Game Boy Color

"Pretty good improvement over the original GB, flawed but good."

For over half a decade Nintendo has been going exceptionally well with the now classic system that is the Game Boy. It has done quite a considerably good job pleasing the masses in portable gaming. Even Sega's Game Gear whom was once highly bragged as the superior handheld due to its full color (and somewhat stronger graphics capabilities) eventually admitted defeat to the Mighty Game Boy. Though when 1998 came in, Nintendo once again re-innovated themselves with what is now known today as the Game Boy Color.

What is this Gameboy Color you ask? Well remember the effective albeit gimmicky Game Boy Pocket which was indirectly the follow-up to the Original GB? It was somewhat shorter and a lot more thinner (and the color scheme was Black'nWhite), how was the GBC like? Well take the Game Boy Pocket, add more colors and increase the graphical capabilities up to NES standards and there you have it! Many fans have nicknamed this as ''The Portable NES'' and needless to say it won't take you long to figure out why its been called that. Heck it pretty much started the now known concept of porting NES games into portable handhelds. With a overally genuinely competent package design the Gameboy Pocket may not've absolutely perfect the handheld console BUT it was quite the substantial step in that direction. However one slight problem is that even though the games made for the system were more like NES titles whenever you play a original GB game its still like how it would've been on the Super Game Boy. (And unfortunately unlike the SGB the system picks the color scheme for you and it doesn't always pick good color schemes as well.) Ok, ok I can understand WHY its like that since its not a absolutely HUGE technological improvement over the original GB of course. Though still it is a flaw nevertheless...

The selection of games were generally rather good however unfortunately it was not seemingly flawness. Oh sure not all of the GBC games are great (then again NO system has had a perfect selection) but that wasn't the problem. What was the problem you ask? Simple during its earlier years its 3rd Party support was rather weak (aside from a few exceptions like Metal Gear Solid and the Dragon Warrior Monsters seres). Nintendo's first party support for the GBC has been going GREAT from the start and continued that throughout its lifespan but it wasn't until the later years is when the 3rd party support got better. Though its 3rd party support was never that TRULY great like most of the previous Nintendo consoles but it did fairly with games like Enix's Dragon Warrior III and the like.

Overall its a generally solid little portable of pretty darn good quality. Its considerably easy to find and fortunately its also rather quite inexpensive to boot as well. And as much as I like the Game Boy Advance (and trust me I do) but while it may be even easier to find but its still about twice the price (if not considerably more). Though fortunately while the original GB might be to outdatted to you the GBC has stood that ever-so proverbial test of time rather well. So in another words this is still quite the considerably good alternative to the more costly GBA if necessary. But whether you plan to use this as a GBA alternative or not its still a very good portable and is by all means a worthwhile buy.

+ Great selection of games for both this and the earlier GB system.
+ Started the concept of making NES games a bit more...portable
+ The control structure was still for the most part pretty solid
+ Its not hard to find with a pretty decent price of approximately 20$
+ This is a good alternative just in case you can't get the GBA
- Aside from the ''Made for GBC'' games the color is STILL rather awfully limited
- Until its later years it didn't have all that strong of 3rd party support (even though its first party support was always great)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/04