Introduction for Run:
After finishing my Nintendo Run to finish all the games I had any experience from my younger days, which was a very fun experience, as well as quite challenging, I thought I would do a similar run for the Game Boy. I guess projects like this is like the Light version of projects like beating ALL the games for a console, like Arnpoly is doing with beating absolutely all the games for the console. While this is not as impressive, this is more bite sized.
I suppose you could also focus on one company, or one genre of games, but just taking on the games you have some kind of memory of works for me. Its recommended. Give you some kind of goal in life, and can be stress relieving. To collect them, play them, experience them again, explore their history and beat them.
My history with the Game Boy
This isn’t going to be a huge climb - for better or worse - as I never actually played that many Game Boy games! I never actually owned a Game Boy as a child around the late 80s. I only borrowed it from a friend, but still remember the games well. It wasn’t that many. Looking through I only recognize and remember 8 games he had. When I got a little older, we got a blue Game Boy, and I remember playing either Pokemon Red or Blue, so it must have been around 1996/1997. I only recognize 8 games here. Many of these I still own, while some I’ve had to re-collect. I also played a couple of Game Boy Color games. I later on bought a Nintendo DS just because of the hype of Scribblenaut around 2009.I also in recent years picked up some games for one reason or another, which I’ll include in the run just to get some more games on the list. As a bonus I also have a couple of other handhold games. In total this is 39 games.
Game Boy List:
1.
Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land 2: "6 Golden Coins"
Super Mario Land 3: Wario
The Amazing Spiderman
Tetris
Bugs Bunny
Ghostbusters II
Motorcross Maniacs
Gargoyle's Quest
5/9
2.
Star Wars
Pokemon Blue
Pokemon Red
The Smurfs
Track Meet
Bad N Rad
Contra: The alien wars
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
WWF Attitude
5/9
Other games picked up:
Tiny Toons
Turtles 1: Fall Of The Footclan
Turtles 2: Back From The Sewers
Links Awakenings
Deja Vu 1
Deja Vu 2
Battletoads
Mega Man 1
Mulan
Pochahontas
10/10
Game Boy Advance:
Super Mario World 2
Looney Toons: Back In Action
Harry Potter Quiddich
1/3
Nintendo DS:
Scribblenaut
999
Mummitrollet og de mystiske hylene
1/3
Handheld:
Ghost House
Donkey Kong 3
Brick Game 7 in 1 (Grey)
Brick Game X in 1 (Blue)
Tiger Electronic Soccer
My Arcade Handheld
1/6
In total:
23/40
You can’t start a Game Boy run with any other game than Super Mario Land!
Its like Super Mario Bros for the NES the game that defined the beginning of the console. The main event launch title for the Game Boy.
Its a neat little game, really and a historic platformer everyone should have played. The Super Mario Land series in general is interesting in the sense that its a lot like the NES series, but still slightly different like if its from a separate Mandela universe. The turtles (koopas) don’t have shells that you can kick around but instead its bombs that explode, the fireflower shooting is like a rubberball that bounces all around the screen (and can even pick up coins), some different unique enemies since you’re not in Mushroom Kingdom but in some Egyptian place called Sarasaland. Its not Bowser who Mario is up against, but some other strange alien-dude called Tatanga (and in later games its Wario), and there’s also a lot of other different bosses along the way, and its not Princess Toadstool but another woman very similar princess named Daisy. The game also has submarine and plane stages like in a Gradius shoot-em-up style. So its like a strange alternative Mario universe, but still so similar you wouldn’t be too far off calling it a loose port of Super Mario Bros.
Have I beaten it before?
I don’t think I beat this one as a child. I remember seeing someone who did beat it. It was very impressive back then, but of course, he owned it and probably played it all the time. I did beat it a couple of years ago when I was looking after a cat at friends house for a couple of weeks. I got to borrow the Game Boy, and I remember beating it.
For this run I managed to beat it the first round, which proves its not a VERY hard game… but it was actually by the hair. I kept messing up on the last boss Tatanga. I had around 10 lives when I got there, but I kept dying and dying and dying and I only had 2 lived when I finally beat him. I was possibly lucky. I don’t think its an easy game. There’s no continues so you have to deal with the lives you can collect. I feel the controls are a little bit clunky. Many of the times I died felt it was because I couldn’t manage to jump. The screen is also a bit small and Mario is microscopic, even if its not a huge problem. It feels a bit clunky sometimes though, although I’m sure there’s way worse examples on the Game Boy. On the flipside it is a lot shorter with only 4 worlds compared to Super Mario Bros for NES that has 7 worlds, and only 3 levels per world and not 4.
You can beat it in 30-40 minutes. Speedrunners do it in 12 minutes.
Never the less its very enjoyable.
Difficulty: 3-4/10 (I would expect it becomes easier and easier each time you play it)
Quality: 9/10
Tiny Toons for Game Boy is similar to Battletoads that it shares both the name and the cover of the NES, so you would perhaps expect a simple port - but NOPE - instead you get a completely different game. (Well, its not entirely true, as the GB game has the undertitle «Babs’ Big Break», but still..)
Tiny Toons for Game Boy was released in 1992 a year after the Nintendo game in 1991. If you see screenshots of both games they look similar as they are both platformers and to a degree feels quite similar when you play it. They both have various worlds with unique bosses at the end, and both games ends in Max Montanas mansion where Max is the last boss.
They still are quite different: In the NES game you’re Buster by default but you may choose one character to help you on each world. You can choose between Plucky, Dizzy or Furrball if you find a magic ball. These are better than Buster since they have their own special abilities, and since Buster don’t it makes you want to switch from Buster the first instance as you can. In the Game Boy version they’ve changed things around and you can instead at any time switch between Buster and two other characters: Plucky and Hampton. However, Plucky and Hampton have no notable special abilities that separates them from Buster making this option quite meaningless. OK. Fair enough, they all have different ways of throwing their fruit projectiles. That could have been integrated better in the game, but in my opinion they have not done that at all. I actually rarely even used the weapons at all as jumping on all the enemies usually was quicker and more convenient almost all the time. All the boss fights seemed to be about jumping on their heads at the right time, and they seemed immune to projectiles.
So you get a weird opposite conclusion:
In the NES version didn’t have any reason to use Buster and the Game Boy version gives you no good reason ever change from him.
Storywise, the plot is far more original in the Game Boy game. The NES game is disappointingly a very unimaginative damsel-in-distress story where Babs is captured by Max Montana and you don’t even get a half-arsed reason for why he did so. The plot in the Game Boy story is quite insane and more in the wild unpredictable spirit of the show, where Babs wants to become an famous actress (even if she already is?) and you have to follow her around the lands and eventually help her not be stopped by Max Montana who wants to buy the theater Babs want to act so she can’t play there. There’s also more elements of story and dialogue and you have to find other bi-characters from the show that usually will help you getting through some obstacle at the end of some levels. For example Dizzy spins you through a mountain, Furrball climbs through some pipes, etc. The Game Boy game has the spirit of the cartoon much more than the NES game arguably.
The NES game is however far more challenging in general. The last world at the mansion in Tiny Toons for NES takes a lot of practice to master, which even makes the NES game a quite hard game. The NES game is quite cynical and sparse with check-points, so often you’re thrown back to the beginning of a very long stage it you die. The Game Boy game is a lot more generous with check-points. You die at the boss of the level and you usually only go back the screen before the boss. The levels also felt a little bit easier in the Game Boy game, though sometimes not as straight-forward and you sometimes have different routes.
The bonus levels with mini games was a nice touch. They were usually a bit hidden, but there’s two. One where you whack rats for points, and another one where you can race three Tiny Toon character. In the NES version there was simply a room where you could exchange carrots for lives. So this was an improvement.
Did I play this before?
This was from the pile of Game Boy games I owned and never played, and threw in the run to make the list a bit more extensive, but I noticed there actually was something vaguely familiar with the game. Especially the part about Dizzy spinning through the mountain, but even more the bonus-game where you can race and choose opponents. So I may have played this once upon a time. (Its possible I’ve just read about in a Nintendo magazine too though.)
As for this run I didn’t expect to beat it the first run and with no continues, but I did. That makes it sound easier than it was though. It was a quite lengthy game, and I felt it was a very fair challenge for what it was, I just somehow scraped through. I found a legal ‘exploit’ in the bonus race game where you can race the bird and you can stock up on an excessive amounts of lives. That made some difference.
All in all Tiny Toons for Game Boy a pretty fun game. If you like Tiny Toons its worth checking out for sure. Gameplay wise I prefer the NES version, as the controls are easier and more fun to play as a platformer, the GB one didn’t even have a run function with the B-button, but the one for Game Boy had a lot more ambition with the story, dialogue and was better to integrate roles for all the bi-characters of the show. If they combined the best of the two games it would have been the perfect Tiny Toon game probably.
Difficulty: 5/10
Quality: 7/10
Super Mario Land 2 «6 Golden Coins» is a big upgrade from the more modest and quite short Super Mario Land 1. SML2 is to SML1 as SMB3 was to SMB1 on Nintendo. In other words, arguably the same game at its core, but just bigger, bolder, better controls, and with a lot more stuff to do.
Most things seem better, although one could argue the first one has its own unique charm. The jump mechanics and controls is lot better here though. No more of the clunky jumping controls where the jump button sometimes wouldn’t work. Mario is also a bigger sprite now which was a good choice as he was a bit microscopic int the first one. The game in general is also larger with a fun overworld with varied zones you can play in any order you want. The game is also unique in that it presents Wario for the first time, and that part is done very memorable. When you see the silhouette of a Mario-ish character on top of the castle its rather creepy and genius. I also really like Wario as a character. He’s much more interesting villain than Bowser.
Reading about Wario I’ve found out he was created a bit out of bitterness because the creator of Super Mario Land probably wanted to make his own game series, but because of Mario’s popularity on the consoles he was destined to work with someone elses characters and worlds. So creating Wario was a symbolism of the project, and a satire of Mario. It was its own character although based on someone elses character. Later on Wario would get his own original series.
The story here is that Mario comes back from Sarasaland in Super Mario Land after defeating Tatange… and meanwhile Wario has hijacked his castle, and cursed the gate. You have to collect 6 golden coins from different zones to release the curse. He will then have to go through the castle and face Wario. (One fresh element is there is no princess or damsel to rescue.)
Did I beat it before?
I clearly remember it from my childhood and possibly magazines, but I never got to play it much. A few years ago I played it at a friends house because I was taking care of their cat for a couple of weeks. I beat both this and Super Mario Land 1. None of them are hard games and can be beaten in a day, or even your first play through.
For the most part Super Mario Land is a very good game. Sometimes mentioned as very overlooked and forgotten compared to other of the classics. Maye. I recommend it except for one thing. SML2 biggest issue is that it is a little bit too easy sometimes. There’s many levels but the big challenge is not there. You’ll also be getting so many extra lives you won’t know to do with them eventually. It also has unlimited continues, save states and is even generous with check points at all stages. This makes things a bit like a walk in the park. An experienced player will breeze through most of the levels. There are two exceptions. Tatanga, the final boss in Super Mario Land 1 is the boss in The Space Zone too, and he’s actually very tricky. I died a lot on him on my first run. The other exception is Warios castle and finally Wario himself. Here they make you go through a long pretty tough level wth many areas and there’s no check points AND you have to take out Wario in three forms. I loved they did that, because the game needed a challenge. It suited having it on the final castle. This saved the game in my opinion.
It has some replayablity because it has a lot of secrets and small quirks too. Sometimes you’ll find secret doors that leads to secret levels on the map, but they didn’t seem to have any point to me. Except to collect coins and powerups perhaps? I beat it 3 times for this run for some reason. Probably because its quite fun. Its a good game and I like it even though a lot of the levels are too easy.
Difficulty: 4
Quality: 9
Another game finished. This time its Motocross Maniacs.
This game like a mix of Excite Bike and RC Pro AM. Just in 2D. Fast action and speed! Nothing complicated, although it may take a little while to master the controls.
Motocross Rally is a game that is a fun and simple little game. There’s 8 levels and you have to get through the levels within a timelimit. To do that you have get through various jumping platforms, loops and other spectacles. There’various types of powerups. Nitro’s [N] works like rockets that shoot you ahead in speed with a bang. You need a lot of them. There’s also the much necessary [T] that is for «Time» and it gives you more time. You’ll need those. The [S] is for Speed and makes your average speed of your bike go a little bit faster. [R] was the one I had no clue what did except it said activated a «Tire» in the menu. Looking it up online it said its for when you drive through the mud you’ll get more friction. There’s also some hidden objects like [JET] which makes your nitro shoot you up in the air so you actually fly. Its less useful than it sounds. There’s also some hidden small clones of your biker that pops up if you do tricks. I still have no idea what they do.
I do really like this game, and found myself playing it a lot after beating it. Its a pick-up-and-play type of game. My only objection to it is that while I felt the controls were great 90% of the time, it sometimes felt like like it didn’t respond for no reason. Which sometimes could make an intense round lost a bit unfair. Its not impossible I cursed like a sailor sometimes because of this. It takes a lot of practice to master the controls.
Did I beat it before:
I remember seeing this and playing it briefly as a child in the late 80s, but just sucking at it. Just falling and falling and falling. When I fired it up again in 2018 for this run I was a bit confused however because I felt like I had played it more recent than that, but I wasn’t sure until my younger sister overheard me play and she said it sounded very familiar by the music. I was like «oh, wait maybe we did have this and I did play it.» She said we did have a compilation cart with this game. So I played this back in 2001 or something maybe. I am not sure if I beat it though. Perhaps some levels on Difficulty A.
This playthrough:
There’s 8 levels, but there’s three difficulty settings. A, B and C. The levels are the same on all difficulties, but the time is shorter making it harder to reach the timelimit.
Getting through the 8 levels on difficulty A is quite a task in itself. You gotta learn the levels and the controls and there’s little room to slip up. It takes your best effort, but its not extremely hard.
When I tried B its quite a crazy raise in difficulty. You had to play almost perfect. Especially in the latter levels a couple of slip ups could ruin your run no matter how well you played it otherwise.
Difficulty C I expected would just be a little harder than B because I couldn’t understand how they could tweak it more. Well, it surpasses my expectations. C is hell. You start with almost no time, and you have to race picture-frame perfect to the next TIME symbol. No slip ups and you have to know how to do everything perfect. It was actually so hard I didn’t expect to beat it. I wondered if would even try. I thought I’d just manage to play through a couple of levels, but for some reason I kept playing. It seemed impossible, but yet after many many tries and practice I got through one after the other eventually.
I think the game is pretty hard, especially if you want to beat it on difficulty C, and the controls occasionally feels unresponsive, but what the game has going for it is pretty fun and even a bit addicting and that evens out the difficulty quite a bit.
Difficulty: A: 5/10 B: 7/10 C: 9/10
Quality: 8/10
Wrestling, good ol' wrestling. I’m not much of a sports guy, but I quite like wrestling for its theatrical style and storytelling. It's something else than normal sports. It's more like theatre than brute competition. I find the mix of fiction and reality in it to be interesting.
The game is quite simple. You have a roster of different characters, and you can play in different modes. Career and Challenge Mode are the main ones, which I found to be quite similar in that you had to beat all the opponents in succession. Then there’s King Of The Ring which is a like a cup-mode. In practice that means 3 or 4 matches. Then there’s Tag Team-mode where you have «two vs two» against each other. You also have the option of a just a single match or just training (where your opponent isn’t doing anything, so you can test the controls.) Finally there’s the Cage Match, which plays a little bit different. Here you have to beat up the other wrestler so much you can climb over the cage. The final match in Challenge mode is a cage fight. To beat the game I’d say Challenge Mode and/or Career Mode are fine. I did them all just to for the heck of it though.
It's a pretty good game. A bit of a button masher at times, but I enjoyed it. The game have a big selection of characters, 20 in total, and they all have their own special moves which are reminiscent of the ones the real characters have. That is very cool. Beyond that the characters play the same, and it seems like their special moves while looking different usually do the same damage. I never prioritized beating the game with different characters for that reason. It would be beating the game 20 times with a different sprite. If they actually made the characters different that would have taken the game to another level. This is not Street Fighter however, a game it makes sense to beat with all the different characters.
My favorite characters of the roster here: Mankind, Golddust, Kane and X-Pac. There’s also wrestlers I had no knowledge of from before here.
It's also quite hilarious to see Sable here, as the token female wrestler. (I thought she was more of a supermodel for the company, but it seems like she did wrestle.)
Did I beat it in the past?
It's possible, but I actually don’t remember. Probably though, as it was in my old collection and I do remember the cage fight which is the final match. At first I did get confused because I remember it differently.
For this run it wasn’t the easiest learning curve getting into the game. Often the opponent would just always get the upper-hand and it seemed difficult to control, and even when I got a better some fights could go both ways. You have to understand the quirks on how to play it and only then can you start to win matches.
I did find a strategy that worked very well for me. I would strategically try to throw the opponent close to the corner turnbuckle, and when he was out I climbed up the turnbuckle and waited before him waking up and splashed down on him, making him lose a lot of health. I often could do it twice if I was lucky, which was sometimes enough to knock him out again. Then I could repeat the process. The closer I could get him to the turnbuckle in the beginning the easier it was to hit him. Often I could drain a lot of damage that way. Almost unfairly much, because there’s nothing the opponent can do. I would also get in a special or two, and he would get weak enough to pin quite quickly. I perfected this strategy quite a bit, and I eventually beat the game in both Challenge Mode and Career Mode on a complete winning streak on the hardest difficulty setting.
Difficulty: 4-5/10
Quality: 7/10
I played the Pokemon games on Game Boy probably in the late 90s, I would estimate around 1998 or 1999. This summer I played it quite intensely. I’m almost positive is it was Blue and not Red. I’m pretty sure I beat it back then too. It's not a terribly hard game. Pokemon is a bit like many RPGs, and a bit tricky to pinpoint in terms of difficulty because they’re often more time-consuming, lengthy and grindy than hard from a skill point of view, but since that often mean you have to put a lot of time and effort into them to complete them they can take a lot out of you. Beating an RPG is an achievement therefore. What I didn’t do back in 1998/1999 was collect all the Pokemon's, but I remember I tried to collect as many as I could (because I remember being pissed off trying to catch Chansey and failing). I’m not sure I knew back then, but there’s no way of getting all Pokemon just by playing only Blue (or only Red).
For those who don’t know the only difference between Pokemon Blue and Red is that there’s like 4-5 Pokemon’s you can only find and evolve in Blue and a same with Red, except that they’re identical as games. (Yellow was released right after, and is also the same game but adjusted a little to follow the animated show). They promoted that you should use trade link cables for trading Pokemon's and you could also do battles with them. So if you want to catch all the Pokemon's for your Pokedex there’s only one way. You need a link cable between two Game Boys playing both Red and Blue. It also means you have to have two Game Boys.
When I got to Pokemon on this journey, I thought, what the hell… why not take the extra mile and challenge myself in actually trying to collect them all. So I got both Red and Blue versions of the game, and bought a link cable. I already had my old Game Boy since I bought a new Game Boy Advance (with backlighting) before starting this run.
Its an extremely tough job to collect them all, and it feels like I’ve spent months playing on and off. You have to actually play the game 3 times. You don’t have to beat it 3 times, but you need to get at least to Celadon City 3 times due to getting a third Eevee, as you need three of them as they can evolve into 3 different Pokemon's and you only get on per game, and Celadon City is half-way through the game.
The game Pokemon then. What can one say, it's a game most people have played and few needs an introduction. Red and Blue (as well as Yellow) is what they call Generation 1, and since its release there’s been constant stream of Pokemon games and animation since. Generation 1 started with these games though. First thing to mention is that they’re pretty large concepts and games for Game Boy, which usually has shorter games. Its a bit odd they weren’t made for NES or SNES instead (or to them as well), because they probably would have had just as much appeal there. It might be the link cable concept that made them Game Boy games exclusively. They were extremely popular games.
Pokemon is about a young trainer («Ash», or you can choose your own name) who is welcomed into a world where Pokemon's live. He meets Professor Oak, who gives you and your rival («Gary», or whatever you call him, its genius as you probably choose a name of someone you dislike) one starter Pokemon each, which you use for fighting other trainers and wild Pokemon's. The goal is to become the best Pokemon trainer, get all the badges from all Pokemon Gyms and eventually go to the Pokemon League win over the best trainers in the world. Meanwhile you explore a world of towns, people, and most importantly meet a lot of Pokemon's which you can fight, catch and use as your own. It is a side goal if you want to catch all the Pokemon's. Many Pokemon's have different abilities and some are stronger against some types, and weaker against others. It's played like a rock-paper-scissor type of thing, where Fire Pokemon's is good against Grass, Water is good against Fire and so on. All Pokemon's can learn different moves, but most importantly they can evolve into stronger types of Pokemon. You have to make your own dream team of Pokemon to thrive.
So thats the game. You collect and train wild Pokemon's, beat a bunch of trainers, get badges at Pokemon Gyms in each cities. There’s also a bunch of items and you can talk and interact with many people. There’s also the storyline of your rival, who seems to always be a step ahead of you, and you bump into him at surprising points. Those battles can be one of the more challenging ones in the game, outside from the gym leaders, as they can come at random when you don’t have healed Pokemon’s and don’t expect it. Other tough points can be the lengthy caves or multileveled buildings where its confusing where to go and wild Pokemon's attack you all the time.
My experience playing Blue was the toughest playthrough, as had to learn the game again. What moves was good, which Pokemon type was strong or weak to others, and so on. Also because while some would play the game just choosing a team of 6 to 8 Pokemon's and getting that team very strong I had to constantly collect ALL new Pokemon's and level them up so much that they would evolve. It meant a lot of extra grinding for levels. I did the game «blind» too, so I didn’t always know which Pokemon's could evolve or how many times, but if I looked at the Pokedex it sometimes revealed itself if they didn’t have an evolution.
The end game was intense, and no, joke, I only beat the Pokemon League by the hair of the dog. One more round and I probably would have lost and failed. It was like a Hollywood movie. The game is pretty fun and addictive. Only bad thing was how time-consuming it was collecting all the Pokemon's, and after catching all the ones in Blue I had to play the game over again in Red to collect the last ones….
While I played Blue on Game Boy, me and my sister played Red on Super Game Boy for the SNES. It was a lengthy process due to difficulty of scheduling when we both had time to play. So it became rarer, and the whole December none of us had time, and that was another reason this project took months to complete. But when there was a new Pokemon I didn’t have I got it transferred over to Blue, and I would usually train and evolve them in Blue.
We did trade two strong Pokemon's from my playthrough in Blue, an Alakazam and a Lapras with some strong moves added to them, Ice Beam and Psybeam (insanely OP moves), and that made the game a lot easier. Since I already knew the game from playing Blue everything was there was also less to figure out, and less experimenting, so it was obviously a lot easier playing through the game the second time. We didn’t have to collect other Pokemon's so the team we got was very overpowered. Beating the Pokemon League (+ your rival) was still tense. The issue was mostly finding time where both could play the game, so it still took a lot of time, but it eventually it was done.
This was the hard part, because there’s a lot to catching all 150 Pokemon's. Especially if you’re not going to do any glitches which I didn’t use.
By playing through Pokemon Blue I got around 124 Pokemon's. In Red there were some exclusives that I traded over to Blue and trained to their evolutions there. Then there’s 4 Pokemon's that only evolves when you trade, and you had to careful to pick the other Fossil Pokemon and Fighting Type Pokemon this time.
Which was the hardest ones to get?
There’s some very rare one’s. Just finding an Electabuzz took so long I wondered if it was even in the game. Its in the Power Plant only in Red, but its also very rare there. It's kind of the same with Magmar in the old building on Cinnabar Island. I just stumbled upon him though.
There’s also Porygon and Scyther which you can buy in the Casino. It takes forever converting money to game coins, but you can do it.
Chansey is infamous to be the impossible one to catch. There’s stories of children in the 90s catching her against all odds becoming the popular kids at school, because everyone needed her for their Pokedex. She’s in the Safari Zone, and thats the problem as she’s extremely rare to come by, and even if you can find her there’s like a 1% chance of catching her. The pro-tip here is to forget about her until you’ve beaten the game. There’s the last cave in Cerulean City, the one where MewTwo resides in. Chancey sometimes show up in here too, and since its not in Safari Zone she’s quite easy to catch. Much recommended to that instead.
Taurus however you can’t find anywhere else in the game. It's actually the real deal. Just as hard find and catch as Chancey. Taurus is only in Safari Zone. This I think is legit the hardest Pokemon to get in Gen 1 legally. What I did was frustrated looking for tips online, and I found a site that had calculated where he was most common in the Safari Zone, and also which methods of catching him that had the best odds. I simply went to that part of the zone and saved, and just reset over and over until I found him and caught him. I was expecting to be be playing for a few days just to catch him. I might have been lucky but it didn’t take me forever with this method. Under an hour with this method, so while it was a huge achievement I expected worse. Kangaskhan was also quite rare and difficult to catch, and so was Dratini, but eventually I got them. Dratini was additionally hard since it has three evolution stages and you have to get to insane levels for it to evolve, but when it does you get the only Dragon Type in the game.
MewTwo then? He wasn’t that difficult. It's actually a piece of cake if you have the Masterball, although I hear it's very hard to catch him without it. You get one Masterball in the game and it makes sense to use it on him. The Snorlax was harder to catch for me, as I had to reset a few times just to get him to stay inside the Pokeballs… The Legendary Birds should be mentioned too. You have to explore a little bit off the beaten track to find them, and they’re high leveled, but you can just save and reset if you fail to get them.
After getting all Pokemon's you can get from Red and Blue, there’s still 4 Pokemon's who only evolves through trading, but that is fine. The bugger is you can only have one of the three starter Pokemon's each game, Charmander, Squirtle or Bulbasaur, so you’re sort of doomed to play a third round to get them and the last Pokemon's evolution. You could of course start a new game and just trade over the last one, and train them up with your old game, but its the Eevee’s thats the issue. It can evolve in 3 different ways depending on what Stone you use on it, and since you only get one in each game and you get it in the middle of the game, you have to beat the game at least 2.5 times. Which is what I did. When I got the third Eevee and the last evolution of the starter Pokemon I could trade them back to Blue and I had 150 Pokemon. I had officially caught them all.
As a bonus I wanted to see if I could catch Mew. He’s not legally catchable in the game, contrary to some myths around a truck, as he was a Pokemon you could only get as an award at Pokemon conferences or similar in the 90s. So you have to rely on a quite infamous glitch as thats the only way. You basically have to confuse the game by fleeing a battle with a trainer by teleporting away from it. Then you have to fight a certain Pokemon trainer with a Slowpoke, and then you gotta go back to the trainer you fled and the game will instead initiate a battle with Mew. It's not too hard if you follow a tutorial online step by step. Very surreal seeing and catching a Mew. He’s a bit slippery to catch still, so have a lot of Pokeballs on you first.
So thats how I ended up with 150 Pokemon, and 151 with Mew.
What do you get for your woes of catching 150 Pokemon's? Well, you get a congratulations from Professor Oak, but you can also go to Celadon and the meta-part of the game where there’s an office where the makers of the game are. There’s a guy there who tells you to come see him if you collect all the Pokemon's. I hoped the game had something cool in store for the extra trouble. What do you get? A diploma.
It's alright. Its something at least, although it would have been so cool if it lead you to a secret VIP part of the game or something. I was curious if something else happened when I got 151, but sadly it didn’t, which was a little bit disappointing. Anyway, not complaining. I’m just happy to have this project done finally! Looking forward to play Game Boy games done in a day or two again..
Difficulty: 7-8/10
Get all the Pokemon's: 10/10
Quality: 9/10
I had this game back in the 90s, if it wasn’t my sister who owned it. I’m not sure I beat The Smurfs although I probably did, as its not a very hard game if you just put some very basic effort in it. Booting it up I noticed it did have a hard setting, so I thought I could at least try to beat it with that since I remember it as a quite easy game. That increased the difficulty quite a bit, and I didn’t feel it was an easy game. Some parts are actually pretty damn tricky!
Just to talk about the concept The Smurfs a bit first. Its based on the animated series and comics that was quite popular in the 80s and 90s. I think it came from Belgium originally. I remember the series best, and its alright, but I was never a huge fan. The series was a little formulaic, meaning most episodes was about the same thing over and over. The
Smurfs is an odd concept though thinking back at it. So smurfs are very small blue people living in a village, and they’re all men except for one, Smurfette? How does that even make sense. The game is pretty good. Its a pretty basic platformer, nothing overtly special, but plays alright and is better than average. You’re playing as a generic smurf, and saving some captured smurfs from some bosses, and ending at Gorgamels house rescuing damsel Smurfette. So no award for originality in the story.
I have to say the biggest thing it has going for it is the music. There’s different tunes for each level, and most of them are pretty damn catchy and atmospheric. It also has some variation in the level design, and some levels are autoscrollers flying on storks or floating on logs, so they’ve put some effort in it not being all the same level, so I’ll give them that. There’s also bonus levels if you collect all 5 stars in a level. On the bonus-levels you can pick up extra lives, health and leaves (10 leaves = 1 extra life).
I think the game’s weakness probably is it balancing. Many levels are incredibly easy, while some are very hard, and I don’t think its done in a gradual way. It seems without reason. Many levels are for example easy, including the last level. I struggled a lot on the Swamp Level due to the vines being slippy, and the sleigh level has some unfair parts, but the worst for me was probably the Dragon boss, which is the second last boss before Gorgamel. Ugh. First time I got there I had over 20 lives, but I simply couldn’t beat it. Cursing like a sailor didn’t help. It's an annoying boss. Second time I managed to finally beat it, but it was probably by luck.
What makes the game considerably easier overall is that it's quite generous in possibility to collect a truckload of lives. Most levels have several extra lives, and the bonus-levels grants you access to many more. When you’re on the collecting up to 30-40 lives you get a lot of attempts.
Last boss Gorgamel is kind of tough as well. It's easy to understand what to do, but you got to do it at a pace its pretty rough to keep up with. If you have enough lives collected you will probably will pull it off though. He’s possibly slower on the Normal or Easy setting. On Hard he’s very quick.
I took a glance at a video playthrough the NES version of the game out of curiosity. It's basically the exact same game. The levels are in a different order and sometimes designed slightly different, but you easily see its the exact same game. Only notable bigger difference is that Gorgamels cat, very strangely located, is its own boss at the end of the Swamp level. In the Game Boy version it's instead located on the floor in Gorgamels house on the bottom floor. It's not a boss here, but could be compared to Big Bertha in Super Mario Bros 3 as its following you on the floor and you have to keep on the higher platforms. Otherwise the game is basically the same.
It's not a terribly original game, but I quite like it.
Difficulty: 5/10 (on level Hard, I estimate 4/10 for Normal and 3/10 on Easy)
Quality: 7/10
I remember having fond memories of The Amazing Spiderman game on the Game Boy. I never had a Game Boy myself in the early 90s, but one of my best friends had one, and even though he wasn’t eager to lend me his Game Boy a lot, at least one time I remember borrowing it, and I played this game a lot. I actually think Spiderman was my favorite game on the Game Boy, so I was curious how it would play so many years later. Especially since I don’t remember hearing too much about it ever after.
Did I beat it as a child?
Nah, there’s 8 levels, but I don’t think I got too many levels in. Perhaps a few.
Experience as an adult:
Been playing this game for some weeks on and off, and it took a while to finally get through it. Not an easy game - even if its not terribly long.
I still think its a great game. Very nostalgic for me. It controls great, satisfying to beat enemies, it has a story with cutscenes with snappy dialogue between Spiderman and his foes (who all seems to kidnap Mary Jane after another), different types of levels, a progression of all the Spiderman bosses on each level, and not least VERY catchy music. While I was playing it I was wondering why I never heard much talk about it, because I think its a very good little gem. Looking at reviews the reaction seemes to be mixed though. Often its the controls people complain about and that is a fair criticism to be fair. When I was a kid I was never sure how to do the high jumps, or how to use the webswinging consistently, it always just happened a bit by accident, and I still surprisingly find those actions pretty tricky to pull off at an accurate rate, and on some of the roof levels those are cruical to have in your fingers. In the bitter end of my later playthroughs I think I almost understood it though, but it could have been more intuitive.
While I like the game a lot, but it is frustrating sometimes. For example your energy gets drained pretty quickly, and there’s a lot of stuff happening on the screen at all times, so on some levels you need to memorize some of t. On the other side dying does NOT make you restart the level, you actually start where you die immidately. Not even after a game over and continue do you have to start over, not even in boss battles do they reset the bosses energy, which is unusual.
Still, the game is pretty hard due to the last two levels especially. It takes a lot of perfection to get through those. The second to last level is a rooftop level and its easy to fall down, so you need to have a good feel for the controls and the spiderslinging and where to expect all the obstacles. Very finnicky, Last level is a sewer level, and its very annoying due to enemies on top of screen shooting at you, plus crocodiles and other stuff going on.
Venom is the of all the bosses, and he is tricky. A worthy final boss. I died on him many times. In my winning round I had simply collected so many lives and saved all my continues I think I basically got him due to damageboosting him enough and not a lot to do with strategy, but I’ll take it.
The Amazing Spiderman is a good game in the end, fun to play, but a little frustrating due to quirks.
Difficulty: 7.5/10
Quality: 8-9/10
I don’t have any prior memories of this game. Like with Mulan it was a blind purchase because I was on vacation in Latvia a couple of years ago. After spending almost an hour finding a retro game shop they didn’t have anything I really wanted, so I bought a couple of Game Boy games just for the sake of buying something. That was Mulan and Pocahontas. Now I’ve finished both of them.
THQ made this game. Thats alarming in itself and I wouldn’t say Pocahontas is a good game. Its a very flawed game, but for what its worth I do sort of acknowledge there are some worthwhile ideas here and traces of a good concept. It could have been a pretty good game, but perhaps not executed to its potential, so it ends up as a mixed result at best.
You play as Pocahontas and while it seems like a platformer at first, you’ll quickly notice its more like a puzzlegame. You don’t fight enemies or anything like that. Its more about getting Pocahontas (and sometimes Meeko) from one location to another, while helping an animal who is trapped along the way. If you click SELECT you can switch over and play as the racoon Meeko, which is mandatory to get ahead. Usually there’s puzzles where you have to use both to help the other getting up a cliff or past an obstacle. Some of the beginning levels has some alright puzzles. It made me think of the games Lost Vikings or Gobliins, but those games are a lot better executed. Pocahontas is more half-baked in comparison.
The big minus with Pocahontas is definitely the platforming parts. Many levels consists of jumping Pocahontas from one branch to another branch to another branch, and the controls are just painful, and the experience tedious if not traumatizing. I constantly fell down and it was a test of my patience because it just felt clumsy. The game is also quite slow, which doesn’t help, so be prepared to spending a lot of time just trying to catch the next branch and instead falling down and having to start over again. And over again. And over again. The controls felt stiff beyond belief.
The later part of the game seems to try to follow the story from the animated movie, but it just ends up feeling awkward, half done and perhaps rushed. The puzzle parts of the game which was at least okay before is now gone and instead the game just felt like an endless stream of very short levels where Pocahontas had to jump branches and mundane tasks. I was wondering when it would end.
Its not a hard game, but the tediousness and the bad controls combined with too many jumping puzzles drained some of the enjoyment for me. I can to some degree say I liked what it could have been. They’d have to have better controls and better puzzles and better integrating with the story. I liked Mulan a little bit more.
Difficulty: 6/10
Quality: 2/10
First Game Boy Advanced game on this list!
This list kind of evolved from games I played in the past to a combination of that and the games I otherwise come to own.
Looney Tunes game was a little nuisance, because when I started this run I bought a used silver Game Boy Advanced SP online. With it there were 3 games included - which I didn’t really ask for nor want - but they didn’t really cost extra so why not? These three games did give me a little dilemma. Since I’m trying to beat all the games I have for Game Boy, should I beat those three games as well now? For some reason I figured «ok, yes», and I added them onto the run.
Did I beat this before?
No, I had never heard of this game before nor read about it so I had no idea what it was before I popped it in.
I expected some kind of 2D action platformer. Instead the game is really more of a story based action-puzzle oriented game shown in a 3D isometric view. Not at all what I expected. The main levels consists of exploring big areas (A casino, Paris + Louvre, safari, maya Indian place) where you are given a special weapon to collect monkeys with. Every level has 12 monkeys, and each monkey is its own journey to find and collect. There’s also enemies, lava and other dangers. These levels takes the longest to get through. The challenge is usually solving some kind of puzzle, often including jumping-puzzles or finding secret areas and so on. I was never actually sure why I was collecting monkeys, but I never questioned it. Perhaps just a wacky idea they ran with. The games ultimate goal was to collect a huge blue diamond and defeat ACME. I presume. To be honest the plot confused me a little.
You can switch between Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny at any point by using the select button. They play similarly but both have some abilities the other don’t have. Daffy can swim in water for example, while Bugs can’t and will die if you try. Bugs Bunny can however use the rabbit-holes which will get you to different areas, and he also have a better flying technique than Daffy. It's possible Daddy was a little bit faster, but I was never certain of that. You need to use both at different times. While playing you’ll meet most of the main cast of the Looney Tunes show, both friends and enemies, and they’re often used in inventive ways I thought.
Mixed with the main stages there’s also mini-games, boss fights and racing games, so it has some variation. I ended up liking the game more and more. The ending did sort of imply if you collect all the money on all stages you’ll get a full ending where Daffy gets to have money to buy his own blockbuster movie. I am not patient enough to do that, and surprisingly no one else has, at least there’s no video on youtube with this full ending, making me wonder if this game is kind of obscure?
I see the games reviews are quite mixed. To be honest my first impressions was quite lukewarm as well, but the game actually grew a lot on me. The game has a lot of humor. A lot of the dialogues here are some of the funniest I’ve seen in a game for a while, and I did sense there’s some work put into the game than just another rushed licensed Looney Tunes game, but it sort of flowers more further into the game after a rocky start. The music and sound effects are also quite alright.
I’ll give it seven out of ten in difficulty. It's not easy and not done in a day. It takes a while playing through a stage, and there’s a lot of trial and error and exploring. You’d think that it saves after each level is a blessing, but if you’ve died a lot and have no continues it saves with that too, so it's better to beat each levels with as few deaths as possible. I’ve played it on and off for quite a couple of weeks. I quite liked the game, but I’m also relieved its over with.
Difficulty: 7/10
Quality: 6/10
I’m sometimes intrigued when hearing about really difficult games. I had a period on the NES where I seeked hard games and even did manage to beat some of those. Like Battletoads, Adventure Island, Ghost N Goblins, Silver Surfer, Mutant Virus, Lolo 3, Starship Hector, etc. I sometimes wonder if there is something of a masochistic streak. Anyway, I was catching a stream by Cinemassacre’s Mike Matei who was playing Mega Man 1 for Game Boy and he said its the hardest Mega Man he had played. I think thats why I bought it. It just made me curious.
Did I play this before?
Never played this one specifically, but Mega Man is one of my favorite game series and I’ve played and beaten Mega Man 2-6 on NES. Mega Man 2 might even be my favorite game on NES, and I’ve beaten that one numerous times over the years. I have come pretty far in Mega Man 1 on NES too, but unfortunately the cart I have is dysfunctional crashed when I was well into the Dr. Wily stages.
Mega Man: Dr Wily’s Revenge for better or worse follows the same formula as the games on the NES. It's more of the same, but it works and its fun. It seems to be based on Mega Man 1, but isn’t the same game. It has only four robot masters from Mega Man 1 with their own individual levels, and then there’s two big end levels at Dr. Wily. At the first Wily stage you have to beat 4 robot masters (from Mega Man 2 oddly when they could have used the remaining ones from the first Mega Man, very strange!) and then there’s a completely new robot master. Enker. On the last Dr Wily level you end up fighting Dr Wily in two forms. Its quite intense to get there and beat him. I did it though. Played the game on and off for over a week. The only welcoming difference (at least for me) is that it is possibly a notch or two more difficult than the games for NES. I remember feeling Mega Man 6 on the NES just being too easy, so I liked very much to get a real challenge.
After playing Looney Tunes and Pocahontas which were puzzle games I had to figure out, it was nice playing something like this. I had a lot of fun with this one, and I’d recommend it for those who like a challenging Mega Man game.
As for difficulty I’m tempted to boast that I’m pretty good at Mega Man games, so while the game might be a 8 (or even a 9) in difficulty for some people I think it was much closer to 7 for me.
Difficulty: 7/10
Quality: 9/10
I bought this for my sister’s birthday some time ago. She’s a fan of the Moomin stories and cartoons, but also the series of interactive games, which has been around for over a decade and we have a bunch of. I'm also quite a fan of Moomin. Most of the games we’ve only played on a computer though. This is the first one I've played for Nintendo DS, and also the first Nintendo DS game in this run (of three in total). I played this in Norwegian (my native language).
Did I beat it before?
Yes, I think I beat it a year or two ago. It can be done in approx an hour. Perhaps a little longer. I didn't time my playthrough.
The story is about life in Moomin Valley where the peace is being disturbed by some mysterious howls nobody knows where comes from or what is. Your quest is to help Moomin to figure out what the howls are about and to help Snork build a flying ship so you can go find out what the sounds are. Different well known characters like Snufkin, Little My, Hemulen and others around the Valley that has tasks in the shape of mini-games you need to complete. If you complete them, they’ll give you some part you need for the ship. Like an anchor, a steeringwheel, a map, etc.
You also need to fix the motor of the ship, which includes two mini-games. If you manage to do all that you’ll get to see what the mysterious howls are, and there’s a last mini-game to complete there too. Its clearly meant for someone far younger than me, but its charming for what it is. I thought.
This is the kind of game I’d normally say, hey its meant for 9 year olds so its super easy and can be beaten in an hour. That should qualify as 1 in difficulty. Well, I’ve raised it because there’s a «Simon Says» type of thing here that makes you have to remember up to 20 sounds in chronological order, and that fried my mind. I’ll increase it to 3 just for that alone! I also think the last part at the end to be a bit of a hassle. Perhaps its for children, but I think children needs to practice a bit. Same with Stinky’s challenge where you have to find animals according to their sounds before he does. Its not a walk in the park and you have to concentrate a little and keep your face straight! Other quests are gimme-puzzles though.
I think my favorite in the series of the Moomin games is the game where you have to find the old wizards red rubin. This one is a charming little game too though.
Difficulty: 3/10
Quality: 5/10
