Poll

Which of these Game Boy games is worth a purchase?

Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge
1 (1.6%)
Maru's Mission
0 (0%)
Metroid II: Return of Samus
3 (4.7%)
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
8 (12.5%)
Mario's Picross
4 (6.3%)
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
0 (0%)
Pac-Man
0 (0%)
Qix
0 (0%)
Radar Mission
0 (0%)
Tennis
0 (0%)
The Sword of Hope II
0 (0%)
Tumblepop
0 (0%)
All These Games Suck
0 (0%)
Gotta Play 'em All!
0 (0%)
Mega Man II
1 (1.6%)
Mole Mania
5 (7.8%)
Quarth
1 (1.6%)
Super Mario Land
8 (12.5%)
Revenge of the 'Gator
1 (1.6%)
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
11 (17.2%)
Side Pocket
1 (1.6%)
Mega Man III
2 (3.1%)
Mega Man IV
3 (4.7%)
Pokémon Blue
5 (7.8%)
Pokémon Red
5 (7.8%)
Lock 'n' Chase
1 (1.6%)
Mega Man V
4 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 13

Voting closed: January 13, 2020, 10:23:04 PM

Author Topic: Best of the 3DS eShop: Virtual Console. Game Boy - Part 2.  (Read 14081 times)

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Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Best of the 3DS eShop: Virtual Console. Game Boy - Part 2.
« Reply #50 on: October 16, 2019, 06:14:15 PM »
To me the VC is something that should exist on every Nintendo platform and should just have older games available purely for the purpose of providing an option for a person to buy a classic game.  All this thought about how to space the releases and if it eats into new game sales comes across as very specific to the videogame industry.  Note that this isn't nearly as complicated in other entertainment industries.

If you go to the bookstore you don't only see new books.  New books coexist in the store (or on Amazon or on Kindle) with classic books.  Something like Frankenstein has probably been on the shelf of every book store in America since it was written.  While there are obviously books that go out of print it is perfectly normal in literature for readers to have access to both new books and old ones.  Same with music - old albums were sold next to new ones at stores and that continues with downloads or streaming services.  Same with movies.

Videogames are so young compared to those other fields (the founders of the videogame industry are mostly still alive; can't say that about those other industries) that I wonder if it is still immature regarding how to handle its history.  A game like Super Mario Bros. should always be available for customers to buy because it's a classic game with major historical significance.  It's also part of a series that continues to be popular today.  It sure wouldn't make sense if a new James Bond movie came out but the old Sean Connery films were out-of-print and difficult for a new fan to see.  But how do you familiarize yourself with many long running videogame series without having to seek out old systems and carts/discs or resorting to piracy and emulation?  It doesn't make sense to jump through hoops like that.  Those games should be available, not necessarily as a runaway hit but merely being "on the shelf" for the newcomer that wants to seek it out or the old fan that no longer has their old copy of the game.

Offline Luigi Dude

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Re: Best of the 3DS eShop: Virtual Console. Game Boy - Part 2.
« Reply #51 on: October 17, 2019, 04:36:20 PM »
Videogames are so young compared to those other fields (the founders of the videogame industry are mostly still alive; can't say that about those other industries) that I wonder if it is still immature regarding how to handle its history.

A lot of the industry doesn't even realize how popular their games are.  I mean, look at how badly Nintendo undershipped the NES Classic at first despite the announcement months earlier national headlines and generating a lot of social media buzz.  Then it took for that system to be a success for Sega to even give a damn about doing the same with the Genesis, despite the fact they technically released a similar device over a decade earlier that nobody cared for because it was crap.  Sony and Konami also took notice of this success as well, of course Sony then fell flat on their face showing they don't even understand what games people who own their classic systems even liked.

Maybe that's why they view old games as competition to new ones.  They think only the hardcore fans are the ones that care about replaying old games, but said hardcore are more likely to buy digital so releasing old classics at the same time on an online marketplace will cause them to focus on the classics and ignore the new ones.  Which would be a weird thing to think since the hardcore fans are more likely to buy several games at once and generally know more about what they're buying.

Of course things have gotten better this last gen.  We've been seeing more collections and remasters then ever before and Nintendo is trying a netflix system service for NES and SNES games on the Switch right now.  So hopefully the industry will keep building on making sure it's classic are widely available and things won't just reset at the beginning of the next gen.
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Offline Khushrenada

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Re: Best of the 3DS eShop: Virtual Console. Game Boy - Part 2.
« Reply #52 on: October 17, 2019, 09:41:52 PM »
How are other people doing with the GameBoy games that they purchased and/or recommended?

To answer ejamer's question, since starting these threads I have now purchased / added CATRAP, Kirby's Block Ball, Mole Mania and Super Mario Land.

Super Mario Land - Played through and beat it already since I knew it would be a pretty short adventure. Haven't played it in probably 15 years, at least. Quickly racked up a bunch of lives and had like 16 when getting into World 3-1. Didn't die once up to that point. Did start die a bit more after that point but was never in danger of getting a Game Over. Could have beat it on an actual Game Boy and didn't really need the restore point. Just used it so I could take a break for a moment and make sure my progress was saved. Surprised how much I remember of the game. I suppose when the original way to play meant having to restart from the beginning when getting a Game Over then that will ingrain a lot of stuff through repetition. Things were much less familiar as I got further into Worlds 3 and 4. Checked my playtime after and it was 53 minutes exact so it really is less than an hour to complete this game. Despite Mario controlling a bit more stiffly than in newer / later games, I really do like this title and I can see myself going back to it a couple more times because it is a fun quick romp.

Kirby's Block Ball - Tested it out a little bit. Got through the first World. My early impression is that it is ok. Doesn't seem to difficult but that could change. It's something I see myself playing in short bursts but I think I'd get bored playing it steady for a longer amount of time. Sometimes it seems like the game sets things up for Kirby to hit which would require better precision aiming but so far I'm not really seeing a way to perform such maneuvering. My main takeaway actually was that this is probably what inspired HAL to do a couple Pinball games after with Kirby's Pinball Land and Revenge of the Gator. (At least, I think they came after. Didn't check on that when writing this.) It feels a lot like pinball except you can move the paddle/flipper across the exit pit to bounce the ball back up to the course as you watch its descent.

Mole Mania - Have not touched it or booted it up yet. Am saving it for later after I finish a couple other games first.

CATRAP - After seeing ejamer's post, I'm glad I saved Mole Mania so that now I can play it after CATRAP. Decided to boot up CATRAP now and see what it is like. Have gone through the first 10 puzzles. I suppose looking at the manual may have helped a bit but just did some trial and error testing the buttons and figuring out how controls and the game mechanics work while diving in. At first, I question just how easy this game might be but around puzzle 8, I finally had to take a moment to plan ahead what to do so if the game does get more tricky then I'm looking forward to see what these later levels might develop into. Probably will finish this after wrapping up DKL3.

Mario's Picross - I think I've completed every puzzle but I'm not quite sure. Time Trial mode up its puzzles randomly unlike the other sections where you can select them and I'm not sure if Time Trial mode has a message congratulating the player when all puzzles are complete. When playing it now, it seems to be cycling through puzzles I beat already in that mode so I'm hoping that's a sign I did finish them all and now it is going through them again instead of keeping a puzzle or two I hadn't encountered from appearing by now. I got a bit Picross'd out last year after going through the Twilight Princess Picross game that was a reward from My Nintendo if you had the points and then playing through and completing all of Picross DS. Looking back at reviews of Mario's Picross when it was re-released, some people complained about how it only had 15x15 puzzles because that was the biggest that could fit on the Game Boy screen at the time instead of some larger puzzles. Personally, I'm OK with that as larger puzzles often take more time to complete. Even at 15x15, there are some pretty tough and challenging puzzles to solve and I really had to keep checking over and over through a puzzle for any small scrap of a clue hoping to finally find the info that will crack the puzzle wide open and get me rolling to solve it. There a couple things about the game that seem unnecessary (and that seem to have been removed from the other Picross games I've played) such as the timer countdown to solve a puzzle and getting dinged for filling in a square which one might have done accidentally or deliberately and thus losing time off the clock whereas x-ing out a wrong square brings no consequences. Finishing this has led me to Pokemon Picross so I'm back in the Picross Stockholm Syndrome zone but it's free to play nature is killing my buzz a bit. Still, getting into MP was quite addicting and became my main gaming focus for awhile.

Donkey Kong Land 3 - Had been slowly playing this a bit before starting these threads. Didn't want to burn through it too fast since this is the last new DK Rare experience there is for me. At this point, I've beaten K. Rool and am now in the Lost World. Uh, I mean, spoilers! Probably wrap this up in the next day or so though. I often go back and forth between DKC 2 and 3 as to which one is better though I usually fall on the side of DKC 2 mainly because of presentation. However, in the battle of the DK Land trilogy, I'd say 2 is easily the winner there with a battle between 1 and 3 for the second spot. 1 is a bit rougher but it has some odd and interesting ideas that never popped up in the series again whereas 3 is Rare really being able to provide a close experience to the console games on the handheld but it feels more diminished from the actual console game and a bit lesser because of that. Unlike DKL2, when my mind recognizes and compares elements between DKC3 and DKL3, I keep viewing DKC3 as superior whereas DKL2 seemed much closer to how DKC2 did things and thus more equal if that makes sense to someone reading this. Anyways, I'm still impressed with how well Rare was able to get the DKC experience on a handheld and think these games hold up just as well as their SNES counterparts do today. These DKL games are still my top 5 of Game Boy VC games that I've played so far.


However, I'll probably be taking a bit of a break from the GB library to start playing through Metroid Other M since I said I'd do that for pokepal's retroactive and last I checked the thread, ejamer wanted to wait on his thoughts until others had played the game too so I guess I should get on that. Still have more Game Boy games I want to get to and buy but I'm trying to be space things out a bit by buying a couple and beating those and then getting new ones and rinse and repeat instead of just buying everything all at once and backlogging a bunch. Since the GB games seem to be of such a short nature, it probably won't take too long to work through them but I don't mind spacing them out in this way.

Also, all the talk and praise for Super Mario Land 2 has got me contemplating a replay of that game now but I think I'm going to hold off for a bit and get through some of these "newer" titles I haven't played yet before going back to it. Now that I've gone through Super Mario Land again, I'm looking for some more simple Mario action.
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Offline ejamer

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Re: Best of the 3DS eShop: Virtual Console. Game Boy - Part 2.
« Reply #53 on: October 18, 2019, 03:39:25 AM »
CATRAP -  ... so if the game does get more tricky ...

It does ramp up in difficulty, but it takes a long time to get there. Even by level 50, you'll probably plow through a lot of stages very quickly with just a couple of rewinds to fix mistakes. That said, I think the "not too difficult" approach is probably good for a game like this, as there is no way to skip a level if you do get stuck.

Quote
... I'm back in the Picross Stockholm Syndrome zone ...

We've all been there (and enjoyed it).

Quote
... start playing through Metroid Other M ...

Do it! Other M is a flawed experience, but still interesting and only lasts for about 10 hours. Way more fun than I had expected. I even did the post-game content, which is pretty rare.

Quote
Also, all the talk and praise for Super Mario Land 2 has got me contemplating a replay of that game now but I think I'm going to hold off for a bit and get through some of these "newer" titles I haven't played yet before going back to it. Now that I've gone through Super Mario Land again, I'm looking for some more simple Mario action.

Do this too, eventually!

Totally a worthwhile purchase for Mario fans, despite the low difficulty and short playing time overall. You can always replay a bunch of the stages anyway, or look for secret exits, or take alternate paths through the overworld. (Also, the final stage does increase the challenge level and will might take a few tries.)
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