Had no idea what to expect from this one aside from recognising Bomberman on the cover. I was surprised to find a pretty fun puzzle game with a solid story mode to work through.
The core concept of this is a match 3 puzzle game where your blocks are linked in an L-shaped 3 blocks and you can rotate them as they fall. Once landed, if there's a gap below any blocks, they will fall onto the line below. It's kind of a mix between Tetris and Puyo Puyo in that way.
The better you do, the more you can fill you side up with bombs and by dropping a lit bomb onto that, you can explode a large portion of your field to send a bunch of junk blocks to your opponents side. It's incredibly satisfying and simple to pick up fun which is exactly what you want from a puzzle game. Throw in some chaotic items like giant bombs and making blocks fall much faster, and you've got a great puzzle game on your hands.
There's no messing with viewing angles to try and make an impressive 3D display here - this is exactly how a puzzle game would look in 2D but they added depth to a few layers like the characters in the middle of the screen or making explosions pop out of the screen and that simplicity, not complicating thing for the sake of being flashy, is what makes this on of the better Virtual Boy games.
Panic Bomber knows what it wants to be and doesn't compromise on that to chase a 3D effect that has minimal effect on the gameplay. It's simple puzzle fun and because of that it's a great experience.
The core concept of this is a match 3 puzzle game where your blocks are linked in an L-shaped 3 blocks and you can rotate them as they fall. Once landed, if there's a gap below any blocks, they will fall onto the line below. It's kind of a mix between Tetris and Puyo Puyo in that way.
The better you do, the more you can fill you side up with bombs and by dropping a lit bomb onto that, you can explode a large portion of your field to send a bunch of junk blocks to your opponents side. It's incredibly satisfying and simple to pick up fun which is exactly what you want from a puzzle game. Throw in some chaotic items like giant bombs and making blocks fall much faster, and you've got a great puzzle game on your hands.
There's no messing with viewing angles to try and make an impressive 3D display here - this is exactly how a puzzle game would look in 2D but they added depth to a few layers like the characters in the middle of the screen or making explosions pop out of the screen and that simplicity, not complicating thing for the sake of being flashy, is what makes this on of the better Virtual Boy games.
Panic Bomber knows what it wants to be and doesn't compromise on that to chase a 3D effect that has minimal effect on the gameplay. It's simple puzzle fun and because of that it's a great experience.