Bomberman Tournament

Bomberman Tournament
Developer(s)	Hudson Soft
Publisher(s)	Hudson Soft Activision
Series	Bomberman
Platforms	Game Boy Advance
Release date(s)
Genre(s)	Action, action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer

Not to be confused with the Nintendo DS game Bomberman Story DS.

Bomberman Tournament (known as Bomberman Story in Japan) was a game in the long-standing Bomberman series for the GBA. The game contains a fully realized multiplayer battle mode between linked Game Boy Advances. The player and up to three friends can compete in any of the game's eight multiplayer battle arenas, each of which has its own unique gameplay twist.

Story

On the edge of the galaxy sits a small planet, Phantarion. From the cutscene at the beginning of the game, it is given that five meteors (the five Dastardly Bombers, from Super Bomberman 2 and Super Bomberman 3) hit the planet. Shortly thereafter, a large fortress was erected, and in turn the land around the tall, tower-like fortress and the fortress itself began to freeze over. The people of Phantarion sent out a distress call, and Professor Ein sent Max to investigate. Upon arriving on the planet, Max makes his way to the base of the tower. Once inside, he is confronted by a huge bird creature (later found to be Plasma Bomber in his transformed state). He is knocked out by the bird by one fell blow, and is either sent to the top of the tower or down a hole (the exact cannot be determined, Max is only shown being pulled into a dark, foreboding circle in the center of the screen). When Doctor Ein talks to Bomberman a week later, Bomberman tells him that they have lost all contact with Max. Bomberman is then sent by Ein to save Phantarion and find Max, thus beginning the playable portion of the story.

Features

• Each of the game's eight arenas (in Battle mode) is designed to affect the players' tactics in one way or another. Examples of this include environment hazards, such as buried explosives in one stage and the powerups in the Hi-Power Stadium. Tournament also includes a standard arena without any of these features, allowing for straightforward gameplay when desired.
• Powerup tiles that augment the player's abilities.
• A full-fledged RPG-style singleplayer mode.

Gameplay

Tournament was generally lauded for its simple, approachable gameplay. In order to score (in multiplayer mode), players must lay time bombs in order to trap and obliterate their opponents, with the last player alive becoming the winner. As the player defeats enemies and clear away obstacles, a variety of power-up tiles appear. Randomly selected from a pool of 10 different items, these tiles have a number of effects, such as increasing bombs' blast radius, increasing the player's bomb capacity, or even reversing a player's controls.

Unlike other Bomberman games, Tournament's single-player quest mode takes a role-playing game based form with influences of Zelda and Pokémon reminiscent enhancements, & heavily borrows from the Neutopia series, also made by Hudson Soft.

The majority of the action takes place in 2D from top-down vantage point, while Karabon battles and select minigames are presented in a side view. Each of the game's six different environments possesses only a minimum of rectangular features and is detailed with all sorts of wacky nuances, such as trees that topple over or an earthen giant collapsed in the middle of a road.

External links

• Official page at Hudson Soft's Japan Website