I’ve just rediscovered my childhood Gameboys, I grew up in the 90s and had an original, a color, an advance and an sp. My game collection has whittled down over the year to the usual suspects, Pokemons, Zelda’s, Mario’s and some other standards. But I want to dive into some games that 7 year old me would have brushed over. So what’s your favorite game?
I was also going to say MMBN, but since that’s been said, I’ll say Golden Sun. Loved both of those games to death.
Breath of Fire 1 and 2 are also great (although technically SNES ports).
Golden Sun is my all-time favorite! I wish I could relive the thill I felt for the first and second games
Same here! They made a DS one as a third installment, but the story leaves off in the middle, and the sense of awe just isn’t there. Not the same anyway as 1&2. Especially 2, when you [SPOILER] play the “bad” guys
Buncha youngins with your GBAs.
My favourite OG gameboy game was Kirby’s Dream Land. Played and replayed it many times. Even had one of those attachments to magnify it and light up the screen when it got dark :)
I highly recommend Pleasant Dreams: The Welcoming Play of Kirby’s Dream Land. I got it in one of the mega Itch.io charity bundles and was intrigued. It was the highlight of the bundle for me, unexpectedly.
I’d never played Kirby’s Dream Land, but I loaded it up the next chance I got, and Couture nailed it. It’s an absolutely perfect introduction to gaming for non-gamers.
Ooh thanks for pointing it out. Looks like I have it from a bundle too, haha. I will give it a read.
I remember the day I got my worm light for the gbc. Everyone was peasants.
I still have mine! Found it the other day
The Megaman Battle Network series on GBA is awesome. Replayed a few of them last year and they are still great.
Do you know if the Steam remake was any good?
I have not played the steam remakes, but they appear to be the exact same games. So that would be a good way to play them if you don’t have the original games or ROMs for them.
I particularly liked 5 with it’s turn based tactics “liberation” mechanic. I think the first is a little clunky but 2-5 are phenomenal games.
I know you mentioned Zelda, but there were actually a ton of pretty good Zelda games like Oracle of Ages/Seasons. Advance Wars was pretty fun. Golden Sun too. I also have to agree with MMBN from the other commenters.
Oracle of ages/seasons was waaaay too hard. I tried to play it as a kid, got stuck, and gave up very early on. As an adult, I decided to come back to it just to see what I missed out on. Still had to check guides a few times and abused save states.
I can’t remember the details, but there was some kinds puzzle or something that depended on sound and my adult, hearing impaired self could not complete it without save states galore.
I had a frickin blast playing golden sun such a fun game!!!
If I could wipe one game from my mind just to replay it, it would be the golden sun series. That’s stayed easily in my top five for almost twenty years now. 90% sure the kolima forest music was even the first mp3 I ever downloaded. Also the first game I ever saw where at least some of the actions you took made a difference to the overall world. If you don’t care enough to save anyone, they canonically just die.
Never sleep on Wario land
The non-pokemon ones I played the most were:
DMG: Kirby’s Dreamland 2
GBC: Shante
GBA: Drilldozer
Platformers to me always felt like the best suited games to handheld games, and I love the bright colorful art styles. Drilldozer is definitely my all time favorite. If you can find a copy, I’d highly recommend it! The rumble pack cartridge is so cool.
Tetris change my mind
First video game I ever played
If you’re playing Gameboy specifically, and not including Advanced, then I played a ton of Marble Madness. I never beat it, but it is pretty fun physics-y platformer.
If you are including Advanced, then Metroid Fusion is a classic. Atmospheric, and beautiful sprite work. Genuinely scary in parts, and leads right into Dread if you like the gameplay.
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Oh, true. Nice fast game. Kickin soundtrack, slick as butter gameplay.
I will never not shill advance wars 1 and 2 Great gameplay, great artstyle, great everyting
Metroid II is one of my favorite games of all time.
Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge and Operation C are both highly polished and fun, but quite challenging.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan is a relatively easy, short, polished action game.
Kirby’s Dream Land is my favorite game in the series. And if you think it’s too easy, turn on Extra Game mode. It will wreck you, I promise. ;)
Ninja Gaiden Shadow and Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge are amazingly polished challenging but fair action games.
Every game I mentioned has excellent music, is an original game (not a port), and I have played in their entirety again and again throughout the years.
Let me know if you’re looking for a genre other than an action game. XD
I played thru Kirby about 3 times I. A road trip from California to Texas so I’ll go with that
Metroid II: Samus Returns & Gargoyles Quest (such a bloody hard game) on the OG GameBoy were my favs. I played a lot of *Battletoads *on it too but that game was so bloody frustratingly difficult, especially for a kid, so played it mostly out of spite to get past the stupid brain ball chasing you level. Also loved Parodius (parody side scrolling SHUMP from Konami) but never owned it, so borrowed it from friends to play. Naturally I also played Tetris to the point that the music still haunts my dreams. There was also a pretty decent Spider-Man game for it, but can’t remember it’s name & it’s not showing up on lists.
The OG GB also had a lot of bog awful licensed property (movie/tv/cartoon) tie in games too, as well as generally terrible releases. To see them all, check this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_games
I unfortunately never owned an Advance, so only got into games on it later via official emulators (the Wii U control pad was the best GB Advance out there), so got to play Golden Sun later but enjoyed it as a fairly unique take on the J-RPG genre. The releases of Breath of Fire 1 & 2 on the Advance was also a great thing, since they were my favourite SNES games.
For GBA games, here’s a list but so many shitty licensed games there too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Advance_games
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I prefer it to the sequels on the DS.
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