The Nintendo Game Boy's grayscale, 8-bit hardware was already dated within a year of its 1989 release, but that didn't stop it from dominating the handheld gaming market for the next decade and still being a source of fun today. While it may not have had the power of Sega's Game Gear or the Atari Lynx, the original Game Boy (also known as the DMG) supported a massive library of more than 1000 games, meaning many great hidden gems were overlooked by fans of classics like Link's Awakening and Super Mario Land.
The Game Boy's initial success over its more powerful competitors is generally attributed to its superior battery life and more durable (and thus more portable) build. High sales then ensured lots of third-party game support, which, in turn, only made it more popular. Being bundled with the now-ubiquitous puzzle game Tetris was the cherry on top, making the Game Boy a true icon of the 1990s.
Even now, more than 30 years after its launch, retro game fans are still hunting for new games to play on their Game Boys and Game Boy emulators. Here are a few hidden gems often overlooked by the Game Boy community.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Astro Rabby
Astro Rabby is a unique platformer about a robotic rabbit on the moon. Unlike Mario's side-scrolling gameplay, players navigate auto-scrolling levels from a top-down perspective, avoiding crumbling surfaces and attempting to find a level-ending heart item before time runs out. Rabby's sprite is impressively animated, selling the illusion of him getting closer to the camera as he jumps surprisingly well. The game was only released in Japan, but its text is all English, making it perfectly playable for a wider audience.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Bubble Ghost
Plenty of Game Boy developers tried to capture some of Tetris' success with puzzle games of their own, but Bubble Ghost is one of the few examples of a physics-based puzzler on the handheld. Players control the titular spirit, who blows on a bubble to push it through the hazard-filled corridors of a haunted house. The ghost can also use its breath to remove some of these obstacles, extinguishing the flames of candles and more.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Catrap
This oddly named puzzle game is notable for its status as one of the first - if not the first - games with a time-rewind mechanic. Players push blocks and climb ladders to reach enemy monsters and ghosts, walking into them to clear them off the screen. Then, once all the enemies are gone, players are taken to the next level. Catrap's rather basic premise is bolstered by the rewinding, which allows players to correct their mistakes in real time, reversing actions to reset puzzles to a previous state.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Cave Noire
Cave Noire is a turn-based, top-down Roguelite with all the usual fixings: Shops, items, randomly generated dungeons, and permadeath. It's a difficult journey that emphasizes inventory and enemy management, and its genre alone makes it a unique game among the Game Boy's library.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Great Greed
Speaking of unique, Great Greed is unlike any RPG on the system. A kooky, Earthbound-like setting full of food-themed inhabitants and a story based in 90's environmentalism are supported by an interesting, pseudo-real-time combat system, making something any Game Boy RPG fan shouldn't overlook.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Hammerin’ Harry: Ghost Building Company
Despite its awful box art (a common problem for the games in this list), Hammerin' Harry: Ghost Building Company is a solid beat 'em up. It's the third game on this list to feature ghosts (the lasting power of Ghostbusters, perhaps), and this time, players hammer 'em. It's a simple but effective example of the genre, and side-scrolling shoot 'em up sections are interspersed throughout for a bit of added variety.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Mercenary Force
Mercenary Force, besides having some of the coolest box art on the system, also stands out by ditching shoot 'em up conventions. Rather than a high-powered, sci-fi spaceship, players control a band of four medieval Japanese mercenaries, which can be arranged into different formations and recruited in different configurations to best take on a given challenge.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: Penguin Wars
Penguin Wars lets players choose from a variety of animals to face off in a dodgeball-like sports game. The objective is to end the round with fewer balls on the player's side of the court, so players have to strategize when and where to throw the balls across to their opponents' side. It's a simple game with a surprising amount of depth, and it gets even better when played with a friend via Link Cable.
Game Boy Hidden Gems: The Sword of Hope 2
A clever mash-up of Japanese RPG and MacVenture, The Sword of Hope 2 is a text- and still image-based adventure game with first-person, turn-based combat. Players navigate a fantasy world as Prince Theo, in search of the titular sword. It's an interesting, Dungeons & Dragons-like adventure and a perfect showcase of the kind of experimentation developers were willing to practice on the Game Boy.
The Nintendo Game Boy originally released in North America on July 31, 1989.