit Gauntlets, the player is sent on fourteen missions, each ending in either a trying challenge or a boss battle, and all focusing on one constant aspect: Dante's slow, sure and steady destruction. Pressing Square distributes normal bombs that stack together through rapid-pressing which is denoted by a number shown in the icon, thus increasing strength and blast radius, both of which are previewed by a shockwave emanating from the icon. Circle plants one of three types of special bombs called Liquids: the fire-producing Napalm, the self-explanatory Paralysis and the ensnaring Gravity. Stocks of these can be held and toggled through with the use of the upper shoulder buttons. Targeting is achieved by holding down Square, causing one or multiple bombs to be set from distances or attach to enemies. Triangle detonates all set bombs and like normal ones, these can injure Jutah as well without caution. X is the jump button, and pressing it twice will cause Jutah to "Burst Jump", dashing towards the direction he faces. Power-ups called E-Chips are found scattered throughout the game, augmenting Jutah's stamina, bomb limit and targeting range. As with most games, Jutah has a health bar and he perishes once it is fully diminished. Also as with most games, players can choose to continue or throw in the towel. These elements culminate into an adrenaline rush that seems easy at first glance, but has an underlying vestige of complexity. Mindless destruction, while encouraged by this premise, will actually yield the player lower results at the end-mission results screen. Gameplay involving taking the least amount of damage, finishing a mission as quickly as possible and the constant exploiting of the game's well-hidden Score Multiplier, which is increased with each destroyed enemy, stopped at x10 and reset after three seconds of not being able to continue the streak, all lead to the best rank possible, ranging from D to S. Thus the true challenge for players is set.
Despite coming off as a 3-day rental, Silent Bomber offers surprising replay value in the form of being able to redo missions with current power-ups and more significantly the VR Arena. By collecting disseminated items called Data Chips, found in several missions, more and more characters become available for use in this fighting game-style rumble, where two are pitted against each other in a fight to the death. This is best done with two-players, considering the annoying, reactionary AI. Three more characters can be unlocked by achieving the tremendous feat of achieving the ranks B to S in all fourteen missions.
SB's music incorporates futuristic techno sounds, which fits with the overall setting and mood. Just barely making up for its somewhat forgettable nature. Sound quality itself is quite clean, but a few do one-up certain ones.
Altogether, Silent Bomber is one of the hard-to-find Playstation treasures that become a worthwhile investment if indeed found. Besides some moments of unreasonable difficulty in a few select stages, the below-average voice acting, the average sound quality and the rather clunky physics in the game, which makes for a few lackluster platforming, this game's pros heavily outweigh these minor cons. Given the fact that this is during an early period of video games, which thus haven't fully evolved yet compared to today, these faults are easily forgiven and are ignored entirely. A ten out of ten to a polished, well-presented and exhilarating experience. Tremendous job and thumbs up to you, CyberConnect2.
