The 11th planet of Bomber Nebula, named Owen, faces a sudden earthquake. Deep within its underground, the terrible Evil Bomber had been trapped for ages. He finally rises to power and steals the Bomber Capsules from Bomberman. Bomberman and his friends then vow to take back the Capsules and defeat Evil Bomber... This game was only released in Japan. It is the last game in the Bomberman GB trilogy and features the appearance of a few new characters like Cutie Bomber.
Also in series
Reviews View More
“A new year, still more Bomberman.”
I swear if there is one thing I can always rely on for Bomberman is the fact there’s still way too many games from his series I need to complete. His GB output is something I’ve slacked on as I’ve only played two of them up to this point which were Bomberman GB and Pocket Bomberman. Bomberman GB 3 feels like the kind of game that enticed me the moment I saw it, it not only comes in a cool tin but the cover shows Bomberman on a motorcycle. I felt like I had to give this one a spin and see if it was any good. Let’s see after all of these years if Bomberman still has it in him.
Well we have a bit of an interesting plot where we have our setting be on the planet named Owan that was all peaceful until an earthquake happens and a new Bomber by the name of Devil Bomber appears as he attacks the planet and steals all of the capsules. Sadly even for White Bomber, he was too weak to defeat him right then and there. Now it’s up to him with some assistance from new character Cutie Bomber and Honey to set things straight. I guess Black Bomber will sit out for this one.
For the main game you’ll be traveling through seven different parts of Owan with the game being divided into 3 different sections with the first two letting you choose from 3 locations with the final section being just the final location. There will be six levels you have to get through and unlike your usual Bomberman flare, you’ll need to do objectives. At first it’s simple like defeating enemies but the game likes to change it up like destroying machines or generators, guiding an enemy to eat something, pushing rocks into holes and some more. Most levels also involve you doing two sections before fully beating the level so keep that in mind. Bomberman controls as you would expect with one button for bombs and the other for other abilities. Your max firepower and bomb count is four but you can upgrade it to six. The usual strats of Bomberman should work here like dropping a bomb on your space to keep enemies from touching you.
When it comes to power ups, you don’t actually get them from stages outside of the clock to stop time. Instead when you beat a boss, you’ll get capsules which let you go to Honey’s shop to buy items from her. You can get stuff like Bomb kick to kick bombs by walking into them, Dash to run faster which is why the skate item is missing in this entry, Line bomb to drop all of your bombs in a line formation instantly, and that extra firepower that I mentioned before. The other thing you can buy are Motos which are basically this game’s rideable item. The four types vary in quality with the first one just letting you take an extra hit, the second one letting you jump over hard blocks, the third one letting you destroy soft blocks though you can’t do this with a block in front of you, and finally one that lets you dash and take two hits. Once you have them, you can use as much as you want with the only downside being they need to be repaired if they break in a stage. You’ll need to beat a stage to have it be repaired and you’re allowed to switch between ones you have between sections. Now with this being a shop, you will get everything no matter what by the end so why even have a shop? Well the upside is it ups the replayability letting you decide what you want and what you feel like you need for later stages. While it’s not much, I appreciate the change even if it doesn’t make much difference. Plus it’s just neat to see side characters do things besides just existing.
To talk more about stage design, it seems soft blocks are randomly placed each time which is odd. Wonder if that’s always been a thing and never noticed? There is one level type though that kind of blows which is the auto scrollers. I’m sorry but these just don’t work this kind of gameplay especially when nothing is going on and you have to wait for it to get to the area you need. Sometimes levels have these springboards to take you to parts of the level but there were two times where they landed me on top of an enemy basically making it RNG to know when to land and it felt like it needed another revision. There’s also a level in the Desert area where you need to combine pieces together and it’s tedious and barely requires any strategy. I’m one for trying to do more than just do levels beating all the enemies but the new stuff needs to innovate in a fun way. That’s not to say they don’t as there are some fun ones I haven’t mentioned like the ones with deadly bombs that kill you instantly if you make them explode. Speaking of stages, I wish you could look at them before selecting a Moto as it would help me decide which one I need better. It’s such an interesting playthrough even with the issues it has and it’s a good length too. Lasting you about 90-120 minutes depending on how good you play. It also has a password system to keep you in whatever stage you’re last at though you probably won’t need it.
Bosses are a mixed bag in terms of challenge as you’ll have to hit them with your bombs but they all follow similar patterns that it’s hard to really say anything interesting about them. They all feel like they fly in the air, land and then you can attack and dodge. I think it might actually get easier as you go through the game getting more stuff and just learning what to do and not do. I’d argue the first one I fought was the hardest just for the fact you don’t have stuff like a Moto to protect you. If you collect enough crystals in the previous stage, you can summon two pods which give an item like a 1-up and the other attacks the boss. In the last area, instead of fighting large enemies on stage 3, you actually end up fighting Devil Bomber’s clone, twice in fact. When you get to fight the actual Devil Bomber, it’s largely the same except phase two is him getting huge while this weird other creature to him eventually roams around but it’s all so easy that I was more confused than anything. Once he’s down, Bomberman is cheered for his bravery and gets a new skybomber allowing to protect the planet from any eventual chaos. After the credits, you’ll get a special password to fight all of the bosses without a Moto if you feel you’re up to the challenge.
There is one other mode left to talk about which is the Challenge mode where you can play for 2 or 5 minutes on two different settings and 3 separate loadouts for Motos and power ups. Just get as many points as you can while also making it to the end to fight Devil Bomber’s clone. It’s a pretty simple mode that you’ll probably get not much out of nowadays. It can be fun to get the high score if that’s up your alley but this is the only mode available outside of Story mode due to the Battle mode being cut from this entry which is a bit of a shame.
Graphically the game is a bit mixed for me as it doesn't look bad but this was on a system that existed for 7 years at this point so one could argue things could look better. Some menus and screens like the time over do look pretty cool. Like GB2, the pause screen looks really nice as well. I do wish some of the sprites looked better and sometimes it’s a bit hard to see what is what when moving around. The music by Yasuhiko Fukuda is pretty good but there isn’t much here and some of it is from past Bomberman games but the new stuff is nice and I like it a lot. This game also uses support for the SGB letting you have two different borders and some color which makes some parts look really nice. If you want to see the second border, it only shows up in Challenge mode.
Bomberman GB 3 is a weird one to rate. I expected going into this that it would be pretty fun but was surprised to find it’s kind of just decent. I appreciate the attempt of sticking out from the other entries but Bomberman GB 3 is the definition of hit and miss. It’s hard to see myself coming back to this one with stuff I like and stuff I didn’t like. If you’re a Bomberman fan, it doesn’t hurt to give this one a try but be warned it will have some level ideas you might not like and that’s not even going over area gimmicks like pesky ice physics or other hazards. The lack of Battle mode might also be a turn off for some. The game wouldn’t leave much of a legacy as the only Bomberman game to really reference this game’s events was having Devil Bomber return in the N64 game Bomberman Hero: Milian Oujo o Sukue! Oddly enough because the US got this game, this return was probably confusing for players and he was even renamed to Evil Bomber. Speaking of that, there’s also a fan translation which actually uses that name. It works fine but be warned it’s flawed with stuff like the credits being bugged and the planet being named Owen, how weird. The game would be rereleased on 3DS Virtual Console but the Eshop is gone now so sadly there will probably never be another rerelease of the game. Really there just isn’t much more to say, it’s decent and it will continue to stay that way.
I swear if there is one thing I can always rely on for Bomberman is the fact there’s still way too many games from his series I need to complete. His GB output is something I’ve slacked on as I’ve only played two of them up to this point which were Bomberman GB and Pocket Bomberman. Bomberman GB 3 feels like the kind of game that enticed me the moment I saw it, it not only comes in a cool tin but the cover shows Bomberman on a motorcycle. I felt like I had to give this one a spin and see if it was any good. Let’s see after all of these years if Bomberman still has it in him.
Well we have a bit of an interesting plot where we have our setting be on the planet named Owan that was all peaceful until an earthquake happens and a new Bomber by the name of Devil Bomber appears as he attacks the planet and steals all of the capsules. Sadly even for White Bomber, he was too weak to defeat him right then and there. Now it’s up to him with some assistance from new character Cutie Bomber and Honey to set things straight. I guess Black Bomber will sit out for this one.
For the main game you’ll be traveling through seven different parts of Owan with the game being divided into 3 different sections with the first two letting you choose from 3 locations with the final section being just the final location. There will be six levels you have to get through and unlike your usual Bomberman flare, you’ll need to do objectives. At first it’s simple like defeating enemies but the game likes to change it up like destroying machines or generators, guiding an enemy to eat something, pushing rocks into holes and some more. Most levels also involve you doing two sections before fully beating the level so keep that in mind. Bomberman controls as you would expect with one button for bombs and the other for other abilities. Your max firepower and bomb count is four but you can upgrade it to six. The usual strats of Bomberman should work here like dropping a bomb on your space to keep enemies from touching you.
When it comes to power ups, you don’t actually get them from stages outside of the clock to stop time. Instead when you beat a boss, you’ll get capsules which let you go to Honey’s shop to buy items from her. You can get stuff like Bomb kick to kick bombs by walking into them, Dash to run faster which is why the skate item is missing in this entry, Line bomb to drop all of your bombs in a line formation instantly, and that extra firepower that I mentioned before. The other thing you can buy are Motos which are basically this game’s rideable item. The four types vary in quality with the first one just letting you take an extra hit, the second one letting you jump over hard blocks, the third one letting you destroy soft blocks though you can’t do this with a block in front of you, and finally one that lets you dash and take two hits. Once you have them, you can use as much as you want with the only downside being they need to be repaired if they break in a stage. You’ll need to beat a stage to have it be repaired and you’re allowed to switch between ones you have between sections. Now with this being a shop, you will get everything no matter what by the end so why even have a shop? Well the upside is it ups the replayability letting you decide what you want and what you feel like you need for later stages. While it’s not much, I appreciate the change even if it doesn’t make much difference. Plus it’s just neat to see side characters do things besides just existing.
To talk more about stage design, it seems soft blocks are randomly placed each time which is odd. Wonder if that’s always been a thing and never noticed? There is one level type though that kind of blows which is the auto scrollers. I’m sorry but these just don’t work this kind of gameplay especially when nothing is going on and you have to wait for it to get to the area you need. Sometimes levels have these springboards to take you to parts of the level but there were two times where they landed me on top of an enemy basically making it RNG to know when to land and it felt like it needed another revision. There’s also a level in the Desert area where you need to combine pieces together and it’s tedious and barely requires any strategy. I’m one for trying to do more than just do levels beating all the enemies but the new stuff needs to innovate in a fun way. That’s not to say they don’t as there are some fun ones I haven’t mentioned like the ones with deadly bombs that kill you instantly if you make them explode. Speaking of stages, I wish you could look at them before selecting a Moto as it would help me decide which one I need better. It’s such an interesting playthrough even with the issues it has and it’s a good length too. Lasting you about 90-120 minutes depending on how good you play. It also has a password system to keep you in whatever stage you’re last at though you probably won’t need it.
Bosses are a mixed bag in terms of challenge as you’ll have to hit them with your bombs but they all follow similar patterns that it’s hard to really say anything interesting about them. They all feel like they fly in the air, land and then you can attack and dodge. I think it might actually get easier as you go through the game getting more stuff and just learning what to do and not do. I’d argue the first one I fought was the hardest just for the fact you don’t have stuff like a Moto to protect you. If you collect enough crystals in the previous stage, you can summon two pods which give an item like a 1-up and the other attacks the boss. In the last area, instead of fighting large enemies on stage 3, you actually end up fighting Devil Bomber’s clone, twice in fact. When you get to fight the actual Devil Bomber, it’s largely the same except phase two is him getting huge while this weird other creature to him eventually roams around but it’s all so easy that I was more confused than anything. Once he’s down, Bomberman is cheered for his bravery and gets a new skybomber allowing to protect the planet from any eventual chaos. After the credits, you’ll get a special password to fight all of the bosses without a Moto if you feel you’re up to the challenge.
There is one other mode left to talk about which is the Challenge mode where you can play for 2 or 5 minutes on two different settings and 3 separate loadouts for Motos and power ups. Just get as many points as you can while also making it to the end to fight Devil Bomber’s clone. It’s a pretty simple mode that you’ll probably get not much out of nowadays. It can be fun to get the high score if that’s up your alley but this is the only mode available outside of Story mode due to the Battle mode being cut from this entry which is a bit of a shame.
Graphically the game is a bit mixed for me as it doesn't look bad but this was on a system that existed for 7 years at this point so one could argue things could look better. Some menus and screens like the time over do look pretty cool. Like GB2, the pause screen looks really nice as well. I do wish some of the sprites looked better and sometimes it’s a bit hard to see what is what when moving around. The music by Yasuhiko Fukuda is pretty good but there isn’t much here and some of it is from past Bomberman games but the new stuff is nice and I like it a lot. This game also uses support for the SGB letting you have two different borders and some color which makes some parts look really nice. If you want to see the second border, it only shows up in Challenge mode.
Bomberman GB 3 is a weird one to rate. I expected going into this that it would be pretty fun but was surprised to find it’s kind of just decent. I appreciate the attempt of sticking out from the other entries but Bomberman GB 3 is the definition of hit and miss. It’s hard to see myself coming back to this one with stuff I like and stuff I didn’t like. If you’re a Bomberman fan, it doesn’t hurt to give this one a try but be warned it will have some level ideas you might not like and that’s not even going over area gimmicks like pesky ice physics or other hazards. The lack of Battle mode might also be a turn off for some. The game wouldn’t leave much of a legacy as the only Bomberman game to really reference this game’s events was having Devil Bomber return in the N64 game Bomberman Hero: Milian Oujo o Sukue! Oddly enough because the US got this game, this return was probably confusing for players and he was even renamed to Evil Bomber. Speaking of that, there’s also a fan translation which actually uses that name. It works fine but be warned it’s flawed with stuff like the credits being bugged and the planet being named Owen, how weird. The game would be rereleased on 3DS Virtual Console but the Eshop is gone now so sadly there will probably never be another rerelease of the game. Really there just isn’t much more to say, it’s decent and it will continue to stay that way.
Game Review - originally written by (wraith)
For the uneducated, Bomberman is helluva great series that has had many incarnations across many different consoles. It's a great game series in general, but where it really shines is as multiplayer game. Especially the versions that allow for like four players.
The game is simple. They tell you before every level what you have to do to beat the level. Don't waste your time. Anything they say to you pretty much equates to “Blow up everything that isn't you, and isn't indestructible.” How? Very easy. I mean, Jesus, you're Bomberman. You just run around drop bombs and hope an enemy wanders close to it. Of course, it is harder than that. At first, you can lay only one bomb at a time and they only have a range of one tile. But you can pick up stuff that increases both your range and the amount of bombs you lay… but at a cost. As you range increases, you'll find that you're blowing yourself up more often than the bad guys. Which is infuriating in Single Player Mode, but somehow funny in Versus Mode.
You should also note that this was actually the fourth Bomberman to grace the Gameboy, and it was also the only one that wasn't officially translated into English.
For the uneducated, Bomberman is helluva great series that has had many incarnations across many different consoles. It's a great game series in general, but where it really shines is as multiplayer game. Especially the versions that allow for like four players.
The game is simple. They tell you before every level what you have to do to beat the level. Don't waste your time. Anything they say to you pretty much equates to “Blow up everything that isn't you, and isn't indestructible.” How? Very easy. I mean, Jesus, you're Bomberman. You just run around drop bombs and hope an enemy wanders close to it. Of course, it is harder than that. At first, you can lay only one bomb at a time and they only have a range of one tile. But you can pick up stuff that increases both your range and the amount of bombs you lay… but at a cost. As you range increases, you'll find that you're blowing yourself up more often than the bad guys. Which is infuriating in Single Player Mode, but somehow funny in Versus Mode.
You should also note that this was actually the fourth Bomberman to grace the Gameboy, and it was also the only one that wasn't officially translated into English.
The final game of the Bomberman GB subfranchise, god finally.
It might not sound surprising but this game is terrible just like the two previous ones, it still builds up on the bike gimmick but totally got rid of the upgrade unlocks after clearing a world, instead they made it so that you can buy upgrades from a store with the currency you earn after beating a boss giving you this fake sense of progression, at this point just give me the upgrades after clearing a world since I'm gonna end up getting all of them anyway.
The graphics and gameplay are as putrid as always, I'd say gameplay wise it's the least tedious one but they still use gimmicks on stages like "kill X enemies with a moving block" or dumb time-wasting shit like that.
And worse of all, it doesn't even have multiplayer!
This whole GB franchise should be avoided at all costs and it makes me feel bad for the Gameboy owner at the time that just wanted a cool Bomberman experience on the go and ended up with this crap.
It might not sound surprising but this game is terrible just like the two previous ones, it still builds up on the bike gimmick but totally got rid of the upgrade unlocks after clearing a world, instead they made it so that you can buy upgrades from a store with the currency you earn after beating a boss giving you this fake sense of progression, at this point just give me the upgrades after clearing a world since I'm gonna end up getting all of them anyway.
The graphics and gameplay are as putrid as always, I'd say gameplay wise it's the least tedious one but they still use gimmicks on stages like "kill X enemies with a moving block" or dumb time-wasting shit like that.
And worse of all, it doesn't even have multiplayer!
This whole GB franchise should be avoided at all costs and it makes me feel bad for the Gameboy owner at the time that just wanted a cool Bomberman experience on the go and ended up with this crap.