Thanks for the advice guys, I see there's quite a bit of confusion as to what is actually legal.

I think what I'll do is carry on with my remake and polish off some of my new skills. Once done I'll contact Hudson Soft for their permission for me to put it up on my site as a non-profit piece and a homage to the greatness that was bomberman (I already contacted them with no response but a friend suggested I may have more luck if I waited until I had a game to send them as example).

Also, after a little inspiration from render, I will move on to a new project once the remake is finished (I only plan on making a 5-10 level remake). It will have similarities to bomberman (namely bombs and explosions!) but will add a whole new heap of gameplay to it. I will probably be putting up a request later for a good artist to do the project with me (since my graphics could only be described as average) but as I've seen on here before I will wait until I have an engine and a decent plan of what I want to do.

If you guys have any further advice on the legalities of the original remake or on my future project it would be much appreciated.