Pocket Bomberman

"May I say: "Satisfactory"?"

Bomberman had already released at least 10 gameboy titles, hadn't it? Most of them are disappointing, and sadly, this game falls into that area too.

Well, the plot is kind of the same. You bomb this and you bomb that. Beat those creatures in each stage and go through the 'magical' door before the time limit to proceed. Well, typical Bomberman school style.

Well, as much as I enjoyed Bomberman titles. It hurts me to say that this is a disappointing game. Ah...what the heck, I will tell you the good points and the bad points:

Story: 5/10
Let's keep it simple, shall we. Some evil bad guy decided it would be funny to let out think fog and thick clouds to cover the entire sky. The whole sky became dark and the sun is no longer able to shine. An old legend said that the only way to get the sun back is that you have to collect 5 power stones, from each of the bosses at the evil mountain.

You are the only hope, you must bring back sunlight to your country.

I guess that was an okay story...even though collecting power stones to clear up the clouds is a little outrageous. Don't they have a weatherman or something -_-'' This story is detailed, but is simply stupid. Yes, harsh words, but truthful.

Music: 5/10
They are simple music. It won't hurt you to listen to the music. But since they are so repetitive. You'll find yourself turning down the volume in, dunno, the first 3 seconds?

Controls: 8/10
Now, that's one of the good points. Bomberman are always good with controlling. And this one probably got the tradition too. Even though, jumping on bombs is a hard technique to do with a few buttons, the control system satisfy me.

Gameplay: 6/10
There are 2 modes in this game.
Quest: You must explored 5 different worlds to gain 5 different power stone from defeating 5 different bosses, ooh...lots of '5', aren't there? The main goal is still trying to bring the sunlight back to the town, boo-hoo. Anyway, the stages are nowhere from creative. They are mostly creative...which gets boring very quickly. But at least the bosses and the odd creatures are a piece of cake to defeat...but defeating the stage and go through the magical door may cause a problem.

Jump: The goal is to build a ladder of bombs and climb on them and proceed to the next level. Of course, there are difficulites. You need to bomb the boss 2 times in order to open up the gate and the bomb explode very quickly. This gets very frustrating and gets repetitive very soon. But it does provide a challenge. Even though, I still didn't figure out what exactly is that 'sun' thingy that comes out of the television...Er...

Replay: 5/10
Excuse me, you won't want to play the quest mode once you defeated it. And the jump mode won't last very long since it's so hard and repetitive. And even then, in the quest mode, most of the layout are very similiar, so you might get bored of the same enemies, same background, same layout...Err...but at least this game has a password system, so you could always continue without playing it all over again. In fact, the password system is the only thing that makes me give this a rating of '5'.

Graphics: 6/10
The little creatures are poorly done. For example, there's supposed to be a creature that is a tree. But to me, it looks like a monkey with big ears. -_-'' But however, the bosses are detailed drawn. And there's this cute little chicken thingy that is soooo cute! It's suppose to be a spring chicken or something...-_-'' But it still looked cool.

Buy/Rent/Ignore
I'll go with 'ignoring' this game. But if you are really desperate, you should try 'renting' it. And after you rented it, and you really wanted it, then 'buy' it. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Overall: Yes, I did defeat this game. It took me about 3 hours to complete the quest mode. And I got pretty bored at times, but that's what most game does, torture you. Heh~ Overall, Pocket Bomberman is probably something that you are better off when you don't have it. But it's no harm just checking it out. After all, it is Bomberman

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/08/01, Updated 10/08/01