Miracle of miracles, I managed to get a hold of a (possibly bootleg) copy of
Bomberman Story DS on eBay. It arrived on my doorstep late Saturday afternoon, and I beat it early Sunday afternoon.
Yeah. Short adventure mode is short, and with the most lame-o bosses (it wasn't until the very final boss where I actually had problems; I still beat him in one go, but I had to use up all of my health restoring items to do it). And you
still can't get away from those damn minigames alkjlfkajlfkjlkfjlajd. But all in all, it's actually quite nice for the time that you're playing it. It takes the RPG-lite system from Bomberman Tournament (Bomberman Story in Japan) and twists and upgrades it. You can earn points towards gaining a level in experience, at which point a particular attribute of yours (bomb capacity, firepower, and some other stuff) is leveled up. You stop earning levels at Lvl. 16, though, since by that time the B-man is pretty tricked out anyway (bomb capacity at 7, firepower at five). There's also the Color Bomb system, which amazingly enough isn't just a set of standard elemental bombs. Probably the best one out of all of them is the unfortunately-named Blow Bomb: if you toss or kick this one, it'll split into multiple bombs (the number depends on whether you set down any other bombs before tossing it, as well as your max. bomb capacity at the time). You also don't have to wait for Color Bombs to explode before you can switch to a different one. For example, you can lay down a Yellow Bait Bomb to attract enemies, and as soon as you toss that, you can switch back to your regular bombs and take out the enemies.
Uh. Graphics are nice (again, upgraded from Bomberman Tournament). Music is nice but forgettable. Plot is a variation on Generation (that is, evildoer steals research secrets and plans to take over the universe with them, and so Bomberman must play the dog of the military and go fetch them back). Characters actually have some semblance of personality and dialogue, although since this is a Bomberman game, that's not really saying much. Still, I'll be amusing myself by cramming in a cameo or two in my fanfic.
Multiplayer seems pretty standard to me: you play against seven other opponents using both screens of the DS.
...if you guys have any other questions about the game, go ahead and ask me. I might work on a more in-depth, less rambly review that I'll be posting to the Bomber Base community on LJ (I'll link here when I'm done).