That’s a point, it’s funny how Virtual Boy has a reputation for causing headaches and eyestrain but really, none of that impacted me after weeks of regular use.
It’s the back and neck pain from hunching down to see the displays - particularly the latter if your chair means the VB unit isn’t level with your face.
Oh cool - I’m curious about how image quality is handled given the lens distortion. Is each Virtual Boy pixel super crisp?
I feel like I’ve said this before, but the true smart person way to play the VB is on your back in bed with it on top of you.
This guy tbh.
Yes its very crisp. The oculus mode doesnt completely fill your vision,its like the normal virtual boy screen 3x so it never reaches your periphery.
Only way I play it.
Played VB today at the Centre for Computing History who are having a Japanese weekend.
Mario Bros and a 3D pong kind of game
Lol so yesterday I said here that I can hold off on buying the VB since the Oculus emulator is so nice. Well, I walk into my local retro store today (who usually has TERRIBLE prices) and I find this package of the system and games sitting on the counter for $199. I knew I had to have it.
Holy crap, that’s awesome! And kinda funny 
Great deal for a VB.
Man of all the ‘gimmick’ systems it’s the most fun, great novelty to have and play.
Awesome. Nice selection of games too - you’ve got a whole bunch of arcade-y ones which will keep you coming back for ages. Galactic Pinball is the best game on the system.
How was Space Squash? It’s on my list along with 3D Tetris. Looks cool.
Great 3D, nice music.
3D pong with powerups.
Nice game.
That and Insmouse no Yakata are the last two games I can justify picking up I think…within budget.
My games enthusiast colleague has a Virtual Boy, but it was always broken. I did promise him that I would one day bring mine in to the office to let him try it so I decided to stick to my word and I had the thing plugged in at my desk for a few days, with an assortment of games nearby.
Honestly though, people’s reaction to it exceeded my expectations.
The enthusiast was always going to love it, and noted how its arcade-focused library of titles is something lost today - people want that kind of accessibility still but aren’t necessarily willing to accept they might be rubbish at the games on a first go.
But everyone else who tried it - most of them familiar with some games of the past - were pretty impressed by what was achieved back in 1995 with the device, playing it with retrospective goggles on. Teleroboxer and Red Alarm were favourites despite the former being unintuitive to beginners, and for some bizarre reason they all wanted to play V-Tetris.
I didn’t have any complaints about headaches, as with my own experience neck ache was the issue…
So there we have it, the little two legged Virtual Boy still has the ability to intrigue and excite today. It is a rather surreal experience by modern standards given the non-standard controller, arcade-style game lineup and red LED array-to-mirror displays, and it’s a great talking piece. Probably moreso given it never launched in Europe.
I really hope mine doesn’t develop ribbon cable issues for a long time as I’ve been revisiting my library once a month or so. I also managed to nab a repro copy of Bound High - really looking forward to playing that!
I forgot to post about my Bound High run-through when I got the game!
I made it to world 3-8 on my single continue playthrough, like the best titles on the system it boasts both pick-up-and-play arcade-style gameplay coupled with experimentation in its design. You play as Chalvo from Chalvo 55 on the Game Boy, and the game is basically trampolines in the sky: The game. You bounce off platforms while also trying to bounce-kill the enemies around them. Miss a platform or an enemy and you fall to your doom. The mode-7 style background scaling with parallax layering makes it a great fit for the 3D effect and the game in general encourages quick thinking since you’ve only got a few seconds in the air to decide and manoeuvre where to go next.
My only niggle is I wish it were faster at introducing new ideas, but it does steadily rachet up the difficulty with environment-changing abilities, gusts of wind, and trickier enemy types who can’t just be dispatched by bouncing on them from a normal height.
Like @Peltz mentioned on the other thread it stands up there with the best games on the format, managing to still feel novel and entertain 25 years after release.
From what I understand the repro carts are made from doner cartridges of games which are in high supply, like Mario Tennis? The motherboard on my bound high is certainly custom though (and coloured red), but the components look hand-soldered on and similar to official carts.
Cheeky third post (Nov 29)
I picked up Space Squash and Insmouse no Yakata in Japan. Was really looking forward to trying them out!
I’ve fallen ill today so thought I’d spend the weekend checking them out, and finishing off Bound High.
Except I got garbled graphics through the right eye view on some screens. I can’t express how sad I am - this weekend is now going to be an emergency Virtual Boy marathon before the problem presumably gets worse…
Ah yes the virtual boy - home to my favorite pinball game (galactic pinball), one of the best entries in my favorite portable sidescrolling series in Wario Land, and secretly one of the best 2d to psuedo-3d adaptations in Mario Clash.
Counter to a lot of the experiences in this thread, my original unit still runs fine (guess I’m lucky) - only problem I ever run into is nose-bridge fatigue from play sessions over an hour after playing laying down. I always take a bit of folded tissue paper to create a make-shift cushion to fit atop the bridge of my nose in between the plastic of the unit. If anyone has a better solution I’d love to hear.
Yesssss
I like you
Well now I’ve seen everything 
