GAMEBOY: The Essentials

http://jl13.com/images/Super-Mario-Land.jpg

I know Super Mario Land, and of course Tetris, but what other original Gameboy games should I be playing?

kirby!

super mario land 2! the pinnacle of mario games!

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/7/74/256px-Super_Mario_Land_2_box_art.jpg

i can't remember if i ever played 2 but i was obsessed with 1.

Zelda Link's Awakening

Jeff, you mentioned Tetris already, but I'm going to be more specific and say Tetris DX.

links awakening is my favorite zelda game

Metroid II
Wario Land I and II
the other zelda games

i don't WANT to say pokemon red/blue... but there is that.

kinda makes you realize how long the game boy's tail was! pokemon wasn't even a "game boy color" game. that must have been a good decade after SML!

speaking of SML1, best mario soundtrack ever easily.

the Baseball game for GB was great. For some reason I can't think of any essentials! Aside from that homebrew app that allows you to make chiptunes. Little Sound DJ or something.

was the gameboy the longest-living video game system ever?

That's a very difficult question to answer, since there's no way to really say when it died, or when any other console died... I mean, the Neo-Geo was technically "not dead" for 14 years.

Also, there's a game coming out this Christmas for the Sega Genesis, but it's homebrew, I suppose...

And also, the GB had like 3 redesigns before it even upgraded the hardware. Original, Play It Loud series, Pocket, new Pocket... there may have been a Mini or lit one or something in there somewhere?

for me the gameboy died when my rechargeable battery pack ran out

then I got a Game Boy Color

http://www.snesclassics.com/history/images/full/densetsu9.jpg

^^ actually the first in the Secret of Mana series

When I was 14 I sold my Gameboy and NES in order to buy a TurboGrafx-16. It made me feel like a man.

best gameboy game ever = balloon kid, probably the most under rated nintendo platformer. it scrolled backwards!

http://www.vgmuseum.com/scans/gb/WarioLandU-Front.jpg

kid icarus: of myths and monsters
tiny toon adventures: bab's big break (about the 4th time i've mentioned this game on ilg, all those old konami tiny toons games were great!)
DONKEY KONG

http://jl13.com/images/Balloon_Kid_01.jpg

Thanks for all the suggestions everybody. I'm trying out everything I can (ok, I'm trying 'em all out). So far Balloon Kid, which I'd never heard of, seems like a real winner. It's pretty hard too, in a weird floaty way.

are you playing an actual gameboy or an emulator?

uh, visual boy advance. It's pretty smooth, lets you take screenshots and movies, and honestly, I love the way these simpler games look played large on my HDTV - the good ones really do hold up.

wow. playing gameboy games on an hdtv? that's wild. what a country!

worst gameboy game ever: the bill & ted game

^^^ try "Wave Race" (top down view, can't see anything until you've practically crashed into it)

I love Wave Race on GB!

I was also 9 and borrowed it form a girl so maybe that had something to do w/ it

worst gameboy game ever: the bill & ted game
Bill & Ted on the Atari Lynx, on the other hand, was great!

But on Gameboy, Kid Icarus and Super Mario Land 1&2 seconded, and Play Action Football, Mario Golf, Crash Test Dummies, Tetris of course, Pokemon (it's just so accessible with just 151 monsters). OK, some of these I haven't played since I was a kid, but I'm sure they're still great...

zelda link's awakening may be the best game on any system.

mario tennis, baseball and golf are all excellent

raging fighter was SFII on a gameboy, which was impressive.

tetris and super mario land have seldom been bettered in their genres.

wow, how easy are the bosses in mario land? long as you're big mario, you can just walk through the bastards.

Survival Kids!
(on GB color)

the grinch was a good gameboy color game

I think Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble was as good as GBC got, for me. That or the GB versions of Beatmania.

super mario land 2

guys what do you think the best system to actually play first-gen game boy games on is? the original brick gets motion blurred to death but the GBA and DS both end up with a big lump of protruding plastic

major issues of our times #449

one of nintendo's best hardware designs imo and only liek £10 on ebay now
gameboy pocket
http://www.rolentapress.com/rolenta/collection/nintendo/gameboy-pocket.jpg

they are tiny btw
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3093/2659809155_aa4c8e0f81.jpg

i'm playing everything gbcolor on bgb emulator, loving zelda games - oracle of ages, and seasons

pocket! i knew i was forgetting an iteration, i kept jumping straight onto the GBC in my head for some reason. yeah i spend waaay more time on my hideous yellow pocket game boy as a kid than i did on the battery eating giant

b.e.g. is totally a classic design in a 'wow that is aesthetically fantastic' way
pocket has it beaten out in sort of 'oh yeah that is actually way better for the consumer' aspects

does pocket have a backlit screen? think i'm gonna invest in one of those third-party all in one magnifier/backlight/stereo amplifier units that slot over the screen.

i've been playing pokemon red on gbc all week!

gameboy light is the iteration of pocket w/backlit screen iirc

the fuck is the situation with the real tetris being so hard to get

also prince of persia

and mario 2 seconded

the fuck is the situation with the real tetris being so hard to get

haha yeah i love how the tetris for later platforms was always tetris + like, other stuff - they couldn't just release it's fucking tetris for the game boy advance ever. actually having checked they did to 'tetris DX' for the game boy colour, which is tetris with colours

i reinherited my copy of og tetris from someone who had it for years the other day. it felt nice.

taking sides: final fantasy adventure vs link's awakening

cmon link 4 sure

http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Final_Fantasy_Adventure_GB_ScreenShot4.gif

spent so long playing this

http://www.fantasyanime.com/mana/ffadventmap_2-marsh.png

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/2009/11/best-undiscovered-gameboy-game-boy-color-games.html