Virtual Boy Complete - Game #2

Accidentally played this game second, when I was attempting to go in alphabetical order. Anyway, I'm very surprised by the praise for this game, it's certainly compotent, no denying that, the music is great and the art and character design are as good as to be expected from a Bomberman game (not titled "Act Zero" or "Bombergirl"), but the gameplay just doesn't stack up (NPI) for me. It feels very akin to Pac-Attack, a game I already consider to be a bit of a low-tier block-stacker - you have to create a row of bomb blocks, then plant a lit fuse bomb when it appears - the lit bomb will explode in the classic Bomberman plus shape, expanding for every bomb it hits, destroying all blocks. I think falling block games where it entirely revolves around waiting for one specific block are very tedious (with the exception of Yoshi, that one's good, but it could just be nostalgia speaking since I played that as a kid), and Panic Bomber's bomb system seems to be a bit weird. Maybe I just didn't play it enough to properly figure it out, but it felt like the radious of each bomb was based on RNG, as sometimes lighting a bomb away 2 blocks away from another would light them both, while other times the explosion wouldn't go far enough - there are giant bombs, I didn't figure out the cause of these, but they erase a big chunk of the screen - it's very hard to tell when one is coming up, I believe you're supposed to watch the HUD signifier expand, but that isn't as intuitive as a bar or a number-of-turns - another problem with the big bombs is that they make the same sound effect as a stage clear - sometimes it seems like your opponent has lost, but they actually just got a giant bomb, and you're suddenly blindsided by garbage blocks and a power-down. Speaking of which, power-downs such as super-speed and control reversing do exist, and are a welcome hurdle on paper, but barely ever appear unless you're fighting bosses, which are completely unlabled beyond being the 3rd in each world (and uh, I guess looking more humanoid? That seems to be the shared theme?), where they are bombarded on you non-stop, creating a case of polar extremes. Unlike 3D Tetris at least, I can tell what's going on on a basic level.

I may have been biased here as I only had the title in the ROM list to go off of, and expected a regular Bomberman game. Perhaps if I went in knowing what it is, I'd enjoy it more.

So they made the Virtual Boy version of Panic Bomber horror themed because the visuals in the game are only red and black?

Wow, a good Virtual Boy game! Someday I'd like to complete the entire library but that's for another time. This Panic Bomber title was the last one released before the PSP come back years later and it pretty much plays like the Neo Geo version with the same idea of blocks and power-downs you can get fucked over with by yourself or the enemies, not too sure if I like them or not...
The lack of link cable multiplayer makes this game a massive bummer since it's pretty much the famous feature for Bomberman games, being able to play with other people.
Graphics wise it's alright, the red will hurt your eyes but it's totally playable, well if you are playing on an emulator that is because I played it with an emulator and I don't think it would be worth it to play a puzzle game with a massive pair of goggle on legs, but that's an issue with the hardware and not the game itself.

Verdict, this game was kinda unnecessary to have but hell, I love that Bomberman had a game on almost all consoles ever released. If you have just heard about this game because of the Virtual Boy I can't blame you with the other entries of the franchise being japan only so if you want to play the best Panic Bomber game go play the Super Nintendo version!