0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Bomberman Land

       

Bomberman Land is a top down arcade action puzzle game developed and published by Hudson Soft, the game is a collection of mini games themed around a theme park. The game is the first entry in the Bomberman Land series, with the game commemorating the 15^th anniversary of the Bomberman franchise.

The game released exclusively on the Playstation on the 21^st of December 2000, the game also released exclusively in Japan. The game would get a re-release in 2002 as part of the Hudson The Best series and three years later on June 30^th 2005 as a part of the PSone Books series.

In addition to these re-releases the game also received a Playstation 3 and PSP release, both coming on the 24^th of September 2008, and like the earlier releases these were exclusive to Japan via the Playstation Network. The PS Vita also received a PSN release of the game in August of 2012, again only in Japan.

 

Notable people who worked on the game, Kōji Wajima who worked as a Programmer on the game, went on to work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games from 2003 up until 2005. He returned to the Bomberman series in 2006 with the Bomberman Land Touch games, working as a Graphic Designer and 2D Graphic Designer, a role he would also hold for Bomberman 2 in 2008.

Hiroyuki Kumamoto worked on Bomberman World two years prior to Bomberman Land, working as a Programmer on both titles, in 2013 they would go on to work on Metal Gear Rising Revengeance as a Stage Programmer before working on Bayonetta 2 in 2014 as a Programmer.

Morihiro Iwamoto who worked as a Music Composer for Bomberman Land, he would go on to work on the Music for the Densetsu no Stafi game between 2002 and 2004, also working on Time Crisis Crisis Zone and Bomberman Kart DX during this time as well.

Iwamoto also worked on the must for the Namco Museum games. More recently he worked as a Sound Designer on the 2010 released Deadly Promonition, as well as the Directors Cut that released in 2013. Prior to that he worked as a Sound Composer on Plants Vs. Zombies in 2011.

The player takes a trip to Bomberman Land, a theme part where all the fun is to be had, the player takes control of White Bomber. The park is full with activities and attractions in the form of mini games, even just entering the park is a small mini game in which the player must lower a flag at either side of the entrance.

The main objected of the game is to collected all of the 127 B-Card pieces, these card pieces can be obtained through your adventures around the Bomberman Land theme park. The game features many types of mini games for the player to compete in.

The game is viewed from a top down view of a 2D world with Sprites to represent the players character and the characters and the player character. Movement around the game world is done via the D-Pad, with your characters able move either left and right or up and down.

While moving around you can make your character run by pressing the X button, when you want to interact with something or talk to the various characters in the game world the Circle button is used. The player is able to access the games menu by pressing the triangle button.

Mini games in this Bomberman title are a varied bunch, this next section will detail a few of these mini games, starting with a cannon shooting game, the player is in control of a canon and is required to shoot approaching creatures. The player is able to move the cannon from left to right on the deck of the ship.

In addition to the cannon movement they player also has a targeting reticule which can be moved across a 5x4 grid with the player required to shoot the incoming creatures before they reach the ship, this mini game also has a time limit, with the player aiming to set the highest score possible. Each of the mini games have top five ranking showing the best scores recorded by the player.

Another mini game, this one has three variations of mini game available, this one has the player moving White Bomber along the bottom of the screen and shooting up at bouncing balls, once a ball has been shot and destroyed it will split into two smaller balls.

This mini game has multiple stages, with each stage adding one additional starting ball for the player to deal with. As with the previous mode the aim is to record the highest score as you can, unlike the previous game this mini game does not have a timer, but rather a life system, the player starts with 2 lives, with the ability to gain additional lives as you progress. When all lives are depleted that is the end of the game and your score recorded if you make it into the top five.

 

Another type of mini game sees the player controlled White Bomber jumping across logs gathering silver coins as the logs move down stream. As with the previous mentioned game the player does not have a time limit but has lives instead, if the player gets caught out by the movement of the logs and gets carried off screen they will lose a life. The player is able to use either riverbank as they plot their next run across the logs.

The game also features memory games, one of these is a phone mini game. A phone number will appear on the phone display, the player needs to input the correct number with a set amount of time, with the codes getting slightly hard as the game progresses, with codes including the hash and star keys.

Another mini game involves the player capturing butterflies, this game returns to a set timer with the player moving a net around a field filled with butterflies trying to capture as many as possible in the 60 section time limit, each butterfly earns the player one points. Like the previous time limited mini game this game has multiple stages.

One of the mini games on offer is a simple tile puzzle game, the tile puzzles have a picture of various Bomberman characters on with the player needing to manoeuvre the tiles around until they have them in the correct position, this mini game which change the colour of the time from black and white to fully coloured when the tile is in the correct position. The game has many, many more mini games on offer, far too many to write about.

While the game has a strong single player element, some of the mini games that are on offer can be played with up to four players, some of the mini games also allow for a 2 player cooperative mode. In the main single player mode completing various task will reward the player with numbered coupons, these coupons will give the player access to additional areas of the theme park. The game also features a Battle Pack mode, this mode resembles the traditional Bomberman games.

This being a Japanese only release critic reviews for the game are none existent, as a result we head over to GameFAQs for their user ratings of the game. Here we find Bomberman Land sits at a very healthy 4.03/5 from a total of 17 user ratings, and currently sits as the 17^th highest miscellaneous game on GameFAQs, and the 167^th highest rated Playstation 1 game on the site.

Taking a closer look at these user ratings we find Bomberman Land did not rate below a 3/5 from any of the 17 users that rated the game, with a total of 3 users rating it at this. We find a couple of users rated the game slightly higher at a 3.5/5, while the largest chunk of users rated the game at good 4/5. We find three users rated the game at a very good 4.5/5, we also find three users rated the game at an impressive and full 5/5.

Moving on to the game difficulty next, here we find only 10 users rating this category, with a large percentage of the users 60% of them rating the game has having just the right difficulty level. We find one user found the game to be easy, while the remaining three users found the game on the tough side. Averaging out the game comes in at having just the right difficulty level.

Lastly we have the games lifespan, here we find a small number of users rating this category with just eight of them, even so we have a good spread of user ratings, with one user each spending either 4 or 8 hours with the game. We find two users spent a solid 12 hours playing the game, while the largest number of users, three in total spend a good 20 hours playing the game. The final two users spent a highly impressive 80 hours playing the game. Averaging out his comes to an average lifespan of around 23 hours for Bomberman Land.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

  

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, where unsurprisingly we don’t find this game available, the same goes for Retrogames.co.uk as well. At eStarland.com we do find games listed under the Bomberman Land title but sadly not the Playstation 1 version of the game.

 

So we head over to Amazon.com in the hopes of finding at least one copy of the game listed, we do find the game listed and available on the site, the game is however very limited in number with just 3 copies on the market at the time of writing.

The first copy on offer is a good condition copy of the game, this copy comes complete and is priced at $14.99 and comes with free shipping. The second copy on offer is a very good condition copy of the game, this copy will set you back $26.62 once the shipping costs have been factored in. An addition very good condition copy is available, this copy will set you back $27.78, this copy comes with free shipping as well.

Written by

P J Gibbon