Nintendo Switch 10 Day Countdown: Day 2 Gameboy/GB Color favorite Games!/Memories/etc?

[S.Peelman]

Yes, GameBoy and GameBoy Color. Still the best handhelds ever created. I first got my GameBoy near the end of the lifetime of the big classic GameBoy halfway through the '90s. Then with Pokémon I got a GameBoy Pocket and finally, it must not have been much later, a GameBoy Color with Link's Awakening DX. The games that resonated most with me are;

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
Pokémon Blue Version
Alleyway
Tennis
Super Mario Land

Immediately after playing Link's Awakening, I was convinced it was brilliant. And that thought never changed. With every subsequent playthrough over the years, my feeling that this is the greatest handheld game ever made was further cemented. Because I had the colored DX version first though, I played it only late in the system's cycle. Afterwards I did get the original black/white, well dark-grey/greenish-yellow, version of it.

GameBoy life for me started with Tetris (which was bundled), Alleyway, Tennis, Donkey Kong Land and Super Mario Land. I immediately liked the Mario game more than those on NES and SNES. It was probably because of the Ancient-Egypt theme of the first world and the box-art. I played it a lot, but I got more addicted to both Alleyway and Tennis. Alleyway is a Breakout clone, and quite a good one. I played it continuesly during our holidays in France. Tennis was similar. I didn't really understand the rules of the game much though so I got frustrated when Mario would call a shot "out" when I thought it was "in".

The real deal though was Pokémon Blue. I was maybe just a tad too old, by a year or maybe two, but when this came out it was everywhere. Everybody talked about it. I never saw anything that was as huge as Pokémon during those days. And I was really into it for a time. The cartridge I still have bears a reminder of my dog, who once tried to eat my GameBoy Color. My first (I re-bought it afterwards) Link's Awakening cartridge was shattered, and the Pokémon cartridge has a big hole where it's tooth sunk in, but still worked tremendously.