Game Boy Guru project - UPDATED 4-8-15

[MetalFRO]

UPDATE: Super Mario Land review is online!
http://gameboyguru.blogsp...uper-mario-land-1989.html

As you can maybe tell by my updated avatar and signature, I'm embarking on a new journey, where I will attempt to collect, play, and review every North American released Game Boy game.  Once I'm done with the GB library, I'll move into GBC, and then eventually to GBA.  I figured this might be of interest to some of the retro collectors and fans here, and since there's not another specific sub-forum for shameless self-promotion, I thought I might as well put this here.  I've got a blog started already, with a small write-up detailing my history with the Game Boy, and 2 reviews I've already put up.  I'll probably use this topic to give updates as to my progress.  I'd appreciate some feedback as well; my reviews tend to be long-winded, so if they're too "windy", or not concise enough, let me know.

MODS: if this is inappropriate here, feel free to move this topic to whichever forum or sub-forum it WOULD be appropriate in.  I have no desire to cause issues here, as I'm still a relatively new member, and only wish for this to be a place I can engage others in to help me make the sites better - both mine, and this site through various discussion.

In any event, here's the link to the new site: http://gameboyguru.blogspot.com
In case anyone cares, I have companion Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr accounts for this project as well 

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Feel free to post your blogs here as well - there are many of us who would be interested, and cross-posting it may help you generate some activity as well.

I would suggest contacting Waynepe. He's a member here who's well into a full set for Game Boy and other handhelds, and has a lot of knowledge that I'm sure would be helpful. Also, I'm not sure if you care about them, but there are a lot of Publisher variants for Game Boy - we don't even have anywhere near all of them documented. I don't think gameplay changed in most of them, so they shouldn't affect your playthrough and review portion. I *think* ryanflucas collects Game Boy as well, but he's not been active on the forums for a long time.

[Duke.Togo]

Waynepe is a great guy. Give him a chat if needed.

Best of luck on the project. A Game Boy series sounds great to me!

[MetalFRO]

Thanks to both of you.  I've reached out to Waynepe via PM, hopefully he'll get back to me.  I'll consider cross-posting the entries to a blog here as well.

[Zagnorch]

[...]

I'm embarking on a new journey, where I will attempt to collect, play, and review every North American released Game Boy game.  Once I'm done with the GB library, I'll move into GBC, and then eventually to GBA.

[...]

Well, if you have a couple hundred years to spare, you just might pull this off. 

BTW if you have any foreign versions of GB/GBC/GBA games in your collection, one feature you could incorporate into your blog series is a comparison between the foreign and North American versions. You could compare cosmetics (label and box art) as well as gameplay, if such differences are significant.

[MetalFRO]

@Zagnorch - actually, that comparison part was going to be an occasional feature, as I've just picked up 3 import titles.  I have both the North American and the Japanese versions of Kirby's Pinball Land and Mega Man 2, as well the Japanese game Outburst, which was apparently localized as Raging Fighter, so once I pick that one up, I'll be able to do that comparison as well.  The interesting thing is, Outburst is almost entirely in English, so it looks as though the changes could be very minimal.

Love the avatar, btw.  Weird Al RULES.

And yes, I know it will take some time to go through the list, but I think it will be fun.  I missed out on so much of the GB library the first time around, and though I know a fair percentage of it will be shovelware, it will be interesting to go back, especially since we're 25 years out (I feel old) from a lot of the pinnacle titles for the system.  Some of those games still hold up, some of them will likely only be enjoyable with the right nostalgia goggles on, and some of them will just be wretched.  But that will be part of the fun - digging through the entire catalog and learning the system's strengths and weaknesses through its large cache of games.

[h1ghw1nd]

Pretty cool - I'll check out your blog and hopefully give some feedback soon. ^_^

Good luck on your adventure!

[MetalFRO]

Thanks! Any feedback will be greatly appreciated, as I want to make the site as informative as possible, without it being boring.

[SirConnery]

I think I have a new favorite blog. I'm less then 10 titles shy of a complete North American release set. Looks great so far!

[MetalFRO]

I think I have a new favorite blog. I'm less then 10 titles shy of a complete North American release set. Looks great so far!

Thanks!  I saw your comment on the initial post this morning, thanks for that.  I'd be curious to know if you've also collected hardware, i.e. GB Camera, printer, Light Boy, etc.  Are you just down to the most rare & expensive stuff, or have you knocked some of that off the list?

And thanks for the kind words - I appreciate it

[Shadow Kisuragi]

I mention ryan's name and he comes out of the woodwork.
I think the last time we talked you were sitting at 12 titles shy of a set. Did you pick something up in the last year or so?

[SirConnery]

Yeah I'm here still. :-) I primarily hang out over on GameTZ, but I still check in on here, racketboy, nintendoage, cag, digitalpress, etc.

Offhand I don't remember, but I printed up a collection list for this weekend, lets see what I'm missing:

4 in 1 Sachen, Amazing Tater, Captain America and Avengers, Castlevania Legends, F1 Pole Position, FIFA Soccer 97, Infogenius Spanish Translator, Infogenius Organizer\Phone Book, International Superstar Soccer, Mega Man V, NIV Bible 20 Lost Levels of Joshua, Snow Brothers, Spud's Adventure, WCW Main Event. Eh a few more, but at least it's a shorter list of missing then haves. :-D

I could swear I picked up the last remaining soccer titles. I'll probably do a recheck before I go to the show and shorten that list. Some of those titles I have seen in the wild, I just didn't want to pay the prices I saw. I'm also looking for a reasonable priced Watara Supervision and a few games. Possibly a few euro titles too, like Trip World.

I've owned the hardware back when it originally came out when I was a kid, but I've since sold those and traded up to whatever system came out after at the time. I always made a mint on my items because I was an only child and had strict parents that insisted I keep everything in original boxes and organized. I remember selling my Atari collection for about $500 which at the time was tons because it was all loose cartridges. I had lots of organizers, accessories, etc. I started recollecting Game Boy titles back in the early 2k's when they were so cheap on eBay. I was buying complete in the retail box titles at $5 + shipping for most. Then more collectors came out of the woodwork. 2 years ago I bought close to $100 in manuals from MGC at $2 per manual from one dealer. Since then the market dried up. Vendors have been overlooking Game Boy and not bringing in as many items, or I just miss them. Still I visit and dig through the boxes for gems.

My collection is an organized mess. Meaning all boxed titles are complete with box/manual/tray/clamshell case, inside plastic box protectors, and on a shelf in semi alphabetical order. Then I have plastic drawers that are filled with jewelers grade ziplock bags with game/manual/clamshell case in no particular order. Lastly, there's a large box with my remaining cartridge only games. The plan is to take all those cartridges and match them with clamshell cases and blank index cards and bag them. Then put everything in alphabetical order. I've been buying reproduction cardboard box trays made for GBC games to use in GB original boxes since those original plastic trays are so scarce.

[MetalFRO]

Wow, sounds like you've made quite an effort to get a reasonably complete collection over the years!  Unless I can score large lots of CIB games, I'll probably settle for mostly loose carts, primarily because CIB stuff has become so expensive.  I was looking at a CIB copy of Gradius: Interstellar Assault on Amazon, and the vendor wanted something in the neighborhood of $80 for it.  Sorry, but I have no desire to pay twice original retail (or more) for something, just to have the privilege of saying I have a complete copy.  I applaud those who do and have the disposable income to do that, but I just don't, and have to do things on the cheap as much as possible.  I wish you good luck, and hope you can score the last few titles w/o having to sell a vital organ or two

[SirConnery]

I hear that, I have my limits as well. They're much lower then they used to be, but still I have incredible luck sometimes.

I'm not sure what your thoughts are on emulation, and that of this site since some sites don't allow speak of them. Personally for really old titles that are a pain to locate at reasonable prices, I'm fine with emulation. I'll even admit that I have every GameBoy game that exists in a folder here on my Mac that I can emulate on a whim. Still, for personal collection's sake I pickup real items whenever I can.

[MetalFRO]

As a collector, nothing beats playing the games on the original hardware, but I have no qualms with emulation at a core level.  I think it's great that people are learning about old technologies by using new ones to reverse engineer the way the old technology worked in order to reproduce it in software form.  It's quite fascinating, actually.  Do I sometimes play emulated games out of convenience?  Sure.  Sometimes it's easier to fire up the soft-modded Wii or Xbox and load up an emulator than it is to dig out the cartridge.  However, for the purpose of this project, I'm hoping to do most of the gaming on the hardware itself, though admittedly, I'm doing most of the work on a GBA SP versus an original brick or GB Pocket.  That has as much to do with the LCD screen as opposed to the Dot Matrix display as it does the back light and rechargeable battery.  Still, I have to emulate to take screenshots, so every screenshot you seen in my reviews so far is me playing it on my PC so I can grab screens.  That will become harder down the line as I play some RPG's, because most of those shots will probably be just stuff I can grab in the first 30-40 minutes.  I don't fancy playing the whole thing twice.  My other thought was using my PSP so I can still get that hand-held experience, and use an emulator that I can take screenshots with, transfer them to PC, and blow them up to the right size.  I haven't decided fully yet.  Any thoughts on that?