Summary
The Game Boy was big, chunky, anddidn’t have the highest specson the market. Yet its lack of a backlight and color graphics ironically meant it became the most successful handheld machine of the 1990s because it didn’t eat up batteries like the Atari Lynx, Sega Game Gear, or the TurboExpress. Even so, it eventually had to get with the times. If it couldn’t be backlit, it had to at least get color graphics.
However, theGame Boy Colorwas more than just the regular Game Boywith a color palette.It was sleeker than the old grey brick, and had a processor that could run twice as fast, while storing four times the memory the old GB had. This is why it had bigger, beefier games than before, of which these games were some of the highlights.
10Kirby Tilt ‘N’ Tumble
GameFAQs Score: 3.49/5 Stars
BeforeYoshi Topsy-TurvyandWarioware: Twisted, there wasKirby’s Tilt ‘n’ Tumble. To help Dreamland regain its stars and foil another one of King Dedede’s schemes, Kirby has to tilt, tumble, and roll his way to each level’s goal before the time limit runs out, grabbing coins while avoiding hazards. However, instead of using the D-Pad and buttons, the player moves Kirby around bymoving the GBC itself.
This is because the cartridge has built-in accelerometers to determine how fast and how far the player is tilting the device to make Kirby tumble. With a quick flick, they can make him jump up, while rotating it towards them will send him right into the sky. It’s a neat gimmick that provides Kirby fans with one of his trickier adventures, as the device tilting takes some getting used to.
One of the ways developers were able to show off the power of the Game Boy Color was to make comparatively giant games where the players could explore every nook and cranny in real time, with no RPG-style turn-taking.Shantaeis just one example, as the Half-Genie Hero made her debut here, exploring Sequin Land for the right items andmagic transformation dancesto stop the pirate Risky Boots from taking over her town.
It wasn’t a giant success on release, as it came out in 2002, one year after the Game Boy Advance, but anyone who stuck with their GBCs back then and picked up the game got a great Metroidvania for their efforts, and a minor fortune today. A fully-intact boxed copy of the original GBC game goes for over $2,500 online. As refined as the sequels are, they all started with the GBC.
Back in the 1990s, real-time strategy games were more suited for the PC than consoles, let alone handheld devices. It’s arguably still the case today. Yet for some developers, getting an RTS to work on other machines is less folly and more of a worthy challenge. Bits Studio must’ve thought so, as they madeWarlockedfor the Game Boy Color back in 2000.
It’s up to the player to explore the world and overcome their rival factions (human or beast), using different soldiers to penetrate the foggy battlefield and take down their opponents. Provided they have enough resources, that is. Otherwise, their attempts to complete all 24 missions (12 for each faction) will be in vain. It even supported multiplayer via the Link Cable, letting players trade troops among themselves, making for an intriguing and underrated game.
7Pokemon: Trading Card Game
GameFAQs Score: 3.77/5 Stars
It’s inevitable. Talking about any Nintendo handheld means talking about aPokemongame. It practically added a few more years to the original Game Boy’s lifespan on its own, and gave the Game Boy Color a shot in the arm too, before making the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, DSi, etc, all huge successes. While it would be easy to just go straight toPokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, Hudson Soft deserves kudos for going meta. They made a video game out of a collectible card spin-off game based on the video games!
Like the card game, the player has to build up their decks to overcome their rivals. Only this time, they must take down eight Club Masters, then four Grand Masters to beat the game. The stronger the opponent, the better cards they can earn, including rare Legendary cards. Like their animal counterparts, players are encouraged to collect all 226 cards in the game, which can be made easier by trading with friends via the Link Cable.
Nintendo R&D1 hit new ground when they created Wario. Initially designed to just be a ‘bad Mario’ forSuper Mario Land 2, they switched focus for the third game by making him the protagonist. As a result, they turned a series of mini-Mario adventures into a unique series of platformers that focus on exploration, grabbing coins and keys, and transforming via power-ups and enemy attacks.
Wario Land 3is arguably the pinnacle of the series where, in order to break free from a magical music box, Wario must travel through 25 stages split across North, South, East and West regions, and open colored treasure chests to get their treasure. Like Metroidvania games, getting new treasures can open up new parts of older levels. Though neither Samus nor the Belmonts had to eat donuts to get super fat and super durable, or play golf with enemies for bonuses.
5Metal Gear Solid
GameFAQs Score: 4.06/5 Stars
Evenwithout series creator Hideo Kojimain the director’s chair, nothing is ever straightforward in theMetal Gearseries.Metal Gear Solidon the GBC isn’t a demake of the PS1 game. It’s an original game, known asMetal Gear: Ghost Babelin Japan, that takes place after the firstMetal Gearon the MSX2 & NES, where Snake returns to the remains of Outer Heaven to stop Metal Gear Gander and the terrorists in control of it.
The gameplay resemblesMetal Gear 2: Solid Snake, as the titular agent still has to sneak past guards in a top-down view, with a handy radar on the top right of the screen. Unlike the MSX2 games, Snake can now crawl, shimmy against walls, and knock on them to distract guards. The game also uses a mission-based structure to make playing on the go easier, which future handheld games likePortable OpsandPeace Walkerwould emulate. It’s perhaps the series' most underrated entry, and one that could do with a re-release.
The lower specs of the original Game Boy meant the system couldn’t get direct ports of the NES games. Nonetheless, Nintendo’s R&D1 managed to pull off some technical wizardry to produce the brief but inspiredSuper Mario Land, with its shooting sections and superball powerups, andSuper Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, which managed to be a mini-Super Mario Worldthat introduced Wario to the series.
Then the GBC came along, and Nintendo were finally able to portSuper Mario Bros 1to a handheld, albeit with screen crunch, but it also had plenty of new features. Challenge Mode lets players take on mission-based objectives, like collecting five red coins a laYoshi’s Island/Super Mario 64, and hidden Yoshi eggs. Players can race each other to the end of the stage via the Link Cable. Perhaps most impressive of all, they could unlock all the levels fromSuper Mario Bros: The Lost Levelsand take them as well on if they were feeling masochistic.
If Hudson Soft, theBombermanguys, making a Pokemon game wasn’t strange enough, Capcom managed to make twoLegend of Zeldagames for the GBC. Specifically, they were made by Flagship Studios, the developers who’d put together many of theOnimushagames,Kirby: Squeak Squad, and a few moreZeldatitles, including the GBA port ofA Link to the PastandThe Minish Cap.
Before all that, they developedThe Legend of Zelda: Oracles of AgesandOracle of Seasons. They were essentially dual releases, a laPokemon’s Red/Blue, Gold/Silver,etc., but while they weretechnically two different games, they could be linked together to access a new final boss after beating Twinrova in order to save Princess Zelda.OoAsaw Link travel through time via the Harp of Ages to access new areas, whileOoShad him use the Rod of Seasons to change the seasons to access new parts of Hyrule and solve puzzles.
Capcom’sOraclegames wouldn’t have turned out so well without the assets provided byThe Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX. The original GB game became a good enough reason to pick up Nintendo’s little grey brick, as it managed to pack inA Link to the Past’s top-down exploration gameplay into a tiny package, albeit with concessions, since the device only had two action buttons.
Yet Nintendo EAD saw the GBC’s specs and saw new opportunities to entertain players. They could still play the old game on the then-new machine, but theDXedition added new features, like an entirely new dungeon that used color-based puzzles to test players. There was also a new camera shop where its photographer could take pics of Link in the game, and let players print them off as stickers via the Game Boy Printer. It gave players more bang for their additional bucks, and became the definitive way to play the game until its recent Switch remake.
Pokemon: Gold & Silverare famous for being much larger adventures where, thanks to the efforts of Satoru Iwata personally, Game Freak were able to compress the game enough to fitRed & Blue’s Kanto on top of the new location of Johto. Though, just asRed & Bluewere expanded byYellow,Gold & Silverwere expandedbyPokemon Crystal.
It gave players the ability to play as a female Pokemon trainer for the first time, take on new subquests alongside the old game’s side-missions and main campaign, and the Pokemon battles were animated. So, if players wanted to test their mettle in the new Battle Tower, they’d see their Pokemon, both new and old, come to life. Nowadays, that’s nothing special, but in 2000, it was an extra bit of technical “wow factor” on top of its massive world. Especially when it still offered over 250 of the little critters to collect.
