Bomberman (NES, Famicom Disk System)

Bomberman
Developer: Hudson Soft Publishers: Hudson Soft (JP/US), Nintendo (EU) Platforms: NES, Famicom Disk System, FamicomBox Released in JP: December 19, 1985 (Famicom), April 2, 1990 (FDS) Released in US: January 1987 Released in EU: July 9, 2004 (Classic NES Series) This game has unused areas. This game has unused items. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a Data Crystal page

Bomberman marks the first second appearance of the titular character in his familiar robotic form. It pretty much set the standard for future Bomberman games. It's also the prequel to Hudson's Lode Runner port.

Debug Mode

Setting RAM address $94 to a non-zero value before entering a level will cause the game to render hidden tiles (doors and powerups) as red half-destroyed walls until they are revealed. In the screenshot above, the left wall is a door, and the right wall is an item. Interestingly, this also occurs if you use the glitched password IIIIIJJJJJKKKKKNNNNN to enter Stage 53 (past the game's regular 50 stage bounds) and beyond.

Bonus Items

While these items are used, the conditions that must be met before they appear are so amazingly obscure, it's very unlikely you'd ever see one by accident, save for maybe the Bonus Target or Famicom. Note that you only have about eight and a half seconds to find and grab an item before it disappears!

Bonus Target

Points: 10,000
Method: Reveal the exit and walk over it before killing any enemies.
Stages: 6, 8, 14, 16, 22, 24, 30, 32, 38, 40, 46, 48

These come from the space shooter Star Force, which was ported to the Famicom by Hudson Soft.

Goddess Mask

Points: 20,000
Method: Circle the outer ring of the level after killing every enemy in the stage.
Stages: 1, 7, 9, 15, 17, 23, 25, 31, 33, 39, 41, 47, 49

Appears in Star Force as a 1,000,000 point bonus item.

Cola Bottle

Points: 30,000
Method: Reveal the exit, walk over it, and continue to walk in any direction (do not let go of the D-Pad) for approximately 15 seconds before killing any enemies.
Stages: 4, 12, 20, 28, 36, 44

Famicom

Points: 500,000
Method: Kill every enemy, then create 248 chain reactions with your bombs (one chain reaction = one bomb detonating another).
Stages: 3, 11, 19, 27, 35, 43

NOTE: This bonus cannot be obtained if you have the Detonator!

Nakamoto-san

Points: 10,000,000
Method: Kill every enemy without destroying a single wall.
Stages: 2, 10, 18, 26, 34, 42, 50

This is a portrait of programmer (and later vice president of Hudson) Shinichi Nakamoto.

Dezeniman-san

Points: 20,000,000
Method: Destroy every wall and bomb the exit three times without killing any enemies (including those that come out of the door).
Stages: 5, 13, 21, 29, 37, 45

This is the hero of the goofy computer adventure game Dezeni World.

Version Differences

Title Screen

Japan	North America

To make room for the expanded copyright information in the North American release, the border around the logo was removed and the game options were placed side-by-side.

Ending

Japan	North America

The ending text was beefed up a bit for the North American release, obscuring the Lode Runner plug in the process. This was possibly done because Hudson Soft had yet to acquire the Lode Runner license in the west, given that their port of it wouldn't be released in America until more than half a year after Bomberman's American release. The American text also spells "Bomberman" without a space, unlike the Japanese text.

Sound Oddities

Corrupted DPCM Samples

Original	Fixed

The iconic explosion sound effect suffers from bit reversal, a sample encoding issue which plagued many NES games such as Double Dribble, Gimmick!, and Klax.

An explanation for this is given on Double Dribble's page.