First of all: Panic Bomber is not a Port of Bomberman for the Virtual Boy. It is more a Puzzle almost as “Columns”

As typical for a puzzle there is only a short story. Our Virtual Hero, the good old Bomberman finds himself on a dark island named “Ever –Mist”. There our character wants to make the legendary “Golden Bomberman Statue” his own. Looking at the legend, many have tried to make the statue their own. Nobody ever has made it back. 3 medals are needed, wich you must fight for during the game. To finally win the so loved statue.

Now it is our turn. At the beginning the island is devided in 3 levels. For there are “The scary Ruins”, “The Sinister Forest” and “Desert of Desolation”. In each level you play against 3 strange figures. For examble: Balloons, a ghost or an Alien. After just 2 enemies you already have to deal with the area boss. And you again receive one of the loved medals, if having defeated him. Having defeated the boss in the last level, you will end in the secret level “Doom Castle”. Where you first will have to fight against a Dracula like enemy. This one you will have to beat in a Match with two undermatches. After done that you have to handle with a secret boss called “Mrs. Flashy”. After beating her you won the game and get the statue. Sadly that there are only 11 enemies / Levels in the whole game.

During the beginning you can choose serveral Options. You can directly go to the Passwordfunction or having yourself introduced to the gamerules. Also you can change the optionsmenu and also the standards, like the level from very easy to hard. Contrast can be changed, too. Also you can choose the “Skull Mode” for the boss stages. Last later one will be explained more detailed.

The Gameplot is very simple. From above blocks are falling down, they shall be placed, that at least 3 same symbols fit to each other in a horizontal, vertical or diagonally that they can disappear. On the bottom of the gamefield and in small spaces in between new bombs can be placed by its own. The more blocks disappear, the more bombs appear on the screen and if a special limit is reached which you can see on the middle, a so called “deckerbomb”, like a huge bomb with which you are able to let the smaller bombs explode. Thats how you make space for new blocks. Then a few blocks will appear on the screen of the enemy just like the old tetris. The amount of the blocks depends on how many bombs you have let explode at once.

A cool feature is the skull mode which you can choose in the options menu. By letting explode a “deckerbomb” in the bossbattle you have the possibility to maybe receive a few special items. Thats how you are for example able to change the wheeling of the enemy or you can block the sight of the enemy with a bombermanfigure which you place in the front of his nose.

The graphic turned out to be very well. Nice 3D effects you can see in the background which scrolls. The graphics of the enemies which introduced themselves at the beginning of each level turned out to be very good. The Sound is not a jewel, but it fits to the game and is not going on your nerves.

Result:
Quite a nice game with pretty good steps, but simply too short. After you played it a few times until the end it’s just getting boring, which takes sadly away the gamefun. A two player mode would have definitely brought more gamefun and variety. Therefore it's just another normal puzzler for the Virtual Boy.

Author: DrAetzn

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KR155E