Time to brush up the Gameboy/GBC Hidden Gems list

[the7k]

Mega Man V? I know Mega Man is well known, but most people wrote off the Mega Man GB games due to them starting off as just variations on the NES games.

[Gunstar Green]

Maybe a few years ago but I think MM V is well known now and its price has soared as a result.

I don't think most people know how good MM IV is though. It's one of the most polished in the series with great level design and the origin of innovations like the item shop.

[noiseredux]

Ghostbusters 2: Game Boy version of the HAL Laboratory NES game. Still a lot of fun and one of the more "Ghostbustery" Ghostbusters games from that era.

hell yeah!

[samsonlonghair]

For those who dont know we have this list on the front page:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/best-und ... olor-games

And based on the discussion here:
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=48638

It is time to re-approach the list.

I think re-approaching this is a good idea. May I suggest we consider the approach that Gameboy and Gameboy Color have two distinct libraries? I think two separate lists may be in order. It seems to me that there are enough undiscovered classics on the GB and the GB Color for each to have its own article.

[CRTGAMER]

For those who dont know we have this list on the front page:
http://www.racketboy.com/retro/best-und ... olor-games

And based on the discussion here:
viewtopic.php?f=44&t=48638

It is time to re-approach the list.

I think re-approaching this is a good idea. May I suggest we consider the approach that Gameboy and Gameboy Color have two distinct libraries? I think two separate lists may be in order. It seems to me that there are enough undiscovered classics on the GB and the GB Color for each to have its own article.

Agree there are sooo many GB and GBC games. However, some of the GB games have hidden color properties discovered only when playing on a GBC or GBA. This could be hard to draw the line, notably 3rd party titles that may not follow the standard cart shell color layout.

[Anapan]

That list is good. Those games are great!

I'd like to relate a lot of input here (I've been rediscovering some parts of the library over the past few years) but I'm going out of town for a week Tuesday and I'm supposed to be packing supplies right now.

How do these lists get culled for conciseness? Are unlicensed carts allowed in if they're good enough even tho you can't really buy them anymore? What about vaporware titles that got released in early alpha or late beta but are still worth noting? Can we have a battle royale vote for the culls with a linkback at the bottom of the topic?

I agree the 4chan /v wiki link is relevant; I found it quite a while ago and enjoyed a lot of the obscure titles. There's some games I wouldn't have considered even trying without reading through it carefully.

Here's some off the top of my head:

Bomberman Quest - Zelda with Bombs in place of a sword, but so much more. Action adventure with lots of side-quests, hidden secrets and enjoyable boss fights with different strategies depending on what equipment you've gathered when you fight them. Well balanced and well thought out.

Pocket Color Block - A unique take on the block-breaker formula. You're a dragon that has limited movement, but can switch elements and gather length - worm-game style and unleash attacks in those elemental forms.

Wily Wonderworm - Homebrew from Brainchild Design, the guys who created Jump&Bump and a hi-color library for GBC games. It's the only 360 degree worm game on GBC. It's roots are in Zorlim's Pizza Worm (PC DOS) and Uncle Worm (TI83 Calculator).

Power Quest - Street fighter with tiny RC robots, gambling and RPG elements added in. With the RPG elements it turns from an arcade fighter (available through link-cable) to a RPG battle type game.

Top Gear Pocket 2 - The most advanced racing sim on GBC. Technically it's the best.

Oh, this is only hidden gems... I think I listed some defining games. I'll be back when I have time...

Waitasec, is there a defining games for GB/C? I just deleted a pile of too-short reviews for games that everyone should know...

[PresidentLeever]

There's just cheap games, hidden gems, rare games, and system pushing games so far.

Glad to see this being returned to although I don't think I'll have time to contribute this time.

[SNESdrunk]

Road Rash: It's Road Rash. It plays surprisingly well for a Game Boy conversion. It's not an improvement over any of the console versions in any way but for a Game Boy racer it's solid. Doesn't work with the GBA for some reason. There was a GBC version that changes some things and it doesn't feel quite as polished.

Seconding this. The sound is kind of a mess but the game itself is a surprisingly good port

Not sure if mentioned yet but the Hammerin' Harry series had a couple more Japan exclusive games, Daiku no Gen-san: Robot Teikoku no Yabou for GB and Daiku no Gen-san: Kachikachi no Tonkachi ga Kachi for GBC. In fact I like Robot Teikoku no Yabou the best of the bunch.

[ninjainspandex]

I say this every time someone is looking for Gameboy Hidden gems, Ninja Gaiden Shadow. Probably the best OG Gameboy game I have ever played and is the spiritual sequel to Shadow of the Ninja on the NES, made by the same team.

[Tanooki]

I have some suggestions that aren't on the old list in no particular order:
- (GBC) Warlocked = (I think 12 a side) humans and orcs, RTS game that stunningly works and plays well, fully vocalized, good tech tree and combat works like warcraft one with discoverable wizards in the field that have cool powers to help out with.

- (GBC) Dragon's Lair - 8(on screen) color~ fluid animated port of the laserdisc game of all things, works well, looks nice, only missing 8 moves off The Smithy area to fit to the cart.

- (GBC) Disney's Aladdin - Unlike the SNES game that made it to GBA this one is the Genesis game and it works very well, looks and sounds quite nice for GBC and has some nice drawn cool colorful stills for the between stages scenes.

- (GB) Mario Picross - Went under the radar when it popped up in the SuperGB era. Has a lot of nice puzzles and a hint system that unveils 1 line horizontal and vertical if you need it (I do.)

- (GB-JP Import) Samurai Shodown Zankurou Musouken -- Like the amazing Samurai Shodown on GB we did get, this is a full conversion with chibi people of Samurai Shodown 3 with all the characters plus extras intact with their full move sets. Most people oddly seem to not know this one exists, probably the best fighter on GB.

- (GBC) Project S-11 - A Sunsoft published game by Paragon 5, a known demoscene group of the 90s who made this elaborate excellent music tracker (people still use) for chiptune music who put some of their best work in that game along with a stunning vertical shooter with good stage, weapon and enemy variety with a lot on screen and no slowdown, no other GBC shooter comes close in total junk on screen.

- (GBC) Street Fighter Alpha - This one got ignored when it came out because people figured it would suck like some thought SF2 did on GB. It's done by a solid (now dead) company crawfish and has a fast set of speed (with speed choices too) good animated decent looking characters, nice audio, good background drawings, and the controls and moves work well and all the fighters are there.

- (GBC) Tomb Raider (there's 2) - A side scroller game with random save spots in stages, plays like Prince of Persia with highly animated Lara Croft who can do all sorts of acrobatics, shooting and other stuff with a solid tomb raider style story to move it along and both fell under the radar again looking like the lesser game to the 3D relatives.