Game Boy 30th Anniversary Retrospective: Geoff’s Five Favorite Games

The Nintendo Game Boy celebrated the 30th Anniversary of its Japanese release on April 21st, and it’s tough to hammer just how important a factor it was for handheld gaming. It was a perfect complement to Nintendo’s consoles at the time as a lower-powered alternative with good software. Several of its titles were ports of NES and, more remarkably given the power difference, SNES games. While they were largely inferior to their console brethren, they were fine when these could be enjoyed in a variety of places instead of at locations where a TV was available. The system stuck around for a good portion of the 90s and sold well during its time on the market, beating out more powerful competition like the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx along the way.

The Game Boy had several interesting games and experimental software, though the list of memorable ones is shorter than you might expect for a system on the market for so long. To no surprise, the best software came from Nintendo themselves, whose efforts towered over those from other developers and publishers to a much larger degree than on their other systems. It’s why my list (and those coming from my cohorts) consist mostly of Nintendo-published titles. It took too long for third-party publishers to start taking handheld gaming seriously, but that’s not to say some didn’t make Game Boy games still worth experiencing today, like Mega Man 5 and Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge. Those didn’t quite make my list, though.

1. Super Mario Land: Super Mario Land deserves kudos alone for being one of the weirdest installments in the Mario franchise’s over-30-year history, since it retained few elements from other Mario platformers. Outside the appearance of Mario himself, it largely ignored other elements in the franchise, reportedly due to the lack of involvement from creator Shigeru Miyamoto. The power-ups were similar though not quite identical to other Mario games, the enemies and allies were all different, the level designs were peculiar, and even Mario’s platforming physics were odd. It even had levels that turned the game into a shoot ‘em up. But it was weird in a good way, the kind that hasn’t been seen in a Mario game since. Princess Daisy aside, nothing in this title was retained for future installments. The weirdness and overall quality still make it worth experiencing today, even with (or especially because of) its short length.

2. Kirby’s Dream Land: Few publishers were willing to create new properties for Game Boy, and those that resulted in quality products were even fewer. But Nintendo was unsurprisingly exempt from this, and no title showed this better than Kirby’s Dream Land. This HAL Laboratory-developed platformer stood out from others on the system through featuring a giant puffball who could suck up and spit out cute enemies that stood in his way, all while exploring a mysterious land to search for missing candy and Stars. Sure, it was easy, and this installment didn’t feature Kirby’s trademark technique of copying enemies and others, but it was a lot of fun. It’s also worth respecting the game that started the series.

3. Donkey Kong ’94: Mario and Donkey Kong franchises have gone in massively disparate directions since they came into being in the early 1980s, but Nintendo’s had no issues with revisiting the original concept that pitted them against each other. One of their largest efforts involved Donkey Kong ’94, which took the core concept of Mario’s quest to save Pauline from the clutches of Donkey Kong and created newly-designed levels and updated gameplay mechanics around them. The game, however, still retained gameplay elements from older games, like Mario only being able to fall a certain distance to prevent from sustaining damage, and being able to withstand a hit while carrying an item. But it felt more palatable for anyone who had minimal experience with the original title and its progeny.

It was a good recreation of the original for a then-modern era, though Nintendo has sadly relied on the Minis games that use robotic Marios to save Pauline from DK instead of Mario himself in Mario vs. Donkey Kong games released since then. Given that it’s been around 25 years since this game released, they should revisit the concept in a non-Minis form. But let’s also cherish the time when it happened.

4. Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land: You might have been able to tell from some games listed above that I adored how experimental Nintendo was willing to get with Game Boy software, and Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land was another in the pile. Super Mario Land 2 wasn’t as bizarre as its predecessor, but still contained several differences compared to then-prior Mario games, and the biggest among them was evil Mario counterpart Wario. This was a case where a villain (later anti-hero) became so popular with the Nintendo audience and development team that they gave him his own spinoff.

Making a game with Wario instead of Mario let the development team experiment with new mechanics, as Wario could charge into enemies and obstacles, pick up and throw them (which worked differently than in Super Mario Bros. 2), and butt slam before it became a staple in Mario’s move set. It was a fun game that spawned several sequels and successors for more than a decade. Its formula evolved over time, but the first installment is worth remembering.

5. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX: I’ll always have a fond place in my memories for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. For a while, the Zelda series was a franchise I read about in magazines, but never took the time to get into. Link’s Awakening intrigued me enough to finally make the jump, a title that happened to be one of the best and most unique installments in the franchise.

Link’s Awakening utilized the gameplay style and format that became standard for the franchise with A Link to the Past on Super Nintendo, though added unique characters (thanks to the game not occurring in series mainstay location Hyrule) and abilities to the mix. It’s another game that challenged established conventions for a given franchise, and ended up better off because of it. The results make it still memorable to this day.

I never finished the original Link’s Awakening for reasons I can’t quite remember, but the colorized Link’s Awakening DX version released alongside the Game Boy Color sucked me back in, which is where I finished it. This is why I highlighted this particular version here, since both only have minor differences.

Link’s Awakening still receives deserved appreciation, and will soon get more thanks to a remake coming to Nintendo Switch. The remake will ideally retain everything that made the original great, so I have my fingers crossed.

The Game Boy’s lineup wasn’t on par with those of other Nintendo platforms, but it received some solid software that’s still worth playing today, as shown through this list and others. These titles make the system worth remembering for its 30th anniversary. The Game Boy brand is no longer with us, but it lives on in spirit through Nintendo’s continued support for handheld gaming, and remakes like the title above and Metroid: Samus Returns.