Author Topic: Happy 20th Birthday, Game Boy! (Read 5089 times)

ShadowBrain · « **on:** April 23, 2009, 07:48:30 PM »

It's just a bit belated, but it's the twentieth anniversary of when Nintendo's revolutionary portable hit stores! Discuss, or whatever.

Glorb · « **Reply #1 on:** April 23, 2009, 08:03:19 PM »

My first Game Boy was blue. It was my cousin's originally. The first game I had for it was Spy Hunter.

BP · « **Reply #2 on:** April 23, 2009, 08:06:04 PM »

My first was a Game Boy Color, which I got the Christmas after I got into gaming with Game & Watch Gallery 2. It was a translucent purple one. I have one now that is exactly the same--and it still has a battery cover.

jdaster64 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 24, 2009, 07:05:13 AM »

I'm a relative newcomer to the videogame world, as the first system I got was the GBA SP. I continued to get a Gamecube, SNES, and NES (in thaat order) though.

ShadowBrain · « **Reply #4 on:** April 24, 2009, 07:33:47 AM »

I started off with a GBC, but I now retroactively own two original GBs, a GBA, and an SP.

Turtlekid1 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 24, 2009, 07:36:44 AM »

I got my first GBC (It was blue, I believe) for Christmas one year with Lego Alpha Team and Puzzled. The latter is actually now apparently fairly valuable (compared to some other titles I've seen).

PaperLuigi · « **Reply #6 on:** April 24, 2009, 08:25:47 AM »

I received my first Game Boy from my late grandfather, who (at the time) was dying of melanoma.

As you can well imagine, my Game Boy means a lot to me.

CrossEyed7 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 24, 2009, 08:39:51 AM »

I got the Game Boy Chunky for Christmas in 1993 or 94, I think. Or maybe 95. Whenever Montgomery Wards was going out of business. I was born in '89, so I couldn't have gotten it much earlier than that. It was red, but I always kind of envied the gray one, actually. Didn't get an upgrade until I got a GBA pretty much the day it came out.

nensondubois · « **Reply #8 on:** April 24, 2009, 10:38:46 AM »

I got a Game Boy at 1996 and it was the most fun I ever had until the Super Game Boy came out. I have some fond memories playing Super Mario Land. Later I got Dr. Mario in my Christmas stocking in 1997 but soon after that I lost it and I wanted it so bad after losing it that when me and my family went down to Maryland for a family reunion, I stole it from one of my family members.

I still have a Game Boy.

Lizard Dude · « **Reply #9 on:** April 24, 2009, 06:47:07 PM »

My best Game Boy memories:

I remember first playing the now legendary Tetris and Dr. Mario on my friend's Game Boy at his house.

I remember marveling at Wario, the evil version of Mario, on a kid's Game Boy on the grade school playground. You could get a hat with horns and break blocks!

I remember not owning my own Pokemon yet and riding on a five hour bus trip with a friend who had it. I couldn't delete his save, of course, so I started, played the full five hours, and then lost my first Pokemon forever.

I remember when I did own my own Pokemon, after catching 145 or so I one day turned on the system to see "Your save file has been corrupted." If this hadn't happened, I'm sure I would have played every generation, but because of this I never touched a Pokemon between Red and FireRed.

I remember beating Link's Awakening four times, the most I've played any Zelda game.

I remember printing out my Link's Awakening photos on a Game Boy Printer.

I remember how I wasn't really good at Super Mario Bros. until Super Mario Bros. DX. Those challenges took me from n00b to pr0.

I remember playing epic amounts of the rumbling Pokemon Pinball. PIIIIKA!

I remember making fun of the GBC Perfect Dark with a friend when the enemies screamed full phrases after death.

I remember many, many, many high school lunch periods of hooking up four GBAs and playing Advance Wars and Four Swords.

I remember hooking four GBAs to a GCN and playing Crystal Chronicles and Four Swords Adventure (the only game I've ever needed to form a contract to keep all the players from quitting with rage at each other). Both those games are easily in my top multiplayer experiences ever.

I remember playing 2-player coop GBA Doom on a bus trip and punching a cacodemon to death.

I remember finally playing Metroid II, the last of the Metroids I beat. The music was awesome!

I remember throwing my GBA in involuntary primal terror when a bee landed on my arm while outside playing Boktai. The GBA landed screen-up.

Last GBA game I ever played was Drill Dozer.

You were awesome, Game Boy!

TEM · « **Reply #10 on:** April 24, 2009, 07:51:25 PM »

Me and my brother each received Game Boys on Easter (best thing I've ever gotten on Easter) and it was the first game system of any kind that was mine. I got a "relish" green one and my brother got a clear one.

I'm not sure if I got the green one because my favorite color was green or if my favorite color is green now because of the deeply rooted psychological fun trauma the Game Boy left in my brain.

The earliest games I remember playing were a side-scrolling TMNT game and later Pokemon Red and Yellow, the only straight RPGs I've ever completed/enjoyed. Most of this was due to the multiplayer function with the cables.

My original green Game Boy became lost in the sands of time as I got a GBC, GBA, GBASP, and finally the DS. However, I did purchase a green Game Boy roughly four years ago to play the original Tetris and Pokemon Blue. For all I know I bought my old Game Boy! Somewhere in the dark hopeful places of my heart I believe I did...

Toad · « **Reply #11 on:** April 25, 2009, 07:30:57 PM »

Wow. I can't believe I missed this thread.

I got my first Game Boy for Christmas in 1989. Games included were Super Mario Land (which I finally beat in 1992) and Tetris. Many hours were spent trying to get through SML, but never having the manual dexterity to fly the plane the right way (I had no idea I had actually reached Tatanga until later years).

My game collection for the GB grew quiet as fast as the other collections did. If I couldn't buy a game for a console, I would often splurge for a GB game. I didn't get a new GB system until the GBA came out, and even then, it was only because Mario Kart: Super Circuit was the first ever portable MK game.

I eventually gave my original GB away to a game trading store for credit toward.. a Mario game of some form, I'm sure (probably Mario Party 1). Before the store went out of business, I went looking for an old GB, and I'm fairly certain that I found my old GB. I bought it up, and that was the last thing I ever bought from that chain (their store in my town went out of business).

Next year, the GB will be old enough to.. wait. What happens at 21?

Captain Jim · « **Reply #12 on:** April 26, 2009, 12:05:07 AM »

Next year the Game Boy can drink booze.

Anyway, I first got the GBC. I still have my first one, actually. I don't have the Blue Version I got with it, however. But it was such an amazing thing to me at the time. I love you, Game Boy.

jdaster64 · « **Reply #13 on:** April 26, 2009, 03:54:39 PM »

Quote from: Lizard Dude on April 24, 2009, 06:47:07 PM

I remember how I wasn't really good at Super Mario Bros. until Super Mario Bros. DX. Those challenges took me from n00b to pr0.

Same here. Probably oneof my favorite games of all-time. Makes me wonder why there isn't plans for a portable SMAS with similar extras...

Toad · « **Reply #14 on:** April 26, 2009, 03:58:56 PM »

They already did, only they broke up the games into seperate carts and called them Super Mario Advance.

FlamingBlueMario · « **Reply #15 on:** April 28, 2009, 01:11:46 AM »

My first Gameboy was actually my father's. It was gray and had a Tetris game inside of it. Being only 5 at the time, I lost it.

penguinwizard · « **Reply #16 on:** April 28, 2009, 11:38:12 AM »

My first Game Boy was that original big gray one with the green screen (I kept telling myself it was black and white, but my eyes knew it was green. Made lava levels interesting anyhow). I had the usual pack-in carts: Super Mario Land, Tetris, Home Alone, and whatever else it came with. Dumped Home Alone like a lead balloon after I had to struggle to pass the first stage. Tetris, obviously, got a lot of play although I preferred the NES version for its colors and music (I'm one of those people that liked the NES's Type C music which hasn't appeared in any Tetris game since). Super Mario Land I hated, thought it was unfair and too hard. So it amazed me when I saw a friend beat the whole game in front of me. Eventually I was able to do the same (in between the silent cursing).

So the original Game Boy was good. Got a Game Boy Pocket when it came out, was initially wowed by how it was easier on the eyes (I think it made Donkey Kong '94 slightly easier too)... but little did I know it would be the most worthless purchase in my life. It wasn't too much later that the Game Boy Color came out and I had to have that. Seeing as how certain later Game Boy games were incompatible with the early ones, I had to make the change. Then I had to have the Game Boy Advance, although I got sticker shock from how expensive it was, to me it seemed as expensive as a GameCube. At that time I realized I didn't play handheld games much anymore (I just preferred the games with more substance, and I was usulaly at home), so I just stopped buying them.

That said, I still have four Game Boy games lying around. Donkey Kong '94 (even though I cleared the entire game except the last stage in a marathon playthrough), Hexcite (I'm bad at strategy, so the game keeps me on my toes although I always have trouble beating the CPU), Game & Watch Gallery 2 (keeping that one primarily because I took a liking to "Parachute"), and Wario Land 1 (I just prefer the environments and general goofiness of that one, even though the later games had superior level design. I guess I still have a soft spot for Jet Wario and Dragon Wario).

And the two games I remember losing were Super Mario Land 2 and Wario Land 2. Hey, if it fell under a car seat, it was as good as gone.

N64 Chick · « **Reply #17 on:** May 01, 2009, 06:40:42 PM »

The first Game Boy I got was a clear one with (I think) Bug Bunny Crazy Castle 2. I didn't care for that game too much though I did have great times with Super Mario Land 2, Pokémon Red and Silver. I don't remember what happened to that old thing...

When I was nearly finished with Silver, I got the Kiwi (green) Game Boy Color. I really wanted Teal (blue), but my local Funcoland only had Kiwi so I got that. No big deal though. Seeing as I'm a Luigi fan, it sorta made sense. I also had a silver faceplate that I got from my boyfriend to put on it. The GBC and Super Mario Bros. DX was lent to my mother. She was so obsessed with it that once I got my GBA, I just let her keep them.

My GBA was Fuchsia (clear pink). Pink wasn't my favorite color, but my friends had all the other colors and I wanted to be different. I still have it though I mainly use it for the e-reader and trading Pokémon with Colosseum.

Fond, fond memories...

Stephzie · « **Reply #18 on:** May 02, 2009, 08:30:46 AM »

Woah...It's only three years older than I am. Now I feel old lol.

My first gameboy wasn't the first gameboy cuz...well, I wasn't born yet. xD

My first gameboy was the purple...or indigo...whatever gameboy color. First game, Pokemon Blue. c: