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.
Poll
