This one isn’t that great. The only good western handheld release was the colourised one on the GB collections, EU only, and the only great game is the final Game Boy Color one, Dynamites Arawaru.
HG101 (old site) has a reasonable summary:
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I never even saw one in the flesh before.
I pulled out my Pocket on the weekend and the ghosting is so so bad, I couldn’t justify buying a Gameboy Light if it’s just the same thing.
I actually play GB games on a GBC in the black and white mode. The pixel layout is perfect but a bit denser, and the refresh rate is fast enough to never have any smearing issues. I’m sure there are games out there that look better on the original green and yellow display, but I never owned the first GB so I have a bit less nostalgia for it - even though the big brick form factor is so much cooler.
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Nice. I’m gonna buy DK 94 and have a go at it. The battery died on my cart and this is a perfect game to have digitally on the 3DS.
Annual reminder Hamtaro Ham-Ham Heartbreak and Ham-Hams Unite are fantastic adventure games worth a play.
I had one temporarily - returned it because the electroluminescent light was flickering really badly at times and the unit would randomly shut off. I found the Pocket to be a nicer design, the Light is a weird halfway house between Pocket and Color.
Thanks for the refresher - it was Dynamites Arawaru that I was thinking of, which isn’t on any VC. Will keep my eyes peeled for a cart.
I’d forgotten about the batteries. First played DK 94 on VC back in 2011, then revisited it again on cart on GB Pocket in 2018 - but my save has been zapped already!
This brings back memories, I remember loving Ham-Ham Heartbreak when it released, there wasn’t any other games on the GBA like it and I remember the spritework and backgrounds impressing me. Is Ham-Hams Unite a similar affair but for the GBC?
Alphadream’s olympics-themed Ham Ham Games on GBA was a let-down!
Yes, Unite is similar but for the GBC. It’s a smaller game but the puzzles are a bit more engaging I think. Pixel art is even better, too.
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Finished Balloon Kid! I’m surprised this game isn’t talked about much, because it’s fantastic, taking the general conceit of balloon fight to new heights.
The game controls as you’d expect but this time, pressing B makes your balloons fly away - plummeting you to your doom. But play on for a bit more and you realise the main hook of the game is the introduction of landing areas throughout the autoscrolling levels. Your ground-based character has completely different physics, and to be airborne again you can either jump up to your drifting balloons (this is hard) or pump up some new ones by furiously bashing down on the D-Pad.
The game’s eight levels take this idea to use it to the fullest. At first you’re traversing open woods, and then the open sea, but once you get to the inside of a shark’s belly, or the inside of a cramped igloo, you’re really forced to master both methods of transport as well as switching quickly between them in the presence of enemies and the game’s four boss fights. Each new location brings with it new airborne challenges, too, such as falling icicles to avoid or rainstorms.
If you dig Balloon Fight I can’t recommend this game enough, it’s another well executed Game Boy rethink. And Hip Tanaka’s soundtrack is just wonderful - makes the whole game feel like an adventure.
On a side note, I did also buy off the eShop the Japan-exclusive rerelease of Nintendo Power Cartridge game, Balloon Fight GB. Don’t bother - it’s Balloon Kid with ugly colour adaptation (you can tell the original 1990 graphics just weren’t designed for GBC colour palettes), the only other differences being save points between stages and a world map that contains those stages. 1990 Balloon Kid is the one to play.
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Love your reviews and screen shots! I should probably just snag lots of these for my 3DS, lol. Why not just have all these super simple but well made retro classics on my device?
I… never knew this game existed 0_0
I started Jaleco’s Fortified Zone today (aka Ikari no Yousai, predecessor to Operation Logic Bomb on SNES). I’ll write more when I finish it, but what’s really cool is its music visualiser “Sound Boy” mode on the title screen in place of a typical sound test.
Also had no idea it was composed by Tsukasa Tawada, I loved his work for Genius Sonority on the likes of Pokémon Colosseum and other games.
Cheers! Yeah, I’d forgotten how much stuff is actually playable on the 3DS - you can get practically every Zelda game on there, even Four Swords Anniversary edition when it released, every Wario Land is there etc.
But what’s really cool is how GB Virtual Console focused on some of the smaller games, having stuff like Catrap and Fortified Zone available is very cool.
It’s taken me this long to give it a go - don’t pass it up. Nintendo R&D1 goodness.
Finished Jaleco’s Ikari no Yousai/Fortified Zone! It’s somewhat fascinating playing this after its successor Operation Logic Bomb, since the series originated on the Game Boy and you can see the groundwork being laid for that game.
The game’s a top down shooter, and each of the four levels feel almost a bit like Zelda dungeons because of the per-room scrolling layout and the use of keys and light puzzle-solving. The main gimmick is being able to switch between two characters - Masato and Mizuki. Masato has a secondary weapon, Mizuki moves faster and jump over traps.
While it’s certainly fun to play through, you get the impression the game isn’t quite reaching its full potential. There are some cool weapons like the flamethrower, but none of them are really necessary to beat the game, and the enemies and boss fights don’t put up enough of a challenge to compensate for the rather generous health and ammo drops.
The level design develops a lot throughout the course of the game, starting off as empty square rooms and evolving into something more involved. There’s rooms that are pitch black, rooms with moving floors, rooms with devices that reverse your movement controls. But again - nothing particularly challenging when the enemies aren’t posing much of a threat while you’re exploring.
Operation Logic Bomb on SNES addressed all of these issues, but before it Jaleco did release one more Game Boy followup: Ikari no Yousai 2, a Japan-only release. Managed to nab that one off the Japanese eShop, hopefully it’s a more well rounded challenge like its successor!
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That’s a wrap for Ikari no Yousai 2! I found it to be much improved over its predecessor. Health pickups are now finite and fixed to a small number of locations throughout each level, rather than as random drops from enemies, and the enemy designs are more fierce and deadly.
The level design picks up straight off the back of Fortified Zone, which is a Very Good Thing. Levels are multi-floored, screen-by-screen scrolling dungeons, and you often have to check the map and test your spatial awareness skills to figure out where you’re meant to head next. There was one obtuse moment where I spent half an hour backtracking through the final level, turns out I was meant to destroy two tiles to the bottom right here:
Wasn’t obvious considering where I thought I was meant to be going, so do keep that in mind if you play it. But I highly recommend it all the same, especially if you’re a fan of its SNES followup, Operation Logic Bomb (I know @DaveLong played through it again a few months ago - check this out if you haven’t 
)
I’m now intrigued by game designer/director Tomoji Omotani’s other works at Jaleco, like Super Ninja-kun. Anyone know if that’s any good? The only Jajamaru game I’ve played is Hamster’s 3DS revival.
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It’s so good, still have my original copy from back in the day. Kinda awful cover art.
One reason it has less traction may be no regular Japanese GB release. A colour version was released on a Japanese flashcart service (called a Nintendo Power Cartridge, essentially the GB version of Disk System kiosks). It was also released as a Hello Kitty game on Famicom by Sanrio.
Yeah, I was surprised to find that it skipped Japan originally. I did grab that version of the game off Japanese 3DS VC but I wish I didn’t bother! It’s a disappointing GBC rerelease. Thought the added colour palette detracted from the original visuals which clearly weren’t made for colour, and everything else (world map, save system) felt superfluous.
Been playing some Bomberman GB 3 over the past few days, did one world. I’m really impressed by this game’s design, the levels were compact and to-the-point, each one introducing a new mechanic that’s deftly explored. It looks great, too, even this little capsule redemption screen has button prompt descriptions at the bottom since you can get a description with start or select.
Like most colourised games. Including Link’s Awakening, the sprites were just not made for colour. Metroid II is about the only exception since it inverted the usual GB design (black background, light sprites).
Still I’d like to get a copy on a GB NP cart sometime as a keepsake!
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Just finished Bomberman GB 3 over my lunch, and I had a, ahem, blast with Hudson Soft’s approach to the legendary series on Game Boy. Looking at the credits, game design was handled by Hideyuki Kubota who previously worked for Atlus before joining Hudson Soft in the mid-90’s.
For my money this is one of the best single player Bomberman games, coming close to Custom Battler Bomberman on DS. Its more compact level design and mountain of ideas sidestep the excruciatingly slow pacing that Bomberman was guilty of peddling around the time of GB 3’s release in 1996.
Each world starts off with new enemies and a central hook (the mountains have a slippery icy floor), but after just one level the game quickly starts throwing new objectives and modifiers into the mix. Modifiers include things like autoscrolling levels, death bombs that must not be set off, avalanches to avoid and light switches, while objectives mean the level goal won’t activate unless you, say, unite pairs of similar statues, or guide stronger monsters to gobble up weaker ones.
It keeps the game fresh and for the most part, you rarely know what to expect next. Even its upgrades system switches up any habits you form in the early game. After each boss fight you get capsules to spend on upgrades - including four Motorcycle types which are a bit like the Kangaroos in previous games. My favourite Motorcycle type can destroy soft blocks - but only if you ram into them from afar, and at the cost of not revealing powerups afterward.
All-in-all this is as an essential approach to Bomberman single player as Custom Battler Bomberman on DS. The compact level design keeps things fast and frantic, the difficulty ups considerably once you reach the underground worlds and the game is never afraid to keep challenging you in new and often exciting ways.
Revenge of the Gator is very good indeed. Extremely satisfying working your way up the board, and the theme is a breath of fresh air - like Panel de Pon original designs just appeal more in retrospect than the trappings of Kirby and Pokémon.
I want a cart of it though - as convenient as 3DS VC is it just isn’t as pick up and play, and the game’s visuals probably look even better on the Game Boy Pocket’s display.
Finally found some time and motivation to do the ips v3 retro pixel LCD install. Didn’t have a bracket, allignment is perfectly doable by hand, using the double sided m3 adhesive tape to fix it into place, but I can see a bracket being both easier and quicker. Of course i fudged the speaker polarity when I soldered it into place, second time is the charm. Really happy with the results. The palletes and pixel grid toggle are great features.
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