Needs Help: Seasonal Rot

While people tend to blame Act:Zero for killing the series, fans would say that the 2000s as a whole was not a good time for Bomberman. In fact, it actually led to the death of the franchise until 2017. This was mainly due to ridiculous amounts of Nostalgia Filter-induced Capcom Sequel Stagnation, poorly thought-out gimmicks, and some truly boneheaded cases of Executive Meddling. It didn't help that Hudson was going through their own Dork Age during that time.

Note that some of these entries have been Vindicated by History. This does not, however, change the fact that the games were heavily contested at the time of their release.

• It all started in 2000 with the Bomberman Land series, as well as the introduction of the hated developer Racjin. Bomberman Land was a Mini Game Game with very little Bomberman mechanics that was seen as So Okay, It's Average in its native Japan, but was considered generic and terrible in the West (though the authentic recreations of theme parks and the Survival Bomberman mode were well received on both sides of the pacific). It probably didn't help that the game wasn't released outside Japan... and did well enough to get sequels that got even worse reception.
• The Charaboms. While they were introduced in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! and Bomberman Max^note the last two Bomberman games released before the Dork Age began, nobody really minded until Hudson Soft started to force them into the single-player campaigns in an attempt to copy the success of Pokémon. This didn't go over very well with fans, because A) they'd already tried making a Pokemon clone with Robopon, B) the battle system wasn't anywhere near as good as Pokémon's, and C) the Level Grinding clashed heavily with the Bomberman gameplay style. The fan backlash resulted in the Charaboms being Put on a Bus after 2002, though they've since been Vindicated by History.
• Then came Bomberman Tournament, an early Game Boy Advance game and the sequel to Bomberman Quest. While its Battle Game was praised, the story mode was heavily panned for essentially being a watered down version of Quest with none of its personality or good writing. The removal of Quest's Boss Game gameplay and the addition of the controversial Charabom mechanic (which now requires you to do extensive Level Grinding to even stand a chance against the CPU) didn't help matters. Tournament would eventually be Vindicated by History, however.
• Bomberman Online was a late release for the Sega Dreamcast, coming out exclusively in the U.S. in October 2001. It gutted the traditional single-player gameplay for a Battle Game-centric campaign (much like Wario Blast/Bomberman GB before it) which was criticized for its Fake Difficulty (especially the bosses). While the online mode was well-received, it didn't last too long due to its very late release date.
• Bomberman Kart was a Land spin-off and the first Bomberman game on the PlayStation 2. Unfortunately, it was also a generic kart racer, which didn't sit well with fans or critics, nor did it help the perception of Land in the West. To top things off, it was only released in Japan and Europe.
• In 2002, Bomberman Generation and Max 2 hit store shelves...only to be hit with the Tough Act to Follow trope hard. The games were meant to be sequels to Bomberman 64 and Max respectively, but didn't really get fans' attention. The inclusion of the Charaboms really didn't help, either—in the former game, on top of having Tournament's Level Grinding, Generation locks several abilities behind the Charaboms, including several mechanics introduced in 64 such as the ability to control the strength of your Bomb Throw and the fan-favorite Bomb Jump—as it was another sign of Generation moving away from 64's Puzzle Platformer roots. And in the latter game, some of the 'Boms are absolute Game Breakers. While Generation has been heavily Vindicated by History, Max 2 is still a Contested Sequel.
• At the end of that year, the critically contested Bomberman Jetters anime and marketing campaign, which lasted about a year, was launched. Fans were split down the middle—some liked Jetters and wanted to see it continue, while others hated it and thought the series had officially jumped the shark. If there was one thing that fans unanimously agreed on, however, it's that no one expected the inevitable Recursive Adaptation tie-in video game to be such a catastrophic example of The Problem with Licensed Games. It had it all: looong loading times, Charaboms^note To be fair, the battle system was scrapped. Instead, Charaboms can be leveled up twice to gain new abilities and the Level Grinding has been greatly reduced., dreadfully long and padded levels, and the obligatory Fake Difficulty. Worse yet, despite being a sequel to Generation, it was released in Japan six months after Gen so it could tie into the anime. Japanese fans weren't happy, and when the game finally made it stateside in 2004, American critics butchered it and fans were through the roof in anger. It singlehandedly killed the "64-esque" gameplay style, marked the end of the road for the Charaboms (so much so that future games don't even acknowledge them) and tainted the reputation of Jetters in the west for years.
  • There was also a GBA prequel/tie-in to the anime. Unlike the console game, it was very well received...which naturally meant that it never left Japan.
• Bomberman Hardball^note Bomberman Battles in Japan was yet another Land spin-off, this time a generic compilation of sports games, once again only released in Japan and Europe. At this point, some people wondered if Racjin (the developers of Land) were actively trying to sabotage the franchise.
• Bomberman on the Nintendo DS was released in 2005 and was the start of the series Dork Age heading into overdrive, as this was where the true Capcom Sequel Stagnation began. Racjin finally got to make a main series title! And it was essentially a clone of the Super Bomberman games, but with Land's art style... with all of the innovation of those titles surgically removed (save for the surprisingly fun double screen battle mode). This worsened Racjin's reputation among western fans, to the point that some feared that the franchise wouldn't last much longer.
• Then there's the big one: Bomberman Act:Zero. Seeing how poorly Bomberman had done in the sixth generation, Hudson attempted to restore goodwill with fans and critics by rebooting the series. Unfortunately, some executive at Konami (the game's publisher. Keep them in mind) who likely didn't know much about the series forced the developers to make it much Darker and Edgier in a baffling attempt to appeal to Americans^note who liked Bomberman the way it was and didn't need it to be changed. When it was released, fans and critics were downright horrified at how bad the game was. Act:Zero used the same Battle Game-centric gameplay style as Online, only this time Bomberman had to survive 99 rounds with no lives or saves! Died on Round 96? Back to Round 1 for you! It also featured such gems as a "First-Person Bomber" mode that was actually third-person, a needlessly dark story about how Bombers were actually Super Soldiers made for some war with a lame A Winner Is You ending to boot, a horrible redesign that became a textbook example of bad redesigns, no local play option for the battle mode, and Jiggle Physics for the female Bombers in the normally chaste Bomberman series. Needless to say, Act:Zero quickly became a laughingstock in the industry. It was so bad that Hudson had to go into full damage control mode by apologizing for the game and abandoning the reboot... but not before insulting fans by making a Totally Radical website that invoked the Animation Age Ghetto on the older Bomberman games—even going as far as telling fans who didn't like the game to play with the PSP game (seemingly mocking the iconic Bomberman character design in the process) or Hello Kitty toys. Fans took the hint and retaliated by leaving the series en masse, resulting in Act:Zero as well as every Bomberman game released afterward bombing in sales. Hudson later teamed up with Backbone Entertainment to create Bomberman Live/Ultra, which was intended to be a saving throw, but it was too late for the series.
• Around the time of Act:Zero's release, two games were made for the Play Station Portable. The first of these was Bakufuu Sentai Bomberman, a crossover with Super Sentai. Western fans were baffled by the concept and fans on both sides of the Pacific noted the lack of creativity in the gameplay. It also never left Japan.
• The second of the two titles was Bomberman. It suffered from the exact same problem as Bakufuu and DS—namely the lack of innovation. In fact, it was somehow an even worse rehash than DS. Fans (what little there were after the whole Act:Zero fiasco) felt that the series was starting to stagnate.
• Then there were four Land games—one for the PSP, another for the Wii and two for the DS. All of them were localized (unlike the previous titles) and all of them were very poorly received (though the DS entries were Vindicated by History due to their mini-games being more "Bomberman-esque" than past installments). The PSP Land is widely considered to be one of the worst Bomberman games by fans as it not only has the most banal plot and dialogue in the series history (including the park director rewarding you for 100% Completion by flat out telling you he doesn't plan on giving you anything for it despite the effort it took to get 100% as well as heavy Flanderization for the main characters), it also recycles nearly all of its mini-games^note to the point that they're still rendered in 4:3, costumes, and music from Land 3. Fans were convinced that Racjin would kill the franchise though Hudson at least ended the Land series after these titles.
• Bomberman Live (Ultra on the Play Station 3) was supposed to be an apology for Act:Zero, being developed with American fans in mind. While critics loved it, fans were split—some loved it for its Battle Mode-centric gameplay while others hated it for that exact reason, feeling that it was falling into the same trap as Online and Act:Zero before it. Both sides agreed that the game wasn't what the series needed to get back on track. It later got a sequel in 2010...that ended up being the last Bomberman game for a few years.
• In 2007, Hudson teamed up with Shockwave game developer 55shock to develop yet another online Bomberman game. The end result was Bomberman Online Japan which officially launched on September 10, 2008 (after two weeks of private beta testing). Despite being positively received and having a somewhat small but loyal playerbase, the game went on hiatus on January 31, 2009... which became permament on June 3, 2009. This was primarily due to the Japanese Shockwave webpage closing in January 2009, taking down 55shock with it. Making matters worse is the fact that Hudson had big plans for the game, including a western release and even a 2010 Bomberman World Cup! Unfortunately, the game's closure after four months squandered those plans.
• After Hudson went into the depths of bankruptcy and sold their IPs to Konami, the franchise laid dormant for a few years...until the release of Super Bomberman R in 2017. While the game was initially criticized by fans at launch for being derivative of Hudson's Super Bomberman games and for being an Obvious Beta upon release, it has since been praised for being a return to form for the series.