What was your favorite Gameboy growing up? I first played my brothers Gameboy. It was the big one, the OG, but his was the red one. So I don’t know if you want to consider that one the OG. I’m going to consider it because it was the big bulky guy. His came with Tetris and he also had Donkey Kong Land. I was beating both of those games. He used to get so mad at me because I would always grab it and start playing. I mean, I didn’t see him playing with it much, so you know, I was bored. I already beat the games that I had for Super Nintendo and I just wanted to play it in any room. It was fun, it was handheld and you could take it anywhere.
My first Gameboy!
By the time I was in seventh grade, I saved up enough money to buy myself a Gameboy Color. Mine was the Kiwi, which was my favorite out of all colors. It still runs smoothly till this day.
The Gameboy Evolution
Later on, by the time I got to high school, the Gameboy Advance came out, I’m going to admit, I did want it, but I wasn’t too sure because of the limited colors. It’s only transparent purple or solid purple. I mean it still looked good, but I wanted more of a variety. One of my friends had the solid purple one. It also felt so small; honestly, it looked a lot bigger in the pictures and in the commercials.
Then they released the Gameboy Advance SP, which one of my other friends had in blue. I thought that one was so cool. It’s convenient, you can put it in your pocket, fold it and the screen doesn’t get scratched up. I was never really into the DS, but I’m not knocking it, I just kind of lost interest at that time.
My favorite gameboy
My all time favorite out of them all is the Gameboy Color. Even though the graphics weren’t as great as the Game Boy Advance and DS I just liked the simplicity of it. I definitely love the design of the Gameboy Color especially the colors that they offered.
My favorite titles
I didn’t get to play a lot of games for it, especially when I had bought my own. I had gotten such an odd game: Worms Armageddon. I think I bought it for $10, I don’t remember if I got it used or new. I bought it at the mall at EB Games before GameStop had bought them out. I played Super Mario Bros. Delux which was awesome playing the original NES game handheld. I also rented Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and that game was so damn good. I started playing it again on the Switch just to revisit it, but I’m going to have to buy the actual cartridge because that game was so fun. I could play it on an emulator on a big screen. But I prefer to buy the game and take it to work and play it during lunch or when I’m home bored.
I played other games too. I had a cousin that let me borrow his Super Mario Land and Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan. I think I played Wrestlemania 2000and some other wrestling game. But one of my all-time favorite games is Pokémon Blue. I’ve always gravitated to Pokémon Blue because I like water as an element, I love the color blue and I like turtles so it’s perfect for me. I borrowed that game from my friend. You know, it kind of sucks because you can only create one file on it, and especially it’s a pretty long game. So when you play on someone’s profile they’re not going to want you to delete it and save over it.
But I definitely want to know, what was your favorite Gameboy? What did you grow up with? What were your favorite games? Did you bring it to school? Did you bring it on road trips? Because that was another good one—bringing it on road trips. You just needed a Walkman and your Gameboy. As long as your batteries lasted, taking it on vacations was such a good fit.
27 years later
I had my Gameboy Color sitting in one of my drawers for years. Thank God I never had batteries in there because over time they can explode and battery acid gets all over the place. The smart thing to do is take it somewhere to get it cleaned out and fixed because once you get battery acid all over there, it’s not going to turn on. You got to get it cleaned out good, you have to know what you’re doing. I’ve had that happen with some electronics; I was forced to throw it out—nothing that was super important.
Anyway I took it to a retro store and I brought my batteries and I asked the guy at the counter if I could test out a game. He was cool enough to let me do it. I tried it and I was just so excited, even though I didn’t buy anything. I was just so excited knowing that my Gameboy still worked! I remember buying it for about $85. I just need a game now.
Nothing beats physical
Even though I’m on emulators and have a bunch of ROMs, I still like popping in that old cartridge. Playing on that original system. I still have my N64 and I still got my Gamecube, Wii and WiiU. Unfortunately my PS2 crapped out on me a few years ago, but I wish I held on to it. Now that I know there’s repair shops, I would definitely have had sent it in. I don’t know what happened to my PS1, that seems like that got lost during the move along with my Super Nintendo. I was pretty upset about that, but at least I got majority of my consoles.
landing the plane
Well anyways, I want to know your stories, your nostalgia. What happened when you were a kid and what did you buy? What did you do? Did you ever play with a friend and link Gameboys for two player games? This is definitely a fun topic in my opinion to get into. It just brings back those memories of your childhood because it’s not the same anymore. You know, these kids are definitely not getting what we had—they’re missing out. It sucks, especially if things are going to be going digital.
Click the link to read some more stories or to one of my pages to watch Gameboy play throughs.