Topic: Why does it seem like OG Game Boy and Game Boy Color games don't get any real respect compared to retro games on other older Nintendo platforms?

A few months ago when the rumors started going around that Nintendo was looking to expand the NSO, all kinds of systems were tossed around.

Naturally, most people wanted Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Advance games, and there was tons of excitement over games from those platforms joining the service.

But when I or other people started talking about them adding OG Game Boy or Game Boy Color games, I noticed alot of people had a negative reaction to the idea. They acted like Game Boy games before the Advance were outdated titles that nobody wanted to replay and that those games were not worth anyone's time.

It honestly shocked me about the negative reaction towards the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, and I noticed that there does not seem to be as much nostalgia towards those platforms as other older Nintendo consoles.

Yeah, people look at Pokémon and the Zelda games with nostalgia, but it seems like the rest of the OG Game Boy and Game Boy Color's library gets trashed or ignored.

People talk about Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World and debate which of those two games are better, but tend to ignore Super Mario Land 2 even though it's on par with both of those classics.

People are quick to point out the numerous ports of arcade and titles from other platforms that struggled on the Game Boy and use this to mock the system.

Even though other platforms like the GBA had the same issue.

I don't get it. I love the OG Game Boy and Game Boy Color libraries and there are tons of classic games on both platforms.

So, why does it seem like some many gamers don't want to show those two systems the same level of respect that the NES, SNES, N64, or GBA get?

I think part of it is that a majority of OGB games is that they are looked on as inferior ports of NES games or watered down games based off of a NES series.

To be honest I had a Gameboy growing up as well as an NES. The only time I played the Gameboy was on the family car trip or I went to my Grandparents place basically anywhere I went that didn't have an NES. If I was at home, I wouldn't bother touching the Gameboy version of Ducktales when I had the NES version. Same with Super Mario Land 2 and the TMNT games.

In fact alot developers don't even consider the Gameboy games of a particular series as cannon or they complete ignore it. I know Castlevania is that way.

Yeah, I think it's mostly because many Game Boy games are just somewhat inferior versions of the NES games... Plus they have less colors and a lower resolution, which make them harder to approach for many gamers who did not grow up with them.
I absolutely love the OG Game Boy, though. It generally offers more bite-sized games, which is preferable in some situations, has tons of classics, and somehow has a feel to it that's very unique to that system I feel.
Other than the fantastic Pokémon, Zelda, and Mario Land 2 you mentioned, it really has some unique, must experience games on it, like Donkey Kong, Wario Land, Mega Man V, Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge, the original Mario Land, Kirby's Dream Land 1-2, and also Pinball Land, Metroid II, Mole Mania, Nemesis II, Kid Icarus of Myths and Monsters, Kaeru no tame ni Kane wa Naru, and Ganbare Goemon: Sarawareta Ebisumaru (not to be confused with the horrible Kurofunetou no Nazo, which was localized as Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon).

The GBC is somewhat a different case. It does have the great Pokémon and Zelda games people remember and like, but not much else. There is Wario Land 3 (and 2, which was released on both systems), but that's pretty much it. It does have some more Japanese exclusives I like, like Trade & Battle Card Hero, but the overall library is too tiny for many people to really care I think.

I would have gladly accepted GB and GBC games over N64 and Genesis ones, however, even though 2 of my absolute favorite games, Paper Mario and Majora's Mask are on N64.

By the time the Game Boy made itself known to me, there was already an Amiga 500 in my house, so when I came across a Game Boy (almost exclusively on a school coach trip somewhere) the games looked so simple and basic, and the battery issue was such a turn-off (batteries were like gold dust as a kid living in a rural location), that I just couldn't get interested enough in the system or the games just from playing a few minutes of Tetris or Mario on a mate's GB, and the system didn't really lend itself towards spectating. So I pretty much dismissed the system as a cute novelty, and the GBC passed me by completely as far as I can remember.

I'm gonna mostly agree that its that most of the notable Gameboy games tended to be less impressive versions of the NES and SNES games that were literally smaller since they were played on a tiny screen instead of a tv screen. So in most regards the console games stood out to people more as the original and "important" games, and companies noticed that and the nostalgia marketing for old games relied on the console games more and thus everyone unintentionally doubled down on the lack of appreciation for the Gameboy.

People dismiss the GB/GBC for the same reason they should dismiss the rest of the NSO; a lot of the good gems are buried beneath mounds of trash.

@Tasuki I played my Game Boy games as a kid just as much as my SNES games. Especially when the Super Game Boy came out. It was so much fun to mess around with the colors.
I enjoyed my Game Boy Mario games just as much as the SNES ones (World and All-Stars).
Well, if Ducktales is your point of comparison, I could see thinking of the GB as "only when I can't play the home system" device. Since GB games were cheaper (and thus the parents were little more likely to buy), I was able to settle for owning a couple of the inferior ports of games I rented on the SNES. Like Yoshi's Cookie and Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (but wow was that a two layered downgrade from the SNES original). I just didn't double-dip.

I very much preferred the Game Boys over the home consoles.

Might be because I started gaming with Pokémon I suppose.

There's been a bit of a historic trend to ignore handhelds in favour of consoles - perhaps because the latter are generally seen as more cutting-edge, and where all the big-budget titles go. I wouldn't be surprised if most top games list underrepresented handheld titles outside of things like Pokemon and a select few first-party Nintendo games (Sony's handheld games rarely get any mention these days).

An interesting example of handhelds getting side-lined is the Wii U/3DS era. Nintendo were largely seen as irrelevant at this point (with a lot of "Nintendoomed" talk), yet for a significant portion of time during this period Nintendo technically had the largest install base of any current-gen system with the 3DS (that said, PS3 and XB360 were still going strong well into the eighth generation).

In terms of the Gameboy specifically? Personally I think that 8-bit games just haven't aged particularly well, and NES games have the greater advantage of either having greater nostalgic value (NES was a lot of peoples' first system) and/or being the starting point for many beloved franchises.

@KingMike I will admit I did play my Gameboy games more once I got Super Gameboy. Other then that though I never played my Gameboy much at home. I also will note that I didn't have too many GB games, during the height of its popularity, I was a kid so I really didn't have the money for games and mostly of the games I got for birthday, and Christmas were NES games and SNES games. Most of my games were ports of NES games, games my parents knew or at least thought I would like cause I enjoyed their NES counter parts. So I had stuff like Dr. Mario, Ducktales, Tecmo Bowl, Batman and sport games that my brother and I can play together like Baseball and Tennis. I did have Marioland 1and 2 which were probably my most played games on that system and were unique.

Also as far as buying games for me and my brother, my parents usually went off of the games that we rented. NES and SNES games that we rented over and over, Zelda ALttP, Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers, Final Fantasy etc. We were almost guaranteed to find a copy of that game as a present during the year. Since no stores rented out Gameboy games, my parents weren't too sure what GB games to get us. Not only that but I wasn't too familiar with many GB games as well since I couldn't rent them.

One grocery store was the only place I saw renting GB games back in the day, and even then they had literally only a handful of games for the console.
I remember Blockbuster didn't start renting portable games until the GBC era.

@KingMike Yeah I know that a family owned video store in Oklahoma rented Game Boy games, that my friend would go to when he visited his grandparents. I actually didn't know of anywhere that would rent games for protable systems till I got a Gamefly sub and saw that they had GBA and DS games to rent.

There was a lot going on in the 8-bit gaming space in japan. Unfortunately the NES is overrepresented in that space, as great as it is. But it holds the lion share of the popular classics known to the mainstream, so that’s probably why.

Several reasons

1) Game Boy was iconic AF, but when Color came out with it's shovelware it kind of tarnished it's legacy a bit

2) GBA was such an improvement, it blew peoples doors off. It blew it off the hinges for me. Literally SNES and sometimes ps1 2d level graphics on a damn handheld.

@Tasuki also alot of it is because Color left a bad taste in peoples mouths, but yes the NES port thing is valid

I'm confused.

Did Gameboy not have Shovelware for 10 years beforehand?

Were the 2 years of the GBC a notable period of shovelware games?

Do people remember or even had takes on the GBC in 1999 (outside of thinking it wasn't a huge advancement after a decade, which I could see)? Honestly I'm so used to the internet era that I can't imagine anyone had takes on anything before 2002. :V

I was under the impression that a majority of GB games were kinda like shovelware.

I haven’t heard of the GBC itself contributing much to that though.

@kkslider5552000
They did, | was in middle school right before GBA came out, the general vibe was GBC color games pretty much were crap, and yes the amount of shovel ware games increases from 98- early 2001, the GBC was seen as a gimmick by many. In fact I was shocked when they let Pokemon Silver be playable on OG Game Boy, Nintendo most likely did this because people were not jumping on color so fast. GBC was just stop gap until GBA came. Nothing about GBC blew me away. Game Gear had color and this was in 91 lmao. Many kids in my class thought GBC was stupid and added very little. I know people that bought GBC and were mislead to believe u needed it to play Red and Blue ( that is how Nintendo kind of portrayed it)

GB games did have shovelware but not to the amount GBC did, it seemed like any IP threw themselves at GBC at the time to make a 8 bit port of their playstation or n64 title.

@NintendoGamecube
The GBC added a fair bit to the Pokemon games so I'm not sure I'd put it in the same box you did. Crystal in particular. And most of my favourite Gameboy titles were GBC exclusive. Mario Tennis, Wario Land, Donkey Kong Country. Not bad for how short a time it was on shelves

yeah their opinions were probably bad