Bomberman Tournament

"Classic Bomberman Fun"

This is one of my all time favorite game series and when I heard it was going to be on Game Boy Advance I was excited. Also hearing it will be an Action/RPG type also got me excited since i'm into adventure-type games. But looks can also fool.

Gameplay-9/10
Plant a bomb and run, simple as that. That right there was the directions to the classic bomberman game that goes with Tournament. For the storyline mode, planting a bomb and running still applies, but you get power-ups as you go along. It does get very frustrating, even at the beginning of the game. I only beat it once and it was hard for me. So if your a hardcore gamer believe or not you should try it. Seems short of a game too, with Four bosses, maybe more but im not going to spoil it. You also get animals called Karabons, which you can fight another Karabon to win gold. Sounds like Pokemon in a way but if you hate Pokemon don't worry, it's different.

Story-8/10
This applies to, of course, the Quest portion of the game. The original plan was for Bomberman Max to answer a distress call from the planet Phantarion. Max went down and soon he disappeared. Now the original Bomberman is called into action to continue Max's investigation and locate Max himself. It is a real solid storyline but it would have been better if there were clues to find in the game. You sometimes walk around aimlessly trying to find a dungeon. That doesn't happen often but it did to me a few times. Plus you get sick of the storyline fast as well.

Audio/Visuals-7/10
Audio is annoying to me and distracting, I just turn it off. To me, that can't be waved by. Visuals are pretty decent enough to keep playing, the environment can hide items fairly well, so it's fun just to go exploring in the game.

Replayability-3/10
This is for Quest mode here, and it does get very very boring unless your total Bomberman fan. I am and I got bored of it. For a good part, the game might last you a while if you don't rush though, then it is a waste of money.
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Bomberman Tournament- Battle Mode Quick Review
Score-9/10
I'm not going to do a whole other review, but it does deserve to get a separate review since it is almost two different games.

Total Gameplay (with audio/visuals)-9/10
Very fun and addictive, it is the reason why I still play the battle portion. It's exactly like the classic Bomberman with other options like Revenge and Fishing. Revenge is if you get killed by a blue bomberman, if you kill him with revenge you get to go back in and play. Fishing is for the winner of the match and gets a power up for the next round.

Replayability-10/10
You will want to keep playing this. I would have bought the game just for the Battle mode. There are more than one battle area with other options so there is literally no end to it either.
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Final Score-7/10 (Including Quest)
Buy or Rent? Rent first, beat quest, then maybe buy it for Battle mode. It is very fun and so was quest but that got boring faster than battle mode. Give this one a shot.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/30/02, Updated 11/30/02