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This game is featured in full 3D, thus the directional controls change. Bomberman is able to walk in eight directions with a rotating camera facing in eight directions and with three different zoom levels. His bombs have a different effect than in other games of the series; the bomb's explosion waves have a spherical pattern, rather than the traditional cross-shaped ones.[5]

In both single player and multi-player modes, Bomberman always has the ability to kick, pick up, and throw bombs, without the need of power-ups, as in previous games. A unique feature of this game is that Bomberman can "pump" a bomb while holding it, which will make the bomb's explosion more powerful.[6] A pumped-up bomb cannot be kicked or picked up again. Unlike most platform games of its time, Bomberman cannot jump, nor can he swim in water, although he can wade in shallow water. Since Bomberman lacks the ability to jump, higher areas that do not have a path leading to them must be reached by bouncing across bombs - typically this requires the "remote" power-up to avoid the normally timed bombs exploding early. "Bomb jumping" is actually required to fully explore most levels, retrieve certain power-ups, and cross many obstacles.

If Bomberman runs into an enemy NPC, or is hit on the head by a small object, such as an unexploded bomb, he will become temporarily dizzy. While in this state, he can get hoisted up by an enemy and thrown around, or even finished off by getting thrown off the map, or into a bomb explosion. Bomberman can do the same to an enemy.

When Bomberman takes damage, he dies. If he has a "heart" power-up when he's hit, he will survive, but he will lose the heart. When he dies, all power-ups he obtained will scatter all over the place. In the Normal single-player mode, taking damage simply causes Bomberman to drop the heart, and if it doesn't bounce off the level, he can pick it up again to survive another hit. In the Hard mode, the heart will disappear.