Bomberman: Panic Bomber

Bomberman: Panic Bomber

Front cover of Bomberman: Panic Bomber for the PC Engine CD-ROM, the first version.
Developer(s) Hudson Soft
Publisher(s) Hudson Soft
Composer(s) Kenichi Koyano
Series Bomberman
Platform(s) PC Engine CD-ROM, Virtual Boy, Super Famicom, PSP, Neo Geo, Virtual Console
Release date(s) PC Engine CD-ROM
  • JP December 22, 1994
Super Famicom
  • JP March 1, 1995
Virtual Boy
  • JP July 21, 1995
  • NA December, 1995
PSP
  • JP June 23, 2005
Genre(s) Puzzle game
Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer (Neo-Geo MVS & AES)

Bomberman: Panic Bomber (ボンバーマン ぱにっくボンバー) is a 1994 puzzle video game developed and published by Hudson Soft for the PC Engine CD-ROM on December 22, 1994.

Gameplay

It is a "falling blocks" puzzle game based on the Bomberman franchise. The goal of the game is essentially to cause your opponent to lose by causing their gameplay field to fill to the top with objects. You do this by causing chains of bombs to explode, sending useless rubble over to your opponent's field, which they must then remove themselves. Bombs are earned by causing chains of three identical blocks to disappear. Bombs can only be blown up with an explosion from a lit bomb, which falls from the top of the screen every so often. If the player causes enough damage, they can eventually earn a giant bomb, which will remove a large amount of debris from the playing field, and cause their opponent a good deal of trouble.

The game's regular story mode revolves around Bomberman's hunt for the Golden Bomber statue. During his trek, he fights against several different odd characters, like Drifty the balloon, or Cecil the tiger. However, all that can really be earned from playing through this mode is a harder difficulty level, earned by finishing the entire story at the "hard" difficulty level. The player's progress is saved by a password system.

Development

Like all other Virtual Boy games, Bomberman: Panic Bomber uses a red-and-black color scheme and uses parallax, an optical trick that is used to simulate a 3D effect.[1]

Ports and related releases

Panic Bomber was ported to the Neo Geo, Virtual Boy (known in Japan as Tobidase! Panibon (とびだせ！ぱにボン) and known in North America simply as Panic Bomber), Super Famicom (known formally in Japan as Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber World (スーパーボンバーマン ぱにっくボンバーワールド), stylistically as Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber W (スーパーボンバーマン ぱにっくボンバーＷ)), and PlayStation Portable. It was also included in the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions of Bomberman Land 2.

Reception

On release, Famicom Tsūshin scored the Super Famicom version of the game a 22 out of 40,[2] giving the Virtual Boy version a 20 out of 40.[3] The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the Neo Geo version a 7 out of 10, describing it as a decent if unexceptional Tetris clone, with one reviewer commenting that "This genre is so flooded that it's hard to come up with a unique angle, and there isn't one for Panic Bomber", while the other three argued that the game "has enough originality to make it stand on its own."[4] The red-and-black color scheme used in the game were said to cause eye strain, headaches, and nausea.[1]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Backwards Compatible: The Virtual Boy". ABC Good Game. 2009-06-01. Retrieved 2015-04-13.
  2. ↑ NEW GAMES CROSS REVIEW: スーパーボンバーマン パニックボンバーW. Weekly Famicom Tsūshin. No.327. Pg.37. 24 March 1995.
  3. ↑ NEW GAMES CROSS REVIEW: とびだせ！ぱにボン. Weekly Famicom Tsūshin. No.347. Pg.30. 11 August 1995.
  4. ↑ "Review Crew: Panic Bomber". Electronic Gaming Monthly (Ziff Davis) (70): 36. May 1995.

External links