Bomberman Tournament

"The best Bomberman yet!"

First off, I must say that this is the BEST Bomberman game that I've played so far. Okay, now that the introductions are out of the way, we'll get on to the more important stuff.

Gameplay-10/10
Now this is where this game shines. There are two main categories of gameplay in Bomberman Tournament. The first is the quest mode gameplay. This is the main, one-player part of the game and plays like a combination of Zelda and classic Bomberman games. In quest mode, you start off in a town and from there you traverse into dangerous terrain in the wilderness (forests, ice areas, deserts, etc.) while on mini-quests. After finding your way through these ''wilderness sequences'' you eventually find the dungeons (large castle-like objects). The cool thing about these dungeons is that they're set up like large-scale versions of the original SNES Bomberman games with switches, typical Bomberman type enemies and secret areas. Also in the quest mode are little Pokemon-like creatures called Karabons. These little guys add a new level of depth to the gameplay because not only can you use them in battle in the optional stadiums, but they each posses special abilities. For instance, in one part of the game you come across a totally dark cave that you cannot pass through and so you must move on and forget about it, but later in the game you get a Karabon that lights up dark areas in one of the dungeons. After completing the dungeon, you can go back to that cave and get through it to get another Karabon that will aid you as well. This adds a whole new depth to the gameplay. Now for the battle mode, the second aspect of Bomberman Tournament's gameplay. The battle mode is just like all the SNES ones, it's a large arena in which up to four people (or computers) try to bomb and blast each other in order to claim the victory trophy. There are a few new interesting twists to the battle mode though. The first of which is the Revenge option which allows dead characters to roam the sidelines of the arena in wheelchairs while throwing bombs at the living players. The second cool part of the battle mode is the levels. Each level is unique in that they all have some kind of special twist, like a machine level with a conveyer belt in the middle of the arena, or an ice level with igloos to hide bombs in, etc. Finally, there is the fishing mode. This mode kicks in after a player has won an entire match (consisting of many different rounds), the player is allowed to fish for an item that they will start out with at the beginning of the next match which gives them an advantage and make the game more competitive.

Story-7/10
This aspect of the game isn't as strong as it's gameplay. Basically, Max Bomber has been trapped on a distant planet and needs help from Bomberman. Pretty simple huh? Well, although it isn't much, the story does have some twists at the end of the game, but overall, the story just works to tie the levels together. One cool thing is that all the bosses transformed versions of your old adversaries like Magnet, Pretty, Plasma, and Golem Bomber.

Sound-7/10
Classic Bomberman techno (if you can call it that) sounds in the background as you blow up your opponents with the same explosion sounds from every other Bomberman game. Nothing special here.

Replay Value-10/10
This is another area in which BT excels. Although the quest mode will take you no longer than three days to complete (maybe two or one if you love this game to obsession like me) but the Battle mode keeps this game alive. The computers keep you on your toes most of the time due to their somewhat random AI (sometimes they're suicidal other times they put up a good fight). Thankfully, you can raise or lower the difficulty level or rather the intelligence level (on hard mode they are really tough and hard). Anyway, the computer difficulty along with all the options give the battle mode infinite replayability and will keep this cart in your GBA for a long time to come.

Buy or Rent-Buy
This is one of the most fun games on the GBA so far and although it may not have the best story/quest mode, the battle mode makes up for it.

Overall (not an average)-10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/01, Updated 07/05/01