is a 1994

puzzle A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at th ...

video game developed and published by

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company that released numerous games for video game consoles, home computers and mobile phones, mainly from the 1980s to the 2000s. It was headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo Midtown, Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo ...

for the PC Engine (in Super CD-ROM² format) on December 22, 1994. It was later released for the Neo Geo, Super Famicom, Sharp X68000,

FM Towns The is a Japanese personal computer, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with IBM PC compatibles. ...

, NEC PC-9821, Virtual Boy, and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, ...

. It saw a re-release for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

and Wii U's Virtual Console services. ''Panic Bomber'' is a falling block game with the players' goal being to clear matching blocks using bombs, ensuring that their screen does not fill and that their opponents' screens do. It received mixed to positive reception, identified as a decent game by multiple critics. It has been compared to the falling block puzzle game '' Tetris''. The Virtual Boy version was received mixed reception for its handling of the platform's visual capabilities.

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

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the Exothermic process, exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-t ...

s 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.

Ports and related releases

''Panic Bomber'' was ported to: * Neo Geo * Super Famicom (Released as stylistically as ) * Multiple Japanese home computers such as Sharp X68000,

and NEC PC-9821 * Virtual Boy (Released simply as ) *

The Virtual Boy version uses a red-and-black color scheme and

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

, an optical trick that is used to simulate a 3D effect. A mini-game similar to ''Panic Bomber'' was also included in '' Bomberman Land 2''. The original PC-Engine CD version of ''Panic Bomber'' was later re-released on

in 2008 and the Wii U Virtual Console in Japan in 2015 (with the latter release also being available for the first time for North America and Europe in 2017, albeit untranslated). A port for the Neo Geo CD was also showcased but never released.

Reception

The Neo Geo version of ''Panic Bomber'' was a moderate success in Japan. On release, '' Famicom Tsūshin'' scored the Super Famicom version of the game a 22 out of 40, giving the Virtual Boy version a 20 out of 40. 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 Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

, 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." ''

GamePro Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...

'' remarked that the gameplay and graphics are too simple to justify the game's appearance on the powerful Neo Geo, but praised its play mechanics and addictive nature and concluded, "For a system renowned for fighting games, Panic is a refreshing presence." Reviewing the Virtual Boy version, a ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' critic said that while the game itself is "decent" and "addictive", it is poorly suited for the Virtual Boy, since it does not use the console's 3D capabilities and is less fun to play without colors to distinguish the different pieces. He gave it two out of five stars. ''GamePro'', in contrast, said the game "pushes the Virtual Boy engine to its max", while admitting the 3D effects are "a little timid". The reviewer hailed the gameplay as being "as addictive as ''

Zoop ''Zoop'' is a puzzle video game originally developed by Hookstone and published by Viacom New Media for many platforms in 1995. It has similarities to Taito's 1989 arcade game ''Plotting (video game), Plotting'' (known as ''Flipull'' in other t ...

'' or ''Tetris''."

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bomberman: Panic Bomber 1994 video games

Panic Bomber is a 1994 puzzle video game, puzzle video game developed and published by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16#TurboGrafx-CD/CD-ROM², PC Engine (in Super CD-ROM² format) on December 22, 1994. It was later released for the Neo Geo, Super Famicom, S ...