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Best of the 3DS eShop: Virtual Console. Game Boy - Part 2.
Khushrenada:
--- Quote from: pokepal148 on September 16, 2019, 04:23:12 PM ---Lock N Chase is a fun little arcadey romp. If that's your cup of tea.
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So far, you are the only person to comment on this title. Care to elaborate a bit more on it?
Mop it up:
--- Quote from: Khushrenada on September 18, 2019, 01:18:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: Mop it up on September 16, 2019, 02:22:33 PM ---Pokémon Blue, Pokémon Red, and Pokémon Yellow
Pokémon Yellow: Recommended for Kairon
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Hey now! Pokemon Yellow actually falls under the Game Boy Color VC so save your recommendation of it for when we get to that section.
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Pokémon Yellow is very much an original Game Boy game, but I looked it up and it is indeed listed as GBC on the VC. It would seem the VC version allows it to play as if it's on GBC hardware. However, the added colour is no different than the simplistic colour the GBC system adds to every regular Game Boy game, so that's pretty odd they allowed Pokémon Yellow to run on GBC emulation but not every other original Game Boy game. I guess they wanted to further differentiate it from Blue and Red on VC to try to get those people to buy it again. Personally, I would still count it as a Game Boy game and not GBC since unlike other games it has no real GBC features, but it's certainly one of those messy cases up for interpretation.
pokepal148:
Crystal was the only one that didn't actually run on the OG GB at all. Gold and Silver could run on an original gameboy and I don't think they had any specific GBC features other than how mystery gift worked on those games. That's actually why shiny Pokémon like the Red Gyarados have that swirling star animation to this day. It was introduced so people playing on an OG gameboy can still tell them apart.
--- Quote from: Khushrenada on September 18, 2019, 01:19:37 PM ---
--- Quote from: pokepal148 on September 16, 2019, 04:23:12 PM ---Lock N Chase is a fun little arcadey romp. If that's your cup of tea.
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So far, you are the only person to comment on this title. Care to elaborate a bit more on it?
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It's kind of a pac-man clone but your character can put up little gates throughout the maze to block the enemies from reaching you. Also the gameboy version has redesigned stages because unlike Namco, Data East realized that just bringing Pac-man to the Gameboy when you can't even see the whole stage is a terrible idea and designed a handful of unique challenges that use the original Lock N Chase gameplay and work better for the gameboy format.
Khushrenada:
I’ll throw in my two cents on the few games here I’ve bought and tried:
Mario's Picross – This has actually been one of the better titles from the Game Boy Virtual Console because the gameplay and design around solving Picross puzzles is still very playable today and hasn’t changed much from modern iterations of the title. The one thing I find a downgrade is having to move around a curser to mark the board accordingly compared to having a touchscreen to do that. Plus, the lack of color although it’s not like color adds that much in a modern version either. I thought it was neat to see the first introduction of Picross on a Nintendo system.
Metroid II: Return of Samus – Very disappointing. It’s a bit better than the NES version of Metroid but not enough to keep me from quitting it. I took down the first two Metroids and got the Spiderball but just lost interest to keep going. After Samus Returns was released, I thought I’d try this game out again now that I had a better idea of the possible layout of the land but that enthusiasm very quickly burned out. As others have said, Metroid 2 is basically obsoleted now with the release of Samus Returns much like Zero Mission has obsoleted the original Metroid.
While there is still a part of me that remembers reading a bit about Hero of Time’s journey and his being able to appreciate it and hoping that might happen to me, I just can’t justify it to myself to spend the effort on this title with the amount of other games I’d like to play and have yet to get around playing while not even really caring much about what I have played so far of this title. Another reason why I stopped caring about the Game Boy games released on Virtual Console after always seeing this as a top rated Game Boy title.
Super Mario Land - This was the only other Game Boy game I ever actually owned besides Game and Watch Gallery 3. It's an odd title in the Mario series for sure but despite its odd choices, as a Game Boy game, it's still one of the better titles to play. To echo some of the earlier comments, I still like the music for it to, I think it still holds up as a game worth playing today and I agree with Pokepal that it is the best of the Mario Land titles. I kind of prefer the tiny look of Mario and the level design of blocks and enemies. Always felt like it fit the screen better. SML2 feels like it is a bit too zoomed in and I'm not getting the best view spatially of the level. It is short but I appreciated that back when I played it on the Game Boy since it has no save feature. If you wanted to beat it then you had to play it all the way through in a sitting. The Restore Point of the VC takes away the trial and error of continually starting over and working your way forward some more as you learn the later levels but that's not a bad thing. Just something to keep in mind for anyone new that they may be able to finish it pretty quickly. It gets a strong recommendation for me and would probably round out my top 5 of Game Boy games I've played and liked available for the VC.
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins - I'm not sure I can agree with the sentiment of this being Super Mario World-Lite. Mario may look closer to his SNES version in this game but it controls very differently. When I did my first Run the Series thread on 2D Mario platformers, I had this game at the bottom (although SML 1 was the next game ahead of it) but one thing I mentioned then is how forgettable this game was to me. It might be another case of having over-hyped it in my mind growing up and the game not meeting the hype. I still remember the Wario commercials from back in the day trying to hypnotize viewers into losing so that he could win. That I remember more than levels in this game. Right now, the only thing I can really picture of the game is Mario with the Bunny Hat sort of flapping around some clouds. I'm also tempted to say this game is something people should feel free to pass on but then I think of Metroid 2 and realize that at least this game was more playable than that. Thus, I say it is recommended for fans willing to play a deeper cut of the 2D Mario series. I have thought about giving it another chance since I checked later on after finishing it and found out I never discovered all 32 levels in the game. Perhaps coming back with lower expectations now may help but for now that remains a low priority idea.
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 - I don't want to comment too much about this game since I really haven't gotten that far into it. I've done maybe the first 4 stages of it. I don't want to seem too harsh on this game but the reality is that after playing and being disappointed in SML2, DK '94 and quitting Metroid 2, Wario Land was the game that basically got me to call the GB Virtual Console quits until now. I'd heard plenty of positive talk on the Wario Land series, particularly from TYP on these forums, and I was looking forward to finally getting into it. The idea of different abilities by hats and searching for treasure in a platforming setting sounded appealing. However, I found the movement and controls a bit stiff and the gameplay a bit obtuse at first. I just felt like I was in for more of the same experience like SML2 and since nothing struck me as particularly fun in that opening bit, I just started another game and never got back to it. Recently, I got a bunch of old Nintendo Power issues going back to the SNES and Game Boy days including ones that cover WL:SML3 from when it released. Looking over that again with the tips and hints got me interested in playing this game again and giving it a better shake. Once I finish DKL3 then I probably will go back to this so perhaps I'll be more positive on this game in the future but, for now, it felt like another game highlighting the limitations the Game Boy system caused to game design resulting in an experience that isn't worth revisiting much today.
Khushrenada:
--- Quote from: pokepal148 on September 18, 2019, 04:09:54 PM ---It's kind of a pac-man clone but your character can put up little gates throughout the maze to block the enemies from reaching you. Also the gameboy version has redesigned stages because unlike Namco, Data East realized that just bringing Pac-man to the Gameboy when you can't even see the whole stage is a terrible idea and designed a handful of unique challenges that use the original Lock N Chase gameplay and work better for the gameboy format.
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Ok. That's not what I was expecting with that game. Sounded more like a shooter of some kind. And are you also saying you played Pac-Man Game Boy and talking about that game in the end of the paragraph?