Panic Bomber

Panic Bomber is one of the few Virtual Boy games that wasn't made specifically for the console but arrived from other hardware, and yet it feels completely at home here. It's a falling-block puzzle game set in the Bomberman universe, where instead of clearing lines like in Tetris, the player assembles bombs. Trios of pieces bearing different symbols fall into the well, and the goal is to arrange them into a complete bomb shape. Once a bomb is finished, all it takes is igniting it with a falling flame, and the resulting explosion clears everything around it, enabling chain reactions and lightning-fast board clears. Anyone familiar with the original versions on other platforms will feel right at home immediately.

The game has two basic modes: a classic battle against computer opponents, where every cleared explosion sends junk into the opponent's field, and an endless practice mode for score. It's the battle mode that really holds the game together, because it introduces tactics: it's often worth not igniting a bomb right away, instead placing another one next to it and setting off two or three at once, burying the opponent. The pace is fast, the controls are instantly clear, and the game requires no learning of rules beyond a single round. On the Virtual Boy's red display, the field is legible thanks to the strong contrast of the symbols, while the depth mainly serves to separate the playing field from the background and highlight the character animations on the sides. The music is typically Hudson-style, bouncy and cheerful, and it suits the pure combinatorial stress better than one might expect.

At the time, reviewers treated it as a pleasant addition to the catalog rather than a reason to buy the console, and that still holds true today. At the same time, it's one of the very few games on the platform that holds up purely as a game, regardless of the hardware. Start it up today and you wouldn't guess it's running on something as strange as the Virtual Boy, which is a compliment in its own way. For anyone who enjoys competitive puzzle games from the nineties, it's a thoroughly solid choice and also the easiest way to show someone that the Virtual Boy wasn't just a technological dead end.