Watching many of these, still get the urge to play them today over many modern games. So often basic in its gameplay but at their core very clever and addictive.
I graduated high school in 1990, then went into the military. After Bootcamp, my Gameboy was my best friend and great for on the Go! I started out with tons of Golf ⛳️, Tetris, Gargoyles quest and more!
Holy Smokes.....Nemesis!!!! Qix!!!! Batman!!! Spiderman!!! Double Dragon!! Turtles!!! Dr.Mario!!!!! many Duracell and Energizer batteries gave their lives for hours upon hours of Gameboy play with those games!!!! Great great great vid!!!!! Superb !!!!
Skate or Die: Bad 'N Rad, and Tetris were the only two GameBoy games I ever had as a kid. We were poor and I didn't get allowance. If there was ever going to be a new game in the house it was going to be something everyone could play, so it had to be for the NES. Even then we only ever had five NES games. Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt (on the same cartridge), The Wallstreet Kid, Ninja Gaiden, and Contra. That was it for most of my childhood. When I was a teenager we had a fair bit more games for the SNES. I had an allowance by then. I bought Phalanx with my own money based solely on the box art. Best purchase I ever made. I had the poster of Bertil Valley that came in the box on my bedroom wall for many years. The poster alone was worth the money I paid. It was a fantastic conversation starter!
Great video John, I remember buying mine back in 89 with buria fighter. Wished I never got rid of it... so i rebought it off ebay. And starting from scratch again.
I am beyond words. In 1990 I was 8. I received my GameBoy for my birthday in Nov '89. I was a German army brat living in Texas. Due to this circumstance my parents and those of my classmates had a bit of expendable income. I remember each and every one of the games you presented. Either because they are still in my attic or because one of my classmates had it and we would switch constantly. You even brought back suppressed memories with Catttrap, Hankieyo Alien, Quarth and Mercenary Force. The short music samples let me know I played them many an hour back in the day. Mid '91 I moved back It was never the same again.
This is a great video. I was exposed to most games as a kid from renting them. For some reason gameboy games weren't available to rent that I remember. So there are a ton of great gameboy games I missed out on. Thank you for these videos.
Yeah that's because video games weren't a huge thing back in the day. It was Nes & very little Sega master system games to rent at your local mom & pop shop in 1990.
I was introduced to Kwirk by seeing him as one of the video game characters that appeared in the extremely obscure cartoon series from the 1990s called "The Power Team", which I remember seeing on weekday mornings on TV back when I was in preschool.
In 1990 I was 1. It wasn't until 1993 I started getting Games. The first two games I had on the Gameboy were Krusty's Fun House and Dr. Mario. I eventually picked up Super Mario Land at Sears. Between 1993 and probably 1995 I bought Kirby's Dreamland, Super Mario Land 2, DK Land 2, Tetris and recieved Golf for a birthday present. I still have all games but, sold the Gameboy and the games I didn't want in 1997 or 1998. I was waiting for the Gameboy Color.
My top games back in the day 1. Wario Land 2. Super Mario Land 2 3. Pac in Time 4. Micky's dangerous chase 5. Super Mario Land 6. Tetris 7. Mario Picross 8. Duck Tales 9. Mega Man 10. Micro Machines 11. Motocross Maniacs 12. Return of the Jedi 13. Disney's Hercules 14. Jurassic Park 15. Micky's Racing Adventure 16. Mystic Quest
I absolutely love the Game Boy port of Double Dragon. It was so impressive in '90. It plays great, and the music translated over great. I actually prefer this port of DD over all of the other contemporary ports. I just wish the 2-player was co-op not just versus like the NES. Of the '90 releases, I also had a ton of fun with Solar Striker, Motocross Maniacs, and Nemesis though I only got to play these at my uncle's-who was just ~3 years older than myself-until he helped me buy a GB after Double Dragon came out (he didn't pay enough attention to the manual, and we thought, for whatever reason, that the 2p mode was going to be co-op unlike the NES port, which I already had already rented a few times). This episode brings back a lot of good memories, and reminiscing about playing some of these games (and others, especially the hours and hours we spent of Nintendo's Baseball on the GameBoy) were some of the last things my uncle and I talked about the day he passed away four 4th of July's ago. He even gave me his own GB and games that day. I have so many fond memories of playing on the Game Boy though my experiences with it these days are tinged bittersweet.
Gargoyle's Quest was my favourite GB game. I still have my OG Game-Boy that I got for Christmas the year it came out in NA but gave my games away nearly 15 years ago.
Great overview. I have over half the ones you mentioned plus more. 1990 had 60 games released. I have almost 30 of them in my collection right now. Slowly working on completing 1990. 1989 was easy as it only had a handful. Some other notable games were Paperboy, Pipe Dream, and Side Pocket.
I love a good in-depth game with amazing graphics. With that being said I think these are my favorite kind of games. Beautiful pixel art and actual fun gameplay
Wow, I used to play Bubble Ghost, but I had completely forgotten that game. The only Game Boy games I remembered playing back then were Super Mario Land and Boxxle (I am sure I played Tetris, but I was never a big fan of it). When I saw that gameplay though, it came flooding back. Thank you John for the forgotten memory.
Picked up revenge of the Gator a few months ago. Man, that’s a quality game! Kind of addicted to collecting video pinball now. Also recently picked up duck tales, motocross maniac, Qix and solar striker. ❤❤
Great video John! Out of all the games you listed, I never played ANY of them as a kid and as an adult have only played TWO of them for just a few minutes. I have a LOT of catching up to do. Loved the teaser at the end of this video for your next one. It worked really well.
Man, great video and game footage. Back in the day Game Boy games were so expensive (at least for my family), and video rental stores did not have game boy games so I never got a chance to check out most of these. I'm diving in now though, thanks for the video!
John this is a solid video. I’ve been wanting to get back into gameboy, I’m thinking of going back to basics and getting a dmg (I’ve had many other gameboys in the past) so this video was great for me. Also, you strangely look exactly like my Dad to the point that I do a double take every time I see one of your thumbnails pop up on my reccomended 😂
I really like how you brought up the choppy movement in some Game Boy games and how that was to compensate for the screen ghosting effect. I'd never thought of that before. I'm actually working on making a Game Boy game with GB Studio, so I had done a lot of thinking about how games were built around the Game Boy's hardware limitations. It's a good thing you pointed that out for me.
I had revenge of the Gator as a kid I'm not a pinball fan my favorite part of the whole entire game was the amazing title screen in the music that went with it. It was fun to watch the Gators come out and dance
Link's Awakening was my first Gameboy game that came packed in with my console and will always be my favorite Gameboy game of all time but I also got Batman and The Amazing Spiderman 2. My parents thought I liked super heroes for whatever reason (although the Batman toys were pretty awesome most of the time). The music in Batman was excellent. I learned the title song on piano by ear and it stays fresh in my mind 30+ years later. Spiderman 2 was a pain but it holds a special place for me as well. A reoccurring nostalgic memory when I think of these two is plugging the old Gameboy into the wall outlet while leaning towards the lamp light on the arm of the chair with Roseanne on in the background and waiting to be called to the kitchen for dinner.
John, your video's has gotten really good. Camera work, quality, presentation everything is just looking so good now. Keep it up and good luck! Your on par now with Metal Jesus. Did you get tips from Jason? :D
I'm right there with you. Qix was my favorite too. I found a sealed copy at a con about 10 years ago for $15 and snagged it. Its one of my favorite display pieces.
super mario land, super mario 2, sneaky snakes, kirby, Metroid, and tertris ( one of the rare puzzle games i enjoyed) , were my top games i played the most, i also played snoopy's magic show fairly often, it was a puzzle game which i normally didnt like, but this one was an action puzzle game, avoiding obstacles and projectiles coming at you.
I remember playing a Gameboy puzzle game that revolved around positioning mirrors/reflectors and making a path for light or some beam to travel to a predefined point to finish the level. Don't remember the title of it.
I can't afford the batteries to see this entire video. I remember my cousin getting his Game Boy, even being able to play Tetris in our tent camping was mind blowing.
I had a cardrige when I was 6 with like a 100+ games on it back in the 90s. And most of the games you listet were on it. I forgot some of the games but remembered them through this video. 😅
I had Tetris, Alleyway (Breakout), Super Mario Land 1 2 & 3, Pac-Man, F-1 Race, Castlevania: The Adventure, Revenge of the Gator (pinball), Golf, Bo Jackson's Baseball & Football, Spider-Man, TMNT, Final Fantasy Adventure 1 2 & 3, Kirby's Dream Land 1 & 2, Metroid II, Zelda: Link's Awakening, Looney Tunes, Wario Blast, Pokemon Red, Donkey Kong (1994), Joshua I WISH I had Motocross Maniacs & Double Dragon back then! Trials is one of my favorite modern series, and Double Dragon was my favorite arcade game back then. Considering how much I like fighting games, I probably would also have enjoyed the Fist of the North Star game. As well as World Heroes 2 Jet which came later.
A great compilation. Solar Striker's development was headed by the inventor of the Game Boy, Satoru Okada, and Revenge of the Gator's development i think was headed by Satoru Iwata himself. Historically pretty important titles in my opinion.
You may not have cared about the original Golf but that was a great game. The physics were really well done, and it kept the top 5 scores of the two courses. My brother and I would always try to beat each other's score.
Man this was Good I waslate to Gameboy I got my Clear Gameboy back in 95 but Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, Gargoyle's Quest, an Fist of the North Star Ghostbusters 2 Hal Wrestling LOVED PLAYING that game memories were some of the games I had back then. Awesome Vid
So many of my FAVORITE games on this list! From The Amazing Spider-Man, the first game I got with my Game Boy asides from Tetris of course! TMNT Fall of the Foot Clan one of the best TMNT games until the TMNT III The Manhattan Project & Turtles IV: Turtles In Time, Solar Striker I played more times than I count, loved Qix, & Batman was fantastic! A lot of these games were way better than their NES counterparts & I’m glad the Game Boy was my first Nintendo console! I wish I had known about Nemesis back then, because I would have loved that, but I have it now! Great video & list!
I got my gameboy by a happy accident. Someone left theirs on a city bus and I kept it, along with Tetris, Fist of the North Star, and Final Fantasy Legend.
Good lord, I've never heard of 80% of these games 😅! I didn't get my GB until late in 91 so I had some more recognisable options out there. Gargoyle's Quest was also one I always wanted but never got or even played. I had only seen print ads for it and thought it looked awesome for some reason. Didn't even know until this video that it was more of an adventure game, which WOULD have be right up my alley. It just looked like a cool platformer with amazing(LoL!) graphics. Ahh, to be 9 years old again.
Nice! For me, I think she favorites from this year would include: Lock 'n' Chase Gargoyle's Quest Catrap Dexterity Cosmo Tank Amazing Penguin Ghostbusters II
Everyone knows the Game Boy, but so few people know its games; it has such a strange and interesting library. Cosmo Tank is easily my favorite of the bunch for that very reason: it has one of those strange, lovely worlds that you'd really only see on the Game Boy. Kwirk is good, too, though I know it as Amazing Tater. If you'd like to play a newer version, it exists as a minigame in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Not exactly the newest game, but still a neat callback.
Love the original Game Boy. I still collect for it. HAL's first game was actually the black label Pinball on the NES, so Gator's Revenge has a pedigree. It was also Sotaru Iwata's first game. Speaking of HAL, Ghostbusters 2 was incredible on Game Boy. Way more polished than the Famicom version (actually has in-game cinematics). Nemesis was great on the Game Boy. I still fire it up. Balloon Kid is AWESOME. One of the best soundtracks on the Game Boy. Quarth is great, too.
When I got the Gameboy, it mainly had shytty games. Tetris, Mario, Zelda (like's awakening), Double Dragon, and Final Fantasy (III) was alright. Pokemon was a game changer.
I absolutely love that Batman game. It's my all time favourite of the franchise before Arkam asylum and Arkham city rewrote the rules. Still a super fun game to check out. Although I will say that the Batwing level is crazy difficult.
Okay Motocross maniacs is the game I'm very nostalgic for because it takes me back to 4th grade when I was best friends with the kid named Andrew and he would loan that game to me all the time to play. In fact I would go over to Andrew's house quite a lot and play NES games he was a much better gamer than I was cuz he could beat like Batman in fourth grade on the NES as well as a bunch of other NES games and the best I could do with the NES usually was when Game Genie came out and I started to rock those NES games
I'm focusing on collecting Game Boy this year in anticipation of my Analogue Pocket. Hoping I can find most of them at VRGE next month. Are you attending VRGE this year?
Wow I didn’t realise the game boy lasted so long…. No WONDER I missed out 😂 Because by the time I wanted one, the DS came along and the GB was old news 25.9.22
I got GB for Xmas 89’ and only ended up getting two games for it. Tetris and Nemesis. Honestly I wasn’t a huge GB fan. It was pretty primitive, even for back then.
