Video Game / Bomberman

Bomberman, Bomberman

Mass destruction across the land.

Makes a bomb, any size.

And he's yours, to customize.

Look out! Here comes the Bomberman!

— Commercial for Bomberman 64, sung to the tune of the Spider-Man (1967) theme

To put it plainly and simply, the Bomberman series is about a deceptively cute-looking robot guy in a white helmet who can produce an endless supply of bombs, and use them to destroy things. Originally, his M.O. was to escape from a bricks-and-mortar dungeon where everything was trying to kill him, but his quest has since evolved into one of saving the galaxy from another race of rogue bombers.

Since its creation by Hudson Soft back in the mid-1980s, it's become almost synonymous with multiplayer madness, as up to four, eight, or even TEN (Saturn Bomberman) players can compete against each other and blow each other up. The bomber's legacy (not that one) lives on even to this day, as his games have been ported to almost every platform imaginable.

After Hudson Soft was bought out by Konami in 2012, Bomberman games continue to be produced.

In 2018, Bomberman made his Super Smash Bros. debut as an Assist Trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with a Mii Fighter costume coming as DLC in 2020.

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Games in this franchise include:

• Bomber Man (1983) - PC-8801, PC-6001mkII, MZ-700, MZ-2000, X1, FM-7, MSX, ZX Spectrum^note Retitled Eric and the Floaters in Europe, due to sensitivities over The Troubles.
  • 3-D Bomberman (1983) - PC-8801mkII, PC-6001mkII, X1, FM-7, MSX (Japan only)
• Bomberman (1985) - NES, MSX,^note As Bomber Man Special Disk System
  • Bomberman II (1991) - NES^note Released in PAL territories as Dynablaster.
• Bomber King (1987) - MSX, NES^note Released outside Japan as Robo Warrior.
  • Bomber King: Scenario 2 (1991) - Game Boy^note Released in Europe as Blaster Master Jr. and in North America as Blaster Master Boy.
• Bomber Boy (1990) - Game Boy^note Released in Europe as Dynablaster and in North America as Atomic Punk.
• Bomberman (1990) - TurboGrafx-16, X68000^note Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS as Dyna Blaster.
  • Bomberman '93 (1992) - TurboGrafx-16
  • Bomberman '94 (1993) - PC Engine, Mega Drive^note As Mega Bomberman.
• Bomberman (1991) - Arcade^note Alternatively Dynablaster or Atomic Punk.
  • Bomberman World (1992) - Arcade^note Alternatively New Dynablaster: Global Quest or New Atomic Punk: Global Quest.
• Super Bomberman series (1993 - 1997) - SNES
  • Super Bomberman R (2017) - Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
• Hi-Ten Bomberman (1993) - custom hardware based on two PC Engine consoles
  • Hi-Ten Chara Bom (1994) - custom hardware based on two PC Engine consoles
• Bomberman GB series (1994 - 1996) - Game Boy^note The first game in the series was released outside Japan as Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!
• Bomberman: Panic Bomber (1994) - PC Engine Super CD
• Saturn Bomberman (1996) - Sega Saturn
  • Saturn Bomberman Fight!! (1997) - Sega Saturn (Japan only)
• Neo Bomberman (1997) - Neo Geo
• Atomic Bomberman (1997) - PC
• Bomberman 64 (1997) - Nintendo 64
  • Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! (1999) - Nintendo 64
• Pocket Bomberman (1997) - Game Boy, Game Boy Color
• Bomberman World (1998) - PlayStation
  • Bomberman Wars (1998) - PlayStation, Sega Saturn (Japan only)
• Bomberman Hero (1998) - Nintendo 64
• Bomberman Fantasy Race (1998) - PlayStation
• Bomberman Quest (1998) - Game Boy Color
• Bomberman Max series (1999 - 2002) - Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance
• Bomberman Land series (2000 - 2008) - PlayStation (Japan only), PlayStation 2 (Japan only); Nintendo DS, Wii, PlayStation Portable
• Bomberman Online (2001) - Dreamcast
• Bomberman Tournament (2001) - Game Boy Advance
  • Bomberman Story DS (2007) - Nintendo DS (Japan and PAL regions only)
• Bomberman Generation (2002) - Nintendo GameCube
• Bomberman Jetters (2002) - Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2
• Bomberman (2005) - Nintendo DS
• Bomberman Bakufuu Sentai Bombermen (2006) - PlayStation Portable (Japan only)
• Bomberman Portable (2006) - PlayStation Portable
• Bomberman Act:Zero (2006) - Xbox 360
• Bomberman Live (2007) - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3^note As Bomberman Ultra.
  • Bomberman Live: Battlefest (2010) - Xbox 360
• Bomberman Touch: The Legend of Mystic Bomb (2008) - iOS
  • Bomberman Touch 2: Volcano Party (2009) - iOS
• Bomberman (2008) - Wii (Japan only)^note Battle Mode released ouside Japan via WiiWare as Bomberman Blast.
• Custom Battler Bomberman (2009) - Nintendo DS (Japan and Europe only)^note Retail version released in Europe as Bomberman 2; Battle Game released ouside Japan via DSiWare as Bomberman Blitz.
• Bomberman: Disney Stitch Edition (2010) - i-mode (Japan only)^note i-mode is a mobile internet service exclusive to Japan that will end in March 2026. The game itself, as the name implies, is based on the Disney character Stitch (albeit, as he appears in the Stitch! anime), with him being the playable character instead, and was released for free.
• Bomberman Chains (2011) - iOS
• Bomberman Dojo (2011) - iOS, Android
• 100-hito Taisen Bomberman (2012) - iOS, Android (Japan only)
• Bomberman (2014) - iOS, Android (Japan only)
• Taisen! Bomberman (2016) - iOS, Android (Japan only)
• Super Bomberman R (2017) - Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
• Bombergirl (2018) - Arcade (Japan only)
• Super Bomberman R Online (2020-2021, shut down on 2022) - Google Stadia, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Anime in this franchise includes:

• Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden (1998-1999)
• Bomberman Jetters (2002-2003)

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The original computer, NES and TurboGrafx-16 games of the same name provide examples of:

• Become a Real Boy: The NES game's plot was Bomberman's quest to escape the bomb factory, thereby becoming human.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: Eric and the Floaters, an alternate localized title for the MSX and ZX Spectrum versions of Bomber Man.
• Expy: Bomberman himself is based on the enemies from NES version of Lode Runner, appearance-wise. The game acknowledges it at the end of the first NES game, where he explicitly becomes the Runner. In the latest remake by Hudson (Cubic Lode Runner), the enemies still resemble Bomberman.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: At the end of the original Bomberman, he becomes human — particularly the protagonist from Lode Runner.
• Graphics-Induced Super-Deformed: As seen in the box art. Then it was adapted as a default version, and the original idea didn't see the light again until Act:Zero.
• Off with His Head!: The losing animation in the original computer game is rather unusual in that it shows the character's head falling off to the side, prompted by his body falling backwards and the word "OUT" being shown as the head turns into an Undeathly Pallor. Needless to say, this was changed in later games.
• The Pawns Go First: During your fight with Black Bomberman in Bomberman (TG-16), he waits for you to defeat his minions before he begins his attacks.
• Person of Mass Destruction: The NES Bomberman. Firewalking buff meant you could endlessly chain your bombs to wipe out the entire level and never lose a life again.
• Spell My Name with an S: The original computer game spells it "Bomber Man", with a space. This was also carried over to the Family Computer games, but not the NES localizations. "Bomberman" became standardized when the franchise took off.
• Timed Power-Up: All of the power-ups are permanent unless you get killed, with one exception: the "?" power-up, the game's Invincibility Power-Up, lasts only a certain amount of time.
• Villains Want Mercy: In the ending cutscene to Bomberman (TG-16), Black Bomberman (the main villain of said game) pleads with White Bomberman to spare him.

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The overall franchise provides examples of:

• Allegedly Free Game: Super Bomberman R Online is technically free on Stadia... for Pro subscribers. For those that don't have a Pro subscription, you'll have to buy the $9.99 premium pack, which gives you the guest characters from Super R as well as other cosmetics (the pack was also offered free for the first month of the game's launch). This means you can either get a "free" version with only the main bomber family playable... or you can buy the premium pack and dominate with Pyramid Bomber. The game ended up being actually free when it was ported to other platforms, though most of the guest characters were still part of a premium pack.
• The Anime of the Game: Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden, which was only cosmetically based on the games, and Bomberman Jetters, which was a much more faithful adaptation of the games.
• Arc Number: 5656. Entering it as a password in the various 16-bit Bomberman games almost always had an effect, though what it did varied depending on the game.
• Badass Adorable: Bomberman himself is a very good example, especially since his face looks like (n n) whenever he's happy.
• Battle Royale Game: The franchise has often featured a robust multiplayer mode in which up to four players place bombs and collect level-ups to defeat the other players. Later installments would up the ante by allowing 8, sometimes 16 players to nuke and duke it out all at once. Most modern games feature a second chance to ruin the surviving players by letting defeated players toss bombs into the arena from the outside walls.
  • Exaggerated with Super Bomberman R Online. You thought 16 players was a lot? Try 64. Granted, you won't everyone simultaneously (there are 16 different arenas you can jump in and out of during intervals), but having much more to juggle is apparent here.
• BFB:
  • As if Bomberman's bombs weren't big enough, he can pump them up to jumbo size in Bomberman 64 and The Second Attack! while holding them. This is actually required to kill some enemies — not from the bigger explosion, but by crushing them with the Pumped-Up Bomb.
  • Saturn Bomberman's intro sequence is notable for including some truly gigantic bombs being thrown at Bomberman that are several times his size. This doesn't stop him from grabbing and flinging one back to his assailants, but overshooting and having it fall into a volcano. Cue Mass "Oh, Crap!" over the next few seconds as the camera zooms out, the planet starts bulging, and then turns into a planet-sized Cartoon Bomb before exploding.
  • Bomberman can do this in Generation and Jetters as well. It's nerfed from the N64 games in that he's only ever allowed to have one Big Bomb deployed at a time, but it's still one of the more important techniques in his arsenal.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Bomberman occasionally has them as part of his expression. Thunder Bomber from Bomberman Online and Bomberman Jetters also has Lightning Eyebrows.
• Bland-Name Product: Some real world brands have Punny Name parallels, like Kaboomingdales.
• Bootstrapped Theme:
  • What many people nowadays know of as the Bomberman battle theme originally started out its life as the music to the NES game's bonus stage.
  • Level 1 theme of the NES version and the SNES version are equally iconic.
  • Bomberman Generation's title theme became the recurring battle theme up until the hiatus preceding Super Bomberman R and is thus associated with many of the 21st century games.
• Boss Game: Bomberman Quest.
• Boss-Only Level: Common in most of the 3D games.
• Brain in a Jar: Buggler at the end of Super Bomberman 3. He continues like this in Super Bomberman 4. He's shown getting a new body in Bomberman Hero.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • MAX in Bomberman Tournament.
  • Nitros in Bomberman Hero.
  • The Dastardly Bombers in Super Bomberman R.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Blue Bomber, when he's not a worrywort. In Super R, he's able to crack a cyber lock that Phantom Bomber claims the universe's most powerful supercomputer never could. He does it in seconds. He also sleeps almost constantly, and when he isn't, he's barely conscious.
• Captain Ersatz: Almost every major character in Bomberman Hero is a Captain Ersatz to a Star Wars character. For instance:
  • Princess Millian: Princess Leia
  • Professor Buggler: Darth Vader
  • Pibot: R2-D2
  • Pommy is an expy to both Kirby and Pikachu.
• Cartoon Bomb: The main character's weapons.
• Cheerful Child:
  • Bomberman; he is even called Cheerful White in the Land series.
  • Yellow and Green were both made this in Super R.
  • ...Unless you count the Lode Runner storyline, in which case White Bomber has a teenage or young adult daughter.
• Chromosome Casting: Bomber Girl eschews the usual cast of bombers for a completely new cast of girls.
• Collision Damage: 2D games kill you on contact with enemies. Bomberman 64 and its sequel tend to just stun you for a few seconds instead if you walk into most enemies instead of killing you outright (it depended on the enemy), but the stun could easily be long enough for the enemy to deal a killing blow (assuming that the enemy had some sort of kill-move, which all but the most basic enemies did). Bomberman Hero, Generation, and Jetters, however, played this trope completely straight.
• Combining Mecha:
  • In Super Bomberman 3, the Five Dastardly Bombers enter into/become a large mecha for Buggler to ride after entering a vortex. They do it again in Super Bomberman R, though not of their own free will.
  • Combine-3 from Bomberman Max 2.
  • CONSTRUCTOOOOOOOOOOR X in Generation.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard
• Continuing is Painful:
  • When you die, you lose all your powerups. Some versions only reduce bomb count and explosion size, but the other major powerups are lost.
  • Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! gives you three continues that preserve your powerups, averting this trope nicely.
  • Super R gives you a number of continues based on what difficulty you're playing at. If you run out, you can spend a small number of gems to continue without losing anything, completely averting this.
• Continuity Reboot:
  • Each successive entry added somewhat contradictory storylines, although arguably none of them became remotely relevant later on. You may be able to make sense of it if you squint hard enough, but most fans would probably agree the series' semblance of continuity "truly" began around Bomberman '93, if that.
  • Super Bomberman R most likely rebooted the series again. While it does mention the Five Dastardly Bombers being revived once again, this is the only mention of any prior continuity in Story Mode. In Grand Prix mode, it's revealed the Bomberman Bros. were based on the original prototype Bomberman and have a Power Copying ability they didn't know about before, calling back to Dr. Mitsumori but not lining up quite right with prior lore.^Explanation Originally, White Bomber was the original Bomberman and the rest were built based on him. However, Vic Viper Bomber was referring to White Bomber being based on the original and his siblings being built after him.
• Controllable Helplessness: This is what happens if you wedge yourself between your own bomb and a wall, with no means to escape. Extra points if you have the Detonator powerup, meaning that the bomb will not go off until you detonate it yourself.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Red Mountain in Bomberman 64 and Nature Planet Neverland in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!. Bomberman Hero plays with it a bit for the first couple of levels near lava, where you must enter cooling capsules to refill your health as you gradually take damage from the heat. However, it's still played completely straight in Hades Crater.
• Cursed with Awesome: The Skull item will sometimes give you almost uncontrollable speed and fast-fused bombs, as "diseases". Of course, these can still be rather painful for you.
• Crossover:
  • Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! for the Game Boy (which is actually a Dolled Up Bomberman GB).
  • Bonk and Master Higgens show up in Saturn Bomberman.
  • Super Bomberman R has a few cameos by other Konami characters: Gwinbee is a boss in story mode, and Bomberman-ified versions of Simon Belmont, Dracula, Vic Viper, Pyramid Head, a Bubble Head Nurse, Reiko Hinomoto, Goemon, the Jehuty and the Anubis are playable characters and part of the Excuse Plot for Grand Prix mode.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Double-tapping the bomb button in Bomberman 64 or The Second Attack! does a stationary Bomb Kick. The very same action in Bomberman Generation's Battle Mode or Saturn Bomberman will Line Bomb instead (unless you change the configuration for the latter to one specific setting that puts Line Bomb on Z instead of C).
• Dark Chick: Artemis (of the Masker Trio) in Bomberman 64, Natia (of the Four Devils of Garaden) from Bomberman Hero, Beauty Bomber (of the Crush Bombers) in Bomberman Generation, and Bomber Mermaid (of the BOMB-A-LYMPICS / Bomber Shitennou) in Bomberman Online and Bomberman Jetters, among several other examples. Not much of a surprise, considering that each game tends to have its own Quirky Miniboss Squad.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Bomberman Act:Zero, a prime example of how this trope can be misused. Rather than being cute little robots or cyborgs with enemies like balloons and frogs, the only opponent the player fights is another prototype Bomberman for 99 levels with no continues, the winner being used as the basis for a mass manufactured army of clones.
  • Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! is also this to a lesser extent. While it keeps the original designs of the series up to that point, the story is somewhat more serious and includes non-bomber characters.
• Dead Character Walking: In most of the newer Bomberman games, there's usually an option to allow defeated players to harass the living ones by riding around the edge of the stage in a hovering vehicle and throwing bombs at them. In some of the games, managing to directly kill one of the players this way could also revive you and let you resume playing normally, hopefully not getting killed in turn by the same player who you just offed.
• Destroyable Items:
  • Practically all games in the series. In some games, only good items can be destroyed by accident — the Skull just gets blasted across the arena!
  • In some games, destroying a powerup results in a swarm of enemies!
• Divergent Character Evolution: In most games with the exception of White and Black, the different colors of Bomberman used in multiplayer (with the occasional minor role in single player) have very little (if any) characterization. In Super Bomberman R, the eight Bombermen that have been playable since the DS incarnation of the series are all given unique personalities. Besides that, they have different proportions and unique features, such as their belt buckles, eye designs, posture, and so on.
• Dolled-Up Installment: Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! was originally Bomberman GB in Japan. Wario was added when it was ported, making it a Dolled Up Intercontinuity Crossover. Since a vanilla version was never released, Bomberman GB 2 as released in the west as Bomberman GB. There is also Bomber King: Scenario 2, which was given a Blaster Master title In Name Only outside Japan.
• Double Knockout: Mass-mutual KOs are common in multiplayer, due to the hectic pace of battle.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The original home computer versions had, amongst other differences from the NES game onwards, no music, no pickups other than the exit door, a long death animation for the titular Bomberman (which oddly involves decapitation), sounds effect accompanying the enemies' death animations, killing all enemies being an instant win condition instead of having to find the exit^note the exit is instead a pickup allowing you to immediately go to the next level, balloon monsters^note later known as Baroms or Balloms changing emotions depending on mood, only one enemy type in the game, and a totally different human design for the main character. Its NES port changed the design to look more like his now iconic appearance, but also has him turn into the human protagonist of Lode Runner at the end, the only time he's ever been portrayed as a normal human.
• Elemental Powers: Done liberally in The Second Attack!, Generation, and Jetters.
  • Playing with Fire: Baelfael, Bomberman's usual Fire Bombs, and Napalm/Navarm Bombs.
  • An Ice Person: Behemos, the Ice Bombs.
  • Making a Splash: Bomber Mermaid, the Aqua Bombs.
  • Blow You Away: Ashtarth, the Hurricane/Wind Bombs.
  • Shock and Awe: Zhael, Thunder Bomber, the Lightning Bombs, and MAX's bombs.
  • Magma Man/Dishing Out Dirt: Molok.
  • Light 'em Up/Holy Hand Grenade: Zoniha, Mihaele!Lilith, The Angel of Light and Shadow, the Mute/Light Bombs.
  • Casting a Shadow: Regulus/Bulzeeb uses both solidified shadows and the Gravity Bombs.
  • Power of the Void/Blood Magic: Rukifellth.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Bomberman and Regulus.
  • Bomberman and MAX in the Jetters game, due to MAX's nature in the anime the game was based on.
• Establishing Character Moment: The opening cutscene of R establishes the new personalities that the eight Bomberman Brothers have pretty fast:
  • Black is slacking off in a chair and insists to White that he doesn't need to train because he's already perfect.
  • Blue is dozing on a sofa and asks for a few more minutes.
  • Red is kicking a punching balloon and jumps at the chance to blow stuff up.
  • Yellow is doodling on a wall and gets distracted by a butterfly.
  • Pink and Aqua are reading a book together as Aqua compliments Pink's new hairpin.
  • Green is playing with a toy car and then tries to trick White into giving him money for a hamburger.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: Let's see, normal balloons, Mooks, fish, animated coins, kid mice holding balloons, pandas, walking bombs, dragons, dinosaurs (unless they hatch from giant eggs when you walk over them), snowmen, giant spiders, tornadoes, a mystical sorcerer, a male sphinx, a crazy cat, GIANT robots, and many other things, on top of your own bombs and the villains...
• Evil Laugh:
  • Buggler in Hero, Rukifellth and Zoniha in The Second Attack!, Sirius in Bomberman 64.
  • Thunder Bomber has a decent one when using his special attack in Bomberman Online, and he has a hilariously narmy one in Bomberman Jetters.
• Evil Twin: Black Bomberman. For a while, at least. He's become one of Bomberman's good friends.
• Explosive Stupidity: Most if not all players have probably blown themselves up with one of their own bombs by accident, whether it be walking into the path of a high-powered bomb or wedging themselves between a wall and a bomb.
• Heel–Face Turn:
  • Black Bomberman. Originally the antagonist in the TurboGrafx-16 Bomberman up through about Bomberman '93. After that, he's portrayed as a sidekick, companion, and perhaps rival to White Bomberman when MAX isn't taking that role instead, to the point where he's the second player character in co-op.
  • Plasma Bomber almost did in Super Bomberman 2.
  • Regulus (a.k.a. Bulzeeb) twice, though his latter appearance portrays him more as a neutral rival than an enemy.
• High Heel Face Revolving Door: Pretty Bomber. She is either one of the bad guys in the main games^note specifically, one of the Five Dastardly Bombers, the series' only recurring Quirky Miniboss Squad, or one of the good guys in the spin-offs. Somehow she's both at once in Super R, where she can be unlocked as a playable character and is the boss of World 4.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The player can very easily do this if (s)he's not paying attention, especially in multiplayer. You're probably lying if you say you haven't blown yourself up at least once.
• Hotter and Sexier: Bomber Girl features cute human (or at least humanoid) girls rather than small, cartoony Bombers, and getting bombed usually results in their clothes shredding.
• Humongous Mecha: Several robotic bosses fall into this trope.
  • Special attention goes to Constructor X, who qualifies for Super Robot-hood with:
    • A Drill Rocket Punch.
    • Drill hand opening up to reveal a Laser Blade which, when swung, spontaneously causes explosions for no apparent reason (other than it's cool).
    • Calling Out Attacks. Some of them are almost incomprehensible, but the fact still stands.
    • It's formed by two talking construction vehicles who are brothers or have pilots that are brothers. The combination sequence reeks of Super Robot.
• 100% Completion: The N64 and GameCube games, most notably.
• Idle Animation: Can be seen more easily in Super Bomberman 3's battle mode when riding a Rooi or otherwise.
  • Bomberman Max 2 also has them, with each Charabom having their own animation.
• Intercontinuity Crossover:
  • Wario Blast for the Game Boy, which is a Dolled Up Bomberman GB starring Wario.
  • Bomberman is also a playable character in the Konami/Hudson Soft/Takara Mascot Fighter DreamMix TV World Fighters. Yes, that means he can fight Solid Snake, Simon Belmont, AND Optimus Prime, among others.
  • Super R has several Bomber versions of Konami characters. Including Silent Hill characters.
  • Bomberman also shows up as an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • In Bomber Girl, Shiori Fujisaki, Tsugaru Hishimiya, Pastel and Grim Aloe cross over as playable characters.
• Large Ham: Mujoe (especially him), Machbom, Thunder Bomber, Gold Bomber, and Constructor X.
• Light Is Not Good: The final boss of Bomberman 64.
  • At least two bosses from The Second Attack!
• Load-Bearing Boss: Nearly every final boss in the whole franchise.
• Man on Fire/Infernal Retaliation: One of the skull effects in Bomberman 64 and its sequel set the player on fire, which would force him to use his body to kill off everyone else before the fire killed him.
• Mercy Invincibility: A very generous amount is given to you at the beginning of every level in the first Super Bomberman game, so much that a trick could be used to take advantage of it. Lay a bomb, and wait for it to explode, then keep tapping the A button to lay more bombs which will immediately explode because they are within an explosion. Walk around the level while doing this and you can get a very nice head start.
  • You are also invincible for a short amount of time after getting hit if you have a heart powerup in many games.
  • Later games have a Life Meter, allowing you to easily take multiple hits and therefore displaying this trope quite prominently.
  • Some games even give you Mercy Invulnerability after taking a hit that merely stuns you as opposed to killing you (most notably Bomberman 64 and Bomberman Max 2). However, the Mercy Invulnerability didn't kick in until after the stun wore off.
• Mon: The Charaboms.
• Monster Clown: The boss of the second world in Super Bomberman is a giant clown head.
  • A recurring enemy in Bomberman Hero, first appearing in Clown Valley.
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups: The piercing bombs and the manually thrown bombs.
  • In Neo Bomberman, Piercing and Remote. Using cheats to force these to stack results in invisible bombs.
  • Super Bomberman 5 also has Land Mines and Pursuing Bombs. Even though Pro Action Replay codes could let you combine Piercing and Remote, those other two still won't stack with Remote.
  • Also, if a game has both Bomb Kick and Bomb Walk abilities (again, SB5), they may not be able to overlap either. Justified since both work by walking into the bomb.
  • The first Super Bomberman averts this by letting you have both piercing (colored red instead of having spikes like in later games) and remote bombs at the same time without cheats. They'll just be red remote bombs, and have both powers at once. Remote and red Ultra bombs can be combined in 64 to a similar effect.
  • And of course, you can only ride one Power-Up Mount at once (though you can use most of your other powerups while riding them).
  • Bomberman DS has several Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups as well, such as the Shield, Bomb Punch, and Line Bomb.
• No Mouth: 90% of the cast lacks any facial features besides eyes.
• Oh, Crap!: In the multiplayer modes of Bomberman Generation and Bomberman Jetters, the characters will say some things when they realize they're stuck between bombs, like:
  Oh no!!!
  AAAAHHHHHH!!!
  • In Super Bomberman 3-5, they would yell "Shimatta!" and do special Oh, Crap! animations when trapped. Saturn Bomberman, Bomberman Tournament, and perhaps others also had special Oh, Crap! animations.
• One Bullet at a Time: Without powerups, you can only have one bomb placed on the screen at a time.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: In the early games, getting caught in explosions or colliding with enemies meant instant explodey death. Grabbing the Heart power-up granted you one hit of Mercy Invincibility (although you can pick it up again after it's blasted out of you in some games). Later games just give you a heart-based health meter ala The Legend of Zelda, complete with Heart Containers either purchased from shops or hidden in the game world.
• Original Generation: Bomber Girl introduces Sepia Belmont as a playable character.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: The majority of the franchise' monsters don't make any biological sense. The Hige Hige Bandits might be the most normal enemy they've had.
• Player Elimination: In most games featuring multiplayer, when you get blown up you are out for the rest of the round. Some later titles have it where you can still throw bombs from outside the arena if such a rule is turned on, and eliminating an opponent while eliminated yourself will allow you back in.
• Poison Mushroom: The Skull item, which inflicts a random disease to Bomberman, such as reducing blast power to 1 temporarily or giving you, err, bomb diarrhea. (Well, at least that's how its referred to in the ''Mega Bomberman'' booklet.)
  • Bomberman 64 featured an "Evil" item, which activated a stage-wide effect potentially affecting all players. Some effects include a tornado, maxing out everyone's bomb count and explosion size, shuffling the positions of all players, and an "evil disco light" that saturated the screen with bright colours, making it hard to see the action.
  • The Geta/Clog sandal item reduces your speed by one level.
• Pokémon Speak: The Charaboms, depending on which game it is. Sometimes they can only say their name or some sort of roar and other times they're perfectly capable of speech, but occasionally throw their name into sentences like a Verbal Tic. In The Second Attack!, Pommy seemed to fit somewhere between these two lines by being a Third-Person Person.
  • Rui-Rui is also prone to this in Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden. Other B-Darons don't necessarily repeat their given names, but do have a Verbal Tic and don't actually speak.
• Power-Up Mount: The kangaroo/rabbit things in some games, dinosaurs, or miscellaneous critters in others.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Five Dastardly Bombers introduced in Super Bomberman 2, the Crush Bombers from Bomberman Generation, and whatever bomber squad appears in the other games.
  • The 'Four Devils of Garaden' in Bomberman Hero, which were the catfish-esque robot, Endol, the annoying big bird, Baruda, the sphinx-like Bolban, and the lusty catgirl Natia with her pet robo-spider Cronus.
• Recurring Riff: The gameplay music from the original Bomberman tends to reappear a lot, to the point that people just think of it as "The Bomberman Theme". Possibly a Bootstrapped Theme.
  • The Title Theme Tune of Bomberman Generation has also been getting this treatment as of late.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Pommy, first introduced in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!, and frequently seen thereafter as a Charabom. For that matter, just about every Charabom.
  • Rooi, the cute rabbit/kangaroo-like critters Bomberman can ride on from Bomberman '94 game and on.
  • Tyra dinosaurs in Saturn Bomberman are also quite adorable. Then there's most of the B-Darons in the Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden anime/manga Spin-Off, ESPECIALLY Rui-Rui, who causes a lot of Cuteness Proximity reactions. And then gets dumped by some high school girls when they find something even cuter. The Second Attack! has various adorable critters to represent AI players in Battle Mode. And, hell, how about the cute-looking things in each stage that kill you on contact? Let's just say that there's enough of these in the Bomberman franchise to give someone a Cuteness Overload.
• Rule of Fun
• Shout-Out: Rather numerously as of late, but also in the past. The opening and intro to Online show Bomberman wearing an orange suit similar to Goku's.
• The Smurfette Principle: Up until Super Bomberman 4 (which introduced one-shot villain Lady Bomber and recurring mascot Honey), there was never more than one female humanoid (if any) in the same game.
  • Prior, the entire female cast of bombers/humans throughout the franchise consisted of Lisa, Bomber Lady, and Pretty Bomber. Like Honey, only Pretty Bomber would make recurring appearances in later games.
  • Several games afterwards still have a token female character, such as Cutie Bomber in Bomberman GB 3 and Artemis in Bomberman 64.
  • Averted with the Bomberman Bros. in Super Bomberman R, which include two female members.
• Spell My Name with an S: Buglear/Bagulaa/Bugler/Buglar/Buggler/Bugglar/Burglar/Bagular/Bagura, the recurring Big Bad. It seemed to have settled on Bagular in Bomberman Hero and Bomberman Portable, but Super Bomberman R recently went back to Buggler.
  • "Charaboms" in Bomberman Max, then "Karabons" in Bomberman Tournament, then back to "Charaboms" in Max 2 and Generation.
  • Rooi/Louie, the kangaroo-like critters you ride. Rooi seems to be their original name, but localizations tended to stick with Louie until fairly recently.
  • Mujoe's second-in-command scientist is known as "Dr. Mechado" in Sega's translation of Saturn Bomberman, but "Dr. Mechard" in Majesco's translation of Bomberman Jetters for GameCube. The former had rather stilted localizations, however, such as Dr. Ein to Dr. I and Mujoe as...Mr. Meanie.
• Spin-Off: The Bomberman Land series, which shifts the focus to bomb-based Mini Games.
  • Another is Bomber King, which was developed by Hudson and then retitled Robo Warrior in North America when Jaleco acquired the publishing rights.
  • Bomberman Wars, which is more of a strategy JRPG.
  • Bomberman B-Daman Bakugaiden, which actually kickstarted the whole B-Daman line of toys.
  • Bomberman Fantasy Race. As you'd expect, it's more like Mario Kart, except everyone's riding a Rooi or dino. Here's some video footage. There's a later Japan-exclusive game called Bomberman Kart and its Updated Re-release Bomberman Kart DX that's even more shameless about its inspirations.
• Spotlight-Stealing Title: When the first Bomberman GB game got released in the US, it got Wario as a playable character. True to his character, the game was renamed to Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!
• Stuff Blowing Up: This speaks for itself.
• Super Title 64 Advance: Bomberman probably has more examples than any other series (including Mario). Super Bomberman, Mega Bomberman, Neo Bomberman, Saturn Bomberman, Bomberman 64... need I go on? It helps that practically every game console and computer OS has a version of Bomberman released for it (except, sadly, for the latest generation).
• Super Drowning Skills: This is lampshaded in Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! multiple times in the form of Pommy's taunts to the main character for his inability to swim down to noticeable underwater ruins in Aquanet, as well as his fear of crawling through a pipe filled with running water.
  • Especially irritating in Bomberman Hero, where Mercy Invincibility does not protect Bomberman from losing a block of health from falling in water and then leaping back out... and then it's averted with the Marine Bomber gear in certain levels.
• Tech-Demo Game: Hi-Ten Bomberman. It was developed by Hudson Soft to show off their HD-TV technology (becoming the first HD videogame) and only appeared twice for contests in 1993 and 1994 (as Hi-Ten Chara Bom). Supporting up to 10 players, it's credited with inspiring the Saturn Bomberman Battle Game. See YouTube footage of it here.
  • At a 1984 computer show, Hudson used an Amstrad CPC version to demonstrate their new Bee Card (memory card) technology. What a pity that neither game nor card-reader were released.
• There Is No Kill like Overkill: Again, Altair's robot guardian in Bomberman 64.
  • It even states in the instruction booklet that he is in fact, quite obsessed with overkill.
  • Assault Bomber from Generations seems to love this trope, from his psychotic attack patterns, to his entrance in which he enters the arena in a giant meteor that crashes into the center of the arena then explodes.
  • You fart bombs. There IS no other kind of kill.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Bomberman himself, of course, along with numerous other characters.
• Timed Mission: All of the classic 2D games which don't play like "Bomberman meets The Legend of Zelda" have a timer. If Bomberman doesn't complete the stage in time, he spontaneously dies for no logical reason (except for Bomberman DS, where he's instead besieged by a never-ending stream of Pontans). Averted in all of the 3D games, for the most part.
• True Final Boss: Sirius in Bomberman 64.
  • In Super Bomberman 2, Plasma Bomber's doomsday device fulfills this role quite surprisingly by killing Plasma Bomber just before he could complete a Heel–Face Turn then attacks Bomberman. (Though it's not a true example, since there are no special conditions that have to be met to face it.)
  • Dr. Mechard overtakes Mujoe in both appearances.
  • Evil Bomber in Bomberman Hero.
  • The Chaos Bomber in Bomberman Quest.
  • In The Second Attack!, the true final boss is God.
• Unstable Equilibrium: Most Bomberman games have the "power-up" style of this; if you're good enough to stack up a few good power-ups before dying, you have a much easier game ahead of you.
• Verbal Tic: Pommy's tendency to add "myu" to sentences.
  • Rukifellth's Evil Laugh might also be a Verbal Tic.
  • Black Bomberman, or Cool Black as he is also known as, says "dude" quite often in the Land games.
• Whale Egg: The Rooi hatch out of these in most games as a powerup.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: The special attack of Honey in Neo Bomberman is that she can turn the bombs she has laid into little hearts which bounce around for a short while before exploding. The idea, of course, is to catch the opponent(s) by surprise, but at least half the time she ends up killing herself instead.
• Worthy Opponent: Regulus in the N64 games. Especially in The Second Attack!
• Yet Another Stupid Death: One of the first things you should learn is how to not blow yourself up by accident. Don't deny it, you've already blown yourself up either by sheer accident, or because you miscalculated the distance your explosion would cover, or because an enemy sabotaged your bomb setup.

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