I’ve just rediscovered my childhood Gameboys, I grew up in the 90s and had an original, a color, an advance and an sp. My game collection has whittled down over the year to the usual suspects, Pokemons, Zelda’s, Mario’s and some other standards. But I want to dive into some games that 7 year old me would have brushed over. So what’s your favorite game?
Buncha youngins with your GBAs.
My favourite OG gameboy game was Kirby’s Dream Land. Played and replayed it many times. Even had one of those attachments to magnify it and light up the screen when it got dark :)
I highly recommend Pleasant Dreams: The Welcoming Play of Kirby’s Dream Land. I got it in one of the mega Itch.io charity bundles and was intrigued. It was the highlight of the bundle for me, unexpectedly.
I’d never played Kirby’s Dream Land, but I loaded it up the next chance I got, and Couture nailed it. It’s an absolutely perfect introduction to gaming for non-gamers.
Ooh thanks for pointing it out. Looks like I have it from a bundle too, haha. I will give it a read.
I remember the day I got my worm light for the gbc. Everyone was peasants.
I still have mine! Found it the other day
Wario land, Metroid 2, Donkey Kong 94 are all great
I second Metroid 2. Fantastic isolation game and pretty disturbing too.
I second this! Donkey Kong 94 is a must play, and I feel like Wario is the true Game Boy mascot.
Mole Mania also deserves a shout out. Another Shigeru Miyamoto game that gets even better on the Super Game Boy.
The Megaman Battle Network series on GBA is awesome. Replayed a few of them last year and they are still great.
Do you know if the Steam remake was any good?
I have not played the steam remakes, but they appear to be the exact same games. So that would be a good way to play them if you don’t have the original games or ROMs for them.
The GBA castlevania games own
I bought the various flavors of Gameboy just to play the slew of those games.
Never sleep on Wario land
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I prefer it to the sequels on the DS.
- Metroid II is one of my favorite games of all time.
- Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge and Operation C are both highly polished and fun, but quite challenging.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan is a relatively easy, short, polished action game.
- Kirby’s Dream Land is my favorite game in the series. And if you think it’s too easy, turn on Extra Game mode. It will wreck you, I promise. ;)
- Ninja Gaiden Shadow and Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge are amazingly polished challenging but fair action games.
Every game I mentioned has excellent music, is an original game (not a port), and I have played in their entirety again and again throughout the years.
Let me know if you’re looking for a genre other than an action game. XD
@NoHardshipInPancakes Link’s Awakening is still my favorite game of all time. I got stuck on the second dungeon for literal years because I didn’t put together that you had to defeat enemies in a specific order to get the boss key. That was way before the Internet had every answer to every question. 😋
You are not alone. Any time a thread brings that game up there’s someone like us who got stuck there because that’s literally the only dungeon in the entire franchise that requires you to defeat enemies in a specific way based on lore that isn’t provided to you by the game. Not even in the manual does it say “This is a stalfos, this is a Pol’s voice, this is a keese.” I found out through an old NES Zelda manual, that does give names and pictures of the enemies - ten years after my initial romp through bottle grotto.
I was also going to say MMBN, but since that’s been said, I’ll say Golden Sun. Loved both of those games to death.
Breath of Fire 1 and 2 are also great (although technically SNES ports).
Golden Sun is my all-time favorite! I wish I could relive the thill I felt for the first and second games
Same here! They made a DS one as a third installment, but the story leaves off in the middle, and the sense of awe just isn’t there. Not the same anyway as 1&2. Especially 2, when you [SPOILER] play the “bad” guys
The ones I played the most were:
DMG: Kirby’s Dreamland 2
GBC: Shante
GBA: Drilldozer
Platformers to me always felt like the best suited games to handheld games, and I love the bright colorful art styles. Drilldozer is definitely my all time favorite. If you can find a copy, I’d highly recommend it! The rumble pack cartridge is so cool.
I know you mentioned Zelda, but there were actually a ton of pretty good Zelda games like Oracle of Ages/Seasons. Advance Wars was pretty fun. Golden Sun too. I also have to agree with MMBN from the other commenters.
Oracle of ages/seasons was waaaay too hard. I tried to play it as a kid, got stuck, and gave up very early on. As an adult, I decided to come back to it just to see what I missed out on. Still had to check guides a few times and abused save states.
I can’t remember the details, but there was some kinds puzzle or something that depended on sound and my adult, hearing impaired self could not complete it without save states galore.
I can’t believe I’m the first person to mention Link’s Awakening in this thread. Still one of my favorite Zelda games. It’s bizarre quirkiness felt just like all the strange aberrations that manifest in dreams.
I had such a hard time with the game cause it took me like 20 hours to find the sword, I was like 8 or maybe 9 years old and it was my first zelda game I played… gave up a bunch until I found the sword…
I had a frickin blast playing golden sun such a fun game!!!
Tetris change my mind
First video game I ever played
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Oh, true. Nice fast game. Kickin soundtrack, slick as butter gameplay.
Advance Wars for GBA was up there for me (below any Zelda game). I’ve got my eyes on the Switch remake, but holding until I can find it on sale.
I do have a copy of this kicking around. It was my brothers and I never played it. I’ll have to give it a go!
would be the perfect phone game with asynchronous turns
Seriously, it would be great for mobile. I played the OG ones using a GBA emulator but I want more Advanced Wars
Metroid II: Samus Returns & Gargoyles Quest (such a bloody hard game) on the OG GameBoy were my favs. I played a lot of *Battletoads *on it too but that game was so bloody frustratingly difficult, especially for a kid, so played it mostly out of spite to get past the stupid brain ball chasing you level. Also loved Parodius (parody side scrolling SHUMP from Konami) but never owned it, so borrowed it from friends to play. Naturally I also played Tetris to the point that the music still haunts my dreams. There was also a pretty decent Spider-Man game for it, but can’t remember it’s name & it’s not showing up on lists.
The OG GB also had a lot of bog awful licensed property (movie/tv/cartoon) tie in games too, as well as generally terrible releases. To see them all, check this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_games
I unfortunately never owned an Advance, so only got into games on it later via official emulators (the Wii U control pad was the best GB Advance out there), so got to play Golden Sun later but enjoyed it as a fairly unique take on the J-RPG genre.
For GBA games, here’s a list but so many shitty licensed games there too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Advance_games
