Pocket Bomberman

Not content with limiting their innovations in 1997 to the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn, Hudson Soft and developer Metro (who would go on to work on the Bomberman Max games, Bomberman Party Edition, and BombermanJ etters per GDRI) decided to go for the Triple Crown with Pocket Bomberman on the Game Boy. Sneaking in right at the end of the year in Japan and getting a colorized version for Nintendo’s new handheld in other regions in 1998 (albeit at the cost of the GB Kiss functionality), Pocket Bomberman asks an interesting question that most other mascots figured out years ago: What if Bomberman was a 2D side-scrolling platformer? Bomberman 64 made the act of jumping a puzzle to be solved and Saturn Bomberman Fight!! uses jumping as one aspect of a greater whole meant to achieve parity with the fighting games it was influenced by, but Pocket Bomberman is a more straightforward exploration of the concept than either of those. This game is a simple and slight platformer from top to bottom, but it manages to make jumping feel like a natural part of Bomberman’s arsenal that should have been there from the beginning, which is no small feat in a series with such a strong core formula.

It isn’t clear where exactly Pocket Bomberman fits into the canon, if it does at all, but the story is said to take place “long, long ago” in the manual, so it may be the story of a Bomberman ancestor in the vein of GB 2. Taking on the role and outfit of a heroic knight, Bomberman must climb Evil Mountain in order to find the five Power Stones needed to free the Sword of the Sun from its curse and lift the endless night that has shrouded the land. Though the plot is scant and Bomberman’s new role has no effect on the gameplay (he carries a sword, but doesn’t use it at all!), the medieval fantasy flavor serves as an interesting novelty within the series. Thanks to the new setting, Pocket Bomberman can explore different kinds of enemy and boss designs, including sentient trees, agile spirits, skeletal dragons, snakes, and even a gargoyle-like interpretation (and potential ancestor) of Bagura called Babylon that serves as the final boss. Bomberman Wars and Bomberman World revisit the medieval fantasy theming in their own ways (the former was also developed by Metro), creating a sort of trilogy that remains unique within the franchise to this day.

Despite the perspective shift, the overall structure of Pocket Bomberman is very much in line with the games that came before it. Each area has multiple levels in which enemies need to be destroyed in order to open the exit and each area ends with a boss fight. Power-ups are limited to the standard batch, though a new wing power-up gives you an unlimited number of mid-air jumps for an entire level, making navigation a cinch. More items were planned based on unused data in the game’s code (bomb pass, wall pass, 1UPs, and Bomb Kick), but there’s no concrete explanation for their removal available. Certain items like bomb pass and wall pass would be a poor fit in this format due to the platforming focus, so their absence makes sense, but bomb kick’s removal is rather curious, seeing as how it’s such a mainstay function that helps with bomb manipulation. In general, Pocket Bomberman doesn’t have much in the way of specific information about its development out there (there aren’t even in-game credits), but evidence of altered level layouts, adjusted/unused graphics, and unused music has been discovered, all of which serve to add to the game’s identity as a curious experiment.

The ability to jump allows for you to interact with this familiar structure in entirely new ways ranging from mobility to offense. Bombs can now be stacked vertically or suspended in mid-air with ease, letting you attack enemies on a different elevation or use them as stepping stones to reach higher areas. With good timing, you can place a bomb and jump as it explodes, enabling the potential to dodge explosions in close quarters without the need for a Louie, much likeSaturn Bomberman Fight!!. Caution is still needed as usual, though, thanks to the game’s focus on verticality on a platform unable to keep everything on-screen at once. After you’ve gotten the hang of things, any of these bomb placement strategies can be combined with the remote control to turn Bomberman into an absolute force of nature capable of stunlocking bosses to death before they can do much of anything. These new tricks make Pocket Bomberman a very breezy experience that’s easy to finish in less than an hour, but they also make for a game in which high level play looks and feels unique compared to what came before it.

In terms of areas, each one has at least one idea it explores, though none of them are particularly exceptional. The forest area has gates that Bomberman needs to lift in order to get past as well as electric fences and spinning flippers that can either be walked on or jumped through. The ocean area has water currents that’ll swallow Bomberman up and ferry him to a different location, leaving him defenseless in the process. The wind area has wind geysers that’ll push Bomberman around and other thematically consistent things like airborne enemies and a slightly higher amount of wing power-ups than usual. The cloud area focuses on mobility, featuring moving platforms, bouncy springs, and clouds that increase and decrease in length. The evil area is a strange choice for the finale that combines a mishmash of elements such as slot machines that dispense extra lives, burners that need to be deactivated, and flying skeletal birds that are the only enemies that take two hits to defeat. While the variety on offer is visually sufficient, especially when backed by the GBC’s colorization, the enemy types are disappointingly similar and almost every single one just moves around aimlessly. Giving more of the enemies gimmicks like in the past games would have helped to create a more natural difficulty curve that tests your comfort level with the new mechanics compared to the generally limp difficulty that the final game offers.

Like Bomberman GB 3, this game eschews the battle mode for something entirely different and ahead of its time. “Jump Mode” is essentially Doodle Jump years before that game became a smash hit, but with a Bomberman twist. After choosing one of three difficulty levels, you’re put in a vertical shaft containing four rooms filled with blocks, mode-exclusive enemies, generators that re-summon said enemies, and a boss to deal with at the top of each room. Fittingly, Bomberman jumps nonstop in this mode, meaning you’ll have to get very good at accurately placing bombs mid-air without bouncing to your demise. You’re rewarded with points based on how thorough and quick you are, providing incentive to replay and master the stages even if scoring well doesn’t unlock anything. The hard version of the mode also serves as a mandatory test of your bomb jumping and climbing abilities, something that the main game never demands you to do beyond the fun of it. Curiously, the bosses are all from the Virtual Boy version of Panic Bomber and only their heads were retained in the transition. It’s the last time they show up in the series otherwise, so it’s a nice gesture, but their implementation and lore justification in the manual (Bombpire was “imported from Transylvania”, somehow) makes for a seriously baffling inclusion.

Pocket Bomberman serves as more proof that the Bomberman formula can be evolved and molded in new and interesting ways to keep up with the ever-changing expectations of the gaming industry. While it lacks the scope of some of its predecessors, it makes up for it by confidently introducing a new perspective on the series, expanding upon it with elegantly intuitive mechanics, and executing it well within a short timeframe. It may not have a significant legacy within the franchise as a whole, but there are two mobile games that carry on its mechanical torch (Bomberman Planet Vol. 1 and Bomberman Jetters Vol. 1), so its contribution to the ocean of ideas that makes up the series wasn’t forgotten. It served a valuable niche at the time of its release by being a quality game for a system’s launch and it still serves one now by being an example to reference for effective ways to evolve a simple and well-worn formula, something that the game developers of today could potentially learn a thing or two from.

Screenshot Comparisons

Game Boy

Game Boy Color

Game Boy

Game Boy Color

Game Boy

Game Boy Color

Links

https://randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com/bomb/gb-p/misc.html#unused – Documentation of the unused content in the game via Ragey’s Totally Bombastic Bomberman Shrine Place!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQwH1Z97uY&t=213s – Video demonstrating Bomberman Planet Vol. 1

https://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Metro – List of games developed by Metro via GDRI

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