The Game Boy Color made its debut in in Japan, and brought with it a fancier screen, a staggering number of colors for the time, and a punchy sound from its speaker.
This handheld also allowed for a more colorful selection of games, each one using the LCD screen to its maximum potential to deliver vibrant images and gameplay. While Nintendo hadn't kept the news of the Game Boy Advance a secret, the Game Boy Color was more than just a transitional device until the next generation of handheld gaming arrived. It was mobile Mayfly with a short lifespan on the market, but one that still saw some of Nintendo's best games released on it. We've rounded up the 10 best Game Boy Color games in alphabetical order.
The original Link's Awakening was a curious departure from the structures established in previous Legend of Zelda games. No Hyrule to explore, no Triforce relic to collect or even the titular Zelda herself, the Game Boy title was still a critically acclaimed experience when it was released in Not to be confused with the iconic WWE alliance of Triple H and Shawn Michaels, the DX edition of Link's Awakening enhanced the game with fully colorized graphics, unique enemies, a unique dungeon, and color-based puzzles.
There was even a photography element present, allowing for a dozen snaps to be taken and printed out using the Game Boy Printer. The end result was a treat, as one of the best Zelda games was now even better, and over a decade later, this version was re-released on the Nintendo 3DS for its virtual console.
Zelda mania was still running wild in the early s, and hot off the release of the genre-defining Ocarina of Time and its underrated follow-up Majora's Mask, came this quirky adventure on the Game Boy Color. Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons took an unusual approach to the Zelda formula, with each one focusing on a specific theme and gameplay ideas. Oracle of Seasons was Zelda with the action dialed up to 11, while Oracle of Ages focused more on the trademark puzzles of the franchise.
Either game was brilliant in action and animated with quirky pixel perfection on the Game Boy Color, but owning both would reveal some real magic under the Nintendo hood. Using a password system, both games could communicate with each other and help create a more complete experience. Finish the one game, and you'd get a password which could be used on the partner title to drastically change the journey and replace the Veran and Onox boss fight with a classic showdown against Ganon.
There hasn't been another Zelda adventure like the Oracle games, but this pair of colorful siblings gave the Game Boy Color a terrific send-off just as the Game Boy Advance was preparing to hit the market. Golf on the go, and you didn't even need to pay membership fees or risk your access being revoked if you weren't properly dressed, Mario Golf is one of those titles that perfectly showed off what the Game Boy Color was capable of with its eye-catching colors, pick-up-and-play mentality, and tons of extras loaded into the cart memory.
Whether you were teeing off for a hole-in-one or measuring for a precise putt, Mario Golf was easily the best handheld golf game at the time. It was even better with the N64 connectivity that could give more established franchises a run for their money back then.
Serving up some more Mario-themed sports action on the Game Boy Color, Mario Tennis was notable for how sparingly it used its cast of Mushroom kingdom citizens. While Mario and friends would appear in Exhibition mode and as the final challengers in this tennis showdown, the focus was more on growing your rookie sensation and investing ability points in their growth. Those were converted to the system by Japanese publisher Kemco, and the company took notes.
A year after Shadowgate , Kemco reworked the Icom interface and style into something that hewed closer to the likes of Dragon Quest. The result is an interesting and one-of-a-kind hybrid of American adventure game and Japanese RPG, where players navigate the world and solve environmental puzzles in the style of the former but need to fight off monsters with a combat system taken from the latter.
Like Game Boy Wars , this one never made its way to the U. Chalvo 55 takes the form of a pure action game, a sort of puzzler in which you play as a bouncing robot trying to work your way through tricky platforming challenges with a combination of brains and twitch skill. You ever play one of those games that feels like it showed up way too early to earn the praise it deserved?
Avenging Spirit is one of those. By default, you play as a more or less helpless ghost who will vanish altogether without a host, which forces you to jump into the enemies you encounter along the way. The character you possess determines your powers and potential at any given moment, which lends the action a great deal of variety. Harvest Moon on a handheld works for the same reason Animal Crossing typically fares best in its portable incarnations: The systemic, schedule-based, conflict-free approach is the kind of thing you can jump into pretty much any time you want to chill out and enjoy some low-stress gaming.
Manage a farm, befriend the critters, find a gal to settle down with and marry — Harvest Moon is a far cry from your typical Game Boy fare. And admittedly, this version is considerably more simplistic than the sequels that followed, with fewer systems and no real-time clock. Each session allows you to take on one of several different mission types and challenges to complete that task with the use of whatever tools you acquire along the way.
While less action-oriented than Spelunky , it scratches the same itch. Kid Dracula presents the main bad guy of the Castlevania series as a tow-headed tyke out to reclaim his castle from the villain Galamoth. This was a U. Not only do you get special frames and color palettes for Super Game Boy, you also open up unique SGB-only alternate modes. Oh, and on top of that, you can also boot the system to run the Super NES version of Space Invaders , which could also be purchased separately.
Although Metroid II is a bit sluggish at times and suffers from visual repetition that makes orienteering your way through its massive caverns a hassle at times, it really builds on the foundations of the first game and does a lot more with both Samus and the universe she inhabits. In a lot of ways, it feels like the Nintendo take on the box-pushing Game Boy standard puzzler seen in Boxxle aka Soukoban : While built around similar principles of navigating an object to a goal through mazes, it introduces player actions beyond pushing while incorporating additional play elements and hazards.
The first and third Castlevania releases for Game Boy were, to be frank, quite poor. Although it makes use of many of the same not-quite-canon mechanics of its portable predecessor Castlevania: The Adventure , it incorporates them into a journey that feels much better designed. There are fewer pixel-perfect jumps and unavoidable enemy traps to deal with, while the action moves at a speedier clip.
On top of that, you have the freedom to mix up each playthrough a bit by choosing to tackle the first four stages in any order you like, in classic Mega Man style.
Protagonist Firebrand starts weak and underpowered, just like his foe Arthur, but unlike Arthur he grows in strength through the course of the action: His health meter expands, his attack options improve, he improves his flight abilities, and he even acquires skills that let him navigate the world more easily.
Heiankyo Alien is a fairly simplistic title compared to most of the works chronicled here, but it merits a mention for its historic importance.
Moving on… it follows the SNES game as the second game in the Story of Seasons canon and lets gamers experience life on a farm. Gamers upgrade tools as they progress, sort of like a farming RPG adventure. The aim of the game is to keep the farm, the pets, the crops, and your dead grandaddy happy. Like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon has a season mechanic and an in-game clock, meaning certain actions have to happen at a certain time.
DuckTales was hardly off the family TV set back in the day. Not only was it epic to watch, but it remains one of the best Gameboy games that I ever owned and still do! This is Scrooge McDuck at his finest, diving into a pool of gold coins and pogoing about on his walking stick! How many ducks do you know that would go to the ends of the earth and even outer space just to add more treasure to their massive horde?
Well, Players take Signor Moneybags Scrooge through a series of levels collecting gold and treasure. Hop around on the moon, sneak through creepy Transylvania, and become an intrepid explorer in the Amazon. And the real hero of the show — Scrooges Cane!
And instead of picking up hearts along the way, Scrooge McDuck gets his health from delicious ice creams. Dude is decadent, after all! This is also one of the best NES games of all time too and sold over 1,, copies. What a winner! Collecting treasure is the aim of the game Wario should probably start hanging out with Scrooge McDuck , but puzzles and tricky blockades make things a lot harder for our bulbous-nosed anti-hero.
He loses coins when attacked by an enemy, which is probably worse than dying for this treasure-loving sneak-thief. There are multiple hidden doors and exits to find, as well as puzzles to overcome in order to get through blocked paths or to treasure rooms. Like Kirby, Wario has the power to take traits from enemies and use them to his advantage. Donkey Kong 2 sees Diddy and Dixie Kong taking the reigns from Donkey in their first portable adventure.
Rool has stolen Donkey Kong too! This game even came in a banana yellow cartridge for those extra simian feels. Diddy and Dixie are great heroes in their own right, and while it is similar to the SNES adventure, Rare certainly worked their magic with this one.
R-Type takes the 20th spot in this list of the best Gameboy games of all time! R-Type is often cited as one of the greatest games of all time, and it certainly has a geekylicious storyline that fans of Star Gate and Star Trek will be all over like a symbiote at a packed birthday party.
R-Type is space-age shooting at its best. Players take control of the epic R-9 Arrowhead in this side-scrolling adventure, shooting down alien crafts and sending enemies into the ether as asteroid dust. I wrote that in capitals just to prove how big they actually are. This is another of my favourite side-scrolling adventures and features one of the best villains in the world too — The Joker. Ever played Ninja Gaiden? While the NES version has cooler cutscenes, the Gameboy title is the perfect companion for long journeys and getting that comic-book kick in the office.
DC fans need this in their life immediately. This game is one for puzzle lovers.
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