Hah, how cool! The game uses the Bomberman Online Japan soundtrack. It's as if they had heard my earlier lament that this great soundtrack had just faded away with BOJ.
The game looks interesting...
Here's my translation of the text from the iTunes page:
100-Man Bomberman Battle, players across the country become friends and enemies in this action game♪
Rapidly advance through stages, collecting costumes and competing for rankings!
Advance through the game even with just a little free time!
========================================
* Important Notification
[Concerning Compatible Models]
Confirm operation of this application on your screen below. Attention please.
*iPhone4、iPodTouch(4th generation)、iOS4.3 or later
[To customers using the iPhone3GS/iPodTouch(3rd generation)]
We are currently proceeding with a fix for stable operation on the iPhone3GS/iPodTouch(3rd generation). Please wait a short while.
========================================
[Game Features]
★ "100-Man War" Mode
"1 player-controlled Bomberman + 4 friends" VS "95 enemy NPCs" maximum of 100 people on screen in an intense battle!
★ Progress through various battles spanning the "Bomberman Galaxy".
Obtain "Mastery!" in each stage by winning the "Bomber Battle". *
★ Collect experience points in the "6 Man Battle" to level up.
Customize the "Fire", "Bomb", "Speed", and "Time Effect" parameters to gain an advantage in battle!
★ Invite other players to be "friends", friend "followers" can defeat opponents! With regular regsitration, give support by throwing items onto the field from the outside!*
★ Get "Costume Panels" from treasure chests! There are 6 panels of each costume type, collect and assemble them!
[Concerning TSUTAYA.com kiwi]
"TSUTAYA.com kiwi" supports 100-Man Bomberman Battle.
Upon logging into kiwi, recover 1 out of every 30 minutes of play.*
With your kiwi login, you can enjoy various additional game elements. For more information, please check the site for details.
[Other]
For the sake of maintenance, service may be interrupted for a while. Prior to maintenance there will be a "Notification" announcement, in case of an emergency there may be no advance notification. Also, the contents of this application may change without prior notice, in case of termination, we will acknowledge it beforehand.
What's New in Version 1.0.1
*There were some bug fixes.
[Concerning Compatible Models]
Confirm operation of this application on your screen below. Attention please.
*iPhone4、iPodTouch(4th generation)、iOS4.3 or later
[To customers using the iPhone3GS/iPodTouch(3rd generation)]
We are currently proceeding with a fix for stable operation on the iPhone3GS/iPodTouch(3rd generation). Please wait a short while.
[Concerning TSUTAYA.com kiwi]
"TSUTAYA.com kiwi" supports 100-Man Bomberman Battle.
With your kiwi login, you can enjoy various additional game elements. For more information, please check the site for details.
An asterisk * indicates a translation that I am unsure of and/or do not understand.
My short notes:
Up to five human players simultaneously, up to 95 AI players, max of 100 in a match. There are custom parts to collect. Players collect experience points to level up four different skills.
Anyway, glad to know that they are still doing something with the Bomberman franchise!
It doesn't look very interesting to me, the character movement is too slow, which is a common result of mobile touchscreen control games. The concept of a 100 person bomberman match is interesting, but that's only if it's against other human players and not CPU.
As for Konami actually doing something with the bomberman franchise, I wouldn't celebrate just yet since it's only a small mobile game. As plasm mentioned it uses music from BOJ, but it also used the sound effects too. Overall it just feels like a cheap cash in on the series, we still have to wait for a handheld or console game until we can be sure of bomberman's fate.
_________________ "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."
Yeah, but that's only if we have a Japanese account. Speaking of Konami, here's a chance that they might bring "Bomberman 3DS" back from the dead, since the screenshots we saw earlier were likely from the beta testing. I think it could use a better storyline rather than just the one where Cheerful White/White Bomber stops a group of generic rogue robots (as far as I know). Still, the thought of having a co-op story mode was a nice touch.
Didn't mean to go off-topic, but I'm simply stating my point on how Konami's gonna handle the Bomberman franchise from now on.
Even though it can be downloaded for free, that doesn't mean that the game is entirely free in itself.
It could for example:
1: Have advertisements in it during loading and other times like many other free mobile games do.
2: Have downloadable content that you need to pay for or items that you purchase with real money in-game, aka freemium.
3: Be advertisement for the TSUTAYA.com kiwi services games, since you need to register with them to play this game online.
The TSUTAYA kiwi service makes their games freemium from the looks of it, and besides selling premium content in games they may also charge for account avatars and such on their website, which can also show in games.
This Bomberman game isn't the only game that Konami released for the launch of the TSUTAYA kiwi games service, they also made the Powerful Pro Baseball game that's listed on the TSUTAYA kiwi page besides any possible others.
So even if the Bomberman game didn't have any pay content in it, the other game may have it and Bomberman could of been thrown in as apart of a package deal. Even if both games didn't have premium purchasable content, it can still be considered a cash in since they released it under the TSUTAYA kiwi service as apart of a business deal for sure.
You also have to consider that Hudson was assigned specifically to work on mobile games, we've already theorized before about how bomberman may only get mobile game releases if anything anymore because of this. So I'm not quite ready to dismiss this as being the goodwill of Konami, or that they're going to be continuing the franchise just yet.
I didn't like that the fact that they directly re-used content from a great game like BOJ for a small cash in game like this, when they still aren't bringing us any real Bomberman games on Console, PC or Handheld.
Besides canceling Bomberman 3DS with still no word on it, they also canceled Bomberman Ultra: Battlefest for PS3 and Wii. I couldn't find the link again for where I read it from, but there was a comment by a developer from Hudson that stated that Battlefest was around 90% done for the 2 consoles and Konami pulled the plug and wouldn't let them finish it. We only have it on Xbox 360 because it was already released.
_________________ "Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts."
Frankly the ipod is too small to fit in 100 Bomberman. The ipad is larger but for both side the awkward control(I tried someone's Ipad once it's uncomfortable and my sis has an ipod)l is gonna be very awkward to play. A console or keyboard PC(Doubt Bomberman got a mouse based game but whatever) is a better choice
I also mentioned to Toki somewhere else several weeks ago that I get a feeling sooner or later Bomberman will have a fanservice character
Then came miss bouncy t**s girl so I predicted right. For all I know if Konami did anymore... Errg tarnishing the kiddie image this ain't no basement dweller fandom for gawd sake fanservice nearly killed the PSP in it's earlier year and fanservice would kill this one as well
Well it's good to see Konami is returning bomberman it's not that really bad if you ask me.
5 versus 95 bots? What you mad bro?
Peace, Zet out!
_________________ What kinda Demon do you workship MR.Z?
The only good one that sets you free.
Eh I had a really good come-back at first but then I forgot about it when I was writing in this Signature box of mine and this is how you waste someones time, By making them read your Signature.
I'm not so sure... if it wasn't a mobile game it would be awesome, but still why it is just 5 players and 95 AI bots...
Ugh. I always thought the most strong point in Bomberman is its Multiplayer addict, it would be a perfect game to play in a Lan party for example, but being mobile and having a max of 5 human players...
Shiro hooked me up with a copy of the game, and I managed to get it working in BlueStacks. I think I've played as far as a freeloader can get before it pesters you into making a kiwi.co.jp account... so I figure I might as well share what I experienced! Big ol' ramble under the cut.
(just a heads up - if anyone wants to install BlueStacks, read up all you can on your own computer first. I completely banjaxed my old XP (Service Pack 2) computer becauase it required me to install Service Pack 3, which for all intents and purposes, messed it up beyond repair. I'm on a new Windows 7 machine now and BlueStacks runs fine. My old computer was on its last legs anyway, but I figure I'd warn anyone else out there just in case!)
Spoiler:
Each world has several levels, though you can only select them by roulette for whatever reason. Level designs are variable, the amount of Bombermen you fight is variable (though never more than three as far as I got). Basic Bomberman fighting.
Completing a stage gives you experience points, and such-and-such amount of experience points will get you a level up. Levelling up gives you points to spend on attributes - bombs, blast radius, speed, and time. I... think this determines your maximum capacity of those items? Like, you can collect Bomb Ups, but they'll never surpass 3 until you level up? Didn't get a chance to properly investigate. Given how tight the time limit is, I imagine you need to level up the time option before attempting some of the later levels in the game.
Each level has a percentage, and it all adds up to a world percentage. Levels need completed multiple times (or needs all treasure chests collected, I can't remember) to get 100%, and when the world percentage is 100%, you can move on to the 100 Man Battle!
Sadly, the goal in the 100 Man Battle isn't to defeat all one hundred opponents... it's just to survive long enough fot the Exit Gate to appear. There's only a small scattering of soft blocks and some of these levels ditch the hard block grid, meaning you've got wide open spaces to walk around.
Since there's so few soft blocks, there's very few items, and barely any of the opponents have a blast radius longer than 2 tiles. It's hard to actively kill any opponents, but it's easy to walk into explosions since the screen is so busy. In these stages diamond panels randomly appear on the map - collecting these gets you money, as far as I'm aware.
After the 100 Man Battle, you move onto the next world and the routine repeats.
While I'm talking about the actual battling, it is slow as hell. Even when it's just one on one, it's slow! Even after collecting four or five Speed Ups, IT'S STILL SLOOOOOW.
I haven't experienced iOS touchscreen controls first hand, but I can't imagine they're terribly precise, so taking it slow is probably a sacrifice for compatibility... but jeez, you really need that two minute time limit for most of the fights, it takes so long to reach them.
The treasure chest panels contain random things, either money, experience points or Bomberman panels. I never collected all six panels, but I assume these either unlock new costumes or new partners. The costumes include stuff like wedding gowns, animal outfits, cloaks and other guff. They're all unique sprite sheets, so you can't mix and match them, sadly.
Speaking of partners, after a regular stage you're given the option of returning to the map, levelling up your stats, or recruiting your opponent. If recruited, they'll appear on the bottom menu bar during regular stages and throw items onto the playing field. In the 100 Man Battle, they'll walk around (as white silhouettes) and try to attack enemies for you. I'm guessing this is how it'd work in human multi-player, but I obviously can't confirm.
Money can be taken to a shop and spent on items... I think? There's Bomb Ups, Speed Ups, Fire Ups, Kick Shoes, and one item that wasn't unlocked yet. I seem to recall starting every match with only the bare minimum equipment, so either I was doing something wrong or you're spending money just to find more items in each stage. I don't know. See, this is why I was looking to get the help page translated - I don't understand half the stuff that goes on!
Looking at the game files, there's at least 12 worlds and over a hundred arenas, so there's no shortage of battles... but what's the point if none of it is any fun? If anything, I respect how they're trying something other than ye olde "blow up all the Balloms!" gameplay, and all the stat-building repetitive-tedium nonsense to cater it to mobile gaming is an... intriguing addition. But, yikes, is it not fun. It's slow, the AI is underwhelming, the gameplay is clunky, and your only real reward appears to be different backdrops and more opportunities for Windy to wobble at you.
tl;dr: Cleavage aside, there's nothing to get excited about. Interesting concepts, but the execution leaves heaps to be desired.