Bomberman World

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Bomberman World
BombManCover.jpg
North American cover art
Developer(s) Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)
Director(s) Shigeki Fujiwara
Producer(s) Hiroaki Baba
Designer(s) Takashi Minami
Shigeki Fujiwara
Artist(s) Shoji Mizuno
Composer(s) Hironao Yamamoto
Jun Chikuma
Series Bomberman
Platform(s) PlayStation, PC
ReleasePlayStation
  • JP: January 29, 1998
  • PAL: August 1998
  • NA: September 22, 1998
PC
  • JP: December 19, 2002
  • NA: March 24, 2003
Genre(s) Action, maze
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Bomberman World [note 1] is a maze action video game developed and published by Hudson Soft for the PlayStation. It is part of the Bomberman series. The game was also re-released for PCs in 2002 alongside the TurboGrafx-16 version of Bomberman and Bomberman '93 as part of a compilation disc titled Bomberman Collection.

Contents

Plot

There were once four evil Bombers called the Dark Force Bombers who tried to bring darkness to the Bomberman world. The ancient ancestors of the Bombermen imprisoned the Dark force Bombers in the Blue Crystal. Millions of years later, Bagular, appearing from another point in the time-space continuum, destroyed the Blue Crystal, thus freeing the villains. The freed bombers became Bagular's minions and conquered the four worlds. It is now up to Bomberman to save the worlds from evil.

Gameplay

Story Mode

The goal is to complete all five areas of the five different Bomber worlds. [1] To complete the areas, the player must control Bomberman and set bombs to destroy enemies and obstacles that will lead to the exit. To be able to complete each level, the player must locate and pick up all of the Crystals on the map. Once this is complete, the door to the exit will open, and the player is allowed to move on to the next area. In the fourth area of each world, the player will have to defeat a Dark Force Bomber, and an extra boss that is themed after the type of world the setting is in.

Once the player defeats a Dark Force Bomber, the player is given a unique battle armor to wear for the next boss battle, which has a normal attack and a special attack. The battle armor is only used for the boss battles, meaning once the player advances to the next world, the battle armor will be lost.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer mode, the last one standing is the winner. Set bombs to destroy other bombers. There are different modes to play at, such as "Single Match" and "Maniac Mode", and the player or players are able to choose one of ten different unique maps to battle on, each map having a different twist and theme to the gameplay. The objective is to blow up blocks or obstacles to be able to advance towards other bombers and catch them with the fire from a bomb. When obstacles are blown up, items frequently drop from them.

Single Match

Single Match is a basic game in which five Bombers are on a map chosen before the game starts. The player can choose "Tag Match" or "Battle Royal", with Tag Match being able to choose two teams to fight, and Battle Royal for a free-for-all on all five players. There are other options that can be determined, like number of rounds to win in order to win altogether, time limit for each round, Sudden Death, Bad Bomber, and others. Sudden Death happens once a certain amount of time has passed, and the map starts to fall apart rapidly, killing any player who is standing on a space that disappears. Bad Bomber is an option that allows a defeated player to hover around the edge of the map and shoot bombs onto the map in hopes of taking out other Bombers. Setting the Bad Bomber option to "Super" results in the event that a Bad Bomber kills a Bomber, that Bad Bomber will come back to life.

Maniac Mode

Maniac Mode is another multi-player game setting, in which the players choose which items they want to have appear on the field, and how many. Possibilities range from having maximum fire matches with other players, or merely a max amount of bombs with no firepower, as well as gaining special powers that cannot be obtained during normal Single Match play, such as the item that allows players to walk through walls.

Special Mode

This mode allows the player to play a special level with a predetermined amount of time to complete (only options are two-minutes and five-minutes), as well picking a selection of items to start with. There are three selections, each containing three different items, or amounts of a certain item. The object of the Special Mode is to rack up as many points as possible, done best by defeating numerous enemies within the same blast of a bomb, and picking up letters. Defeating the Boss at the end of the level yields a large number of bonus points. The game is over once the player dies, or defeats the boss.

When a game ends, the player is ranked on the number of points they acquired before they lost or won. Higher points will result in a positive ranking (like Good Bomber) and low points will result in a negative ranking (like Worst Bomber). It is unclear whether or not the rankings have anything to do with the game (because there is no High-Score board) other than being a self-accomplishment for the player to achieve the best ranking possible.

Development

Bomberman World was shown at the September 1997 Tokyo Game Show under the title PlayStation Bomberman. [1]

Reception

According to Famitsu , Bomberman World sold over 76,801 copies in its first week on the market and sold approximately 217,101 copies during its lifetime in Japan. [15] The game received an average reception from critics, holding a rating of 63.40% based on five reviews according to review aggregator GameRankings. [2] Both Dengeki PlayStation reviewers found the multiplayer mode exciting, but noted that the viewpoint made it difficult to judge distances and led to repeated mistakes, particularly in boss battles. They also said that the single-player mode was monotonous and commented that the previous installments were better. [16] GamePro 's Francis Mao praised the game's responsive controls, soundscapes, and crisp graphics, but felt that the angled perspective was not as effective as the direct camera view and that some backgrounds were too detailed to follow the on-screen action. [17]

Notes

  1. ↑ ボンバーマンワールド, Bonbāman Wārudo

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References

  1. 1 2 "Bomberman World". Electronic Gaming Monthly . No. 101. Ziff Davis. December 1997. p. 108.
  2. 1 2 "Bomberman World for PlayStation". GameRankings . CBS Interactive. 2008. Archived from the original on April 13, 2009. Retrieved January 6, 2025.
  3. ↑ Huhtala, Alex (July 1998). "Review: Bomberman World". Computer and Video Games . No. 200. EMAP. pp. 70–71.
  4. ↑ Hsu, Dan; Smith, Shawn; Ricciardi, John; Davison, John (December 1998). "Review Crew: Bomberman World". Electronic Gaming Monthly . No. 113. Ziff Davis. p. 258.
  5. ↑ "新作ゲームクロスレビュー: ボンバーマンワールド". Famitsu (in Japanese). No. 477. ASCII Corporation. February 6, 1998. (Transcription by Famitsu.com. Archived 2018-07-26 at the Wayback Machine ).
  6. ↑ "PlayStation Review At a Glance: Bomberman World". Game Informer . No. 66. Sunrise Publications. October 1998. p. 70.
  7. ↑ Fielder, Joe (September 30, 1998). "Bomberman World Review for PlayStation". GameSpot . CNET Networks. Archived from the original on June 26, 2003. Retrieved January 6, 2025.
  8. ↑ Harris, Craig (October 7, 1998). "Reviews: Bomberman World". IGN . Imagine Media. Archived from the original on February 2, 1999. Retrieved January 6, 2025.
  9. ↑ Rybicki, Joe (October 1998). "Reviews: Bomberman World". Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine . No. 13. Ziff Davis. p. 127.
  10. ↑ "Reviews: Bomberman World". PSM . No. 16. Imagine Media. December 1998. p. 58.
  11. ↑ Green, Mark (December 1998). "A-list: PlayStation". Arcade. No. 1. Future Publishing. pp. 163–168.
  12. ↑ Osborne, Ian (June 1998). "X-Rated: Bomberman World". Extreme PlayStation. No. 6. Quay Publishing. pp. 60–61.
  13. ↑ Griffin, Mike (December 1998). "All-Format Reviews: Bomberman World". Gamers' Republic . No. 7. Millennium Publications. p. 93.
  14. ↑ McNally, Paul (July 1998). "ProReviews: Bomberman World". PlayStation Pro. No. 22. IDG Media. pp. 40–42.
  15. ↑ "Game Search". Game Data Library. Archived from the original on November 18, 2024. Retrieved January 6, 2025.
  16. ↑ "DPS ンスレビュー The DEEPER PART 2: ボンバーマンワールド". Dengeki PlayStation (in Japanese). Vol. 66. MediaWorks. February 13, 1998. p. 107.
  17. ↑ Mao, Francis (January 1999). "PlayStation ProReviews: Bomberman World". GamePro . No. 124. IDG. p. 124.
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