Game Boy
 

A thread to discuss handhelds and games from Game Boy to Game Boy Advance. I started playing my Game Boy Color again yesterday. I wonder how it knows to put some of the characters and backgrounds in Super Mario Land 2 in the right colors.

I remember when I was young I had the original gameboy with super mario land. Me and my sisters used to play it for hours.
There was always this damn level/stage we could never figure out. Wish I could buy one now and try and figure it out lol.

In Game Boy Camera, who are you running from?

That sounds fun, Joefsas. The sequel to Super Mario Land is the only game in the "Land" series I have played. I like that giant, mechanical Mario zone. :D Good question, MewMeow. I haven't played Game Boy Camera. Talk of Game Boy Camera reminds me of Nintendo Power. That was a good magazine. I think Pokémon is what I played the most on Game Boy. Gotta catch 'em all. :D

GameBoy Advance was the first gamestation I ever owned.

Great handheld system. I like how the design of it was more similar to a console controller. I remember standing in line and buying a Game Boy Advance on the first day it was available at Target. I think I bought Super Mario Advance and Army Men with it.

Honestly didn't have one. We didn't have a ton of money for things like that when I was a kid, so I basically had to decide if I wanted a Game Boy or a Super Nintendo, and that was no contest. I was bummed, especially since a lot of my friends had one but would never share, but I got over it. Then when I got older I almost got a Game Boy Color since I had my own money by then, but I kept spending it all on N64/PS1 games. I just never made Game Boy a priority, though I do regret it now.

I finally got a Game Boy Advance when they were new, especially since they could play the classic GB games. I didn't get a chance at the time to pick up any of those, but it was my intention. Instead I had a ton of fun with the Zelda "Oracle" games and the Fire Pro Wrestling series. Then some bastard stole my GBA like a couple months after I got it.

I never bothered replacing it since I have the Game Boy Player on my Gamecube. I've still only played a couple of those "classic" games but I'm always picking up more and more new stuff, so one day for sure. I'm more a console gamer than a handheld gamer, but a good game is a good game on any system. Luckily most of the older ones I want aren't super rare or expensive.

Yeah, it was good for its time and I used it. But nowadays, I use my DS for my GBA games since it has a lighted screen without a separate lighting attachment that keeps falling down, and I need bigger buttons. I still use it whenever I want to transport my chao on Sonic games.

I'm a huge fan of the GBA. The original Gameboy is hit or miss, mostly miss, but it still has some neat stuff.

Ever since I got my Micro I've been playing GBA games more than everything else combined. I've beaten Zero Mission 3 or 4 times in the last month.

I have played through that game far more times than anyone has the right to in a single lifetime. Such flawless controls and graphics. Emulating it on a Game Boy player or homebrewed Wii kind of gives it even more of a "Super Metroid" feel.

Also, I think all the TMNT games on the GBA (2k3 era and 2007 movie) make up for the shortcomings of their console brethren.

I got a gameboy color for christmas (red) along with Pokemon Red version and got a white GBA for easter one year. Also ended up inheriting my sisters Gameboy color and Gameboy advance. The pokemon games weren't going to trade between themselves. Though I think I preferthe GBASP over them both, mainly because I don't have to waste money on batteries.

Some of Nintendo's best games were on their handhelds.

I also love how the GBA kept 2D gaming alive back in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era. Remember that was before the days of indie games, so we really didn't have any other way to get our 2D game fix outside the GBA.

The GBA almost felt like a second extension of the SNES lifecycle, getting new 2D games in the Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Megaman, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, etc. franchises.

The original gray "brick" Game Boy was my first gaming system before the NES. I had a bunch of stupid accessories for it and owned a bunch of those early Nintendo games on it and played it so much. I liked the "Play it Loud!" GBs which were just colored versions of the original. Then I kind of stopped using it, I remember being shocked by how little the Gameboy Pocket was when it was announced. My mother bought me a clear GBP along with Kirby's Dream Land one day randomly at the mall, I had no idea why since it wasn't a special occasion and just by making it a little smaller and the screen gray instead of that yellow green the original had made all my old games feel new again and of course I became a huge Kirby Fan with that game, after that I started buying GB games again. I remember being amazed that with the brick GB I expected NES quality games but after the GBP I expected SNES quality games, and yet the hardware hadn't changed, it really shows how much juice they were able to get out of the GB. Donkey Kong for GB became one of my favorite games and still is to this day, one of the best platforming games ever made. I also had a GBCamera and GBPrinter and used to print a bunch of things on it, funny how Nintendo revolutionized on so many of these things and then kind of let other companies do it for them. I always wanted a Super GB for my SNES but never did get that and vowed to buy one when it came out for the N64 only for that to never happen.

When the GBC was announced I of course waited for that christmas and bought it, oddly enough I didn't buy a GBC game to test out my new system but Pokemon Blue instead. So while Pokemon Blue didn't have color the few color changes were good enough for me and of course PKMN became one of my favorite franchises for many years to come, eventually I bought other GBC games. I was really excited about the GBAdvance, I had saved up a lot of money for launch day and even though it was always billed as a portable SNES I expected some PS1 looking games since it was "32 bits" just like the first Playstation not knowing really what bits meant at that age. For launch I bought Mario Advanced and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, my jaw dropped by the graphics of THPS2 on a GB and SMA was alright but even then I felt screwed and that Nintendo should've released Super Mario All-Stars like the SNES since this was a more powerful system. I bought plenty of games for the GBA and Advance Wars became one of my favorite games ever. Around this time I became a teenager and stopped liking videogames in general but I did buy Pokemon Ruby when that came out and played it a while, I remember wanting a GBA SP but couldn't justify it because it was very expensive and I didn't game. I did buy a GBA SP later when the "NES" edition came out in my final years of HS, sadly I dropped it once and half the screen stopped working. Later when they were on sale I bought a GBMicro Famicom edition at Circuit City for 80 or 50 bucks I think, this was when the DS had already come out but it still gave me some fun and I preferred playing games there even if the screen was smaller.

So yeah, great memories for the GB, I was pissed at first with the Nintendo DS announcement since it wasn't a new Game Boy but eventually loved that system as well. I was actually thought Nintendo would eventually release a "Game Boy DS" that was backwards compatible with all GB games and not just GBA. I like having GB games on my 3DS and being able to change the color to the ugly green yellow on it, I still wish it had more options like the Super Gameboy borders/extra content on GB games, extra GBA stuff when playing GBC games and being able to choose colors on classic GB games like you could on the GBC/GBA.


IIRC I once read an article that explained that this was because Nintendo specifically programmed that into the GBC, which explains why almost all Nintendo games have very good color selection for their games while third party games didn't do as good of a job with that. It was definitely good that even with launch "window" GB games like Tennis were able to have a green court programmed in.

Yeah its actually disappointing that old Gameboy games on the e-shop don't come with the color option they would have if you played on Gameboy Color.

Kinda miss playing Super Mario Land 2 in color.

I've got a pretty sizable Game Boy collection. I've got the Game Boy, Pocket, Color, SP and Micro. But they all collect dust, since I bought a GameCube for the Game Boy Player.

I like the GBA more. Better library and the graphics are really fun. The only thing that sucks is the lighting issues, which can be fixed.

i've got a GBA SP, with a ton of games; and a 3DS.

some day i'd like to hunt down an Original Gameboy, black in color

I remember Game Boy's early days. It seemed like not a day went by where I didn't see somebody playing one. I even remember how when I was 11, and I was in an airport going to Florida and saw a grown man in a suit and tie playing one. (I bet he was playing Tetris.) That was the year after it got released, and I got one for Christmas that year.

I think Atari released the Lynx some time after Game Boy came out, and that was in color. Then there would be the Turbo Express which was in color, and then Sega would put out Game Gear which was also in color. A lot of people pissed on the Game Boy just because it was the only monochrome handheld, but somehow it still managed to hold its own. I remember those commercials those companies put out when advertising their handhelds and would make Game Boy owners look stupid. Still though, I was glad when Nintendo put out Game Boy Color. I wish I could have gotten that on the day it came out in November 1998, but I didn't have a job. I'd get one the year after for my birthday though.

Before Game Boy Pocket came out, I liked the Play It Loud line where they had units released in five new colors. The clear one, as always, was especially cool. I didn't bother getting one since I already had a Game Boy. So when I got the GBC, I'd get the atomic purple one since it was clear, and the glacier Game Boy Advance.

I got the GBA-SP since it has backlighting. So I still use that to this day to play regular Game Boy games. I've been using it recently, but now the battery seems to drain out quicker than usual. I still have my Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance, but I've got them packed away in their boxes. I also have the Game Boy Player for my GameCube for when I want to play Game Boy/Advance games when I'm at home, and it's why I still have the GameCube hooked up to my TV.

More random GB memories...

I do remember when the GameGear was out and this was during the 16-bit wars and I was really jealous of it because it was in color, I didn't understand the concept of battery life I guess, I kept the GB because I was a kid and had no money but I definitely wanted one. I remember reading about the GBLight in a magazine and how it was a Japan only item and really wanting to have one. I remember seeing one of them at ToysRus one day though and wanting it, I did have a friend who had it and thought it was the coolest thing ever. When the GBA was announced I couldn't believe I would have a portable SNES with me, it blowed my mind that I could play Street Fighter II on the bus to school with me when only a few years later I had to be in my house to play it. I also loved clear plastic on my GB portables. The GBplayer came out when I really wasn't into gaming anymore so I never bought it but loved that it also played regular GB games and they didn't go with GBA only.

I'm probably going to sell all my GB stuff and only keep a brick GB and a copy of PKMN Blue to finally organize my gaming stuff, and just own most of the games digitally on the VC, just hope they eventually make you able to play your GB VC games on your TV, I don't care how pixelated or small the screen is.

i got a Gamegear and even though at the time i thought it was tons better than the Gameboy i still wanted one, and still do

I hooked my Game Gear up to the wrong AC adapter, as a kid, and fried it. But it sure was an impressive device, at the time. I remember the screen as beautiful. And I loved being able to play Sonic, in secret, after my bedtime. :)

after more than 20 years my Game Gear still works like a champ!

That Game Gear was bright as hell. Haha. I used it as a flashlight sometimes.

rofl! yeah no doubt. my fave accessory was the magna-gear that made the screen pop out even more