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chuckroI made a comment on Talking Time that there were basically only three Game Boy Color games (Zelda Oracle of Seasons/Ages and Wario Land 3) that weren’t either remakes or remade later and were actually worth your time.
As I kinda hoped, I received a recommendations list in return, and I gave a number of them a try:
• Metal Gear Solid (Ghost Babel) – This seems pretty decent as a top-down stealth game; I just hate stealth games. Was this the first game in that series?
• Shantae – I had tried this a little when I learned it existed a few years ago. It’s…pretty rough. The platforming elements feel a little more manageable for the era coming off of Wario Land, but the hitbox for Shantae’s hair-swing is still questionable and the platforming is iffy. I own the other three games in the series and I’d much more strongly recommend those.
• Mario Golf – It actually does seem pretty decent for a golf game; the mechanics are a little obtuse but entirely playable. You have to like golf games, though.
• Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble — This was a gyroscope-controlled game, and I don’t think I have any way to emulate it. I’m kind of disappointed by that.
• Blaster Master Overdrive – Feels, to its credit, just like the NES Blaster Master! I don’t know how well I’d say it holds up or how distinct it feels from that, though. The Zelda and Wario games I found memorable, even though they’re heavily influenced by the Game Boy installments that came before them, feel distinct and full of their own ideas. Maybe I’m not a big enough Blaster Master fan, but this doesn’t feel any different from the original to me.
• Bionic Commando: Elite Forces – Similarly, this feels like a solid NES sequel. I never really loved the mechanics of Bionic Commando. (I’m kinda lousy at swinging; I’d rather just jump; and not being able to shoot up or down is a major hindrance.) I appreciate the addition of a female commando and the controls feel a little smoother than I remember from the original.
• Dragon Warrior Monsters – It’s slow, has the Game Boy rpg clunkiness, and seems dependent on crawling randomly-generated dungeon levels fighting random battles to catch monsters…but I can see what they’re doing and why it would appeal. It’s a “tappy game” before such things really existed.
• Mega Man Xtreme 2 — Apparently set in the Mega Man X universe (I’m not really up on the chronology and tie-ins), this does seem like a pretty solid Mega Man game, featuring a wall-jump that makes the platforming significantly more interesting and relatively little unpleasant knockback.
• Toki Tori — A cute, slow-moving puzzle-platformer. Apparently there's a faithful remake, so this doesn’t actually meet my criteria.
• Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite! — This is a clever little adventure game. The main hook is that your actions are limited to what words you've learned, so you have to learn new words from others to do new actions. That said, it’s hobbled by slow controls and less pick-up-and-play than you really want from a portable game of this style.
• Pokémon Puzzle Challenge — This is a match-3 game (upwards crawling screen, emphasis on chain reactions) that is apparently reskinned Puzzle League/Panel de Pon. I don’t have the knack for it without practice but definitely see the appeal.
Overall: Nothing in this list really made me change my opinion of the “half-generation” of games that was the Game Boy Color, though there are definitely things here that might appeal to other people. I’m going to drift back to my slow replay of SNES and GBA games.
As I kinda hoped, I received a recommendations list in return, and I gave a number of them a try:
• Metal Gear Solid (Ghost Babel) – This seems pretty decent as a top-down stealth game; I just hate stealth games. Was this the first game in that series?
• Shantae – I had tried this a little when I learned it existed a few years ago. It’s…pretty rough. The platforming elements feel a little more manageable for the era coming off of Wario Land, but the hitbox for Shantae’s hair-swing is still questionable and the platforming is iffy. I own the other three games in the series and I’d much more strongly recommend those.
• Mario Golf – It actually does seem pretty decent for a golf game; the mechanics are a little obtuse but entirely playable. You have to like golf games, though.
• Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble — This was a gyroscope-controlled game, and I don’t think I have any way to emulate it. I’m kind of disappointed by that.
• Blaster Master Overdrive – Feels, to its credit, just like the NES Blaster Master! I don’t know how well I’d say it holds up or how distinct it feels from that, though. The Zelda and Wario games I found memorable, even though they’re heavily influenced by the Game Boy installments that came before them, feel distinct and full of their own ideas. Maybe I’m not a big enough Blaster Master fan, but this doesn’t feel any different from the original to me.
• Bionic Commando: Elite Forces – Similarly, this feels like a solid NES sequel. I never really loved the mechanics of Bionic Commando. (I’m kinda lousy at swinging; I’d rather just jump; and not being able to shoot up or down is a major hindrance.) I appreciate the addition of a female commando and the controls feel a little smoother than I remember from the original.
• Dragon Warrior Monsters – It’s slow, has the Game Boy rpg clunkiness, and seems dependent on crawling randomly-generated dungeon levels fighting random battles to catch monsters…but I can see what they’re doing and why it would appeal. It’s a “tappy game” before such things really existed.
• Mega Man Xtreme 2 — Apparently set in the Mega Man X universe (I’m not really up on the chronology and tie-ins), this does seem like a pretty solid Mega Man game, featuring a wall-jump that makes the platforming significantly more interesting and relatively little unpleasant knockback.
• Toki Tori — A cute, slow-moving puzzle-platformer. Apparently there's a faithful remake, so this doesn’t actually meet my criteria.
• Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite! — This is a clever little adventure game. The main hook is that your actions are limited to what words you've learned, so you have to learn new words from others to do new actions. That said, it’s hobbled by slow controls and less pick-up-and-play than you really want from a portable game of this style.
• Pokémon Puzzle Challenge — This is a match-3 game (upwards crawling screen, emphasis on chain reactions) that is apparently reskinned Puzzle League/Panel de Pon. I don’t have the knack for it without practice but definitely see the appeal.
Overall: Nothing in this list really made me change my opinion of the “half-generation” of games that was the Game Boy Color, though there are definitely things here that might appeal to other people. I’m going to drift back to my slow replay of SNES and GBA games.
