what's your favorite Gameboy game that isn't Pokemon or Mario?

NoHardshipInPancakes@beehaw.org to Gaming@beehaw.org – 32 points –

I've just rediscovered my childhood Gameboys, I grew up in the 90s and had an original, a color, an advance and an sp. My game collection has whittled down over the year to the usual suspects, Pokemons, Zelda's, Mario's and some other standards. But I want to dive into some games that 7 year old me would have brushed over. So what's your favorite game?

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Buncha youngins with your GBAs.

My favourite OG gameboy game was Kirby's Dream Land. Played and replayed it many times. Even had one of those attachments to magnify it and light up the screen when it got dark :)

I highly recommend Pleasant Dreams: The Welcoming Play of Kirby's Dream Land. I got it in one of the mega Itch.io charity bundles and was intrigued. It was the highlight of the bundle for me, unexpectedly.

I'd never played Kirby's Dream Land, but I loaded it up the next chance I got, and Couture nailed it. It's an absolutely perfect introduction to gaming for non-gamers.

Ooh thanks for pointing it out. Looks like I have it from a bundle too, haha. I will give it a read.

I know you mentioned Zelda, but there were actually a ton of pretty good Zelda games like Oracle of Ages/Seasons. Advance Wars was pretty fun. Golden Sun too. I also have to agree with MMBN from the other commenters.

I had a frickin blast playing golden sun such a fun game!!!

If I could wipe one game from my mind just to replay it, it would be the golden sun series. That's stayed easily in my top five for almost twenty years now. 90% sure the kolima forest music was even the first mp3 I ever downloaded. Also the first game I ever saw where at least some of the actions you took made a difference to the overall world. If you don't care enough to save certain NPCs, they canonically just die.

Oracle of ages/seasons was waaaay too hard. I tried to play it as a kid, got stuck, and gave up very early on. As an adult, I decided to come back to it just to see what I missed out on. Still had to check guides a few times and abused save states.

I can't remember the details, but there was some kinds puzzle or something that depended on sound and my adult, hearing impaired self could not complete it without save states galore.

I can't believe I'm the first person to mention Link's Awakening in this thread. Still one of my favorite Zelda games. It's bizarre quirkiness felt just like all the strange aberrations that manifest in dreams.

The non-pokemon ones I played the most were:

DMG: Kirby's Dreamland 2

GBC: Shante

GBA: Drilldozer

Platformers to me always felt like the best suited games to handheld games, and I love the bright colorful art styles. Drilldozer is definitely my all time favorite. If you can find a copy, I'd highly recommend it! The rumble pack cartridge is so cool.

I was also going to say MMBN, but since that's been said, I'll say Golden Sun. Loved both of those games to death.

Breath of Fire 1 and 2 are also great (although technically SNES ports).

Golden Sun is my all-time favorite! I wish I could relive the thill I felt for the first and second games

Same here! They made a DS one as a third installment, but the story leaves off in the middle, and the sense of awe just isn't there. Not the same anyway as 1&2. Especially 2, when you [SPOILER] play the "bad" guys

I would recommend that you check out Golden Sun.

I saw this thread and immediately felt the need to recommend this game as well! was one of the only games I had the guidebook for as a kid. one of my favorite games for the gameboy.

Golden Sun GBA. GBC, Wacky Racers and GB it was Tetris because I had nothing else, lol.

I will never not shill advance wars 1 and 2 Great gameplay, great artstyle, great everyting

The Megaman Battle Network series on GBA is awesome. Replayed a few of them last year and they are still great.

Do you know if the Steam remake was any good?

I have not played the steam remakes, but they appear to be the exact same games. So that would be a good way to play them if you don't have the original games or ROMs for them.

Does Yoshi's Island count? I loved that game to death and it's ending makes me tear up as well.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Has to be one of the best GBA games made

If you're playing Gameboy specifically, and not including Advanced, then I played a ton of Marble Madness. I never beat it, but it is pretty fun physics-y platformer.

If you are including Advanced, then Metroid Fusion is a classic. Atmospheric, and beautiful sprite work. Genuinely scary in parts, and leads right into Dread if you like the gameplay.

@NoHardshipInPancakes Link's Awakening is still my favorite game of all time. I got stuck on the second dungeon for literal years because I didn't put together that you had to defeat enemies in a specific order to get the boss key. That was way before the Internet had every answer to every question. 😋

It was the first game I got when I was quite young, I played it every year and got little farther each time as my brain developed. I couldn't beat it until highschool!

Golden Sun and its sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Easily my two GBA favourites.

I played thru Kirby about 3 times I. A road trip from California to Texas so I'll go with that

Advance Wars for GBA was up there for me (below any Zelda game). I've got my eyes on the Switch remake, but holding until I can find it on sale.

I do have a copy of this kicking around. It was my brothers and I never played it. I'll have to give it a go!

would be the perfect phone game with asynchronous turns

Seriously, it would be great for mobile. I played the OG ones using a GBA emulator but I want more Advanced Wars

So I grew up playing James Bond 007 on my OG Game Boy. It wasn't the greatest game in the world but it provided hours of fun on car trips when I was a kid.

Monster Max. It's an isometric exploration platformer/puzzle game with a rock'n'roll theme that I absolutely adored as a kid. It was only released in Europe, so it might be interesting to all you US guys 😁

Not exactly my favorite (because we already know Pokémon is) but I do remember playing Tetris a lot. My mom had bought one of the giant grey Gameboys with black & white display in the early 90's and that thing lasted as long as any of the other handhelds we got throughout the years.

Dragon Warrior Monsters for the Gameboy Color was fantastic. It was somewhat similar to pokemon, but had some features that pokemon didn't get for several iterations, like having your monsters follow you around, monster breeding, and multi-monster fighting.

Magi Nation was also good, similar vein to both of them, but felt darker in tone. Although maybe that's just how it seemed to a much younger me.

I had completely forgotten about this game until you just mentioned it. But wow I played this so much it was fantastic.

I remember getting another dragon warrior game and being confused why it wasn’t at all like Pokémon (was more of a jrpg party building game)

I'm so happy you mentioned Magi Nation. I just replayed that game not too long ago and still had a blast with it, though I def had nostalgia goggles on. lol

Metroid 2, because there's a reason there have been so many fanmade remakes of it...

But I also dug Ultima Runes of Virtue 2... If you ignore the canon. Superior to the SNES version IMO.

Mysterium was also nifty.

Here's a short list of my favorites:

  • golden sun
  • fire emblem

EDIT: ... didn't read the post properly. Updated the list for only game boy games *facepalm

Tail 'Gator is my hidden gem OG GB game, fun platformer with a great soundtrack.

One game I never see get talked about it daedalian opus on the original game boy, I used to love that little puzzle game when I was young. I wonder if it would hold up haha.

Final fantasy Tactics Advance and Fire Emblem the Sacred Stones

The only thing I disliked about Tactics Advance was I felt like they really cheaped out on Ritz's plot. I'm thinking maybe it comes off better in the context of a japanese culture where standing out like she does really IS culturally frowned upon, but it made very little sense to me in the west and I still feel like she got done dirty. Everyone else has a really good reason to stay., Doned doesn't have legs, and she's complaining about this.

Other than that one single thing, yeah, still one of the best games I've played. I've never seen a game tackle it from that angle before or since.

Yeah! I've seen a lot of people give it some undeserved grief but I agree, it's a fantastic game! Totally agree with you about Ritz.

Metroid II: Samus Returns & Gargoyles Quest (such a bloody hard game) on the OG GameBoy were my favs. I played a lot of *Battletoads *on it too but that game was so bloody frustratingly difficult, especially for a kid, so played it mostly out of spite to get past the stupid brain ball chasing you level. Also loved Parodius (parody side scrolling SHUMP from Konami) but never owned it, so borrowed it from friends to play. Naturally I also played Tetris to the point that the music still haunts my dreams. There was also a pretty decent Spider-Man game for it, but can't remember it's name & it's not showing up on lists.

The OG GB also had a lot of bog awful licensed property (movie/tv/cartoon) tie in games too, as well as generally terrible releases. To see them all, check this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_games

I unfortunately never owned an Advance, so only got into games on it later via official emulators (the Wii U control pad was the best GB Advance out there), so got to play Golden Sun later but enjoyed it as a fairly unique take on the J-RPG genre. The releases of Breath of Fire 1 & 2 on the Advance was also a great thing, since they were my favourite SNES games.

For GBA games, here's a list but so many shitty licensed games there too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Advance_games

  • Metroid II is one of my favorite games of all time.
  • Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge and Operation C are both highly polished and fun, but quite challenging.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan is a relatively easy, short, polished action game.
  • Kirby's Dream Land is my favorite game in the series. And if you think it's too easy, turn on Extra Game mode. It will wreck you, I promise. ;)
  • Ninja Gaiden Shadow and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge are amazingly polished challenging but fair action games.

Every game I mentioned has excellent music, is an original game (not a port), and I have played in their entirety again and again throughout the years.

Let me know if you're looking for a genre other than an action game. XD

The GBA castlevania games own

I bought the various flavors of Gameboy just to play the slew of those games.

Wario Land 3 & 4
Advance Wars
Golden Sun
Dragon Quest 3

Mole Mania is pretty fun. And Gameboy donkey Kong is pretty fun, and it's way more than just an arcade port. It's has way more levels and the format is different. It also has a pretty fun move set.

Pocket Bomberman (GBC), Wario Land (GB), Wario Land II (GBC), Bubble Bobble Old and New (GBA), Donkey Kong '94 (GB), Kirby's Dream Land and Kirby's Dream Land 2 (GB), Kirby's Nightmare in Dreamland (GBA), Kirby and the Amazing Mirror (GBA), Dr. Mario (GB), Tetris (GB), and Tetris DX (GBC), Mario's Picross (GB).

That strange Lord of the Rings turn based strategy game.

Apart from Zelda and Pokemon: Castlevania, Metroid, Fire Emblem

I loved kid Icarus. Played the shit out of the game when I was a kid. That a Kirby's Dreamland were my two favorites that I can recall right now.

shantae for gbc! its a really cute sort of metroidvania thing.

Unfortunately if you want to play on original hardware the og cart is like $600+ dollars, or there was a rerelease cart that is like $60.

Weirdly the Metroid games for GBA and Kingdom Hearts chain of memories

I have been playing Motocross Maniacs off and on for 30 years or so. Back when we had a magazine rack in the bathroom we eventually just left the Game Boy sitting in there.

Kirby's block ball was a great Gameboy game. I remember one I liked a lot called lock n' chase, name could be wrong but I'm sure it's close

My favourite GBA game was Metroid Fusion, I wish I still knew where it was

If you own a Switch, it's playable on the GBA app with a Nintendo Switch Online membership.

The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age for GBA, I had so much fun playing hotseat with my friends.

Also, Tetris, Battlebots and The March of Penguins.

Sonic Advance for Gameboy Advance...

Runner up is Super Momotaro Dentetsu II. A game that makes zero sense if you can't read Japanese, but it is very hilarious if you can and are familiar with the culture. In a nutshell, take the absurd length and buying property element of Monopoly, then the bullshit luck-based elements from Mario Party, mix together with a healthy dose of recreational drugs, and you get this game.

Trailer, Bit of Gameplay... Funny thing is they announced their 24th instalment in the series this year for the Nintendo Switch:

  • Mole Mania
  • Donkey Kong Land series isn't too bad
  • James Bond 007
  • Bionic Commando Elite Forces (GBC)
  • Donkey Kong 94
  • Some random puzzle games that nobody every played like Heiankyo Alien or Battle Bull

My favourites were always Metroid II and Zelda

I was given a copy of Azure Dreams for the Gameboy Color, this thing had no picture on the cartridge anymore and was a piece of paper with the word Azure Dreams written on it. I remember playing the absolute shit out of that game. I still have it, but haven’t played it in decades.

Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (GBC). I'm convinced it's what got me into JRPGs because of the similarities, despite being a western game. It was localized to my language (Swedish) which was not the case for most games (like pokemon), so young me could actually understand what was going on for once. I really like the art in it too.

The Urbz: Sims in the City for the GBA (and also the DS).
This is such a hidden gem on the GBA and my favorite GBA game I had. Had great music as well!

That game and sims busting out were so good. Great games with an oddly liminal feel to them

I discovered the excistence of Bustin'Out on the GBA only 2 years ago. When I discovered it was an ancestor on Urbz, I had to play it! I played it through an emulator on my trusty old PSP, long after I had sold my GBA SP. I loved it! THe story and athmosphere were not developed to the same depth as Urbz, but it was certainly a very fun and welcome experience. More of the same in a positive way!

If I had to recommend a friend only 1 of both games, I would always recommend the Urbz. But Bustin'Out is great is you can´t get enough!

Snood for GBA. Some might remember the PC version of Snood.

The port of FF4 on the GBA was really good.

Original Gameboy, though, I played a LOT of the Tomogotchi game. I don't know why, but I loved that janky garbage pile of a game.

Wario Land 2 was a constant as well.