10 GAMES THAT SHOULD BE ON THE GAME BOY CLASSIC

18/10/2017

So, after the NES Classic and Super NES Classic, the rumours are wafting that Nintendo is planning some sort of Game Boy Classic.

It makes sense; nearly 120 million Game Boys were sold worldwide, and it was the machine that all good folk owned - from kids to their parents to First Ladies and Last Ladies.

If it is happening, presumably it won't be miniaturised like its sister machines - because that would be ridiculous - and it had better not require batteries, and needs to have a decent, back-lit screen, and a little vent that dispenses an edible protein paste called "Miyamoto Mulch".

What games would Nintendo stuff into the pelvic keyhole of this so-called "Pale Henry"? Here are the runners and riders.

TETRIS

As the pack-in game which sold a billion trillion Game Boys (just under 120 million), Tetris was the only Game Boy game which everyone played. Literally everyone.

I have fond memories of Christmas 1991, and my shrieking mother being hooked on it as much as I was. Surely everyone remembers that first time they got their lines into triple digits - and that horrible, one-more-go, feeling of desperately trying to do it again?

There's probably a drug reference in there, if I've fully understood the terminology in songs by coolboyz and HBO dramas, but having never done no stuff like that you'll have to... well... I dunno. Drugs, eh? Cool and funny! Ha ha.

And lest we forget that Tetris theme music; as toasted into your brain as that time you fell over a waterfall and had to be rescued by a sweet little octopus.

Also, Nintendo should've released a range of Tetris crockery called "Tetri dishes".

SUPER MARIO LAND 2

Super Mario Land was great, but hardly the prettiest game ever. Indeed, many of those iconic Mario visuals were barely recognisable, so simplified were the graphics. What was that jumping butterfly/grasshopper thing?!

Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins brought SNES-levels of chunkiness to the visuals, a feat which was built upon for the next game in the series, Wario Land. Let's have that in the Game Boy Classic too, dude.

DONKEY KONG

Aside from offering a pretty much perfect recreation of the arcade original's levels, the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong then opens up into another 97 levels, with new gameplay which required Mario to retrieve a key in every level.

Thus, this was a Mario game in all but name, and the climactic stage featured a mutated Donkey Kong - prior to his later rehabilitation following his conviction for human abduction, and a 10-stretch in "monkey prison". He's a damn dirty ape. Or was. People can change, you know. Even primates - or should that be... pri-inmates?!?!

No. Just... don't.

POKEMON RED/BLUE/YELLOW

Before Pokemon became ubiquitous, we had the games which made it ubiquitous. I had the Blue and Yellow editions, which were the only Pokemon games, apart from Snap, Stadium and Go, which I have played at any sort of length. Playing it now, it reveals it was basically a unique take on RPGs - and acted as a gateway drug to gaming for many, including one of my own kids.

And kicked off scores of endless corrections about how you pronounce "Pokemon". I do it wrong, apparently. Who cares? Cheque please.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK'S AWAKENING

Having started life as a port of A Link To The Past, Link's Awakening grew into a game in its own right that stands up alongside its SNES brethren due to its depth and visuals. It also threw side-scrolling sections into the mix - a la Zelda 2 - while introducing jumping, fishing and an ocarina to the series.

"Ocarina later!".

KIRBY'S DREAM LAND

A Nintendo icon who doesn't get the credit he deserves - perhaps because he's a weird marshmallow thing who inhales his antagonists in a way that would get anybody else locked up - Kirby's slower-paced gameplay and bold visual style made it perfect fit for the Game Boy's deservedly maligned screen.

Though designed as a game for people who weren't familiar with platformers (you know: idiots), a hidden bonus hard mode ensured that even more experienced players could get something out of it. If they could overlook the weird marshmallow character who inhaled things.

It's not that big a deal, really. I'm making a fuss over nothing, for some reason.

FACEBALL 2000

This blew my mind at the time - a proper first-person shooter on the Game Boy shouldn't have been possible, but somehow they managed it. It was a port of the shareware PC title Midi Maze, and though it hasn't exactly stood the test of time, it remains a landmark of what was achievable on the Game Boy.

Astonishingly, the link cable allowed 16 people to play simultaneously. Imagine having 16 friends? I struggle to keep up with the half a dozen I do have. Though that's mostly out of choice, because I'm a terrible person, and I go to bed at 8pm most nights.

METROID 2: RETURN OF SAMUS

That it has recently been given a 3DS update should tell you what you need to know about Samus Returns. It offered the same non-linear gameplay as every other title in the series, while also managing to add new weapons and abilities.

Did you know that Samus Arran is actually a lady? Well, I know you know now, but nobody did at the time. Ha ha - you were being emasculated all along!

HARVEST MOON GB

The perfect handheld game, given its gentle gentle measure and cutesy farming, Harvest Moon was the second game in the series, coming out a year after its Super NES predecessor. It worked far better on the Game Boy, for my money, where you could grow your veg on the bus or - as I am wont to do - the lavatory.

"Oh look - a sweet potato! And now for some sweet potato mash... and is that... blood !?! I should probably see a specialist."

MOLE MANIA

Scarcely remembered by anybody, Mole Mania is one of the great lost Shigeru Miyamoto games. Sadly - despite featuring a would-be gaming icons in the form of Muddy Mole and his enemy Farmer Fartigan (Jinbel), and some typically inventive Miyamoto puzzle-based mechanics that ensured it played like a series of Zelda dungeons (Muddy Mole had to roll a ball around the levels, and could use it in a variety of ways to unlock the exit) - it somehow failed to gain an audience.

Has anybody ever seen a mole in real life? We've all seen molehills, but why no moles? What's that all about? Frankly, there's more evidence of the existence of ghosts and zombies than there are moles.

"Doctor, doctor, I've got a large mole on my back."

"No, that's a tenrec, a species of mammal typically found in Madagascar. Yes, I did have to look that up on Wikipedia. Get out of my office, brah."

48 Comments

Ian

18/10/2017 11:36:59 am

I put it to you that Kirby's Pinball Land is superior to the platformer that spawned it.

colincidence link

18/10/2017 08:32:40 pm

correct
Block Ball too (and KDL2)

Chris Wyatt

18/10/2017 11:46:57 pm

+1 for Kirby's Pinball Land! My brother bought it in Florida when we were kids, and me, my brother and my mum obsessed over that game for ages--trying to get the highest score and seeing what crazy dance the Kirby~s would do next.

My brother also had Kirby's Dream Land 2, which I think is a bit more interesting than Kirby's Dream Land 1, and worked really well on the Super Gameboy.

Proper Super Gameboy emulation from Nintendo? That would be nice, but I can't see it ever happening.

Alastair

18/10/2017 11:55:36 am

I caught my doctor consulting Wikipedia about something seen on a scan.

RichardM

18/10/2017 12:50:31 pm

Haha, Doctor Google. It’s not uncommon these days, though: the breadth of medical knowledge is so wide and new stuff arises so quickly that often a Google search is needed. Sometimes for rare or unusual conditions, sometimes for a reminder of best treatment practices or statistics. Doctors would argue that they’re better placed to appraise information from the Internet than members of the public, based on their capacity to weigh it against clinical experience. Whether you believe that or not is another matter!

18/10/2017 03:53:49 pm

Then I caught them entering a typo about something on a scan measuring 20*cm* instead of 20mm.

I think is notice the difference Doc...

DEAN

18/10/2017 12:00:00 pm

After the NES, I love the Gameboy!

The Zelda game is one of best games in the entire series. I certainly preferred it to the SNES one.

And sure, time has not been kind to Mario's 1st GB outing but it has a charm to it that I love it for.

I sincerely hope this happens and I'm actually incredibly curious what kind of screen they'll use if they do.

I'm going to guess that Nintendo will release it with a colour screen and the colourised versions of those games (duh) but with the ability to play them in monochrome... probably with dotmatrix simulation.

I can't imagine them marketing this thing without colour.

Wrist Flapper

19/10/2017 12:39:05 am

I can't be the only one who read that as "dominatrix simulation"...

Porridgepants

19/10/2017 08:25:51 am

No you weren't. Had to do a double take myself

19/10/2017 09:18:24 am

'Wrist Flapper' and 'Porridgepants' - you two!

Money Pig - another tribute for Mistress Nintendo.
Ruined Ending - poor battery life.
Dark Room - no backlight.
Size Queen - Small Screen Humiliation.

I see now it's actually Dot Matrix... It also says Stereo Sound? Can't have... can it?

19/10/2017 09:20:04 am

Oh yeah - with headphones. D'oh!

18/10/2017 12:14:20 pm

Probably my coming-of-age games console. I was a bit young for the NES, but played the hell out of most of the above. Link’s Awakening is of particular note: it is a truly fantastic game, as good as anything else in the series. So many moments of sheer magic... That castle with the monkey, the rapids section, stealing stuff from the shop, the ghost, and so on and so on. Epic stuff. I think I’ll play it again!

19/10/2017 12:09:16 am

I had this one when I was a kid, and whenever I completed it, I'd start again from the beginning. I don't think I ever found all the heart containers, and I spent so long trying to find them all, and tapping every single bit of wall with my sword.

Misspent youth?

19/10/2017 08:31:17 am

You could have been ‘tapping’ your veins with a syringe full of ‘heart containers’ instead, I suppose.

I recall digging up every square of earth in Mabe Village once on a similar errand. Oh, to have all the time in the world again!

19/10/2017 09:09:09 am

Yeah. I'm pretty sure I dug up the whole overworld of Tal Tal Heights as well! Bloody game.

Jareth Smith

18/10/2017 12:16:50 pm

Great to see Mole Mania get a mention, I absolutely loved that game. It arrived, got strong reviews, and then drifted into obscurity. But I love it!

I don't think an N64 Mini would be a good idea, seeing as Rare's games would be missing, and Nintendo's best N64 games should just come to the Switch Virtual Console, so a GB Mini would be more than welcome.

18/10/2017 12:51:55 pm

I’d never heard of Mole Mania, must give it a go... somehow... entirely legally...

18/10/2017 01:08:05 pm

RichardM - I've not played it in ages myself... I believe it made it to the 3DS eShop so there's a legal way to get at that mole as well. No doubt loads of ROMs, too.

Glinthawk

18/10/2017 12:59:16 pm

Tetris 2 would be a better choice purely because of the battery backup that saved your high scores. Other than that it was identical except it had additional game modes too.

Kara Van Park

18/10/2017 01:42:19 pm

I hope they include Ninja Gaiden and Super Mario Land so I can see I can recreate my feat of completing both with one hand. (I had a lot of spare time and no internet back then)

Jol

18/10/2017 03:35:29 pm

At the same time?

18/10/2017 04:10:31 pm

I haven't brought two Game Boys to completion with each hand, no.

Starbuck

19/10/2017 12:07:28 am

Best comment!

Spiney O’Sullivan

18/10/2017 01:48:52 pm

You’re right that Harvest Moon is best played on a handheld. When I sat down to play Back To Nature on PS1, even as a teenager I felt a little like I was wasting my life, but getting Friends of Mineral Town on GameBoy Advance meant that my virtual farm fit around my life, rather than the other way. That’s why it’s my favourite of the series. There’s now a full-fledged Harvest Moon on iOS which isn’t bad. Seeds of Memories is no Friends of Mineral Town (character interactions could be deeper, and the world feels small), but the touch controls are well-implemented.

Also Link’s Awakening DX was my first Zelda, and vies with Wind Waker to be my favourite. It’s a fantastic conversion of the core Zelda gameplay onto the small screen.

Bingo Rose

18/10/2017 01:58:56 pm

"Astonishingly, the link cable allowed 16 people to play simultaneously. Imagine having 16 friends?"

You'd only need 15 friends for 16 player action though. A far more achievable feat!

18/10/2017 11:49:29 pm

But, it's a full-stop, not a semi-colon, so can be interpreted as two completely separate clauses.

Mrtankthreat

18/10/2017 03:49:08 pm

I'm struggling to think of how many ways one could mispronounce Pokemon. It is over-stressing the e or something?

18/10/2017 04:26:19 pm

Not stressing it at all - Poke Mon? As in a game where the objective is to go around poking mons.

S Hawke

18/10/2017 08:27:27 pm

I pronounce Pokemon as Poo Monk

19/10/2017 02:07:43 am

Pokemon pronounciation arguments (Pok-ay-mon vs Pok-eh-mon) always take me back to an episode of SM:TV Live where Ant, Dec and Cat recieved a letter complaining that they weren’t saying the “ay” sounds in Pokemon right. The episode of Pokemon came on, and the characters pronounced it with an “eh” sound, prompting the show to cut back to Dec yelling at the letter writer. Dec did a lot of yelling at children on that show.

(SM:TV was the gold standard for children’s morning entertainment. So many complaints to Ofcom...)

19/10/2017 06:48:02 am

Na. Dick & Dom in Da Bungalow mate.

Meatballs-me-branch-me-do

18/10/2017 04:30:12 pm

Tetris won't be there because Nintendo doesn't have the licence any more. I bought it on the eShop for myself in 2013 for $3.99, when I got my dad a 3DS for Christmas in 2016, it had been removed and now there was some Ubisoft version for $29.99.

Harvest Moon absolutely should NOT be there, because every GB/GBC version was complete cack compared to the SNES original. There is absolutely no good reason for them to have reduced the town to a fucking menu except sheer laziness and contempt for their players.

My two suggestions:
Radar Mission. This combines one of the best expanded versions of Battleship (with astonishing graphics and sound) with a fun, challenging version of Seawolf. It was/is available on the eShop but because Nintendo also has contempt for its players and is lazy, the fantastic two player mode was removed.
The Hunt for Red October. No, listen for a second. The one-player game is a fairly standard side-scroller, except you're a submarine. The boss stages are ludicrous. The real grab here is the two-player mode, which was absolutely stupendous and NOBODY KNEW ABOUT IT. Player 1 controls the ludicrously powerful Red October, which has a big health bar, homing torpedos and rapid-fire unguided torpedoes, and can make itself invisible. Player 2 has a cursor with which they can scroll around the levels and take control of the numerous warships, hydrofoils, attack subs, helicopters and jets, and try to stop Player 1 reaching the end of the level. Each vehicle is unique and some (like the helicopters and jets) are outrageously fun to control. If Player 1 is running deep to avoid your powerful surface weapons, go after them with subs. If they try to creep near the surface using their caterpillar drive to hide from view, use aircraft to drop a sonobuoy and then pound them with homing torpedoes from a warship. Totally brilliant and again, totally forgotten.

shawn

14/9/2018 09:52:27 pm

Playing 2 player game link red october was probably my favorite gaming experiences ever. i'm glad there is another person on the internet that knows about this.

WillSmash

18/10/2017 10:44:03 pm

Mario Tennis was really good fun with two players and worth getting the link cable for alone.

Gargoyle’s Quest was great, and a decent challenge.

Snow Bros was a great arcade conversion with impressive graphics.

PS1Snake

18/10/2017 11:23:22 pm

My first Game Boy was the original purple Game Boy Advance. I can't see myself enjoying games on a monochrome screen in 2017. If a classic Game Boy is truly in the works, it should be - at the very least - a Game Boy Color.

19/10/2017 12:02:11 am

Styled on the original fat one with original Gameboy games, but the ability to play them colour enhanced, would be perfect, but I doubt Nintendo would go to the trouble. Then they could release Gameboy Color, and even Gameboy Advance versions later. Of course, I'd rather they didn't drip feed the Gameboy franchise, but they would probably make more money this way, and appeal to more generations of Gameboy fans.

Suspect

19/10/2017 12:54:10 pm

I never felt the love for the original Gameboy. To me, the monochrome graphics were far too off-putting and basic (even then). Tetris was not my cup of tea either and bored the hell out of me. GBA advance was the first handheld I though to give a great gaming experience that still holds up today (8bit vs 16 bit gameplay and graphics I suppose). I would love a similar remake of it as its games were fabby-doo (Mario World, Castlevania AoS, Advance Wars to name but 3).

18/10/2017 11:58:49 pm

Another of the more obscure gems I'd like to see on there is Bubble Ghost; however, I appreciate that most people will want the most popular games, and I guess Mole Mania is far more likely to end up on there (due to the Miyamoto connection).

Oh! And if they could translate Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru to English and release it on there, I'd probably secrete some kind of sticky residue.

Cyan Rarson link

19/10/2017 09:03:01 am

Being a strange one that loves making games for ancient handhelds in 2017 I'd like to see my games on there, which is pretty unlikely, so, in lieu of that I'd like to add Mercenary Force, Megaman 1 and Lock 'n' Chase on there, why? Because they're greeet!

19/10/2017 09:12:28 am

Assembly programmer?

I made a very simple ZX 48k game recently, and I was tempted to try and port it to Gameboy, as I didn't use much in the way of ROM routines so I thought it might be a fun exercise. Buu-u-uut... been too lazy lately to work on any of my own projects.

There are worse hobbies.

19/10/2017 07:08:00 pm

I'm learning asm currently but my gameboy stuff is using gbdk, c was a good step-down before asm for me mind. Hoping to have a nes game made by end of year though.

Chris Wyatt link

20/10/2017 12:03:33 pm

This is the game I wrote last year:

https://github.com/chriswyatt/znake

It's deliberately simple, as it was my first assembly venture. I can see the appeal of coding for ancient technology, as it forces your code to be efficient. Not many programmers write efficient code now, because they usually don't need to, and readability/maintainability tends to win, so it's a good thing to take an interest in I think.

After this I would like to have a go at a Puyo Puyo style game, but it would be a bit more of a challenge, and I'm lacking motivation lately.

20/10/2017 12:05:31 pm

Your web site looks impressive by the way. I'll try and remember to check it out on the weekend.

20/10/2017 12:30:08 pm

Hey Chris, thanks for the kinds comments! Yeah, ASM coding has changed how I approach my day job coding :) My website is in DIRE need for me to actually spend time on it and move it away from Wordpress to something nice and custom-built Will have a looksy at the spectrum game tonight :)

Col. Asdasd

19/10/2017 09:22:56 am

Hmm. Good suggestions all. What can I add to the list.

Asterix and Obelix - a polished platformer, but the real selling point was the gorgeous soundtrack by Alberto Gonzales. Infogrames no longer exists, but I'm sure in its new guise wearing the skin of Atari it would be more than happy for a revenue opportunity, assuming the owners didn't lose all their licenses down the back of the chais longue somewhere along the way.

Megaman - there were some great Megaman games on the console. There was also the single worst Megaman game ever made, 2 - aptly demonstrating the perils of switching up your outsourcing mid-series to save a little money. These are some tough little bastard games, but not unfair, offering a challenge that was immensely satisfying to beat.

Catrap - Puzzle platformer with a simple concept but a lot of well-crafted levels that wrung the conceit for all its worth. Notable for the rewind feature that made correcting mistakes a trivial convenience, and would not be discovered by other devs for at least a decade.

Mario's Picross - the birth of a puzzle phenomenon. Any Gameboy Classic would be incomplete with out it.

Final Fantasy Legend - aka Makai Toushi SaGa. More a re-branding exercise than a genuine Final Fantasy spin-off, as it was actually he first of the SaGa games under a more marketable guise. It was a good game though - an RPG which saw you visiting all sorts of strange worlds from portals inside the central tower you were trying to climb. There were some pretty unique classes, including one that took on the characteristics of monsters you fought by consuming their flesh. I also appreciated the way much of the story was told through environmental detail over expository dialogue.

Ashlay Jones link

14/5/2019 06:01:11 am

I remember waiting for Super Castlevania 4 to come out on the SNES. It had amazing graphics for the time but after being used to the difficulty of the NES versions, it was way too easy. I beat that game only a few days after getting it, which was a little disappointing. The game was still fun but it wasn’t what I was expecting. Especially considering that all the previous versions were much more difficult.

jaymesilvestri link

17/12/2021 10:33:10 am

Good job friend.
I haven't played everyone games....
But for example games like: marvel heroes, wwf wrestlemania, chopfliter, sonic, rehn and stimpy among others are epic games that aren't in your video, is only a suggestion because i like a lot your video..
greetings from colombia.

Paul Brown link

24/1/2023 04:57:21 am

That's a good list, though some of the choices puzzle me. I found DKC 2 and DKC 3 were both more fun to play than the original. I did expect FFVI to be in the top 5, that seems kind of weird. My personal favorite game of all time is Chrono Trigger, so I would have loved to see that at number 1. But with most people I've talked to that played a lot of snes games, they tend to rank Zelda and Chrono Trigger 1 and 2, so I'm surprised that it is so far down on this list.

10 GAMES THAT SHOULD BE ON THE GAME BOY CLASSIC

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