Bomberman Quest is an action Role-Playing Game based on the Bomberman series that was released exclusively for the Game Boy Color in 1998. It was developed by a company called “Eleven” and published by Hudson Soft in Japan; Electro Brain in North America, and Virgin Interactive in Europe.

While transporting captured monsters to Planet Bomber, Bomberman is stopped by four mysterious lights that surround his spaceship and steal his engines. Without power, the ship crash lands on an unknown planet and all the monsters escape and begin terrorising the population. Your quest, then, is to round up and re-capture all the escaped monsters, re-gain your four missing engines, and save the planet from destruction.

From the opening menu, you can either choose Quest Mode or Battle Mode, the latter being a multiplayer versus game against linked human opponents.

Gameplay in Quest Mode is similar to a handheld Zelda game, with an overhead viewpoint and screens that push-scroll when you touch the edge of the screen (this can become an issue on occasion, though, which I’ll explain later).

After selecting your normal bombs from the inventory menu, you can then start taking on escaped monsters. Each monster is named and is encountered on a specific screen. Most require multiple hits to beat (indicated by ‘T’ bar at the bottom of the screen – the ‘P’ bar is your own health), and when defeated will usually drop an important item. Some of these items are equippable and can be assigned to either the ‘A’ or ‘B’ buttons; some items are consumables, and some are non-equippable specific-use items (like the flute, which takes you back to your crashed ship when used, which is useful because it saves time backtracking, and also because this screen is the only place where you can save the game). Once you’ve defeated a monster, it will appear in your log book, and the idea is to beat them all and fill out every entry.

Some defeated monsters – usually bosses – will drop bomb components. When you pick these up, rather than them becoming effective immediately, you have to return to the Bomb Workshop near the crash site to apply them. Some components increase the blast range of your regular bombs, and some allow you to make completely new types of bombs from scratch.

The ability to craft or acquire new types of bombs, combined with the equippable items that give you special powers (like the Jump Boots, that allow you to jump, or the Power Gloves, that allow you throw bombs), really give Bomberman Quest an added dimension that makes it unique in the Bomberman series. As I said earlier: the game is definitely taking its cues from something like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, which is no bad thing, and combining the Bomberman concept with Zelda is a good idea that results in a great game.

As mentioned earlier, there is an issue with the screens push-scrolling when you’re in battle with a monster. If you accidentally touch the edge of the screen in the middle of a fight, you’ll exit to another screen, and this can be really annoying because it will re-set the number of times you need to bomb the monster to defeat it. There’s not much you can do about this, other than avoid doing it (or using quicksaves and re-loading if you accidentally exit).

Other than the above issue, I think that Bomberman Quest is an excellent game, and a must-play if you’re a fan of the Bomberman series, or like Zelda-style games. The game really starts to become challenging around halfway through, and it features enough variation to draw you in, to see what you’re able to do next.

Bomberman Quest is also Super Game Boy enhanced, meaning that it has extra features when played on a Super Nintendo with the SGB adapter. Overall, it’s a smart little handheld adventure.

More: Bomberman Quest on Wikipedia