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Game Boy Games That Pushed The Limits

mr_bogus

By mr_bogus
in General Gaming Discussion

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Jonnas Collaborator

Jonnas

Posted
Posted

Pokémon Gold&Silver was the first thing that popped into my mind. Shame to see it only as an honourable mention.

 

The Zelda Oracle games are also impressive. Each of them a full-fledged game of its own, and packed with so much content it's unbelievable.

 

Good to see the Wario Land series. Generally underrated series, especially Wario Land 3, which is one of the best platformers I have ever played.

 

And Donkey Kong Land... Amazing how they managed to bring one of the most impressive-looking SNES games to a tiny black and white gameboy and make it work.

 

The Megaman GB games deserve a mention for improving the NES music (except II. That one sucked). The detailed graphics in the latter three are nothing to sneeze at, either. And the shop system in IV and V is impressive, considering the fact that the "main" Megaman games did nothing of the sort back then.

 

Finally, Pokémon TCG and Pokémon Pinball are some of the most underrated games of their series, as well as of their system. TCG recreates the card game quite accurately and the physics in Pokémon Pinball are amazing (much better than in the GBA game). And both games are quite impressive in both graphics and sound.

 

 

Also, I noticed many games mentioned there were technically impressive, but not too pleasing to look at. I remember hating the style of Lara's sprites, or the overall look of the more "realistic" looking games.

sumo73 Rookie

sumo73

Posted
Posted (edited)

From the 'main' list I've got on original cartridge-

 

Donkey Kong Land (Series)

 

Tori Toki

 

Tomb Raider: Curse of the Sword

 

Wendy: Every Witch Way

 

Donkey Kong Country

 

Perfect Dark

 

Wario Land (Series)

 

 

I'd like to add - Iridion 3D and Iridion II to the list if I could.

Edited by sumo73
flameboy Newbie

flameboy

Posted
Posted

I remember Alone in the Dark looking incredible but playing awful. I have Zelda Oracle of Seasons which I never finished back in the day plan on giving it a go once I'm done with Skyward Sword. I didn't think it looked that much better than Links Awakening maybe I'm wrong though.

Jonnas Collaborator

Jonnas

Posted
Posted
I always thought the Game Gear was far more impressive than the Game Boy. Came out shortly after the Game Boy (about a year later), and had colour graphics (8 years before the GBC).

 

And it had a backlit screen, which the GBA only got in...2003-2004 or something.

 

However, it also ate 6 batteries at a time, and the games library was severely lacking (besides Sonic), not to mention that size... (Sega always bit more than they could chew, unfortunately)

 

The Game Boy was much more practical, so it had more success. I don't think the mean, lean, Green&Yellow machine was ever loved for technical prowess, anyway, it's just something nifty to see when a game pushes the limit.

WackerJr Enthusiast

WackerJr

Posted
Posted

Good article, I enjoyed the read and it was impressive what developers were able to accomplish with such limitations.

 

Here are the games from the list that I own:

 

  • Warlocked
  • Cannon Fodder
  • Donkey Kong Country (GBC)
  • Mario Tennis
  • Perfect Dark
  • Legend of Zelda: Oracle games

 

For all of these games you could really tell they were pushing the capabilities of the machine, and I can remember all of them for making me incredibly impressed with what I was playing. Whether it be the FMV (Cannon Fodder, the use of speech and rumble (Perfect Dark) or the sheer scope, scale and detail (Zelda).

 

I'm not sure that any of the games were massive sellers (Zelda notwithstanding), so I would love to see the games brought to an even larger audience with a re-release on the 3DS' Virtual Console.

  • 2 weeks later...
mcj metroid Newbie

mcj metroid

Posted
Posted

Donkey kong country on the gameboy color

 

Ya I know at first glance it does look very "Gameboyish".

But do think of the fact that DKC on the SNES was a technical marvel for the time. The gameplay didn't suffer at all here.

 

As for the GBA

rather impressive 3d graphics for a gba game. Plays well too. :)

Retro_Link Newbie

Retro_Link

Posted
Posted
I definitely have to agree with you on V-Rally 3 for the GBA, @mcj metroid :hehe: I have the game and it looks and plays really well.. and it even has a cockpit view :eek:

 

 

For a GBA game, that almost blew my mind :heh:

WOW that's crazy! Very impressive!

 

Looks like a lot of fun to play too!

Captain Falcon Newbie

Captain Falcon

Posted
Posted (edited)

I know it was never finished, but Resident Evil was looking like a game that was getting a lot from the humble GBC.

 

 

If you want to see some impressive things on the GBA, just YT raylight studios/ blue roses to see what the thing was capable of in the right hands. Enjoy some more RE thanks to these talented guys.

 

Edited by Captain Falcon
  • 1 month later...
mr_bogus Newbie

mr_bogus

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Anyone have the Oddworld game for GB? I thought the gameplay translated really well from the PS1 series, I had a lot of fun with it.

 

I had Abe's Exodus on GBC, is that the one? I remember being really impressed with it :)

  • 3 months later...
Dcubed Proficient

Dcubed

Posted
Posted (edited)

I always find these kinds of games to be far more impressive than the console games that push graphics.

 

Seeing DKC on GBC was utterly mindblowing at the time (and still impresses me to this day), I wish they did a follow up article with GBA and DS games. There's some amazing stuff out there!

 

GBA

 

V-rally 3:

 

Asterix GBA:

 

Resident Evil 2 GBA:

 

Driv3r GBA:

 

Iridion 3D:

 

Iridion 2:

 

Super Monkey Ball Mini:

 

Gunstar Future Heroes:

 

Gekido Advance:

 

Golden Sun/TLA:

 

Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (all dat FMV!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9IYGRkYplM&feature=related

 

DS

 

Cop The Recruit:

 

Nanostray: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8-ygTKBLYc&hd=1

 

Nanostray 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WisP3-lbjU

 

Golden Sun Dark Dawn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VwT8qhVFLQ&feature=related

 

Dementium The Ward (60FPS too!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDssPKkHtYU

 

Dementium 2 (60FPS again!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pewrw6TBRD4

 

Viewtiful Joe Double Trouble (Not only does it look nearly as good as its GCN counterparts, it renders the game twice on both screens! And the split power is crazy!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4mEbj5a3eA&feature=related

 

Metroid Prime Hunters (The whole game is impressive, but these boss rooms really stand out for me - Is that bump mapping!? In a DS game!?): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=WyU0twxDReo#t=508s

 

Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks (I'm not gonna post a video, because the whole game is amazing really. Just stunning on how close they captured the look and feel of Wind Waker on a device that was vastly less powerful - and there's a lot of double screen rendering craziness with a number of bosses too, that just blew my mind!)

 

Mario Kart DS: (Again I'm not posting a video simply because the whole game is impressive. It looks vastly better than Mario Kart 64 AND runs at double the framerate! - 60FPS!)

Edited by Dcubed
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