The Bomberman franchise is one of the most beloved series of all time. Especially when you’re talking about multiplayer gaming series. Almost everyone knows about those games. But what not many may be aware of is this puzzle rendition of the franchise. And I’m happy to say it’s pretty damn good. Hell, it even features a 4-player mode because, BOMBERMAN!
3 pieces drop at a time. The goal is to match 3 in a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal).
In addition to the Bomberman pieces you have 3 others:
- The unlit bomb
- The lit bomb (put these babies on the unlit ones for a blast!)
Note: This blast doesn’t destroy the Bomberman pieces. Rather it ignites the unlit bombs, taking them off your field.
And once you’ve filled up your power bar, you receive the almighty MEGA BOMB.
It can take out almost every piece on the field, depending on block positioning.
The mega bomb is the most visually impressive “clear-all-ish” piece I’ve seen in a puzzler. Panic Bomber actually uses a special chip. The mega bomb definitely gets the treatment as it pulsates with flames and makes a huge boom when dropped. It’s sheer, raw, unadulterated POWER at its finest. Thank you, Mr. Special Chip Thing.
Of course, while the goal is to keep your playing field from filling up, the best way to beat the opposition is by crafting chain reactions. The 3-falling pieces instead of 2 format will take some getting used to for many of us, but once you do the combo’s flow. Here’s a basic 2 hitter:
To create huge chain reactions you have to set yourself up. Here’s a 3-hit combo. Notice I’ve stocked up on red and green. Not to mention some white…
Not only do the greens connect horizontally but diagonally as well for a sweet 6 piece combo. It drops the stack of 3 reds…
Let’s see — I see red horizontal, vertical AND diagonal connections!
Major poppage happens. The white pieces fall…
Your simple run-of-the-mill 3-chain 19-piece combo!
But of course, being a Bomberman game, what good would it be without a 4-player mode?
Simply brilliant… brilliantly simple. The smallness of it might be a bit off-setting initially, but you’ll quickly adjust. Besides, a tiny amount of the occasional squinting is more than worth it for a chance to duke it out with 3 buddies, puzzle style.
And like any classic Bomberman title, it’s very user-friendly — 2, 3 or 4 players can play, with 1-5 matches to win the trophy. “B” allows you to go back to the previous screen.
Check out this 3-hit chain on the 1 Player side. (The most I’ve done so far was 5).
Of course, when you chain together combos you can cause much grief to your rival opponent(s).
In the 1 player mode after beating your opponents you get a password.
Speaking of the passwords, there are some cheat codes to alter the visuals.
Why? Why not. Little touches like these are always welcomed in my book.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
Super Bomberman Panic Bomber World is a fun puzzle game that is more than a cheap cash-in. It’s more than a lame gimmick to milk a popular franchise name. It’s a game I would happily pull off my shelf to play, and in fact, I often do. It takes the classic formula and spins it well within the world of a puzzle game. True, there’s nothing ground breaking here, but it’s solid through and through. Even the classic Bomberman tune is replicated nicely here, and it fits very well with the puzzle madness.
By far the standout feature here is the 4-player mode. The only other 4-player puzzle game on the SNES that I can think of is Super Tetris 3. It’s definitely a novelty that’s worth experiencing at least once. Perhaps it won’t ever supplant your regular Bomberman 4-player battles, but it’s definitely an entertaining and competitive good time. Panic Bomber – you alright!
The third Super Famicom Bomberman game after Produce’s first two Super Bomberman installments, Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber World was the system’s first spinoff and right alongside most other editions of Bomberman: Panic Bomber was by and large a Japan-exclusive (bar the Virtual Boy edition, and in 2017 during the Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console days the digital rerelease of the NEC PC Engine incarnation). That’s too bad, because it is a fun game in its own right. This also marked the first time Hudson Soft’s iconic IP tackled a different genre as up until this point all prior installments circa the series’ start in 1983 had been action maze games.
Raizing, who largely worked on arcade shoot’em ups from the company’s conception during the ’90s with the Mahō Daisakusen trilogy (having worked on Sorcer Striker and Kingdom Grand Prix before developing this game with the third game Dimahoo debuting in the year 2000) and Battle Garegga for example before they eventually merged with and became one with Eighting (who previously was Raizing’s publisher with certain arcade titles), I personally feel did a good job developing this game.
Though the gameplay is simple it can be fairly addicting to play especially when things get very intense (particularly when Dokuro mode is enabled in the options during boss fights which would either help you, like blocks or bombs vanishing, or hinder you depending on what it is, like with briefly reversable controls or Bomberman bubbles obscuring your view), I love that this 16-bit edition in particular takes place in a facsimile of a world like our own with real countries (e.g. Jamaica, USA, Kenya), I love how a good chunk of this game’s normal enemies have made appearances from the older installments (a few having been around since the prior decade while some made their debut with the NEC Bomberman games) as well as the different expressions they show depending on whether they’ve got the edge over you or if they themselves start to become overwhelmed, I felt it had a high level of charm, and I love how the visual of the playing field you maneuvered and positioned your blocks and/or bombs cycled over time (e.g. Shiro Bom drinking from a coconut and swimming with the dolphin, my favorite, in Jamaica, drinking tea in fancy attire with a mustached and dressed in a scientist’s white robe while Nessie is viewed in the background in England, dressed as Lady Liberty and playing basketball in USA, wearing a black and white striped shirt next to a zebra and wearing safari getup in front of a mountain in Kenya, and flying a kite on a string in Japan, et al).
The boss characters this time around are endearingly designed with a high level of distinction on which country they hail from: I like how laidback and carefree Raster Bomber is as he shakes his maracas, Metal Bomber makes his affinity to death metal well-known with his yellow mohawk and leather, Bom Gunman has got a cool Western attire, and then there’s the feral Animal Bomber whom I found to be very likably designed (even after having regained consciousness after having defeated him) especially with his green and yellow color combo.
I like too that in later difficulty settings there are a couple secret opponents to deal with, whom you know will make an appearance once you see a brief red flash followed by abrupt change in music, in Pretty Bomber (who is under the impression she was the sole survivor of the Five Dastardly Bombers in Super Bomberman 2, when as we all know with Super Bomberman 3 which would come out almost two months later that that is not the case for the other four are still alive) and Shadow Bomber (who turns out to be Kuro Bom in disguise, perhaps after having been sidelined in Super Bomberman 2’s story mode and not being offered to go on vacation with Shiro Bom in this game he did not appreciate that and so he took it out against him… which must sting after having teamed up together in Super Bomberman’s story mode to go after and thwart Carat Diamond’s nefarious scheme). It’s also neat because there are different endings (a first for the series) depending on whether you defeated both of them or not, thank goodness for unlimited continues sometimes the difficulty can really ramp up at unexpected times.
Super Bomberman: Panic Bomber World is also among the first installments in the franchise to have voice acting which adds even more character to the proceedings than it has already, and this game’s music by Jun Chikuma (with Kenichi Koyano and Hitoshi Sakimoto this time around) is absolutely fantastic. I like the Jamaica, England, and USA themes with the proper Bomberman touch, I enjoy that each World Bomber has their own theme (like the bouncy music for Raster Bomber, heavy death metal for Rocker Bomber, primordial drums and menacing melody for Animal Bomber, and when Karaoke Bomber challenges you while Enka music is playing in the background). One theme that impressed me was Bagulor’s theme as it is highly orchestral in terms of its intensity which I felt sounded outstanding with its sound quality. One of my personal favorite soundtracks from the series.
I caught up with this game a year after I caught up with the SFC Super Bomberman games and Saturn Bomberman (Japanese version), and I grew to enjoy this game quickly. I haven’t beaten Super Bomberman 5 yet so I’ve yet to reserve judgement for it (I’ve only really played that one a few times since I got it), but if I were to make a list of games based on how much I enjoyed the Super Bomberman games (and yes, I’ll include this one because it too has got “Super Bomberman” in the title even though it’s a puzzler) I’d place the first Super Bomberman at the top followed by Produce’s Super Bomberman 4 (Produce’s Nintendo 16-bit swansong is so good), this game, Super Bomberman 3 (which I have a soft spot for), with Produce’s Super Bomberman 2 at the bottom which I was genuinely disappointed by (I didn’t hate it but I honestly didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to, given the previous Super iteration set a high standard and precedent for the franchise, for I felt it did plenty of things that I disagreed with–ugggh, those last set of levels for instance–which impeded my overall enjoyment, and compared to its predecessor and even its 16-bit successors I cannot shake off the feeling that it comes off as the odd one out). In my opinion, this puzzler’s a blast to play!
Hope you’re doing good, Steve!
To each their own