Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: emulated audio, YouTube
Credits
Music Composer: Shinichi Sakamoto (WSS), June Chikuma
Music Supporter: Katsunori Takahashi
3-D Musician: Keisuke Mitsui
Chikuma said on her website that she only composed three tracks for this game, all of which are series reprises (“menu,” “start,” and “round 1”), with only Sakamoto being responsible for arrangement and programming, so I’m not sure to what extent she actively participated in this soundtrack.
Info
This is a Bomberman spinoff game, a falling block arcade-style puzzle game where you match three characters or enemies in a line like Columns. The Bomberman gimmick is that when you clear blocks, you get bombs added to your field, and sometimes a lit bomb falls from the top which you can use to set off a chain reaction. This game was originally released in Japan only for the PC-Engine (TurboGrafx) Super CD-ROM² in 1994 and received a few different subsequent ports, including to the Virtual Boy in 1995. The soundtrack features a few reprises from the original version of Panic Bomber as well as the series as a whole, but otherwise seems to diverge more from the original soundtrack than other ports of the game do in terms of its menu and plot music, as far as I could tell while skimming through some of the soundtracks anyway.
This sounded pretty much like how I’d expect a generic old-school Bomberman soundtrack to sound like: generally cheery action music with a number of quotes of those two melodies Chikuma wrote for the NES which you’ll hear in every game, along with dialogue/story themes that get tense or goofy as appropriate. It’s cute but I didn’t find a whole lot to it; it also seems to just be the shortest version of this soundtrack as well.
Recommended tracks:
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“Title” has a nice little mysterious bit at 0:16
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“The Sinister Forest (World 2)” reharmonizes the Bomberman II version of the main theme a bit before departing at 0:49 for some soloing
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“Partz/Rahtut” has a bit of VGM-Egyptian flair to it, possibly because one of the characters this theme is apparently for is a mummy
(track titles are unofficial)
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