Major things that won't be appearing: Nothing, really. I think I scoured this system pretty well. Ultima: Runes of Virtue and its sequel are the only things left on the system that I even have an intention of playing - to complete the Game Boy Player's Guide, of course - but after Gremlins 2 I'm more keen on just leaving the legends alone.
Note: Having font issues again with this post. Lot of weird font issues lately with the font changing back and forth inside of a post for no reason. No explanation for it, but it might have to do with how some of these posts were composed over a long period of time.
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60. Gremlins 2: The New Batch – The single worst Game Boy game I've ever played, and as of press time, the last Game Boy game I ever played. It killed the system! The four levels are so difficult that the game seems a lot bigger than it is; the levels themselves seem like they were designed by a kid, with little rhyme or reason to the placement of enemies or obstacles. I don't mean that the game is a huge challenge like Nioh or Ninja Gaiden or something, either. I mean the level design is so bad that there are some sections you can't get through short of doing a perfect run while also having good luck. Jumps that are impossible to do without taking damage, enemies that are impossible to avoid, and so on. The game is actually impressive with how awful it is. And good luck hitting anything with what is essentially bump combat...in a game where you can only take a couple of hits.
58. Mortal Kombat 3 – Almost as bad as the first one, this game is still a bit of a mess. Hard to play, poor hit detection, the whole nine. Not sure how they bungled these two games so badly while pumping out a really good MK2 port between them.
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57. T2: The Arcade Game - No music, annoying sound effects, having to move your targeting reticule around slowly with a D-Pad. This has little resemblance to the actual arcade game, and can't even compare to the console ports. Very much a "just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should" type of game. It gets some credit for effort though. Can't imagine anybody is ever going to play this more than once out of curiosity. Another game I wanted as a kid and dodged a bullet with.
56. Castlevania Adventure – Sloooow, plodding, just not fun. Hate to rate a Castlevania game this low, but it really is that bad. The lategame area where you have to outrun spike walls is the stuff of nightmares, because it doesn't seem to take your insanely slow movement speed into account. A good game to play if you want to have no fun whatsoever, and pretty much only of any use for series-completionists who want to do all of them.
55. Batman: Return of the Joker - A game that is too hard to be fun, with blistering difficulty across several completely unforgiving stages. At least there's a stage select, but good luck actually beating any of the stages. The game itself looks and handles really well, it's just...almost impossible to engage with.
54. The Hunt for Red October - Speaking of too hard to be fun, this game has a lot of potential as a submarine-based shooter that uses some nuance and technique. However, once again, it's too difficult to be very much fun, and cheesing quickly becomes necessary to progress, which ruins the game.
53. Kid Dracula - Basically just a port of the NES game, masquerading as a sequel. While decently playable, there's very little depth to be found here, and the final levels of the game are a bit unfair in design once the devs decided to go spike-happy.
52. Bomberman Pocket - It's a Bomberman game, and nowhere near as fun as the console ones. It also gets a difficulty spike at the end, with a final boss that I had to fight like 20 times. Even as someone who really likes most Bomberman games, I didn't get much out of this one.
50. TMNT3: Radical Rescue - Speaking of grid maps, this game also has one, making it a lot more open than the two brawler predecessors it had. However I couldn't get into this at all. The map was confusing, it uses bottom of the barrel TMNT bad guys as the main bosses, and worst of all the final level is almost incompletable after you fail it once and lose your one "energy tank".
49. Kirby's Block Ball - A fun clone of Breakout where you bounce Kirby around rooms to break blocks. It is what it is, a simple game that is over way too quick.
48. Mega Man II - Easily the worst of the Mega Man games on the Game Boy, and really the only one I don't like. The game is insanely easy (especially for that series) and I can nearly run the whole thing in one life. There's a lot of slowdown, and it often feels like you're moving underwater. The music - usually a high point in Mega Man games - is a garbled mess. At least it has some of the coolest bosses from the NES games, and even a bad Mega Man game is still playable and fun to an extent, but that's about all this one has going for it.
47. Terminator 2: Judgment Day - Actually kind of decent, and better than the console T2 games...which isn't to say it's particularly good, though. It's very short and doesn't have much to it, with the high point being the two Future War levels at the beginning. Even those get brought down a lot by inexplicable design choices, like having a single life and not getting your life meter replenished between levels. Taking out the towers in the right order in level 1 was also a bit tedious. The developers needed to get out of their own way on this one, because it had the fundamentals to be good.
46. TMNT2: Back From The Sewers - A decent brawler on the surface, but I didn't find it to be much fun. Most of the enemies and bosses look goofy as hell, and they just botched the visuals on like every level here. The only real thing going for this game is that it's pretty beatable compared to the third one and its Literally Almost Impossible final level.
45. Castlevania Legends - Sonia Belmont's game. Unfortunately, Sonia Belmont and her character portraits are pretty much the only great thing about it, as it goes back to the slowness and dull gameplay that characterized Castlevania Adventure. The game is more forgiving, at least, and the level design is better, but all in all it's an imminently forgettable game.
44. Ninja Gaiden Shadow - Another more-or-less port of an NES game, this time of...Shadow of the Ninja? That's right, this isn't a real NG game, it's just Ryu transplanted into a different game. Inclined to rank it even lower for that, but it's a decent, inoffensive playthrough.
43. Solar Striker - Very playable space shooter with eight progressively tougher levels. Uses the Space Megaforce style of vertical shooting while collecting weapon upgrades. Main issue here is that there just...isn't much to it. Within five minutes you'll have seen most of what the game has to offer. The visuals are bland as hell, with flat backgrounds for most of the game (if not all of it). Some of the bosses have cool design, at least.
42. Double Dragon - Another more-or-less port, this one is a bit different from the NES game, but close enough. It's a fun playthrough with compelling, interesting enemies to beat up, but it's very short and very simple and you're not going to get much out of it.
41. Maru's Mission - An underrated platformer that almost nobody knows exists. Might be the most obscure Game Boy game I ever played. It's surprisingly high-quality and it's different enough to be memorable. However, there's a reason not many people know it exists. It's a basic game and it's over quickly.
40. Fortified Zone - A game that wanted to be Contra and just isn't. Has decent gameplay, but it's very short and the maze-like levels wear thin fairly quickly. Gets points for being creative with the two characters you have to switch between, and their differing abilities/weapons.
39. Battle Unit Zeoth - Another thing I wanted as a kid and probably lucked out by not getting. It's a generic action-shooter that has very little to it and is super forgettable when it's over...which is pretty quick. The main thing of any note here is how good some of the boss designs are. Plays well, at least.
38. Kirby's Pinball Land - Visually very appealing, but again, over too quick. It's a pinball game, with Kirby enemies and items. Has way more to do with Kirby than Kirby's Block Ball does and was a lot of fun for the extremely short runtime.
37. Cosmo Tank - An interesting game that combines top-down tank-shooter gameplay with rudimentary "first person" maze dungeons. It's a curiosity and worth playing through once. Loses some points for being one of those "incredibly hard final boss" games, especially considering the rest of the game is fairly easy.
36. Batman - Not great, but not bad either. The small sprites hurt this one a bit. The level design is good, though, and I liked the variety of having some stages be shooter levels as a break from the platformer levels. From here on up, everything on the list is solid.
35. DuckTales - Rounding out this set of NES ports, this is another more or less direct copy-over that's kinda pretending to be a sequel. However it's still DuckTales and it plays really well, so I'm not going to knock it or anything. Loses some points for the music being really grating on the Game Boy's sound chip.
34. DuckTales 2 - Similar to the previous game, but a little better in every area. Deviates quite a bit from the NES version. I need to do more with both versions of this game.
33. Wario Land 2 - I tried very hard to get into the extended Wario series, since I loved the first one. However, I just couldn't. The whole invincibility mechanic that started in this game is something a lot of people enjoyed, but I preferred the more normal style of the first one. Also found the environments of this one to be far blander than the cool and memorable areas of the first game. All of that said, if you take this on its own and don't compare it to the first, it's a pretty decent playthrough.
32. Killer Instinct - Perhaps the first controversial placement on here, KI isn't a bad game or anything. It handles MUCH better than Mortal Kombat. It's probably one of the best fighters on the Game Boy. It's just a "but why though" type of game where I'm not real sure why anyone would play this when the vastly superior SNES version exists.
31. R-Type II - Slightly better game than its predecessor, but I prefer the predecessor for having all of the iconic content of the original R-Type. This one on the other hand has some content from the far lesser-known sequels. Another game that came out super late in the Game Boy lifespan and felt like something they were obligated to do.
30. R-Type - Six stages, but six really good stages. Each one has unique challenges, and the game is fun throughout. Has all of the iconic bosses one would associate with the first game in the series. While there are plenty of better ports on consoles, this one always felt like it was punching above its weight.
29. Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge - A short ball-buster of a game, with extra tough Wily stages. This would probably rank a lot higher if the second set of four bosses actually had levels, instead of being essentially a capsule room / boss rush. Feels like the Game Boy series really shortchanged half of the Mega Man 2 bosses as a result. At least they appeared at all, while Bomb Man and Guts Man were totally absent.
28. Nemesis 2 - The two Nemeses were the Game Boy installments of the Gradius series, and while I usually vastly prefer the R-Type series on any given system, in this case I'd definitely give the edge to Konami's efforts. Nemesis 2 is the one I like the least of the two, mainly because I just don't find the bosses memorable at all. They're mostly just machine cores.
27. Nemesis - Another solid game, only this one has some huge and memorable bosses. I like that it isn't just a straight port of any console game, and goes off in its own direction. Makes it worth playing even if you've played the rest of the series. Only five levels so it isn't going to rate much higher, but it's a fine five levels.
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26. Super Mario Land - For a long time, I liked this more than Super Mario Land 2 because this is a more traditional Mario game (something I was starved for) while the second goes off and does a lot of strange stuff. However, now, I'd say the quality difference between the two is large, and the second is much more playable. The tiny icons for Mario, blocks, and the enemies makes this one a little bit tough to play.
25. Donkey Kong Land 2 - More or less a waaaaay scaled-down port of DKC2 with a few changes. I'd rank it high for a port, regardless, because it plays really really well. Though it's another of those "why not just play it on SNES" situations.
24. Donkey Kong Land 3 - A port of my least-favorite of the DKC trilogy. Plays well, and it's got a lot going for it, but it also came out VERY late in the Game Boy lifespan and it shows, coming off a bit like an obligation rather than a passion project. Very much another "why not just play the SNES game" deal. Handles better than DKL2 so it gets the nod.
23. Donkey Kong Land - While not as good of a game as DKL2 or DKL3, I'll give this one the edge over them because it actually has mostly new levels. That's right, it's not a port. This is basically "DKC 1.5" and stands alone as an entirely new game, which makes it more worth playing than the two sequels. I had a ball playing this and enjoyed the aesthetic (having flying pigs as the main enemy in the game was pretty witty considering "DKC on Game Boy" was a pipe-dream, "when pigs fly" kind of concept at the time, and they pulled it off. Or a rough approximation of it anyway.
22. TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan - The first TMNT game and easily the best of the three, this is a straight beat 'em up with good graphics, good control, and some great boss fights. They gave us the A-List bad guys for this one, too. Only thing I didn't like was that Krang got final boss status over Shredder. NO GOOD. Regardless, fun game, worth playing through once, and not a port of anything so it's a new experience.
21. Final Fantasy Legend III - This game is okay, but it never really grabbed me. It doesn't have the traditional SaGa appeal, since it doesn't really use SaGa game mechanics. As a result it feels like a pretty standard/generic RPG from a different series. The classes from the previous two games are back, with a couple of new additions, but the way they set it up (where your characters shift between them from consuming parts/meats) makes said classes largely unappealing. The classes are also unbalanced. But most of all, the moment to moment gameplay is a bit of a snoozefest, with bizarre enemy groups and the same sprites being reused over and over. The strongest point, by far, is the music.
20. Mortal Kombat 2 - The best fighting game on the system IMO, beating Killer Instinct. How this was so vastly better than the MK games before and after it, I'm not sure. While those were lame cash grabs, this is a legit game with some oomph put into it. With special moves that are actually possible to execute, impressive visuals (especially on a Super Game Boy), and a good selection of characters, this game shouldn't be slept on.
19. Mega Man III - A huge upgrade over the first two, but nowhere near the last two. Probably the hardest of the bunch (moreso than the first) and was nearly my first video game (I'm glad it wasn't). I've always been a little harder on this game than it deserved, though. It's a perfectly good game that plays well, gives you a good challenge, and is different enough from the NES series to be worth playing. Also, it follows the NES series closely where it counts most: The music is NES-accurate now instead of being replaced by terrible new themes like MMII.
18. Final Fantasy Legend - This game punches above its weight and I've probably been a bigger fan of it than most. It's kinda crude and rudimentary, and there are plenty of ways to softlock your game later on, but I've always found it to be an appealing thing to run through. The SaGa classes are a fun time, though I wish Monster was better.
17. Gargoyle's Quest - A game that doesn't get enough credit. Has solid controls and fun gameplay, with a slow pace that actually proves to be a benefit as you have plenty of time to plot your next move at any given time. There aren't really any other games like this on the system, with levels that can get extremely vertical due to your character's hovering abilities.
16. Super Mario Land 2 - While this looks much, MUCH better than its predecessor, and plays quite well, it doesn't really feel like a traditional Mario game (which is what I wanted, when I got this). All of the worlds have their own strange themes and gimmicks, and the only level that feels like a regular Mario level is the very first one. So I've never rated this game as highly as most people. It feels more like Mario got transplanted into a non-Mario game.
15. Kirby's Dream Land: The first video game I ever bought, and pretty much the perfect first game so I lucked out. I'd recommend this as anyone's first game, and the only downside to it is that it's like 20 minutes long if you don't lose any lives. Course, as a kid in 1993, it took me weeks to get through it. Even if one flies through it, it's a magical 20 minutes.
14. Pokémon Red/Blue - Would rank a lot higher if Pokémon Yellow didn't exist, pretty much doing everything these do only better. As great as Pokémon Gen 1 is, this first one is a lot more rudimentary and glitchy than you might remember. That said, it's still Pokémon, and there's definitely a limit on how low I can go with a traditional Pokémon game since they're like, all fun.
13. Mega Man V: The Mega Man Game Boy series gets better and better as it goes on, and while IV is my favorite, V is pretty solid too. As the sole "Mega Man World" game that doesn't emulate the NES series, this one deserves a lot of credit for having new levels, bosses, and weapons. However I can't place it as high as I'd like to because most of the stages are just too similar to one another, and almost all of them have that "machine level" motif that you'd normally find in Fortress levels throughout this series. As a result, I can't tell most of the levels apart, and could probably only pick Neptune's stage out of a lineup.
12. Final Fantasy Legend 2 - I used to call this the best RPG on the Game Boy. After recent replays, it isn't as great as I used to think it was, and now I'd rate two other RPGs above it. The addition of the Robot class was an inspired choice that re-arranges the game's meta quite a bit. Unfortunately the endgame is lopsidedly difficult (much like the first game) with plenty of opportunities to have your run get borked. The single-use super-attack items are back and can still ruin a playthrough if they're used at the wrong time, and the game hoarding most of the important endgame items into the optional Nasty Dungeon was an odd choice. So there's a lot of good here but it's a very imperfect game by the end.
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11. Kirby's Dream Land 2: Takes everything the first does and makes it much bigger and much better. Kirby can absorb the abilities of foes now AND you've got a trio of pets/allies that multiply all of the possible moves. The final world and final battle are extremely atmospheric, there are secrets to find throughout the game, and it's just a well-rounded experience (no pun intended). All of the worlds are interesting and fun to traverse, with a tough real final boss if you collect the Rainbow Drops (one in each world) on the way. They went above and beyond with this one.
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10. Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge: A game that benefits from how bad/mediocre respectively the other two games in its trilogy are, this is the definitive Castlevania game for the system. With fast movement speed and more attack options, this one is actually fun to play through. The addition of a stage select is what really puts this over the top, meaning that outside of the final fortress, you're never really stuck and unable to progress in one specific area. If one of the castles is giving you grief, switch gears and try another one. But be warned, this game is very difficult, easily the hardest game in the top ten.
9. Operation C: Another Konami spinoff, this is a hidden gem that deserves WAY more recognition than it has really ever gotten. Out of these ten, I wouldn't be surprised if this is the least-known by a good margin. It's basically Contra 2.5, and while they could have made it a remake of the original Contra or Super C, they decided to make it a fully-fledged game on its own. It plays just as well as the NES games, with great weapon variety and five extremely fun levels. You've got all the great Contra weapons and gameplay here and it's pretty much just nonstop action all the way through. The only downside is that it's kind of short.
8. Tetris - The quintessential puzzle game. While there are better versions of it, this was the standard-bearing portable version of it for a long time. It's one of those games that just works perfectly on the Game Boy. Not particularly needing color helps. This is the one game that I think could legitimately rival the #1 game on this list, depending on who it is that's playing the system. However, in my case, there are seven other games that I thought were more worthwhile time investments, or at least that I had more fun with.
7. Donkey Kong - A massive expansion of the original arcade Donkey Kong that takes the original 4 levels and adds like, 96 more to it. It's a sprawling, daunting game, and took me a while to get through (it's mostly good in small doses). As a puzzle/action hybrid, it's a fantastic game, and just the fact that it builds so much on the game that started it all for Nintendo makes this a big deal that belongs high on any serious ranking.
6. Wario Land: My liking of this game is no secret, and I find it to be the best Mario-like platformer on the system. Just a fun, timeless game where you kinda feel like you're playing as a boss. Not sure why the sequels didn't gel with me at all because this is one of the best. All of Wario's hats have personality, and the Jet Hat is incredibly fun to play around with. The game also has a bunch of sound effects from Metroid II, which was trippy for me.
It's a fantastic game from start to finish, with a really unique vibe and playstyle that sets it apart from the Mario series. You can just play through it normally, or play through with the side-objective of finding all the treasures so Wario can buy a castle at the end. Also there's an entire world, Sherbet Land, that is completely optional and feels like a huge discovery if you find it (because it is).
5. Final Fantasy Adventure: A game I never gave enough credit to. The first game in the Seiken Densetsu series, which makes this a Secret of Mana prequel...sort of. I find that the original still holds up very well and I'd rather play this than the various remakes of it that are out there. Some nice weapon variety here, an appealing world and journey, and more fun to be had than any other "FF" representation on the system. It's a bit like a Zelda game if they had level-ups. You can really feel the power increases as you progress and the game gets better as it goes on. Just a super solid, and underrated, game.
With numerous weapons and spells to acquire and some solid dungeons and bosses to traverse and fight, this is as close to a Secret of Mana type experience as you can get on the Game Boy. The weapon selection is what really puts it over the top.
4. Mega Man IV: A game with no weaknesses and the first time the Mega Man series reached its potential on this system. The stages are all instantly recognizable and diverse which puts it above MMV and its comparatively homogenous levels. I'd stack this up with the better NES games in the series, even. It's also highly nostalgic for me, having appeared in one of the best Nintendo Power issues out there, the Aladdin issue.
I wish they would have made a couple more in this engine just to finish using all the NES bosses, which they were about two games away from. Four more Mega Man 5 bosses, eight from Mega Man 6, two from Mega Man, and if they really wanted to, they could redo the four that got shortchanged on levels in Dr. Wily's Revenge. All of that would make for two more games and nicely wrap around to the beginning.
Thinking it over to avoid overlapping any elements or weapon types, here's my...
Hypothetical Mega Man VI GB: Wave Man (5), Star Man (5), Gyro Man (5), Gravity Man (5) // Flame Man (6), Blizzard Man (6), Knight Man (6), Centaur Man (6)
Hypothetical Mega Man VII GB: Plant Man (6), Tomahawk Man (6), Yamato Man (6), Wind Man (6) // Bubble Man (2), Quick Man (2), Flash Man (2), Heat Man (2) // Bomb Man (1), Guts Man (1)
Anyway, none of that happened, but we got a really solid Mega Man IV regardless and it's probably the second-best action game on the system.
3. Pokemon Yellow - A superior version of Gen 1 that gets rid of a lot of the glitches, making for a more refined game. It also has more of an identity now, with Pikachu as the "main character" and everything looking more like what you'd expect from the series. It's got massive amounts of replay value with all of the different potential parties you can put together and go through the game with. This is the real beginning of Pokemon for me, generally speaking.
2. Metroid II: Return of Samus: How this didn't get into the Game Boy Player's Guide is beyond me, since it was out by then. This was my second game, and boy did I luck out. While I consider it in the bottom two of the five main series Metroid games, it's still head and shoulders above most of what's on the Game Boy, even without the benefit of nostalgia. It holds up. And as far as Metroids go, it's better than the first game in the series, at least.
Few things can beat the sense of exploration that this game gives you the first time through, especially if all you have are the rudimentary instruction booklet maps, and the soundtrack is WAY too good for the system and the year it came out. Lastly, the final boss is one of the most epic-looking foes in all of video gaming circa 1991. Find me a more bad-ass foe in any game than the Queen Metroid.
And finally...
1. Legend of Zelda - Link's Awakening: When thinking of the #1 Game Boy game, and my personal favorite, there isn't really any contest. I've told the story before, but when I was renting A Link to the Past as a kid, I became obsessed with this game and wanted it instead. Then once I got this game, I became obsessed with A Link to the Past and ended up looping back around to getting that one and finishing it.
There's also the story about how I was midway through a Space Megaforce rental when my mom sprang this game on me as a surprise. Needless to say, finishing Space Megaforce had to wait a few more years because it wasn't happening that week.
Without a doubt the best game on the system, this is instantly what comes to mind when one thinks of the pinnacle of Game Boy games. Everything about this game is refined and thoughtfully-constructed. It has an interesting world, a charming soundtrack, and memorable characters. The only thing that'd make it better is more buttons, as the constant trips to the pause screen to switch items can get tiring. One of those rare things that I wish I could memory-wipe and play it again for the first time.
That's another Jason Graves style list in the bag. I've got NES and SNES lists in the freezer somewhere, and that's about it for what I've got planned.
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