The game is called 3D but it's more of a first person perspective. I suppose this was how 3D a game could be for back in those days. FPS Bomberman just doesn't sound the same. Anywho, it's still more or less Bomberman. You walk around these mazes and hunt down the balloon characters so you can destroy them with bombs. It plays very closely to Bomber Man we saw on MSX earlier.



Not only is it disorienting, but the balloon characters have become terrifying! They've turned green and take up the entire space they occupy! How did they get so massive compared to us?



It's really creepy looking, especially when you see them barreling down the hall at you.



It's almost like a creepy ROM hack in a way. Anywho, so you have to destroy these balloons which increase in number with the level. Level 2 has 2, level 3 has 3, and level 4 has 4. Four appears to be the maximum and it turns into a real cluster trying to avoid one balloon while another cuts you off in a different part of the maze. Thankfully we have a few things that can help us out, like bombs!



Weird how the bomb explosion looks like TV static. It stands out, it just looks really weird. Speaking of, look at the animation when you hit yourself with a bomb.



For some reason bombing yourself runs the same animation as when you get caught by the balloon enemy. I suppose it was just because they lacked the time to put in a new animation, or perhaps the memory of the game. I do find it creepy that the balloons have literally have the words "You Are Dead" coming out of their mouths, wtf.

There's a few things you can find hidden in the maze to help you along, such as a bonus item!



Destroying a soft block will reveal a pile of gold coins. It's a perfect stack of gold coins/bars that are just hiding in the wall. It seems really weird when you view if through a first person perspective like that. Maybe there's gold hiding in the walls somewhere?

I should note, if you bomb those on accident, you get punished, as if Bomberman tradition by this point.



Imagine trying to fight off four more of those balloons. Talk about impossible. Not only is there free gold which increases your score, you can also find an exit.



If you find this blue ladder, it will take you to the next area which is extremely helpful! You don't even have to destroy all the balloons, what a steal! That's way more useless than some of the other Bomber Man games we saw earlier. As per usual, don't bomb it!!



What's really weird is the balloon enemies' teeth appear to use the same sprite as the ladder.

Image: http://i.imgur.com/yAzvSjo.png

Kinda makes me think they have braces. How bizarre.

Hm? Oh, what's that? I didn't mention soft blocks? Well of course there are soft blocks silly! It is a Bomberman game after all. But seriously, I had no idea either. The title screen eludes to there being an exit and a bonus item, but how would anyone know to learn that in game without being told. All soft and hard blocks are identical in texture and color, there's no differentiating them!!

You can use the map in the corner (which is extremely helpful) to help determine how close you are to the map's limits but it's still a blind run. It takes a lot of time to adapt to it. What's really interesting about soft blocks is the fact that you can destroy half of them, just like in the other ports of Bomber Man.

Here are some GIFs where I demonstrate a half block explosion and a destroyed half block.



Pretty crazy huh? How would anyone ever know that? I just happened upon it with excessive experimentation. I should also note that this game does have a time limit and once it's over, all soft blocks vanish and the balloons hunt you down. In this next GIF, time runs out and you can see a soft block vanish. It looks like I moved the character but I didn't. It's just a bizarre optical illusion due to the block disappearing.



This game is basically a first person version of Bomber Man in every way. Crazy right? I played up to level 19 and finally threw in the towel. The stage counter implies the levels can go up to level 9999 but I'm not that masochistic. I planned on reaching 100 at least but honestly, the difficulty became way too high. The balloons became so aggressive and smart.

They could take little side turns and hunt me down as I ran and their speed is ridiculous! Look at this GIF where a balloon is running alongside me on the map and he is the same speed as me. It's gotten so powerful now!



Speaking of, here's a speed comparison. The left is from level 1 and the right is from level 18.



They have become so fast that I can't handle it anymore. At the least, I have this giant pile of research to show you guys so hopefully this gives you a well rounded idea of what 3D Bomberman is like.



He's watching you....