Suzuki Bakuhatsu is a surreal puzzle game which was only released in Japan, which features the daughter of a bomb disposal expert, the titular Suzuki, as she encounters bomb after bomb, sometimes in the most surreal of places.

The game offers three different difficulty levels, which allows you to decide just how long you have to disarm each bomb, and also how many (if any) sections are trapped and thus need to be dismantled within a tight time frame. On Easy, you get the most time and the least number of trapped sections, while Hard will feature more trapped sections and tight time limits. The timer doesn't start until you start unscrewing the bomb, except for certain bombs which start ticking right away - however, those bombs are normally the easiest to defuse once you know the trick.

Barring the cut screens, which are often slide shows of pictures with the odd video clip and some visual effects, the main graphics of the game give you 3D models of the bombs which you can move around to an extent, which can help you with disarming the bombs. While the game is Japan-exclusive, most of the menus are in English, and there's the usage of icons to show which tool you are using - from a screwdriver and a pair of wire cutters, to different wrenches and even torpedoes for one bomb. This allows for those who don't understand Japanese to be able to play through most of the game without much aid, even though there are bombs which require some knowledge of Japanese or, at the very least, a guide. For example, the phone bomb has you calling people who may or may not know which wire to cut, but unless you can read Japanese, you won't know that you want to avoid the blue wire and cut the red wire instead, from what one of the people you can call would tell you.

There's 19 bombs in total which you can defuse, although through a single play through, you only defuse either 10 or 11 of them, of which five are fixed: the first three, which includes an orange, a (toy) gun and the previously mentioned phone; and the final two, involving a keyhole and Suzuki's friend, Ito. Other bombs include the Moon itself, Suzuki's Shadow, a Puzzle Box, a glass of Iced Tea, a Mech in which you have to face by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors and a Cassette Tape, among others. And all of them, barring the Mech 'bomb', always ends with the actual bomb with two wires, and you'd have to snip one of them to try and defuse the bomb. Snip the right one, and you move onto the next bomb. Snip the wrong one, trigger one of the detonation traps or run out of time, however, and the bomb will go off - if one of the former two, you may have to watch as the timer quickly speeds down to 0:00 before it goes off, and with the detonation traps early in a bomb, you may even see one of the latter traps enter a state where it's impossible for you to stop before it triggers the detonator. And each bomb has its own unique explosion animation before you get the chance to try again, (as many times as you like) load a prior save or give up and return to the main menu.

There is some replay value in Suzuki Bakuhatsu, as you can go back once you've completed the game and start again, disarming the bombs you hadn't disarmed and taking on harder versions of the bombs you have disarmed, unless you did it on Hard in which case it stays at that difficulty. And each bomb you defuse gives an extra part of the post-credits bonus, where you can see every explosion for failing in order. Plus, there's trying to get the elusive SA Rank, which can only be gotten by completely dismantling the bomb - dead ends included - quickly enough. There's also trying to disarm the bomb as quickly as possible as well, once you get the hang of how you can disarm a bomb.

The story is a bit over the place, due to the non-linear nature of the game, but each stage has an introduction, the bomb itself, and then an epilogue for that stage. It can be crazy, such as a baseball game leading to a pinball table which contains a bomb, or Suzuki watching a TV show before finding herself in said show. But at least the epilogue links to the introduction leading up to the bomb, and most of the explosions also link to either what was going on, or to the bomb itself.

While there isn't a lot of music, this serves to the game's advantage, as there's less for you to be distracted by. And, during some of the bombs, Suzuki will hum or sing to herself while she works on dismantling the bomb. Although there's the somewhat annoying siren which plays during the trapped sections, which is a reminder that you don't have long to finish the section you're working on...

Overall, Suzuki Bakuhatsu is, while nothing like the more recent Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, a good game which will challenge your mind and also sees how well you can cope under pressure in what could be a life or death situation. It is a shame that it never was translated into English, but with the help of guides, you will be able to play through it regardless. Just remember that it is not just Suzuki's life which may be on the line...

Nice review here.
This sounds like a cool, if somewhat bizarre, game. I agree, it's a shame that it wasn't localized in the West, and sadly that seems to be the case with most of the more odd titles from Japan back in the day. Thankfully that doesn't happen quite as often as it used to, or it doesn't seem to anyway. Maybe they finally realized that we're weird too.


But yeah, thanks for pointing this one out -- I might give it a try sometime if I can find a copy.

No problem, Eirinn. In fact, I only found out about this game after someone did a tool assisted speeding of it, and it popped up in my YouTube home page. I watched it, and then I was hooked.

True, we didn't have the equivalent of idol shows back then, which is one reason why it most likely never got ported over, but... Well, you can see for yourself.