The Nintendo Game Boy turns 30 this Sunday, and to celebrate this amazing occasion we'll be running a series of related features this week, right up to the big day.
As the 30th anniversary of the Game Boy’s Japanese debut approached, we here at Nintendo Life Towers were thinking a lot about the ol’ DMG-01. The appeal of that chunky lump of grey plastic endures to this day, despite multiple hardware revisions and being superseded by umpteen portables. Yes, it’s bulky by modern standards, and these days you’ll find a better screen on your average set of bathroom scales, but the OG Game Boy remains a reassuringly solid and comfortable bit of kit in your hands.
A quick survey around the office reveals that a few staff members are too young to have owned the original version of the console, but thanks to the backwards compatibility of the Game Boy line (right up to the Micro variant of the Game Boy Advance), there’s nobody that doesn’t get a dose of the warm fuzzies at the mention of the classic system and its huge library of games.
We’ve already heard what developers thought of the all-conquering handheld and now it’s time to listen to us blather on for a paragraph or two about what makes the Game Boy so special. So, grab a fistful of double-As and saddle up for a nostalgia trip…
Ryan Craddock, staff writer
Sadly, I’ve never owned an original Game Boy, but the Game Boy Color (close enough, right?) was my very first gaming console. I vividly remember being painfully jealous of my next door neighbour who had a Game Boy with a copy of Pokémon Blue, and my little, six-year-old self would go round every day, play on it for as long as I could (without saving over his progress) and then do it all over again the next day.
Eventually, my mum treated me to my very own Game Boy Color (which had only been out for a year or two) and a copy of both Pokémon Red and Blue. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Pokémon took over my entire life as a kid – it was everything – and that love for the series, and later Nintendo, has led me right to where I am today on this very site.
Being so young meant that I couldn’t collect the sheer number of games I do for consoles these days, so I can’t declare myself as a ‘super fan’ of the system as such, but the Game Boy family of consoles kickstarted my love for a hobby which has always stayed with me and I can’t give them any better praise than that.
Dom Reseigh-Lincoln, reviewer
The Game Boy wasn't just a flashy toy to me. It was the start of a lifelong love of handheld gaming. And every game - even the bad ones - felt that bit more important because I could play them anywhere. It even got me into genres I might otherwise have never played. The cryptically named Soccer sent me football mad (including it's amazing soundtrack). The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening cemented the series into my being long before Ocarina of Time. And, of course, I spent endless hours playing WWF Superstars. My love of PSP, Vita and Switch all come back to that big yellow Game Boy that meant so much.
Gavin Lane, staff writer
It's only very recently that I tracked down an original Game Boy of my own - back in the day I briefly played on a red Game Boy Pocket (which has since been lost to time or, possibly, distant relatives) before upgrading to a beautiful turquoise Game Boy Color at the same time I swapped Pokémon Blue for the enhanced Yellow version. It was on that which I played my select library of original Game Boy games. The one that really stands out in my memory (besides the brilliant Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, of course) is the simply named Tennis.
No, this game didn't have any 'Super' prefix or a new-fangled colon-subtitle to get you excited! Back in those days you could name your game after the sport it emulated and that was quite enough, thank-you-very-much; no bells, no whistles, just tennis. Even today I find the control you have over your shots impressive, and - blasphemous as it may be - it's not Tetris I turn to for a bite of retro-relaxation, it's Tennis.
Quiet, please.
Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer
My experience with the original Game Boy is hard to compress in just a few short paragraphs but I am not one to shy away from the challenge. While I was a very happy Commodore Amiga owner at the time (1991), it was not the ideal digital entertainment platform in a world where my parents ruled the TV screen (never got a monitor for it, they were expensive).
I stumbled upon the first news of the Game Boy like pretty much everything else in a pre-internet connected world: through the magic of foreign press. A Game & Watch with interchangeable games and the innards of a souped-up ZX Spectrum with a 20+ hour battery life? You can keep your colour games, Game Gear and Lynx, I need something that could last me 300-kilometre bus trips and doctor appointment waiting rooms while still fitting in my pockets. Portugal was going into the transitional period of enforcing EU copyright laws (i.e. the end of over-the-counter piracy) and video game consoles were starting to at last show up in local toy stores. Sega nearly immediately took over the country with its usual flare and aggressive marketing, but Nintendo eventually began sneaking into toy stores and the Game Boy arrived fashionably late along with the outdated 8-bit NES.
As you might imagine, things on the playground weren't easy for Nintendo fans; games became extremely expensive overnight and none of us could afford more than one system and maybe a game every couple of months. Most of my friends turned to SEGA and they simply could not comprehend why I was so happy to return to 8-bit and a system with only 4 colours and no backlit screen. However, thanks to my monthly investment in foreign press I knew exactly what was happening in the US and Japan, with companies like Capcom and Konami releasing portable miracles every other month. Even better, local toy shops began sneaking in (thankfully region-free) Game Boy imports onto their inventory so it wasn't long before my humble collection grew outside of official European offerings.
I am still discovering nowadays new Game Boy games by exploring the Japan-only catalogue and I have played so many brilliant titles it is truly impossible for me to pick a single game as "the one". But like most wonderful journeys it all began with my first game and to most people's surprise it was neither Super Mario Land nor the packed-in Tetris (which I still replay often). It was a very humble first-party developed shmup called Solar Striker. I played it so much I reckon I still know every pattern and safe spot needed to defeat all end-of-level bosses. Further proof of my eccentricity, I never played or owned any Pokémon games; when those came out I was already knee-deep into Japanese Super Famicom imports.
Besides the undeniable staying power of the system, the beauty of the Game Boy remains that there is no 'right way' to enjoy its fantastic game library. There is something for everyone if you look beyond the obvious choices. Who knew that 30 years later it would find a whole new life as the weapon of choice among chiptune music artists? It was a luxury back then and obsolete or not, a luxury today and tomorrow; you simply can't put down this brick.
Alex Olney, video producer
My brother and I both got a Game Boy Pocket each one Christmas back in what must have been the mid-nineties, which considering our age was unthinkable, as we usually had to share everything. Both of them are still both going strong today, but mine was certainly put through its paces in its heyday.
One fine-ish day, I was feeling rather unwell and so stayed home from school so as not to infect all the other small humans. Naturally the shiny electronic brick was used whenever this happened, but this was before I properly understood how to take care of the things that I owned and didn’t want to be damaged. As I was given some cold medicine from my mum, I didn’t really want to pause the game, so I dried drinking it from the tiny plastic cup hands-free. What resulted was the sticky syrup slipping southwards and landing on my console’s D-pad. It soaked in beautifully, and not wanting to let my family know what a complete boob I’d been, I tried to hide it and clean it up as well as I could. Over the coming weeks the D-pad was getting stickier and stiffer all the time, making Alleyway even more unplayable than it was before.
I’d resigned myself to the fact that it was broken, and nothing was going to fix it short of some miracle my dad could perform with some power tools behind closed doors. After a few weeks in a drawer however, the sugary glue had completely hardened, and although it could still be seen through the clear body of the device, one quick press snapped its bonds in twain, and although slightly gritty, the system was working perfectly again. These little buggers are borderline invincible.
Liam Doolan, news writer
I played a wide variety of releases during the original Game Boy generation, but one game I’ll always cherish is the 1998 action-adventure title James Bond 007, created by the now-defunct developer, Saffire Entertainment.
While the Pokémon craze was growing in popularity here in the west, somehow I found myself playing this on the side, on a regular basis. Compared to various other Game Boy games at the time – such as Pokémon Red and Blue – the design of James Bond was a little rough around the edges. Long story short, I ended up getting stuck in a number of difficult segments throughout the game due to its design but managed to persevere.
I eventually saw the credits roll and to this day, it’s still one of my favourite Game Boy games – and memories – of all-time.
Austin Voigt, contributing writer
My first experience with the Game Boy was in my next-door neighbor’s kitchen, and I remember it like it was yesterday. While my friend was my age, their parents allowed them to have a Game Boy, and mine did not (because they thought videogames were the devil’s work, apparently). I’d played the SNES copiously in my youth on my uncle’s system, but this was the first time I’d experienced handheld gaming that could just move anywhere with you - mind-boggling! We played Super Mario Land while listening to the Lion King soundtrack (yeah, it was quite a few years after the initial release - I’m a youngster), and I remembered thinking: “This is the future, people. Handheld gaming, music on CDs… what next?!” Ah, if only Little Austin could see what Nintendo’s doing now…
Darren Calvert, operations director
As I started my gaming life as something of a Sega kid with the Master System, like so many others my age in the UK, I have fond memories of the Game Boy as it introduced me to all the great Nintendo franchises long before I would go on to pick up a battered old Mattel NES for myself. While many of my cherished Game Boy memories were playing Vs Tetris against my best friend outdoors via the game link cable, I also remember being completely addicted to Super Mario Land at that time too.
A local video game store which we frequented used to have the latest issue of Famitsu on the counter for customers to browse and I remember how excited we were to see the first screenshots for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan which we promptly imported a whole year before it arrived officially in the UK. Gargoyle’s Quest was another fond import in 1990; we had no idea what was going on in the RPG section of the game, but it didn’t matter. We muddled through until we could get to the next slice of Firebrand platforming action.
The Game Boy was always with us wherever we went for many years, along with a stash of AA batteries of course. While the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx did their best to challenge the humble Game Boy, nothing could beat its vast selection of games which were ideally suited to its small monochrome screen. 30 years later, many of these classic games are still great fun to dip into.
Those are just some of our memories, but that unassuming lump of grey plastic stokes the old nostalgia fires like Doc Brown's Presto logs - share your own memories in the comments below and let's all bask in the warm green glow of the (backlight-modded) DMG-01...
Comments 39
Fondest memories of mine were playing my family's small collection of games on that old grey brick, including Super Mario Land 2, Dr. Mario, Tail 'Gator, TMNT II, Kirby's Dreamland, and more. Still have all of them safely tucked away and that old Gameboy is proudly on display behind a glass case, ready for whenever I might need it.
Happy birthday, Game Boy!
I remember being amazed when my dad came back from a trip to Japan with a copy of Quarth for the Game Boy, which was one of the few titles never localized over here. And it didn't need any sort of adaptor to play. Nintendo was so cool to keep their handhelds region-free for as long as they did, and now the Switch has gone back to that.
I never had the original Game Boy but I did get a Game Boy Pocket as my first handheld when I was a kid. I remember how much I loved that thing and took it with me everywhere, I had a little collection of Game Boy classics that I loved and kept in a ziplock bag that I lost when I was a kid, and then I started to be a lot more careful with my games.
Looking back that console was a part of growing up, and the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advanced gave me a ton of great memories over the years, lots of family outings and good times with old friends. The DS era was different for me, I think it's because I was a teenager by then and I just didn't use handhelds the same way anymore.
I was lucky enough to get a classic Game Boy for my 10th birthday back in 91. Once I got home from school my parents took me to Dixon’s to spend my birthday money on Super Mario Land.
I was sooooo excited, I was going to own my very own Mario game for the first time and couldn’t believe it. I ran, Game Boy in hand, full pelt towards the store. I was going so fast I tripped over my own feet sending my brand new DMG-01 into the air and crashing into the concrete.
In that moment we all thought that was it, it barely lasted a day before I managed to break it, but it was fine! Not even a scratch. My Dad said at the time how impressed he was at the build quality, that it was built to last. Neither of us expected to still be in working order 28 yeas later...
My Gameboy was a hand me down with a few games thrown in like Kirby and Tetris. It was tons of fun and all, but once I got a hold of Pokemon, it stopped being a handheld Nintendo console and solely became a Pokemon machine.
The original Game Boy not only cemented my love of portable gaming, but also of portable RPGs and the very essence of doing more with less. I loved the visuals, honestly; they weren't color but there was something just different about those four colors and the blur. It wasn't just a different way to game, it was totally unique.
My fondest memories come from playing the Final Fantasy Legend series and Final Fantasy Adventure (aka Seiken Densetsu, the precursor to Secret of Mana), Link's Awakening, Metroid II and Batman. And Tetris, naturally. And this great RPG called Great Greed that allowed you to choose who you wanted to marry in the end, even if you wanted to marry the king and take him away from his queen...quite progressive at the time, really.
I had tons more games than that, of course, but those are the ones that came to me first.
Mine was playing Pokemon Red! Yep, that is it.
I love simple games. This is making me think of getting my first Gameboy!
But even more than that, why don't we have all Gameboy games on Switch? Surely there would be a huge retro appetite for them?
Castlevania on the GB. Can't wait to play them on the Switch as well.
Although I did not play them on the Original GB but the GBA SP but close enough
I got a Sega Game Gear instead of the GB I wanted. At recess, I was stuck to a wall with an adapter while everyone else played freely, doing 1 v 1 Tetris. I had a GB the next day. I was a spoilt child
Wario Land 3, Hamtaro: Ham Hams Unite (🔥) , Links Awakening, and Pokémon were my favorites lol
When less was more. Such a simple loop, such a simple game...
Really @RyanCraddock. You are me? I am you? That is exactly my story, the only difference is i received my GBC with a copy of Pokemon Silver.
i remembered playing a GBC game at a Eye Doctor that i used to visited along time ago for my eyes. can't remember what it was, or if it was any good.
Getting one for Christmas 1991 with Tetris and Mario Land, then picking up Double Dragon and R-Type with my Christmas money, then that F1 game that came with the 4-player adaptor.
Traded it all in when the SNES came out but what a machine. Really enjoyed the R-type article, that was an amazing conversion.
Had the original. Me and my Flatmates spent countless nights on Tetris and me on Mario and the fantastic Turrican (any one remember that? Never gets a mention).
I played it to bits and it STILL works. It’s ridiculous!
Lots of great memories playing Tetris with friends and trying not to panic when you hear the music that goes really fast when you're close to losing.
Also all three Mario Land games, Links Awakening, Pokémon, Dr Mario, Motorcross Maniacs, Klax, Othello, Loopz, Waverace, Belmonts Revenge, Penguin Land, Super RC Pro AM, Kirby games the list goes on. Such great memories, the Gameboy Colour was so much more comfortable to hold though.
Dynablaster, Gargoyles Quest and Qix were my first games. What really got lost, is the borrowing and lending games from/to other kids in the neighborhood. Also, we used to sit on the sidewalk, playing Gameboy Multiplayer locally... great times!
Mine isn't so much a memory of the games as when my brother first got it. I had a NES and my brother wanted a GameBoy, so my parents got him one with presents day. Only, they wrapped the adapter separately. And placed it on top of his pile.
So imagine an eager 7 year old with a huge load of presents, he can't wait to open them, he doesn't check them he just grabs the first present he can, rips it open to see what he has and it's a... plug. He cries for about 2 minutes before he hears us telling him what the plug might be for... And sure enough the GameBoy is the present right beneath it.
Those were the days.
theres so many good games on the gameboy mines is castlevania belmonts revenge and metroid return of samus.
The release of the original Game Boy predates me, but its younger Game Boy Color sibling is quite fondly remembered. It was my first console ever and was the perfect school bus companion for ten-year-old, Pokemon-crazed me. XD
I didn't get to play too many other Nintendo-made GB/GBC games until they hit the 3DS VC a few years ago. My siblings and I shared games, a fair bit of which were shovelware. Besides Pokemon, I do have fond memories of Tweety's High-Flying Adventure, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Yu-Gi-Oh Dark Duel Stories, and a Scooby-Doo game that was basically a retelling of the classic Jekyll and Hyde episode.
It’s great to see Fall of the Foot Clan get a mention, that was (and still is) an absolute favourite of mine.
The thing that made the GB so amazing was that it had a huge amount of variety in its library and the games were relatively affordable compared to the ludicrous amount Nintendo wanted for NES games back in the day.
I also loved how developers were willing to try porting anything to the GB. Stuff like T2 The Arcade Game, Chase HQ and Hard Drivin’ pushed arcade hardware to the limits but that never stopped anyone from trying to port them to the humble GameBoy.
I also loved how easy it was to find places importing GameBoy games back in the ‘90s. Literally all sorts of weird places sold them, I remember some guy in Northampton had turned his living room into a shop and a camera store in Gloucester all sold imports. Tottenham Court Road of course was the Mecca of GB imports, every shop had something none of the others did.
As for favourite games, there’s the aforementioned TMNT, Donkey Kong ‘94, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Mario Land 1, 2 & 3, Link’s Awakening, Metroid II and of course Tetris.
I’ve also got to give a special mention to Star Trek The Next Generation. Its a game no one else loves but I still enjoy playing it. Unlike most space games it’s not all battles and shooting, oftentimes the missions are just about rescuing colonists or transporting an ambassador.
It was the second go around with a green Game Boy Pocket when I truly became mostly a handheld gamer we paid $15 for it at swap meet.
I think it was around 1999?
Tmnt II: back from the sewers, I remember yelling cowabunga and radical setting my mom crazy. Nostalgic bliss!🙌 Happy Birthday Gameboy, I am getting old...😆
Although I did exist in the OG Game Boy's heyday, I was a little too young back then (I was born in the early 90s and my dad, who was a big gamer back in the day, never got into handheld gaming. He did have a Super Game Boy and Donkey Kong '94, funnily enough). So my first handheld was actually the Game Boy Color. Had fond memories of Super Mario Land 1 and 2, the aforementioned Donkey Kong '94, and Pokemon Red. I didn't have too many games for it though - the Game Boy Advance was the first handheld that I truly dug! I still remember when every kid in school was playing Pokemon back when Red and Blue came out. You know, before Pokemon Go was a thing.
My parents rarely bought things for me gaming related as a kid. When they did, it was usually later in its life cycle which was fine. So usually, I would only get games for Christmas or birthdays, Or by saving up money which again , I would spend on games. The game boy surprisingly has a different story for me than the usual way my brother and i ended up with a gaming system. It was probably the mid to early 90s and my neighbor down the street was having a garage sale. He was quite older than me ( 13 at the time maybe) so he must've stopped gaming or thought he was too cool for it. Anyway, low and behold there it was, a gameboy with 5 games or so. From what I remember he was only selling it for like 7 Or 8 bucks. It couldn't have been much more than that as my parents would have never let me borrow much more than that at that age. Turned me into a Kirby fan, a Dr Mario and Tetris fan. And it was pretty damn cool playing tecmo bowl on the go. I ended up getting some more games after that from what I remember. Fast forward to 2018, I found my old gameboy, but no games except tecmo bowl. The system wouldn't work so I brought it into a ubreakitifixit and they fixed it for free! Every now and then I'll fire it up. I was too little to get into links awakening or know what it was at the time but, I'm going to buy it for my gameboy some time soon on Amazon. Waiting for it to be around $15. Already bought it on 3ds and getting it on switch but it'll be cool to actually play the original on my original system.
I’ve loads of fond memories but that first time I played Pokémon blew my mind 🤯
My first exposure to the Gameboy was the token school trip where some kid snuck a DMG-101 in to play on the bus. It was there I discovered the miracle of console gaming on the go in the form of Super Mario Land and Donkey Kong Land which I couldn’t believe was shrunk down to handheld mode.
The first game I ever got was Pokemon Red when it launched although I never owned a Gameboy as it was simply too pricey for my parents to afford.
Having owned a Super Nintendo, instead I was able to find a Super Gameboy in a gaming store a few hours away. I couldn’t get there in a million years so I overcame my sheepish phone manner and organised cash on delivery over the phone. I must have been 11 or 12!
A friend returned from Hong Kong in 1996 and brought back a black Gameboy Pocket with him which blew my mind. The screen! The form factor! Just two AAA batteries! It was a revelation.
I arranged to buy it off him and pay him off while I had it. It came with a 116 games in 1 cart and my go to was King of Fighters ‘95 - a gem of a game!
It ended up going back to my friend as it was clear I wouldnt be able to buy it off him but damn was it a fun lil gadget.
I wouldnt own another Nintendo handheld until the DS Lite in 2006!
Happy birthday Gameboy!
I’d flown to the US (from NZ) for the ski season in Aspen. I saw someone playing a Gameboy, and knew I’d have to get one. So jumped on a bus for an hour to Glenwood Springs, and returned with Tetris and Super Mario Land. That’s all I played video-game-wise for the whole winter - and so I’ll love those games forever!
Both my cousins had one and I used to spend all my time playing Super Mario Land, SML 2 and Double Dragon. When my brother finally got a game boy colour it was Pokemon Yellow mainly. I'm still hopeful we might see a "Gameboy Mini" someday...
So many memories
Oh and just got mine out of the loft. It still works!
My dad getting me Gargoyles Quest for my birthday before we drove up to see my cousins in Tadcaster. It made a 4 hour journey seem like 5 minutes, what a game!
The Game Boy is a seminal handheld just because of what it means to the industry, and I'd love to see a Classic version of it that slims it down and reduces the overall size a bit as well as improves and enlarges the screen and whatever other necessary stuff such as including a built in rechargeable batter that has an even better battery life, but it was the GBA SP that really got me into portable gaming properly. I think it would be cool to have a GB Classic that actually does the stuff I've just said but also goes with a proper colour screen and maybe even includes both GBC and GBA games too, so maybe 20 of the best from GB, GBC and GBA on one Game Boy Classic unit. Something like that.
My fondest memories include school trips and taking my yellow GB with a copy of worms. We played 16 player multiplayer! 4 teams of 4. We renamed everyone and it took forever, some people would get blasted off before even having a go but it sure filled the time and was hilarious. Then when I got a GBC colour with Links Awakening DX- that blew my mind. Simple times.
Yes! James Bond 007 is one of my favs too! Why on Earth it didn’t make the top 50 I don’t know.
First played my friends gameboy in the playground, loads of us huddled round, marvelling at the tiny screen showing mario land. Then we moved to the states with my dad's job and i bought a second hand gb off a friend with tetris, dr mario, castlevania and fist of the north star. Absolutely loved it, even though it had his name on the back of it in permanent marker!
Loved it even more over the following years as i got and played the final fantasy games, zelda, mario 2, wario land, metroid 2, kirby, kirby pinball and many more borrowed and bought games.
I did upgrade to a gb colour a few years later, and although it was much improved in terms of size, screen etc i was older then and had an n64 so it just wasn't as exciting.
Of course the switch is my favourite console and offers so many different experiences, but nothing quite matches the thrill of slotting in one of those small-but-satisfyingly-chunky grey carts, watching the Nintendo logo sink down the screen and hearing that 'ba-bing'!
I think if you weren't there you wouldn't understand. To a kid, the game boy was magic.
As an adult, I literally cannot see the screen on my old pocket and color. Idk if getting used to backlit screens ruined me, or getting older makes your perception different. I do have light sensitivity, but that should help.
My biverted and backlit DMG is great though. Should probably get a modded Advance.
@RickD @troj27 Glad to hear this brought back memories for the both of you. It's definitely an underrated game!
It's also crazy how this was released after GoldenEye 007 on the N64.
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