"A worthwhile buy for the GameBoy"

Bomberman is back on his newest GameBoy installment, Pocket Bomerman. Since Bomberman GB was released, there have been lots of changes for the good and for the bad on this game, but mostly good. Pocket Bomberman is a great game for those of you who want a challenge while taking that long, boring car trip with your family.

The first new thing in Pocket Bomberman is the fun mini-game called Jump game. Jump game is similar to the main part of the game except you are constantly jumping as if you were in one of those cheap blow-up slides at carnivals. The object of the game is to not get hit by an enemy and defeat the boss at the top of every floor. By defeating him, you can proceed up to the next floor until you get to the top. The fun thing about this is that you can always try to beat your high score and other's high scores by killing the most things, losing less lives, and so on. There are three difficulty levels for Jump game from easy to hard. Though it is only a mini-game, Jump game is probably the most fun aspect of the game.

The main part of the game has changed a lot. In the previous Bomberman game, the levels were from a birds eye view, and you had a choice of beating the level one of two ways. This Bomberman game is from a more challenging side view, and each level has its own set rules of beating it. Some levels you will need to kill a certain enemy, or kill all of the enemies. There are a total of five worlds, and five levels in each world. Each world is completely different than the last. One will be in a forest, the other underwater. The first four levels in each world are usually the pretty similar. The fifth level, however, makes you challenge a boss to go on to the next world.

The bombing is still the same though. You can plant up to four bombs at a time by getting special power-ups and they can be very powerful depending on how many of those power-ups. The bombs still explode in a plus sign motion. There are many more power-ups new in this game like the shoes that make you jump higher and farther. Unfortunately, there is no special abilities you learn at the end of each world and you are stuck with the abilities you are given from the beginning until the end.

Graphics
I liked the graphics for this game. They were pretty good. The colors were awesome and just matched perfectly with the environment around you. The motion was also good. The frames per second were high enough to give you easier game play, but not fast enough to give you completely fluent game play. The graphics were a lot better than the last Bomberman game, and I'd say they were an overall success.

Sound
The sounds were also a successful part of the game. The background music is good and its placement was good. In boss levels the music was more intense than in regular levels and underwater levels gave you that beachish feel. The sound effects were equally good. They weren't perfected but still good. The explosions sounded life-like and all of the other sound effects were clear, crisp, and add to the game.

Challenge
The main part of the game is challenging itself, but the Jump game is also very challenging. There are different skill levels you can play on for beginner players and avid players. Bouncing all of the time definitely adds a lot of challenge to the game, then changing to a regular game right after is very hard. Since all of the levels are completely different from the next, it becomes hard after a while. The bosses are challenging too. They all have completely different characteristics making their prediction level very low.

Game Play
The game play is fairly simple in this game but still very fun. The newest feature in the game play is the new bonuses you can obtain during a regular game. The best one would probably be the manual bomb detonation item, which allows you to detonate bombs at any time you want to instead of them going off in a certain amount of time. The controls are very fluent and easy to learn. Since there is few buttons you need to know, the game is even easier to use.

Fun Factor
If you've played Bomberman GB and didn't like it, you should still try this game. It is a lot better than Bomberman GB and is a lot more fun. It has much better game play, controls, graphics, sound, and an extremely fun new mini-game. At times the game can get a little frustrating, especially at the hard boss fights. Sometimes, since most of the game play is completely new for GameBoy Bomermans, beating levels can get hard also.

Overall
VERY fun. That about sums it up. I'm not a big fan of any of the GameBoys for various reasons, but this game has probably gotten the most use out of my GameBoy and it was damn worth it.

Summary of Pros
-Brand new graphics and game play make the game easier to play and more fun.
-New mini-game that is extremely fun.
-Cool new items and power-ups.
-Better sounds and graphics.

Summary of Cons
-New game play can be confusing at time.
-Sometimes gets frustrating.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/20/06