Oddly enough, I don’t feel this way about original Game Boy games due to their monochromatic graphics. Backlighting doesn’t ruin them.
But it does seem like the gamma levels for GBC games are genuinely tailored around the GBC screen. Even playing it on a front-lit GBA SP ags001 looks wrong because of the different calibration that screen has.
On a GBA SP AGS-101 backlit model, however, GBC games look completely off. The screen has far more ghosting than the original GBC (which had no ghosting at all) certain colors like reds and blues that were once nice pastels become an over-saturated mess on a backlit screen.
Even playing these games on my holy grail setup is kind of hard on the eyes. Playing on a GB Player + GCN + Component Cables + GBI ULL on a PVM20L5 produces visuals that are beatiful, but too deep in terms of color and contrast. Let’s compare:
So, yea, it’s really hard for me to photograph the GBC screen head on without getting some reflection so I had to do it like this, but I think it accurately reflects the colors I see on the screen.
Compared to the backlit screenshot of the same scene, you can see the bottom of the screen which shows your items equipped and your hearts is not that stark piss-yellow on a real GBC. Instead, it looks merely white or off white at most. The water is nice and pastel-colored blue as well rather than the deep, deep blue you’ll see with a backlit.
The rocks look properly gray instead of purple. And the bag and ground overall looks brown instead of orange.
I can’t help but feel like the bottom images is, overall, very hard on the eyes and everything looks too saturated, making the scene feel much darker. All the colors are just too much for the scene and the tranquility of the color pallete the game nails is all lost on a modern screen.
Anyone else feel the same way?
