Pocket Bomberman

Bomberman takes a break from the top-view platformer gameplay.

Originally released as a Game Boy title on 1997 in Japan and 1998 on Europe and Australia, and later released as a Game Boy Color launch title on 1998 in North America and re-released in Europe with Game Boy Color support.

To do: Unused graphics

Debug Menu#

Download Pocket Bomber Man (Japan) Test Menu Restoration Patch File: Pocket_Bomber_Man_(Japan)_Test_Menu.ips (1,054 B) (info) Current version: 1.0

Apply the above patch to a Japanese v1.0 ROM. The game will start out in the main test menu. There are no color palettes used in this menu, so a Super Game Boy will show the previous screen's palette.

Screen Test#

Test various tile maps to be used during gameplay. Press A to switch between display mode ("DISPLAY") where Up/Down changes tile map or scrolling mode ("SCROLL") where the directional pad scrolls. Each tile map is supposed to be used with a specific primary and secondary graphics bank. The unmodified ROM has all but the pause screen on default values. The patch assigns "correct" banks to all but two entries: 0x09 and 0x0D.

Switching display modes is not possible properly without the patch, because there is a bug in the original menu code that will read the same button press twice, thus resulting in turning scroll mode on followed by turning scroll mode off immediately afterwards.

To access the debug menus on hardware, use the Game Genie code 0F7-DAB-E62 (US, monochrome), 0F8-0EB-E62 (Japan, monochrome), or 0F9-C1A-E62 (Game Boy Color version) to replace the main menu with the (slightly broken) debug menu. Pressing A toggles a marker on each CHR image, probably a marker to help the programmers keep track of the current image they're working on or checking for bugs or inconsistencies.

Parts Test#

Test parts, i.e. one-tile and multi-tile blocks used to create the in-game world.

Piece Test#

Test menu tile maps (with encoding conversion from ASCII) shown at a 0x04 by 0x04 tile offset from the top left corner. This is the routine that actually displays the test menu as well. Among the more interesting menus are early mode select and password screens (typos inclusive).

Many of the other screens were likely placeholders text for screens that are now graphical only (e.g. Game Over, Title Screen):

INIT
TITLE DEMO
NORMAL GAME
WORLD CLEAR
GAME OVER
ENDING
LEVEL SELECT
JUMP GAME
RANKING
WORLD EVENT
STAGE EVENT
SCREEN
PARTS
PIECE
SOUND
ROM DISPLAY

Fun fact: Piece test is likely named after the routine that assembles the text piece-wise as opposed to just copying a tilemap onto the screen.

Sound Test#

Test all the sound effects in the game. Game Genie code 02F-37A-E66 will allow you to test the music instead of the sound effects.

ROM Test#

Graphic data is organized into banks in Pocket Bomberman. Here you can look at each bank individually.

Object Test#

Supposed to be a sprite test, but not working. This routine heavily depends on external screen update routines that once resided inside the main loop. However, these are now inside the gameplay loop only. So this menu prepares the sprite data of one sprite at 0x40 by 0x40 of the currently selected kind, but this data is never converted to an active OAM sprite, so the screen stays blank.

Exit#

Returns you to the previous state of the state machine.

Development Super Game Boy Borders#

Among the screen test tilemaps that can be found using the SCREENTEST test menu mentioned above are the following two "drafts" or the Super Game Boy border using only Game Boy tiles instead of SNES tiles. The "normal game" border is missing one of its graphics banks and thus a major portion of the border graphics although the tilemap is complete.

Regional Differences#

To do: Compare the English and Japanese Super Game Boy borders.

GB Kiss#

An additional option is accessible with the Japanese version, but only on a regular Game Boy. This relied on a cart's built-in infrared receiver and that there were two carts close to each other. This was used for exchanging and creating user-created maps.

Game Boy Color#

Game Boy Color support was added in North American and later European releases. Since the Japanese version and early European version were released before the Game Boy Color, there is no enhancement in these versions.

Publisher Logo#

GB	SGB/GBC

Exclusively to Game Boy Color release, the Hudson Soft logo appears upon the game boot up, this is not present in the original Game Boy release as it boots directly to intro cutscene.

Title Screen#

Japan (SGB)	Japan (GB)	International (SGB)	International (GB)	International (GBC)

Aside from "Licensed by Nintendo" changed to "Licensed to Nintendo" in copyright disclaimer as Nintendo-published third-party games, a trademark also added on the right of the game's title logo in the English version, the US / later European version, which added Game Boy Color enchantment support, displays more colors in GBC mode than in SGB mode.

References#