Gaming History #1: Did Nintendo made the only handheld?

Alright, this article is a part of the GB(C) month. In this very first article of “Gaming History”, I’ll take a look at the history of a game, company, console or a series. I can also take a look at certain events or beta’s. Anyways, for the theme of this month, I thought it would be interesting to look at the competition of the Gameboy and Gameboy Color and why Nintendo ultimately won the battle for handhelds. I tried have the most correct information as I could, but if I do made a mistake, feel free to tell me in the comments. Anyways, let’s dive right into the competition of the gameboy and gameboy color. I’m quite excited to talk about this myself. 

 2nd generation

Let’s be clear for a moment. When I talk about handhelds in this article, most of the time I mean gaming handhelds. PDA’s and such, I take out of the picture for this article. Anyways, the first handhelds we see in the second generation. While some sources told me that the Game & Watch was first, I didn’t believe it.

I looked further until I found the first handheld ever made. Mattel was a few years before Nintendo. The Game & Watch was released in 1980, while Mattel released their handhelds in 1976. The first handheld I found was Mattel Auto Race.

But why did the Game & Watch win over Mattel? The Game & Watch had something that I don’t see at the early Mattel handhelds. All the graphics of the G&W are pre-printed on the screen. This makes the device, according to me, last longer. Not only that, it was cheaper to produce, so it was a cheaper product… I think you can easily fill in the rest.

Atari Lynx

While it’s quite possible to talk hours upon hours about the history of handhelds, for sake of having a bite-sized article, let’s talk about a competitor that were also on the market when the Gameboy or Gameboy Color was.

this handheld was released in the same year that the gameboy was released. The year was 1989. Now, why did this handheld failed against the Gameboy? According to me, it’s the design. Just look at the device. It doesn’t look like it would be great to play on. The placement of the speaker is the issue.

According to some research, the gameboy won from the Lynx because of the price and battery life. Who knew that a green-ish and black display would do wonders like that?

Tetris?

When Tetris was developed, Russia was still known as Soviet Russia. So, the original creator of the puzzle game needed to give the intellectual rights to Mother Russia. A few companies fought over the rights. Nintendo was one. Temco as well. Both released a version on the NES. Because Temco couldn’t release it officially, they released it on a black reproduction cartridge.

How does that relate to history of the gameboy? Believe it or not, this game outsold Pokémon. It’s the most sold game on the system. It sold around 40 million units. It was even a launch title.

The documentaries I watched about the gameboy actually told a lot about this. If you want to know more about the history of Tetris, I highly recommend reading up on it.

The wrap-up

I know that this article is extremely short. But since this is an experiment I want to know if you guys like these sort of articles. If that’s the case, I might write more articles like this.

I hope you enjoyed reading a little bit about the history of the gameboy. I enjoyed writing it for you guys. Take care, have a nice holiday period and until the next article!

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First Impression: Tarzan (GBC) ~ Hide and SEEK.

IGN entry

So, one day on a garage sale, I saw this game. Since one of the very first games I ever played was Tarzan on the PC, I had to have this. I enjoyed this game quite a lot. And now, after all those years, I still have the same cartridge and the instruction booklet. I’m quite happy that I still have it since I have fond memories of it. Now, I have never finished this game since I couldn’t get passed the tiger battle as a kid. That’s why I’m writing a first impression. Anyways, enough stalling, let’s dive right into this game and let’s take a look at it. As usual, feel free to leave a comment on the game and or the content of this article. 

Collect-a-banana gameplay.

The story in this game is amazing. They made it work on the Gameboy Color! They follow the movie quite perfect. The levels and stages are designed around some amazing scenes of the movie. As a kid, I watched that movie a lot.

While the characters don’t have a lot of development in the game, I still enjoyed this story quite a lot. I’m so glad that they know what the gameboy color was capable of doing.

The game is surprisingly longer then you would think. This game consists out of 23 stages. Which is quite long for a movie game. It’s actually quite good too. This game is a platformer, but not in your traditional sense. You need to collect a certain amount of banana’s before you can advance to the next stage. The amount of banana’s you need to collect are shown when you start the level.

You don’t always play as Tarzan, there are levels as Tuck… but…

The bad things.

… There is barely any variation between the characters. They all play the same. Apart from Tuck’s hitbox being slightly bigger then Tarzan’s.

While the controls are really solid, the jump animation is a bit broken. Sometimes the jumps, well, don’t work. You can’t grab a ledge you see clearly in front of you or you clip right through the edge.

I don’t know it was my copy or not, but the sound was messed up. The music had like a missing line of melody. The noise it added was rather annoying.

A disappointment was that you couldn’t multiplayer the hide and seek mode. You had to pass your gameboy to your friend after you had hidden one of the characters. That was a major let down for me. Thankfully, this allowed me to play this game with my sister. Since we only had one copy of the game back then.

Another annoyance is that the checkpoints aren’t clearly indicated. Suddenly, you get shown that you reached a checkpoint, but it looked like a usual ledge or platform to me at first. Also, if i remember correctly, once taken is always taken.

Oh, don’t get me started on the password system. It’s quite creative by using symbols but why do they have a password system in place for this game? There were games like the Legend of Zelda who showed that they can make a saving system work on the Gameboy color!

 Is it bad?

So, I have talked about most of the things this game does wrong. But it isn’t that bad. Thankfully, this game has some other good things. The animation blew my mind, and it still does today. What Disney displays here, is just amazing. The game feels tense and nice.

Looking at it now, you could argue that this game has the problem of design over gameplay. I mentioned earlier that some jumps didn’t work correctly. I think the culprit is that the animation is too good.

The difficulty curve is just perfect. While some parts might be a bit unforgiving, I don’t think that is such a bad thing. Do you seriously expect games from that age to be forgiving.

Visually, this game is nice to look at. The game is sometimes a maze… Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that a map would be nice. But at the other hand, I understand why there isn’t a map. Since you play inside the jungle, which is unmapped terrain in the first place. Also, Tarzan doesn’t know the whole jungle like the back of his hand.

Another thing I forgot to mention is how you go to the next level. As soon as you got all the required banana’s you don’t go to the next level automatically, you have to find your partner. He is hidden in sometimes a hard to reach area. This tests your knowledge of the level and you have to use all your skills.

What I don’t understand, and I can’t test it since I don’t have one, is that this game supports the Gameboy Printer. Yes, you can make images and print them. This is wasted potential in my eyes.

Before I wrap up this article, I think I should talk a bit more about the controls. Since there isn’t any tutorial, I liked it that you can find out what each button does on your own. But, as soon as you play, you will understand that this isn’t the best choice. You’ll have to play that in order to understand it. Otherwise I ruined each surprise.

Anyways, let’s wrap up this first impression here. I almost wanted to start the conclusion as I was writing a review. But I haven’t beaten this game, so I can’t write a review. Anyways, I think this game deserves a play. It isn’t perfect, but it’s good. It isn’t polished, but it’s fun.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article. I wish you happy holidays and I look forward to seeing you guys soon. Since the Gameboy and Gameboy Color month will still go in January. I had a way more busy time then I expected, so I couldn’t write enough articles as I wanted for this theme. That’s why I decided that. But anyways~ Take care!

Gamer’s Diary #5: One time special!

Since I want to do something special this month, I decided to get my old series “game diary” back for one time. To avoid that only there are only reviews and first impressions from a given console or handheld. Anyways, enough introduction and reason why I bring the series back for this one time. In this article you will find a story where 20 game titles are hidden. Do you know enough games to find them all? If there are more then ten, feel free to tell me. The solution is underneath the story. To avoid spoiling yourself, I made the text white. This way you have to scroll over it to reveal it. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this one. Good luck and have fun! To avoid confusion, I used the Wikipedia lists of all titles on the gameboy and gameboy color. I also hid 10 titles of each handheld. Oh, and before I forget, let me know in the comments how many you got and or some feedback on this article. 

 Gameboy part

 Hello there, I was just trying to find some worms in my backyard for a biology project. It’s kinda gross, I know. But we are going to study how fish react to them. I’m quite disappointed that I had to cancel my tennis training. Otherwise I wouldn’t had enough time.

I could be lazy and go to the animal breeder in the alleyway, but what’s the fun of that? I like to find other insects like centipedes to scare the living hell out of my sister.

Before I forget, the guy who owns the animal shop has like a monopoly on animals in my town. I thought Chinese people only played Mahjong. Stereotypical, I know. I prefer card games more myself honestly. My dad, who is a fire fighter, is more of a chessmaster. But he is on in a meeting now in Shangai.

Gameboy Color part

Hello there, my name is Laura. I might not be able to make a 720* on my skateboard, but I do some basic tricks. I don’t like to go to VIP parties since, I’m never invited. They think I’m a nerd because I like to play backgammon with my family.

Oh well, that’s their problem. They are like running animals, not a chicken run … but more running ants. Annoying but useful sometimes.

Look who we have there, my dad is home from his job as a deer hunter. He has a big gift for mom. I have a déjà vu. Didn’t he do the same thing last week? I shouldn’t care too much about that, otherwise bad thoughts will spawn in my head.

Solution

Gameboy part

• Worms
• Backyard
• Tennis
• Animal Breeder
• Alleyway
• Centipede
• Monopoly
• Mahjong
• Chessmaster
• Shangai

Gameboy Color part

• Laura
• 720°
• VIP
• Backgammon
• Chicken Run
• Antz
• Deer Hunter
• Gift
• Déjà Vu
• Spawn

Final thoughts

First of all, this should be released last weekend, but I was busy and such. Sorry for the delay. I know it’s shorter then the other entries but I’m so busy but I wanted to make sure that it got released.

It’s a difficult game, isn’t it? I wouldn’t be surprised if you barely found any title in the story. That’s because you shouldn’t pick generic titles. Then you don’t stand out, then you blend in a story so nicely.

Anyways, thanks for reading and hopefully you enjoyed reading it. I also hope to see you another time here on my blog. (Also, this was an exclusive article on my blog, not reblogged on other partner sites)

Gamer’s Thoughts: 10 facts about the gameboy and gameboy color

Let’s do something different, not a review or a first impression. Let’s not talk about the game music or something along those lines. In this article I want to talk about the history of the gameboy and gameboy color and maybe some facts you didn’t know about yet. So, this is an experimental article. It would help me if you guys left a comment about the content and subject of this article. Let’s begin. 

Gameboy

1) Kirby’s color is white?

Did you know, that Kirby’s first appearance in the west was actually white? The reason for that is when Nintendo USA got the code for the game in order to translate, they didn’t mention that Kirby was pink. Because his first installment was on the gameboy, it was unclear which color he had. That’s why Nintendo decided to give him a white color.

Also, there are some rumors of Kirby’s name. It might have to do with a story of a lawyer that defended Nintendo when Universal Studio’s sued Nintendo for copyright infringement on their Donkey Kong license. But that’s only a rumor… right?

2) A calculator as inspiration.

Gunpei Yokoi was sitting on the train when he saw a business man playing around on his calculator. You know that stuff you did back in class? Turning the numbers upside down to try and spell out words? It didn’t take long before your dirty mind took over and you turned the number “80085” upside down.

So, that’s what gave Gunpei the inspiration to make the gameboy with the RD&1 of Nintendo. Sadly enough, the creator of the gameboy has passed away in a car accident a few years ago.

He got a few awards under his belt, but to me he will always be remember as the creator of the gameboy :)!

3) The Gameboy Advance SP wasn’t the first back-lit gameboy.

Remember those painful days when you had to have a lamp on to play the gameboy? When you couldn’t play it under your sheets easily because the gameboy didn’t had a light-up screen?

Well, the successor, the gameboy pocket got a second release in Japan. The gameboy light was actually the solution to the issue. Strangely enough, the device only stayed in Japan. In the USA and Europe we got all sorts of crazy attachments that barely worked.

What’s an every bigger mystery is why they didn’t include this feature in the gameboy color. Yes, we had to wait until the gameboy advance SP until we had backlit gameboy screens. What a shame actually. But hey, it was fun trying to hide the gameboy and put out the lights at night to avoid your parents busting in…. Just don’t forget you lower your volume.

 4) The gameboy wasn’t the first Nintendo handheld

So, this relates to my 2nd point about the calculator. When Gunpei started to design the first handheld game for Nintendo, he developed the Game & Watch series.

The Game & Watch series are now a big collector item. It’s even believed that some Game & Watch systems gave the inspiration to the Nintendo DS’s design.

Well, more on Game & Watch devices later.

5) Samsung sold it!

Around the time the WO II ended, Korea actually banned products made in Japan. Which meant that the Gameboy was banned. But that didn’t stop from being sold in Korea.

Samsung Korea actually sold the gameboy under another name, called the “Comboy”. It’s not the only system that Samsung sold. I know that they sell a version of the DS as well, so I wouldn’t be surprised that they helped to sell the whole gameboy line in Korea. But notice that’s I’m doubting since I don’t know for certain.

Gameboy Color

1) The SNES gameboy “port”

Back in the day, you could play Gameboy games on your TV using the Super Gameboy. You can even play with the color.

But strangely enough, the Super Gameboy couldn’t run Gameboy Color games. The SNES would be strong enough to run those games and it has color for sure.

We had to wait until the GameCube before we would be able to play these games legally on a big screen.

2) Trivia

The Gameboy color is the only system in the Gameboy series that has clear cartrigdes.

The colors in the name of the Gameboy color stand for each different color the gameboy color was originally released in.

And final part of trivia, all black gameboy cartridges are enhanced to be in color on the gameboy color!

3) Pokemon Crystal, two versions?

The most popular game on the Gameboy Color was Pokémon Gold & Silver. But strangly enough, Pokémon Crystal got two releases. I discovered this when I found out that I had two Pokémon Crystal cartridges.

When I saw the area code, somehow a “-1″ was printed on it. After I researched it, it turns out that there was a v1.1 released. There is barely anything known what is patched. But hey, time to hunt a copy down for your collection!

4) Wireless.

If you thought that you needed to use cables when it came to connecting two gameboy colors, think again. Some games actually used the infrared port on top of the gameboy.

I never used it as a kid, but it’s interesting to learn more about. Since according to my research, it was the first handheld that had wireless communication.

5) Motion Control before it was cool.

Oh, and it wasn’t the only first. Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble was the first motion controlled game. It’s a sort of maze / Super Monkey Ball-ish game.

It actually worked with tilting the gameboy around. I haven’t played it, but I have seen video’s about it. It made me want to grab a copy of it. Since you can’t have the same experience with these kind of games on an emulator.

Final thoughts

So, that was the article I wanted to release last week. But, I was busy and tired, so I moved it to this week. I hope you enjoyed reading about the gameboy and gameboy color. If you knew all these ten facts, I hope it was a nice refresher.

I enjoyed writing this, did you enjoy reading it? Anyways, I hope to see you another time. Thanks for reading.

Review: The Legend of Zelda – Links Awakening (DX) (GB/C) ~ Where is the color?!

Wikipedia entry

One of my first Zelda games was the Oracle Of Ages game. When I finished the game and saw that the game was going to be continued in Oracle of Seasons, I hunted for a copy on garage sales like a mad-man. One time, I found this game instead of Oracle of Seasons. I started to play it, and I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t own the remake in cartridge form, since I have it on my 3DS as an eShop title. Anyway, let’s keep this introduction short, I want to review this game. As always, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on the game and or my article.

Where is the color?!

I found this image on it’s Wikipedia page. When the game first released, it was in typical gray-white Game Boy graphics. Honestly, I didn’t care. But since there was a fan outrage, Nintendo remade this game with color and an extra dungeon. Apart from that, it’s as good as the same game. So, that’s why I combined both games into one review.

Let’s first talk about the story. Since this game doesn’t take place in Hyrule. You are Link, traveling home from a long day at work…? If I tell why, I spoil parts of another game, so yeah. Joking aside, Link is caught in a storm and is shipwrecked on an island.

This story doesn’t really feel like a Zelda story. The final parts of the game doesn’t help either. This game has a very lighthearted story that doesn’t take itself seriously. And you know what, it’s a nice break from always saving the world and killing Ganon.

Yet, in terms of writing, I have one complaint. The text when you find the compass in a dungeon gets annoying quickly. It talks about the new feature it has. That you hear a sound when a key is hidden in that room. Sweet update, but why do you need to see that each and every dungeon?

You might already know that there are various Mario references in this game. I’m honestly on the fence about it. While I feel that adds to the personality of this game, on the other hand, I feel like it makes the game look unoriginal and at those places and part recycled.

DX TIME

The gameplay of this game was groundbreaking for the series. For the first time ever in a Zelda game, you could have two different items on the A and B button. This made for some interesting puzzles. So you would think, actually almost all those puzzles are solved with the Pegasus Boots and another item. But hey, it was their first attempt, so it’s a nitpick.

Before I forget to mention it, there is something that feels extremely out of place in a Zelda game, and that are power-ups. Yes, you read it right. There are power-ups in this game. Sometimes an enemy drops a power up that gives you a temp attack or defense boost. This is extremely out of place for a Zelda game in my opinion.

Apart from that, I have no big complaints in terms of the gameplay. It’s your typical Zelda fare. Go from dungeon to dungeon, while defeating the boss. In the DX version, there is an additional color dungeon. The puzzle to get to it is quite nice. But the dungeon in itself is quite short, and I beat it on my first try.

The difficulty of this game is not so well done. While some bosses can be annoyingly difficult, some bosses are really easy. Also, the reward in the color dungeon is just overpowered. I won’t spoil it, but my advice is that you beat it near the end of the game.

This game also has a side quest. Since it’s the first time you had side quests in the Zelda series, you need to do a part in order to advance.

Other elements

 Earlier, I already talked about some parts of this game’s design. Some enemies are recycled from other series. But overall, the design and animation of this game is really well done. They made a portable Zelda game have the Zelda vibe the console games have.

Both the black and white and the color version both have their charms, so DX isn’t the better looking game because it has color. Honestly, if you dive deeper into the story than what’s just presented on screen, the black and white theme is actually more fitting.

The music for this game is just 8bit-gameboy-chiptune glory. Sometimes I can’t get a tune from this game out of my head. It’s that good in my opinion.

Oh, before I forget, you can also be a thief in this game. But if you steal from the village’s shop… Never go back in or your name will be permanently changed to thief.

Lengthwise, this game is actually quite long for a Game Boy game. It has 8 dungeons before the final boss. The whole world is quite big, and it’s worth exploring. Since the controls are just perfect for the Game Boy.

One thing that annoyed me too is that there isn’t a way to gain more than 1 rupee at a time. Apart from treasure chests, the enemies only drop one rupee. Which I can understand because you don’t have color, but couldn’t they do anything with the size of the sprite…?

Anyway, I think it’s time to go to the conclusion of this review. I think I said everything I wanted to say about this game. Let’s just warp this one up!

Conclusion

The bad:

– The text for the compass.

– Recycled enemies.

– No more than one rupee.

– The colorless version is a let-down for some people.

The good:

+ The game looks good.

+ Great soundtrack.

+ Silly, yet entertaining story.

+ Great controls.

+ Nice gameplay.

Final thoughts:

This might be my least favorite portable Zelda game, but it’s not a bad game. Not at all. I agree that this game has some flaws, like the recycled enemies, but it doesn’t ruin the game. Also, this game did some things that are now a staple in the Zelda series!

So, that were my thoughts on this game. I hope you enjoyed reading them. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 80/100.

Game Music: My Favorites – Numbero 11: GB(C) month special.

Let’s start off with an article that last month’s theme lacked. An article about video game music. In this series, I take a look at my favorite game tracks. I can’t pick one track as my favorite and since I want to talk about so many tracks, I started this series. This time I want to talk about my favorite tracks of some gameboy (color) games. Keep in mind that these are my favorite tracks and they might differ from yours. Also, this isn’t a top 10 or anything like that. So, don’t be mad if your favorite track isn’t in this article. Man, I’m sounding now like I’m introducing the wrong type of article and trying to make the introduction longer. I’m totally not doing that, believe me. Okay? Anyways, the rules are simple. Only one track of a game per article. Oh, and feel free to leave a comment on the tracks, content of this article and or your opinion of the soundtracks of the GB(C) games. 

#1: Pokémon Blue & Red (GB) ~ Battle Theme

Link to my review – Link to the music

Who doesn’t remember the good old gym leader theme of Pokémon Red & Blue? As a kid I was always pumped whenever I heard this melody pop-up. I wanted to defeat that gym leader.

Whenever I hear this melody, I get hyped. I know that something big is coming that has to do with Pokémon.

I even remember that I sometimes let my gameboy play just hear this song. Since it’s the only way I can hear it “clean”. What I mean by that is that near the end of almost every version of YouTube, Pokémon battle sounds start playing.

But hey, it’s still a memorable and nice track to listen too!

#2: The Legend Of Zelda – Oracle Of Ages (GBC) ~ Nayru’s Song

Review – Link to the music (extended)

There are two songs that makes me sometimes tear up of nostalgia in the Zelda series. One of these songs is Nayru’s song. The reason why is because it’s the first puzzle I solved in my favorite Zelda game. It was the start of a thrilling adventure I never forgot.

As a kid I didn’t have a console or a good PC. So, I played a lot on my gameboy. So, that’s why my love for the gameboy games is so big. While I don’t remember if this was my first Zelda game or the NES remake on the GBA, but it was one of the first.

It was also a different game then I used to play. Different from the pure puzzle games and platformer games. Yeah, the memories.

#3: Super Mario Land (GB) ~ Overworld

Link to the song

The hate this game gets is just… Well, it’s mixed for me. At one side,  I understand how this game is a mediocre Mario game compared to the other Mario games. It isn’t in color, it’s outside the Mushroom Kingdom, the story is about another princess, the fireballs bounce, you can’t save…

At the other hand, it’s the Mario game I grew up with. It’s the first Mario game I ever played. Even when I played the NES game at my cousin’s house, I found that the NES game wasn’t as much fun as Super Mario Land. Something didn’t click with me.

Wow, I got sidetracked extremely fast. But the memories behind this game are just too big. Maybe I should write an article about it…?

#4: Tetris DX (GB/C) ~ Type A

Link to the music

So, I got a gameboy color… And what’s the first game I get myself? That’s right! Tetris DX! Why? Because my grandmom got a Gameboy color herself.

In this gaming nostalgia article, I talked about how my aunt’s brick, I mean oldschool gameboy died. The only two games I could play on there were Pac-Man and Tetris. So, when I saw this, I wanted to play Tetris again.

I have multiple stories about this game, but this game is the sole reason why the Tetris theme is so memorable to me. It’s one of the biggest tunes in gaming is it not?

#5: Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets (GBC) ~ Main Theme

Link to the music

I was a kid right when the Harry Potter craze was in full swing. Besides Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Ho, Harry Potter was extremely popular with the kids.

While this game was also made on the PC and several other consoles, I played the Gameboy Color version. I didn’t have any fancy consoles or the game on PC.

But I enjoyed myself. I had both games, from the first movie and the second movie. The reason why I picked this track is because I had a hard time finding the music of the first game of the gameboy version. And this popped right up in my search results.

Closing words

As I feared, this article turned into a sort of gaming nostalgia article. When it comes to gameboy and gameboy color games I always want to talk about more then just the music. I hope you can forgive me for that.

So, till Christmas, I will write a few articles of gameboy and gameboy color games. I’m going to try to do my best to not be overly nostalgic like in this article. It’s for that reason why I kept this article shorter then my usual articles.

I hope you enjoyed reading it! Hopefully I can see you another time here on my blog for a new article. Take care guys~

Game Nostalgia #5: My Gameboy Retrospective

So, in the last article of this series, I talked about my history with the DS and 3DS. So, I think that it’s now time to talk about my memories with the gameboy series. While I’m supposed to talk only about the Gameboy Advance, since it’s this month’s theme, the article wouldn’t be as long as it should be. That’s why I decided to write a whole article about my memories of all the Gameboy’s I got. That way you have an idea of my journey through the world of gaming, since I mostly only played on the gameboy. That and my hobby of writing was my childhood. So, prepare yourself for a personal story. Feel free to leave yours in the comments or your opinions on my story.

Exploding start

The first gameboy I played on wasn’t actually mine. It was my aunt’s. She only had Pac-Man and Tetris. Somehow my young mind didn’t need anything more. It were my first real encounters with gaming, but I was hooked. I used to play games like DuckHunt or Mario Bros. at my nephew’s place, but those moments were then far and few between.

One day, I was at my aunt’s place and I stopped playing since the back of the gameboy started to feel hot. A few moments after I put it down, the batteries actually exploded, damaging the gameboy heavily. That was a big shocker. I didn’t know what to do. My aunt wasn’t even mad, since it wasn’t my fault. It turned out that there was a flaw with the batteries we used, and it leaked battery acid into the system. Yeah.

That story was my earliest memory with a gameboy. A bit later, my aunt started to take me to her babysitting job. At that place, they also had a gameboy and more then one game. I remember it well, it were two girls, two sisters. While they were doing their girl things, I was allowed to play on the gameboy. My love grew and grew even stronger.

I already talked about how awesome my family is. When they saw that I was so much in love with the Gameboy, they actually got me a gameboy. Not only was it the latest model, they got it in my favorite color! To this day, I still own that very silver gameboy pocket. I was so happy, I had my own gameboy. I did jobs around the house to be able to buy new batteries for the gameboy. Then they got me rechargeable batteries, and my life was complete.

Garage sales

I never showed my latest garage sale loot here on my blog. Whoops.

In my childhood, we had this tradition to go to the sea on holiday. Man, always to the same house. I used to look forward to it every single year. Sadly enough, the owners of the house sold it, and the tradition is over now.

But back then, they used to take me to garage sales. So, as a young kid, they asked me to wake up early in the morning in the summer holidays. I honestly didn’t care one bit. Since I was allowed to buy games.

My family didn’t want that I bought a lot of games, now-a-days that’s a very different story, since they were so expensive. A garage sale was such an easy solution. The best thing they did was that they let me roam the garage sales on my own with a notebook and a pen. They said that I could write down the games I wanted and then I had the difficult job to decide which one I wanted.

To this very day, I love to wake up early and go to a garage sale. Every year, I go to around 10 garage sales, if not more. I never go alone, since that would ruin part of the fun for me. The nostalgia of hunting down games, which were pretty rare on the garage sales I went too, is just amazing. The moment a family member bumped me in the arm and pointed to a game, I think they loved to see that sparkle in my eyes of happiness.

Typical me is typical

Garage sales memories are for another article. I was extremely attached to my games. I was always hard to pick games I had to sell. I had to sell a few games before I was allowed to buy new games. Now-a-days, I don’t have that restriction anymore.

One time I forgot my gameboy at a restaurant and I begged my mother to turn back and get it. I even begged that they called the restaurant so that nobody could pick up my gameboy and claim it.

Later, my gameboy pocket became my sister’s gameboy and I got a gameboy color. Then my sister got a purple gameboy advance and I got a silver gameboy advance SP, the one with the tattoo design on it.

To this very day, I still own most of the games I had back then. Of course, my library of games has grown quite a lot. If only I had the library I had back then, the nights I kept playing on my gameboy would be so much more fun. I remember that I had a lamp you needed to hit a button at the top in order to the lights go out. Since my room was at the end of a hallway, I could hear my parents and a simple slap on the lamp and putting the gameboy screen down, gave the illusion of my sleeping.

My parents knew that I was playing the gameboy under my sheets, but they were never able to catch my red handed. Okay, honestly, they were able a few times but usually, I was always able to dodge the bullet.

I could talk hours about my memories of the gameboy days, but I think I will end my article here. Since I have reached my usual length. I hope you enjoyed reading another special entry in the gameboy advance month. While it isn’t fully about the GBA, I hope you don’t mind that much.

Thanks again for reading and until another article. Also, don’t shit your pants but it’s Halloween.

Review #012: Aladdin (GB) ~ Terribleness on the go.

GameFaq’s Link

I have a cousin who I went to each Saturday. One day he lend me DuckTales on the gameboy, which was a great blast. But I do remember one game that he lend too with it. A game so bad, I’m not even going to finish it before I write a review of it. This game on the SNES isn’t that bad, but the gameboy version is terrible. I got this game from a friend, when she didn’t want to keep her gameboy games anymore. I was so happy that I got new free games. But when I saw this cartrigde, I wish I could cry right there on the playground. Man, bad memories of this game. I’m even putting on a sad face while writing this review. Sadly enough, this game is playing next to me on my SuperGameboy and my SNES. It’s already clear that I’ll rip this game a new one, but how bad is it actually? Let’s dive right into Aladdin, without a magic carpet to save our ass. 

Flawed or bad?

Some games might have a few flaws. Or just have some things not polish. But this game is a joke. Let’s start analysing this insult of Virgin Interactive by looking at the options.

The difficulty levels are not what you expect from a normal game. Easy is practice and hard is difficult. Yes, I kid you not, the screen says literally “difficult”. Signs for a great game. Also they feel the need to be special and or grammatically correct. Somewhat. The options for the music and sound are displayed as follows:

“Music is: ON”

“Sound FX are: ON”

Why? These “is” and “are” aren’t doing the game any good. It’s silly and just lines of code lost for the actual game. And they could have used it. Oh yeah, a minor annoyance is that you can’t scroll back that the difficulty menu. But that’s nitpicky me.

So, let’s move on with this review by pressing the B button to get out of the options menu. Wait, it’s one of those games. You need to go to “exit” to go back to the main screen. Oh yeah, “exit” instead of “return”. Whoopsiedasy.

The gameplay, my god, the gameplay.

In the name of all the holy and good cartrigdes, be happy that I played this joke for you so that I can warn you about this game. First of all, this adventure and platform game suffers from one major flaw that is also quite visible from the menu. There isn’t a save or load option. This is the kind of game that could have benefited from this feature. Like the first Super Mario Land on the gameboy, this is one of the games you have to play in one sitting. And that isn’t good at all for a handheld game. No, since usually you play these kind of games on the bus or at the doctor’s office. So, you wish you could save.

The controls are weird at best. But at the start of the game, you don’t have any guide or nothing to explain you how this game works. Let me give you one hint. Press the select button at the start of the first level so you don’t waste any apples. Yup, they start you with an attack that is limited. And without giving you a slight hint that you can press select to switch weapons, the game gets annoying really soon.

While I do realize that I ranted about game tutorials more holding your hands these days, this game should have had at least an easier first part. The very first part of this game is filled with all sorts of things. You barely get time to get used to the game mechanics or the controls. You are expected to play this one with already knowing every sort of enemy or hazard.

I just noticed this too, while writing this review, I have to pause the game and then write a bit. And the pause screen actually kindly reminds you that the game is paused with displaying a “PAUSED!” message at the bottom left of your screen. How lovely that they think we are stupid people. Just like the enemy AI in this game. I could stand in visible range of an enemy and it kept just standing there. How lovely. Also, some enemies seem to have a very special attack pattern. The one the animators gave them. And your goal is to be faster then the animation.

All the apples of the nopes. 

For a Gameboy game, the flaws don’t stop there. The music is the next victim of my critic-ing. And it’s terrible. The menu music is true to the movie. But the music in game is just a loop of a 1-2 minutes melody and it gets annoying and repetitive extremely quick. And there is no way to go in game to the option menu to put it off. They forgot to program that in I suppose.

The first camel you pass in the game, which can be used as a mini-trampoline, actually spits out knives from it’s mouth. This happens after you see an enemy cheat by walking over hot coals. Which is actually a black puddle on your screen. That brings us to the graphics. They are bland. Somethings even don’t represent that they are supposed to be. The apples look like bombs. And who dies of apples, except from chocking on them, anyways?

Also, the attacking of enemies is flawed. Their melee attack reaches further then yours. Which means that you need to use your valuable apples to take no damage. And believe me, you are going to need that health since it’s so rare to find a health pick up. In addition to that, you don’t get explained what the power ups do. One of the first power ups I came across is one that wipes out all enemies on screen. And guess what, there was only one enemy on screen. ONE, for NOPE’s sake, ONE!

Oh, and what’s up with the jumping? You can’t attack when you are in the air. In addition to that, when you fall from a platform, you are locked vertically. So, if you see a vase dropping down on you, it’s damage you can’t avoid. Oh yeah, cheap game. Very cheap. But lucky me, the damage doesn’t get taken since the animation was still playing of Aladdin getting up after the fall. And this ended after the vase actually hit me. Oh joy.

Also, what did I say from the AI before? Further in the first level, I was able to get an enemy in attack mode without even the ability to hit me. Wait, why isn’t it coming closer to me then? Oh yeah, movie game. That explains a lot. So I destroyed this enemy with my rock apples. Which brings me to another complaint. There is no clear indication which weapon you have selected. You just need to guess or to press the attack button to know that.

The decent animations of the characters are ruined by the white outline around them. Which makes those very clear, but not the places where you can and can’t jump on. Since this game isn’t so linear, this is another issue.

And then my copy decided to freeze. Which it often does. So, end of this review! On to the conclusion.

Conclusion

The good:

+ Follows the movie story quite well.

+ It’s exists for reviewers to rip apart when they need to review a bad game.

The bad:

– Terrible AI.

– Lacking save and load feature.

– Bland graphics.

– Annoying music.

– Major flaws in the controls.

– Too steep of a learning curve.

– Nothing of the game gets explained.

– Bland sound effects and some parts could use sound effects.

– Difficult even on easy.

– …

My advise

When you are a Gameboy collector, get this game. But let it gather dust. As a hobby gameboy gamer, don’t even spend money on this title. You’ll regret it for sure. There aren’t many games I don’t finish for a review but this is one of them. I had trouble finding good points to defend this game.

This was a promising game though, but the lack of so many things and screwed up basics make this game a shouting fest for adventure and platform gamers. I forgot to mention a few things in my review like the sound and the enemy always being able to hit you first, but it’s clear that this game has more flaw then Swish cheese has holes.

And if you would excuse me, I need to play better games now to finish up other reviews of actually good games. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave in the comments what your experience is with the game.

Score: 27 / 100

Review: Pokémon Blue/Red/Yellow (GB) ~ Good old days

Wikipedia entry

It’s the year 2000. Pokémon is extremely popular and the first game for on the Game Boy is about to reach store shelves. And critics praised it as one of the best games for the system. And it was a launch game. As a child, I played this game an awful lot. Not understanding a word from what they were saying, but I continued on. My basic English comes from this game. But let’s review it now. Has this game given me some nostalgia goggles? Will I rate this game high because it has childhood memories, or will I rip it to pieces now that I’m older? Well, let’s take a look into the cult classic Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow for a proper review.

Shouting everywhere.

While writing this review, the game is running on the TV next to me. Thanks to the Super Game Boy and my trusty SNES. But what I noticed is that many things are shouted. Like “TEAM ROCKET” or any attack name. Image Pokémon like this in real life, each time something important is used, you have to shout it out loud.

What’s Pokémon about? Well, your goal is that you capture monsters living in the wild, train them to become stronger and so defeating the elite 4. On your journey you need to defeat the eight gym leaders to prove you are worthy to challenge the elite 4.

This concept is great and works extremely well. But in your journey you will have to fight the bad guys named Team Rocket and stop their evil plans. The plot, while basic, is great. It doesn’t go too deep, and it’s great for a kid’s game like this. It’s understandable for the younger audience. At the end, there is also a plot twist. But I’m not going to spoil it since I’m quite sure most of you readers know what I’m talking about.

So, with a good story, let’s move on to the graphical side of things. The graphics of this game are great and not that great at the same time. While it surely looks pretty on the Game Boy limited hardware, some sprites for your own Pokémon look bad. Take for example Metapod, he looks kinda scary when you use him as a Pokémon.

A battle of sounds

So, I said that the graphics look good? Yes, the caves look cave-y. The forests look forest-y. But it doesn’t do anything special. In the sequel, the graphics are way better, but there it’s improved for better hardware.

I can’t be too harsh on the graphics. The artwork and the design of the game follows the anime series extremely well and surely make you feel like you were actually travelling alongside Ash. Especially when you played Pokémon Yellow, where Pikachu walked behind you. You were able to click on him for seeing his mood in a small animation.

There is a nice use of animations in the game as well. For the more powerful attacks, the screen can flash and or shake. But some effects have minor issues. For example, when your Pokémon is at low health, the sound effects and the music are having a sort of battle in terms of which sound-effect is allowed to play.

Let’s talk about the music and sound-effects. They are top-notch. The music is melodic and sets the tone just right for any situation. Each track might just be around a minute or two long, but it rarely gets old. I even like to play the music when I’m on the road. And when the music plays, I truly can image being on a bike or on the sea.

The sound-effects are doing what good sound-effects are supposed to do. Draw you into the gameplay even more. The let you know if an item is used, when your Pokémon is getting attacked and so on and on. And the library of sound-effects is pretty expansive since all the 151 different Pokémon have their very own tune.

Walking and more walking

Okay, we all know the complaint that psychic Pokémon were overpowered in the first generation. But the different Pokémon types are such an amazing addition to the gameplay. It truly makes you think in which Pokémon you are going to take in your party.

Pokémon is set up in such a way that it’s extremely replayable. You can set up yourself many challenges like the Nutzlocke challenge. (Releasing a Pokémon when it fainted and other rules) or trying to catch all the Pokémon.

But you can only do that when you have a friend with the other version of the game. Which worked for friends to have some incredible trades and battles. If I remember correctly, one or two Pokémon only evolved when you traded them, but that could have been in later generations tough.

Is this game perfect, well no. There are some issues with this game I think bring this classic down. For starters, something I don’t see a lot on other reviews is that the characters are so bland. No one of the characters really gets depth nor explained. They are just there. And congrats to the writers making such an amazing tale with such “empty shells” of characters.

Another thing is that some Pokémon spam one status attack. Like attacks that make you sleep or steal health. It’s frustrating seeing this happen over and over again.

The inventory is a mess. Items are everywhere. Lucky for us, in the sequels they have addressed this issue and improved upon it.

Also, this game has hands down, the strangest glitches I have ever seen in a Game Boy game. And there are a lot of them. Many glitches I wished were patched.

So, I’m going to leave it here for Pokémon. Let’s get on to the conclusion.

Conclusion

The good:

+ Nice tale.

+ Epic world.

+ Quite lengthy.

+ Highly replayable.

+ Memorable music and sounds.

+ Amazing gameplay.

The bad:

– Sound issues.

– Glitches.

– “Empty Shell” characters.

– Spamming of one attack.

My verdict:

You can’t escape the fact that this Pokémon game is pretty amazing. While it has its flaws, it still is able to keep up a certain charm. It isn’t old, and it will never be. Thanks to the various improvements of the sequels and later entries, this game looks dated.

Yet this game stays fun for picking up memories. It’s an easy RPG, and it’s fun with the capital F. So, play it now and enjoy it.

And that’s everything I wanted to say about this game. I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.

Score: 90/100