1989 - Year of the Game Boy

Welcome to 8-Bit Mind! Here, I will discuss retro games from the 8 and 16 bit era, both console and handheld. Some will be ubiquitous classics, others infamous piles of crap, still others hidden gems and forgotten but fun titles. Let us embark on the journey.

Every time I review a game from a new platform, I’m going to first give some commentary on that platform. Here goes.

Hopefully not mirroring the quality of my new blog here, I’m making my first post about the decidedly mediocre Nintendo Game Boy. Mediocre, you say? The system that revolutionized gaming by making it handheld!? Actually, that honor belongs to the deservedly-forgotten 1979 Milton Bradley Microvision (don’t pretend you’ve heard of it before).

Still, the Game Boy was the first console to actually deliver half-way decent portable gaming to the masses. This I will freely acknowledge. But the Game Boy has not aged very well. It’s small, low resolution monochrome display means that even on an emulator the games still feel cramped and lacking in detail. Graphics, of course, do not make the game – witness the enduring popularity of the pixel mess that is most Atari 2600 games – but Game Boy games by and large tried to be NES games, which the system was not quite capable of. The result is decent, even fun games, but games which usually introduce no innovation and are entirely forgettable.

And you could say the Game Boy accomplished its purpose almost flawlessly. With a nearly 10-year lifecycle, it’s one of the longest-surviving consoles in gaming history. And its mediocre library is due not to the fact that Nintendo lacked creativity, but that as primarily a kids’ platform, it was perfectly acceptable for the Game Boy to merely mirror the NES rather than innovate in its own right.

One more note – some of the best Game Boy titles came in series all bearing the word “Land”: Donkey Kong Land, Super Mario Land, and Kirby’s Dream Land. Odd coincidence, or conspiracy? While you figure that out, I’ll begin my first Game Boy review.

Final Rating: 7/10
Final Comment: Though the Game Boy hasn't aged well, its important role in a whole segment of the video game industry can't be ignored. This is its real achievement. A decent number of great titles are the icing on the cake.