In the past Puzzle games have flourished on home consoles. We've seen some very addicting puzzle games with Tetris, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Bust-a-Move, and Devil Dice. However, recently puzzle games seem to be few and far between, with most of them slipping through the cracks offering nothing more than a few minutes of entertainment. Now Capcom is back to change things with Bombastic, the pseudo-sequel to Devil Dice.

Adding a twist to the puzzle genre, Capcom has infused Bombastic with a storyline. The Aqui Family has a legend of how they came to be. Several years ago the grandmother (a devil) met the grandfather (an angel) and they fell in love. Unfortunately, the grandfather didn't have much time on Earth and soon had to go back to Cloud World high in the sky. Fast forward several years and the Aqui Family now consists of the grandmother, the mother, father and five little devils known as the Aqui-Chan. One night the Aqui-Chan sneaks out of the house on a mission to find their grandfather, and so begins Bombastic.

In Bombastic you are presented with an arrangement of dice on a 3D game board. It's your job to line up the dice so that the tops all match up. You'll control the Aqui-Chan as they balance on a die, and change the face as they walk across each board. To be successful you will need to line up a certain number of dice in correspondence to the number showing on the top face. So if you need to match up with a die showing a three on the top face, you have to match up a total of three dice, all with the number three on the top face. Once the dice faces have been matched up, they will explode. Each explosion will have an effect on the same number of adjacent squares on the game board. So exploding three dice with three on the top face will affect a radius of three squares on the board.

It may sound complicated at first, but after the tutorial stage you should have the basics down. From there you will learn how to defeat enemies that block your way by exploding the dice they are walking across. You will also learn how to combo explosions and other advanced techniques that will lead to big points.

Bombastic features several different modes of play. There's Trial, Quest, and Wars which all offer a slightly different style. The Trial mode places you on a square-shaped game board and contains three different variations; Standard, Limited, and Attack. Standard keeps track of the number of combos you pull off, and rewards you by making your Aqui move faster. This in turn allows you to pull off bigger combos and not get caught in the resulting explosion. Limited is similar to Standard but is more reliant on combo explosions. Both modes can be played with up to two players, but Attack actually allows you to logon to Capcom's website and gain access to passwords for special missions that you'll need to fulfill in Attack mode.

Playing as the five members of the Aqui-Chan you will navigate your way through the five stages of Quest Mode. Here you will be presented with a unique game board and a multitude of enemies to dispatch with your explosions. Quest offers more of a strategic challenge than Trial as you'll have to navigate the board in addition to exploding dice. As you advance through the stages, the game boards will become more and more intricate, making you really think to get through them all.

Wars mode is where the real fun comes into play. Up to five players can join in and go head to head in what's basically a battle mode. Each player will control one member of the Aqui-Chan, and will have their own health meter. Once your health has been depleted by explosions, you will become a ghost. As a ghost you won't have a die to roll around, but you will be able to push the dice and take out the remaining players. If you're by yourself, you can even have the computer take over for up to four players.

I'll be honest with you, Bombastic is not the easiest game to learn. However, once you get it down, it's possible to have quite a bit of fun in all three modes of play. Of course the Wars mode with four friends is the best way to play, but even if you're alone you can get on Capcom's website and play through some unique missions. Right now there aren't many puzzle games to go around, so if you're into the genre, Bombastic is definitely a quality purchase.