Bomberman Max

Bomberman Max: Blue Champion/Red Challenger
Also known as: Bomberman Max: Hikari no Yuusha/Yami no Senshi (JP) Developer: Hudson Soft Publishers: Vatical (US), Hudson Soft (JP) Platform: Game Boy Color Released in JP: December 17, 1999 Released in US: May 14, 2000 This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused graphics. This game has a hidden sound test.

Bomberman Max marked the first appearance of Bomberman protege Max, as well as Charaboms, little critters you have to rescue and can use to battle, just like that...other...game... whatever it was.

The only differences between the two games are which levels are available, Charaboms to find, and who you play as.

Unused Charaboms?

To do: Whip up those GG codes.

Taking up the two empty spaces on the Charabom select screen are Heat Rock and Oct Kong, who both start at level 50 and use the elemental combinations Fire/Water/Rock and Water/Rock/Electric, respectively. They may be enabled by setting SRAM addresses A1F0 and A1F8 to 01, meaning that a Game Genie or emulator with a memory editor will be required to do this.

SOUND TEST

A sound test exists in all versions of the game. Press Right, Left, Right, Right, Left, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Left, Right at the main menu, then choose any option to access it. Alternately, Game Genie code 0F8-8BD-E6E will replace the introduction sequence with the sound test in Blue Champion and Yami no Senshi, 0F8-99D-E6E for Red Challenger, and 0F9-23D-E6E achieves the same effect in the Hikari no Yuusha version. Lastly, Game Genie code 0F8-B4D-E6E will set the introduction to the sound test in the Japanese exclusive Ain Version of the game.

Unused SGB Palettes

Oddly the Ain Version will load the Hudson logo before transitioning to the black GBC-only message and will display the single used system palette 01 setting which is located away from the main list at 0x3BA7. This might suggest that the single palette was added very early on when support for the Super Game Boy was ceased.

An entire PAL_SET listing also exists. Only the palette located at 0x159E0 is used and is loaded during startup. The entire listing starts at 0x159E0. Apparently this list was drafted later during development as the listing was not finished and there is space offering room for eight additional palette settings. Game Genie code ?0B-AAC-E61 + 5?B-ABC-086 (?0-F0, 59-5A) will load the selected default palette.