Most games in the Bomberman franchise largely revolve around two modes of play; single player campaigns where the player must defeat enemies and reach an exit to progress through levels, and multiplayer modes where players must attempt to eliminate each other and be the last one standing. Gameplay involves strategically placing down bombs, which explode in multiple directions after a certain amount of time, in order to destroy obstacles and kill enemies and other players. The player can pick up various power-ups, giving them benefits such as larger explosions or the ability to place more bombs down at a time. The player is killed if they touch an enemy or get caught up in a bomb's explosion, including their own, requiring players to be cautious of their own bomb placement. In addition to the main maze-based Bomberman games, some spin-off titles involve adventure, platformer, puzzle, and kart racing gameplay.
See also: List of Bomberman video games
Several games in the series are loosely connected through recurring characters and settings.
The 1985 game for Famicom / Nintendo Entertainment System (and Atomic Punk for Game Boy) begins with "Bomberman" (the eponymous character of the game) who worked day in and day out making bombs in an underground compound, but he dreamed of liberty, so he plotted his escape. After hearing a rumor that robots reaching the surface become human, he decides to escape. He was aided by the only skill he knew, bomb making. He uses the bombs to destroy the enemies preventing his escape and to clear blocked walls. When he reaches the surface, he transforms into an organic human being and becomes known as the "Runner". This storyline is not present in some versions, such as Bomberman Party Edition, and this setting was largely abandoned but used for connections with Hudson's Lode Runner games and Bomberman: Act Zero.
In the Bomberman for the TurboGrafx-16, Bomberman is used as a prototype for further Bomberman robots by Dr. Mitsumori. To distinguish him from other Bombermen,5 the main character is given the name White Bomberman (or White Bomber). In earlier appearances, the second Bomberman model (known as Black Bomberman) was usually the rival or the main antagonist.
In the Super Bomberman series, the two characters would regularly join forces to handle bigger threats, most notably the evil alien Professor Bagura and the Five Dastardly Bombers, the Hige Hige Bandits (led by Mujoe and Dr. Mechado), as well as a mysterious rival known as Regulus.
"Dyna Blaster, Bomber Man". Amiga Action (32): 62, 63. May 1992. Retrieved October 9, 2013. http://amr.abime.net/issue_105_reviews ↩
McFerran, Damien (2008). "Hudson Profile – Part 1 (RG)" (PDF). Issue 66. Retro Gamer Magazine. pp. 68–73. Retrieved January 19, 2011. http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/upload/media/scans/HudsonRG_Part1.pdf ↩
McFerran, Damien (2009). "Hudson Profile – Part 2 (RG)" (PDF). Issue 67. Retro Gamer Magazine. pp. 44–49. Retrieved January 19, 2011. http://www.meanmachinesmag.co.uk/upload/media/scans/hudsonparttwo.pdf ↩
Up until the end of 1997 - 10,000,000[4]Japan releases during 1998-2023 sans Super Bomberman R - 1,516,334 https://sites.google.com/site/gamedatalibrary/Bomberman Hero - 1,000,000 https://web.archive.org/web/20001213113500/http://www.nintendo.com:80/n64/playerschoice2.htmlBomberman Live - 600,000 https://www.ign.com/articles/2010/12/08/bomberman-explodes-again-in-bomberman-live-battlefestUS Sales for some games in the series (1998 - 2006) - 644,000+ https://web.archive.org/web/20030213103356/www.theonionring.com/Dec_TRSTS.htmlhttps://www.neogaf.com/threads/npd-sales-results-for-march-2017-up2-year-to-date-charts-platform-specific-charts.1362489/page-6#post-234355487Bomberman Ultra - At max, 100k https://www.neogaf.com/threads/media-create-sales-nov-23-29-2009.381294/page-16#post-18799260Bomberman Live Battlefest from 2010 to 2012 - 91,578 https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/xbox-live-arcade-by-the-numbers---an-extensive-look-back-at-2012Super Bomberman R - 2,000,000 https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/03/super_bomberman_r_passes_two_million_sales_worldwidePaid mobile downloads by the end of 2007 - 7,200,000 https://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/094/94275/ ↩
"New Bomberman characters from Bomb It games". ItBombs.com. Retrieved January 1, 2018. http://www.itbombs.com ↩
『Super Bomberman 3』Japanese manual page 21. ↩