We’ve discussed the difference between the Game Boy and Game Boy Color versions/gameplay off black cartridge Game Boy Color games, but I’ve been left wondering:
What was the first clear cartridge Game Boy Color game?
I remember getting my Game Boy Color at or close to launch in late 1998, and the games I had for quite some time after were a mixture of black and grey cartridge releases such as Wario Land II (launch), Pocket Bomberman (launch window?), Smurf’s Nightmare, Bugs Bunny & Lola Bunny: Operation Carrots, F1 Race.
The first clear cartridge game I remember getting as a kid was Bugs Bunny in Crazy Castle 4 in 2000, which can’t be the first clear cartridge release by a long shot, but I distinctly remember it coming in a plastic bag in the box instead of a case, and being fascinated by the clear plastic used in the cartridge housing. My second clear cartridge game was Wario Land 3 a few months later (summer 2000, perhaps) after seeing it in a catalogue. Both games released in Europe a few months apart it seems with Wario Land 3 arriving sooner.
Does anyone have any idea? I’m surprised this hasn’t been documented anywhere, or it probably has and I’ve been left unable to find the info! Was it Wario Land 3? That does seem to be a likely bet given it was Nintendo R&D 1.
Mario Golf/Tennis on GBC are favourites of mine. I see them as arcade style games presented as RPGs. Together, they represent the zenith of 8-bit sport, a genre with a long history by the time they released.
I played through Mario Tennis again last year and found that it has aged gracefully. Even once the credits have rolled, it’s fun to play the mini games for score.
Never played the GBC Mario Tennis but I struggled to get into Golf. I think part of it is I played the Game Boy Advance games to death and it feels like I’m retreading the same ground with their GBC predecessors.
Is that fair though? I spend my GB Tennis time on Top Ranking Tennis just because it is very different to the Camelot titles.
(Also picked up Mobile Golf GB but haven’t given it enough time yet).
I was sure it was Super Mario Bros Deluxe, I personally bought it thinking it was the first GBC exclusive one back then, at least in Australia, and US Magazines and early websites (remember www.videogames.com which was the console side of Gamespot, which was just for PC back then?), I remember stating it as such as well.
However this June 1999 Review of Smurfs Nightmare says it is “the first released where I live that is Color only.”
Though the author is from the UK writing for IGN affiliate ‘GBCDojo’, and the review was done in June? It might be possible for the UK since SMBD was released in July.
So based on this it was Smurfs, but personally I doubt it, 28/2/99 was a Sunday. I’m guessing it was some placeholder date that has ended up becoming ‘fact’. Probably likely with the other contenders there too, would it really be reheated old Game Boy games like Paperboy, Klax or Top Gear Pocket?
Yeah seems so, eg Suzuki Alstare Extreme Racing was reviewed in September that year, so likely a September release.
Another related question I have is when did they stop with the reflective silver background for the GBC logo and replace it with the matte printed ‘fake reflection’?
Interesting finds! I also had my doubts on Smurf’s Nightmare as I always had a black cartridge copy of the game. But it seems the game might have received a reprint under Infogrames.
…here’s where it gets a little odd. So a look through preowned listings for the game reveals that the box for the black cartridge copies of Smurf’s Nightmare states the game is “only for Game Boy Color” at the front, which lines up with the cartridge sticker as well.
But there are plenty of clear cartridge copies of the game floating around as well. So that reveals an oversight of mine - I was assuming that clear cartridge meant Game Boy Color exclusive, and that black cartridge games always worked on the original Game Boy as well.
But it seems there were games released in the black shells that were exclusive to GBC for a brief period before clear cartridges arrived to help distinguish compatibility better?
I can’t believe I missed this - my copy of the game is in storage and I think I folded up the box a couple of years ago.
Would be interesting to disassemble both carts, but my guess is just the shell has changed and it’s something Nintendo changed in their manufacturing pipeline in Japan for GBC-only game SKUs.
Which means maybe it was the first clear cartridge game given this weird transition…too bad a firm release date can’t be pinned down. But my guess is if it really did launch in February 1999, that would explain why there’s a proportion of black cartridges on the market. Presumably the clear carts were from reprints from a few months later. You could probably pin it down by looking at the expiriy date codes stamped on the batteries used in the cartridges, perhaps?
I’ll dig it out this evening and have a look! And it wouldn’t hurt to open up the cartridge and see what expiry date is stamped on the battery, I guess.
I had forgotten Smurf’s Nightmare uses password save.
Still, an interesting comparison here. From left to right:
Black cart GB/GBC game
Two black cart GBC-exclusive games
One clear cart GBC exclusive game
All do not have battery backup.
Despite the categorisation above, all four carts use the same board, DMG-A07-01.
I wonder why V-Rally and Smurfs didn’t support backwards compatibility despite the existence of regular grey cartridge Game Boy versions of the same game before them - ROM size cost limitations perhaps?
fwiw in PAL land, Super Mario Bros DX doesn’t have it, but these three “launch window” games that must have released before it do. And I’m sure Smurf’s does but I don’t have the box handy.
Yeah, I guess it depended if the assets were recreated. If you just add colour to black and white sprites/backgrounds, you can use the same basic data in black and white. But if they were re-drawn you’d need a copy for each platform, which would make the size much bigger.
Konami Game Boy collections are probably the simplest example of a quick colourisation, they mostly just slather some colour over the original black and white sprites/backgrounds, so BC would be trivial and take up little room.
Yeah, must be related to the manufacturing processes rather than a specific game. But of course that means there was still a cut off point chronologically - just remembered Game Boy Color hardware boxes also lost the holofoil.
Makes sense that my Mario DX didn’t have the foil, I either got it Christmas 1999 or Christmas 2000, so a later print.
Yep, makes you wonder if publisher Infogrames made a last minute change, or perhaps there was an incentive from Nintendo to move the game over to GBC-exclusive.
The game’s manual is full of contradictions (and the same holds true for Smurfs):
