is a 1994

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to find the solution of the puzzle. There are differe ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed and published by

Hudson Soft was a Japanese video game company known for releasing numerous titles across video game consoles, home computers, and mobile phones. Headquartered in the Midtown Tower in Tokyo, it also maintained an office in the Hudson Building in Sapporo. F ...

for the

PC Engine The TurboGrafx-16, known in Japan as the , is a home video game console developed by Hudson Soft and manufactured by NEC. It was released in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. The first console of the fourth generation, it launched ...

(in Super CD-ROM² format) on December 22, 1994. It was later released for the

Neo Geo The , stylized as NEO•GEO, is a video game platform released in 1990 by Japanese game company SNK Corporation. It was initially released in two ROM cartridge-based formats: an arcade system board (Multi Video System; MVS) and a home video gam ...

Super Famicom The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in No ...

Sharp X68000 The is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation. It was first released in 1987 and sold only in Japan. The initial model has a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM, and lacks a hard drive. The final model was released in 1993 wi ...

FM Towns The is a Japanese personal computer built by Fujitsu from 1989 to 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and PC games, but later became more compatible with IBM PC compatibles. In 1993, the FM Towns ...

, NEC PC-9821,

Virtual Boy The Virtual Boy is a 32-bit tabletop portable video game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo and released in 1995. Promoted as the first system capable of rendering stereoscopic 3D graphics, it featured a red monochrome display viewe ...

, and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

. It saw a re-release for the

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

and

Wii U The Wii U ( ) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo as the successor to the Wii. Released in late 2012, it is the first eighth-generation video game console and competed with Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4. The W ...

Virtual Console The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on pa ...

services. ''Panic Bomber'' is a falling block game with the players' goal being to clear matching blocks using bombs, ensuring their screen does not fill and that their opponents' screens do. It received mixed to positive reception, identified as a decent game by multiple critics. It has been compared to the falling block puzzle game ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

''. The Virtual Boy version received a mixed reception for its handling of the platform's visual capabilities.

Gameplay

''Bomberman: Panic Bomber'' is a "falling blocks" puzzle game based on the ''

Bomberman is a video game Media franchise, franchise created by Shinichi Nakamoto and Shigeki Fujiwara, originally developed by Hudson Soft and currently owned by Konami. The Bomberman (1983 video game), original game, also known as ''Bakudan Otoko'' (� ...

'' franchise. The goal of the game is to make the opponent lose by causing their field to fill to the top with objects. This is done by causing chains of

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

s to explode, sending useless rubble over to the opponent's field. Bombs are earned by causing chains of three identical blocks to disappear. Bombs can only be blown up with an explosion from a lit bomb, which falls from the top of the screen every so often. If the player causes enough damage, they can eventually earn a giant bomb, which will remove a large amount of debris from the playing field, and cause their opponent a good deal of trouble. The game's regular story mode revolves around Bomberman's hunt for the Golden Bomber statue. During his trek, he fights against several different odd characters, like Drifty the balloon or Cecil the tiger. The player's progress is saved by a password system.

Ports and related releases

''Panic Bomber'' was ported to: *

(Released as stylistically as ) * Multiple Japanese home computers such as

and NEC PC-9821 *

(Released simply as ) *

The Virtual Boy version uses a red-and-black color scheme and

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

, an optical trick that is used to simulate a 3D effect. A ''Panic Bomber'' minigame was also included in '' Bomberman 64'' (2001) and ''

Bomberman Land 2 is a 2003 video game developed by Racjin and published by Hudson Soft that was released in July for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. Part of the ''Bomberman'' franchise, it is the sequel and the second game in the '' Bomberman Land'' series. Plo ...

''. The original PC-Engine CD version of ''Panic Bomber'' was later re-released on

in 2008 and the

Wii U Virtual Console The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on past ...

in Japan in 2015 (with the latter release also being available for the first time for North America and Europe in 2017, albeit untranslated). A port for the

Neo Geo CD The is a home video game console produced by SNK Corporation, released on September 9, 1994. The system is the same platform as the cartridge-based Neo Geo released four years earlier, but converted to the cheaper CD media format which reta ...

was also showcased but never released.

Reception

The Neo Geo version of ''Panic Bomber'' was a moderate success in Japan. Upon release, ''

Famicom Tsūshin , formerly , is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the form of special to ...

'' scored the Super Famicom version of the game a 22 out of 40, giving the Virtual Boy version a 20 out of 40. The four reviewers of ''

Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The magazine was fou ...

'' gave the Neo Geo version a 7 out of 10, describing it as a decent if unexceptional

clone, with one reviewer commenting "This genre is so flooded that it's hard to come up with a unique angle, and there isn't one for ''Panic Bomber''". The other three argued that the game "has enough originality to make it stand on its own." ''

GamePro ''GamePro'' was an American multiplatform video game magazine media company that published online and print content covering the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software. The magazine featured content on various video ...

'' remarked the gameplay and graphics are too simple to justify the game's appearance on the powerful Neo Geo, but praised its play mechanics and addictive nature and concluded, "For a system renowned for fighting games, Panic is a refreshing presence." Reviewing the Virtual Boy version, a ''

Next Generation Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' critic said that while the game itself is "decent" and "addictive", it is poorly suited for the Virtual Boy, since it does not use the console's 3D capabilities and is less fun to play without colors to distinguish the different pieces. He gave it two out of five stars. ''GamePro'', in contrast, said the game "pushes the Virtual Boy engine to its max", while admitting the 3D effects are "a little timid". The reviewer hailed the gameplay as being "as addictive as '' Zoop'' or ''Tetris''."

Notes

References

External links