Game Boy Player's Guide Game Wrap-Up Megapost

 

Now that I've played all of the games in here, 30 years later, I can compile my posts for everything related to this guide, while also covering the things I never gave a full post to. Microposts, if you will. Much like what the guide itself does towards the end.

My Top Ten Game Boy Games

 

After the Gremlins 2 disaster, which I needed a hazmat suit to deal with, it's time for a palate cleanser. Surprised I haven't done this before considering it's my first system and the one I've got all this sentimental attachment to. This is simply the ten I like the most, not the ten I think are actually the best. Though it's likely 80 or 90 percent of this would overlap with a ten best list regardless. Not including Game Boy Color, as I'm one of the people who consider it a separate system (also no real sentimental attachment). Here we go.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Game Boy, 1990)

 

The last game from the Game Boy Player's Guide that I had on my list of things to check out (where it has been for, no joke, 30 years). Always kinda knew this would be the last thing I played from the guide, for whatever reason. I've got kind of an unusual link with this one, which I'll get into in a moment here. Also this is THE WORST GODDAMN GAME EVER.

R-Type III: The Third Lightning (Super NES, 1994)

 

This was the first really difficult game that I ever beat. They totally cranked that difficulty meter from the previous games and made this an ahead-of-its-time murderfest akin to Super Meat Boy. The good news is that rather than repeating the levels on death like all previous games in the series, this one gives you actual checkpoints and lots of them. Also infinite lives. So the incredibly tough levels can be tackled one segment at a time. There are no difficulty levels, but the difficulty is just right, and they pretty much got it perfect here. Though be prepared that this game does take a while to get through if played fully legit, and every stage is a fierce battle.

Super R-Type (Super NES, 1991)

Time for one of my favorite SNES shooters. This is basically R-Type II remixed for the new SNES, with some R-Type content thrown in, and a couple entirely new levels. I got this game as a kid, one of the 10-15 games I got in the 1990's, and really liked it because I kinda had to. It was all I had to play for a few weeks there! It's a good game regardless, and certainly easier on the eyes than the Game Boy ones (which admittedly punch above their weight). Since we hadn't gotten R-Type II in the states at the time, this game seemed almost entirely new. Still no build variety though.

(Originally posted in 2014, rewriting some of it now to go with the others)

R-Type II (Game Boy, 1992)

 

This one I played way later in time than the other one, and for a while didn't even know it existed. The first one was the only one I saw covered or talked about anywhere. And there's a very good reason for this: It never came out in North America. That's right, it got Japan and Europe releases and then they just kinda cancelled the American version. Regardless, this is basically part two of the first game, picking up right where it left off. It has a lot in common with Super R-Type (but not everything). I think most people only experienced this via the R-Type DX compilation on Game Boy Color, especially in the States.

R-Type (Game Boy, 1991)

 

Another Game Boy Player's Guide game, and one I'm surprised I never posted about already. I actually got this game as a kid, one of the ten or so Game Boy games I ever owned. Unfortunately, out of those ten-ish, this was probably the one I got the least out of. I think I played it a grand total of maybe 2-3 hours at the most, and was pretty much done with it in one day. It's a very short game and doesn't pose any particular challenge, especially compared to other games in this series. Still, it's worth a look.

The R-Type series, from Irem, was sorta the Ross Perot of the shooter universe circa the 1990s. Not as popular or well-known as Gradius and not as beloved by the hardcore as the vertical Compile games. It has a number of innovations that set it apart from (and even surpass at times) the Gradius games.

Ranking the Dark Souls 3 Areas From Worst To Best

 

Dark Souls 3 is certainly the most refined of the trilogy (quadrilogy, if you count Demon's Souls). I found that it was lacking a little bit of the grittiness and mystique of the earlier games in the series, but so goes the price of progress.