Five (more) questions with the makers of Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe

A little over a week ago, I published an interview with Simon Larsen and Lukas Erritsø Hansen, the two guys who, along with musical artist potato-tan, made the homebrew GameBoy gem known as Tobu Tobu Girl.

If you read through that interview, you know that I conducted it over a year ago. I conducted this one, which focuses on the GameBoy Color-compatible Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe, far more recently--just a couple of days ago, in fact.

Speaking of which, you can learn more about--and back a boxed release of--this colorized and otherwise enhanced version of Tangram Games' flagship title via the Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe Kickstarter that ends on May 4.

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe title screen

The Gay Gamer: What prompted you to make a deluxe version of Tobu Tobu Girl? Also, when did you make the decision to go this route and when did you get started on it?

Simon: We had been toying around with this idea all the way back when the game was early in development but never went beyond some some colored mock-ups. Tobu Tobu Girl was our first GameBoy project, so we already had our hands full making it work on the DMG.

It wasn't until First Press Games approached us in late 2018 suggesting a "deluxe" version to go with the physical release that we actually started working on it. The (non-GameBoy) game we were working on at the time was not really working out, so this seemed like a nice distraction. As much as we like the original grayscale version, the DMG screen is not very suited for the fast gameplay of Tobu Tobu Girl, so we always felt like the game was best played on a GameBoy Color or Advance anyway. That seemed like a good reason to make a proper colored version.

Early Tobu Tobu Girl color mock-up

The Gay Gamer: Is Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe simply a colorized version of the original game, or is there more to this project than that?

Simon: Besides the obvious addition of colors, a lot of the in-game graphics have been overhauled, both in the grayscale and color versions.

We are also working on some larger additions to the game that we unfortunately can’t reveal too much about yet since some of it is tied to the Kickstarter stretch goals. But we promise there will be some really cool new features regardless of whether any of the stretch goals are met.

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe "Clouds" stage

The Gay Gamer: Have you encountered any problems or issues while turning the original game into Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe? If so, can you talk about a few of them and how you overcame them?

Lukas: While at first glance it might have seemed pretty straightforward colorizing the four-shade graphics of the original game, it did come with its share of challenges. Since no (eight-by-eight-pixel) tile can consist of more than four different colors, and no more than eight unique four-color palettes can be present at any time, I had to rework a lot of the tile-based assets from the original.

Especially the score tally screen illustrations were heavily altered to fit the color restrictions, as you would have a tile consisting of the background color, outline, skin, skin shade, jacket, and the shading on the jacket. In the grayscale version, these are just four colors, whereas in the color version I would often end up having tiles like these with five or six different colors.

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe "Space" stage

Another problem was the issue of choosing colors that would present well on the GameBoy Color screen. The RGB colors do not translate to the GameBoy Color screen like they would on a standard monitor and generally look more washed-out. Although most emulators have ways of emulating this effect, none of them really seemed to emulate it that closely, so this led to a lot of trial and error.

Simon: On the programming side, this process has mostly been fairly simple. Most of the effort went into writing and rewriting tools for getting the assets into the game. All the new assets increased the amount of data in the game quite a bit, so we had to restructure the ROM’s layout to make everything fit nicely. This hasn’t been a major issue though, since cartridges for the physical release--and any decent flash carts--have way more memory available than we’d ever need.

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe "Dream" stage

The Gay Gamer: Tobu Tobu Girl was made to the original GameBoy's specifications. Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe is being made to the GameBoy Color's specifications. Surely this means your next project will be Tobu Tobu Girl Advance, made to the specifications of the GameBoy Advance? Seriously, though, do you ever see yourselves making a proper sequel to Tobu Tobu Girl?

Simon: For now, I doubt we will ever make a sequel. We have already put more time and energy into Tobu Tobu Girl than we ever planned to, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we’re ready to do something else. Overall, we are also pretty happy with the final design: each enemy serves a specific purpose and I think the game allows a decent amount of player expression with only a few core mechanics. If we would ever decide to make a sequel, it would be because we wanted to make a fundamentally different game.

Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe menu screen

The Gay Gamer: Can we ever expect to see Tobu Tobu Girl or Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe for sale on the Nintendo Switch (or even the 3DS) eShop? If so, when? And if not, why?

Simon: While that would be pretty cool, it is highly unlikely. I don’t think Nintendo would ever allow any emulated games on the eShop. And even if that was the case, I hear getting games certified for consoles is also huge pain. We are making games for fun, not for profit, so we would rather put that energy into making something new.

See also: the Tobu Tobu Girl review I wrote for Hardcore Gaming 101

Check out the Tobu Tobu Girl review I wrote for Hardcore Gaming 101

To those of you who are sick of me writing, tweeting, or otherwise chatting about Tangram Games' Tobu Tobu Girl, I'm sorry.

Don't worry, I'll return to blogging and blathering on about other games soon enough.

In the meantime, please consider reading the Tobu Tobu Girl review I wrote for Hardcore Gaming 101. I think it'll help you understand why I adore the game so much.

Speaking of which, one of the reasons I love Tobu Tobu Girl is that it reminds me of Nintendo's Balloon Kid. As I say in my HG101 review of the former, "both [games] star plucky girls. Both begin with loved ones--a brother in Balloon Kid, a cat in Tobu Tobu Girl--carried away by balloons. Both feature gameplay that regularly makes you feel like you’re a pinball ricocheting around the screen."

That's where the similarities end, though. Again, from my review: "Whereas Balloon Kid is a unique spin on the side-scrolling platformer genre, Tobu Tobu Girl is an arcadey, twitchy, high-score-chasing affair that’s akin to Ferry Halim’s Winterbells. Much like that 2006 effort, the main objective in Tobu Tobu Girl is to quickly climb the screen by bouncing off anything and everything in your path. In Winterbells, that means bells and birds; in Tangram Games’ title, it means birds, bats, ghosts, and even aliens."

On a related, note, Tangram Games recently teamed up with First Press Games to launch a Kickstarter for Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe, a GameBoy Color-enhanced reworking of the original.

Although a free, open-source ROM of Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe will be released in a few months, backers of this Kickstarter will receive physical (boxed) copies of the game.

See also: 'Ten questions with the guys behind the best GameBoy game you've probably never played, Tobu Tobu Girl'

Ten questions with the guys behind the best GameBoy game you've probably never played, Tobu Tobu Girl

Back in late 2017, a little two-man company called Tangram Games released a homebrew GameBoy title called Tobu Tobu Girl.

I became aware of Tobu Tobu Girl just before it hit the internet (digitally) and Tangram Games' shop page (physically), but ignored both iterations for some time after that because I assumed it wouldn't be very good.

In the immortal words of Vivian Ward, Julia Roberts' character in Pretty Woman, "Big mistake. Big. Huge!" You see, after I finally got around to trying Tobu Tobu Girl, I basically spent the next six or so months slapping myself silly for failing to nab a boxed copy of it.

If only I'd watched GameBoyle's BoyCurious Tobu Tobu Girl review earlier. In it, host Mat declares this to be one of the best titles he's played on Nintendo's first handheld game console. That sounds like a ridiculous claim, I know. But after putting more hours than I'd like to admit into it, I can say with some confidence that Tobu Tobu Girl actually is one of the finest GameBoy games around.

Tobu Tobu Girl both looks, feels, and sounds--this last bit is thanks to artist potato-tan--like something Nintendo or maybe HAL Laboratory would produce. Every single aspect of it is as clean and tight as can be. Even better, it's endlessly enjoyable and entertaining--quite a feat when you're talking about a title with just four stages, each of which can be finished in under a minute.

Now you know why I can't seem to shut up on Twitter about the recently launched Kickstarter for Tobu Tobu Girl Deluxe, a GameBoy Color-enhanced reworking of the original.

In an effort to raise awareness about both Tobu Tobu Girl and the just-mentioned Kickstarter for its colorized follow-up, I'm finally publishing this interview I did with Tangram Games' Lukas Erritsø Hansen and Simon Larsen well over a year ago.

The Gay Gamer: You first started work on Tobu Tobu Girl back in 2014, as part of the third GBJAM game jam. Did you come up with the idea on the spot, specifically for that event? Or had you been thinking of it for a while beforehand?

Simon: The idea was something we came up with during the jam. We wanted to make a game with a musical element, where everything in the game would be synced up to the music and parts of the music would be produced by player’s actions. Sort of like a 2D platformer meets Rez. Though what we ended up submitting for the jam was nothing like that. In the end we didn’t even manage to put in any sound at all.

The Gay Gamer: The version of Tobu Tobu Girl you produced for GBJAM 3 was pretty different from the one you made available to the masses in late 2017. Why did you change it so drastically? Were you unhappy with how the GBJAM 3 version looked or played?

Simon: I think the main reason was simply that the initial idea wasn’t very fun. We initially wanted everything to sync up to the music, but that quickly proved too restrictive so we moved in a more puzzle-like direction. After the jam, we still weren’t very happy with how the game played and kept tweaking the design until we at some point decided that a more arcadey and twitchy gameplay style was simply more fun and closer to something we’d enjoy ourselves.

Lukas: Regarding the look of the game, we did intend to keep the style and assets from the jam version. However, during the time that we were working on the game I was at a point of rapidly improving my drawing and spriting skills. About two years into the project, I just couldn’t stand looking at the game, and as such redrew just about every sprite.

The Gay Gamer: Can you explain some of the biggest changes you made to the game from its 2014 build to its 2017 one? For instance, the early version was kind of like a single-screen puzzler, while the latest version is more of a twitchy score-attack game. Also, the early version didn't have an HUD, while the latest one does--and you moved it from the bottom of the screen to the side during development. How did you settle on those alterations?

Lukas: We early on decided to change the core concept to something more akin to Winterbells. I think having some kind of scrolling was important to us at the time. In the early version you navigated the screen by simply bouncing on enemies, like in the jam version essentially. At some point we decided to add power-ups to the game, an include that on one hand added a lot of variation to the game but also muddied the concept a bit. In the end we took the power-ups we found added most to the game and incorporated them into the set of core mechanics, the dashes and “boosting.”

Simon: The HUD was added when we introduced power-ups. The player would collect orbs scattered throughout the level, and once they had gathered enough, they would be rewarded with a random power-up. The HUD was added in order to show the player how many orbs they had collected, as well as their progress through the stage. Problem was, the HUD covered more than 10 percent of the screen vertically, which made the game significantly harder, so we had to move it to the side instead. Luckily, this also made the progress tracker much better, as it would now move up vertically along with the player.

The Gay Gamer: Did you look to any existing games for inspiration while creating the first version of Tobu Tobu Girl? If so, which ones?

Simon: I think I’d been playing a lot of Rez and Electroplankton at the time and was in love with this idea of the gameplay influencing or possibly even creating the music as you play. However, in terms of the actual gameplay I don’t think we were really inspired by anything in particular.

The Gay Gamer: And how about the current version of Tobu Tobu Girl--did your sources of inspiration change at all when went to alter its gameplay?

Lukas: I was playing a lot of Ultra Street Fighter 4 at the time. There’s a character in that game that relies heavily on these sort of teleport-like dashes. I really wanted to try to imitate the snappiness that I felt playing that character. As strange as it may sound that ended up being a defining point in the design process. When it came to the actual implementation of that core mechanic, that took quite a few tries and approaches before arriving at what ended up in the game.

The Gay Gamer: The first thing that struck me when I saw footage of Tobu Tobu Girl was how much it reminded me of Nintendo's Balloon Kid. Specifically, your game almost seems like a sideways take on that GameBoy classic. Is that connection intentional or accidental?

Simon: Completely accidental. Neither of us actually knew about Balloon Kid when making the game, but I can definitely see where the comparison is coming from. I think Upwell--as in, Downwell but upwards--is more fitting, though that wasn’t something we were really aiming for either.

The Gay Gamer: What does the "tobu tobu" part of this game's name mean? A quick check of Jisho.org says "tobu" usually means to fly, soar, or jump. Did you have any particular translation or localization in mind when you came up with the title Tobu Tobu Girl?

Simon: We don't really have an “official” translation but it is supposed to mean something like “Jump Jump Girl.” The title is an homage to Japanese titles like Noby Noby Boy, Doki Doki Panic, ChuChu Rocket! We are obviously very inspired by Japanese games in general and we wanted the title to reflect that. Same goes for the box art--both for the jam version and the final release.

The Gay Gamer: Did you encounter any particular problems or issues while making either version of Tobu Tobu Girl? If so, what were they--or what were the worst--and how did you overcome them?

Lukas: Graphics-wise the main challenge came partly from the limited sprite and tile count, and partly from the limited color palette. Making sure the sprites are easily readable from the background was a problem and something I don’t think we entirely succeeded at. In regards to the sprite count, I don’t think there’s any animation used in the actual game that has more than two frames. Due to the limited tile count, I probably spent more time reducing and keeping each background to the allowed amount of tiles than I spent drawing them.

Simon: Perhaps the biggest challenge was getting the physical edition ready. You obviously can’t just call some company and have GameBoy cartridges made in 2017, so figuring out how to do that in a feasible and affordable way was quite difficult, and at some point we were convinced it would never happen. Even something as simple as getting high-quality manuals and cardboard boxes manufactured in such a small quantity was not trivial. These challenges are ultimately the reason why the game was so long in the making. In the end it was definitely worth it, though.

The Gay Gamer: What are the main challenges of making a GameBoy game that plays on actual hardware? 

Simon: The main challenge was definitely to make sure the game ran at a nice and stable frame rate. Tobu Tobu Girl game is fairly fast-paced and even the slightest slowdown is very noticeable and is likely to throw you off and kill you. Often we would add some new feature only to have the game suddenly slow down. Then we would have to either optimize it, remove it, or get rid of something else. This can of course be quite frustrating, but it also helps you prioritize which elements are really necessary.

Another big challenge was the music and sound effects. The GameBoy does not really have any functionality for this--you can only tell it to play a certain frequency with a certain wave form at a certain volume. In order to add music, we had to implement a sequencer, which is basically a small program responsible for playing the right notes at the right time. potato-tan, the game’s composer, would write all the music in some weird music notation language we based on MML (Music Macro Language) that we could then convert into something the sequencer understands.

The Gay Gamer: Are you two GameBoy fans yourselves, or did something else spur you to develop a GameBoy game in 2017?

Simon: I used to be a pretty big GameBoy fan. I rarely play on it anymore, but I still adore it quite a lot. It was the first console I owned, so there is obviously a fair amount of nostalgia involved as well. However, I think the main reason is simply that it seemed like a fun challenge. I had played around with making GameBoy homebrew all the way back in 2010. Later in 2013, we wanted to participate in the second GBJAM game jam and decided it would be more fun to make an actual GameBoy game. We ended up making an (also unfinished) prototype of a GameBoy game called Super Catacombs. About a year later, we once again participated in GBJAM, this time working on what would become Tobu Tobu Girl.

Lukas: I’ve only very recently acquired a GameBoy, though I did own one as a kid. In that regard I’m not much of an actual GameBoy or even retro fan. The main draw was the challenge of making the game run decently on actual hardware. That meant seriously limiting frame count on animations and very laboriously reducing the count of unique tiles on each background.

See also: previous 'ten questions with...' posts featuring auntie pixelante, Peter Bartholow (of Indivisible fame), Dudedle Studio, the guys who created Wizorb, the guy chiefly responsible for the English fan translation of Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, and the makers of THE 'DENPA' MEN 2

Gunman Clive gallops onto the ... GameBoy?

To be perfectly honest, I think I would've preferred a Neo Geo Pocket Color or WonderSwan Color "demake" of Bertil Hörberg's Gunman Clive to the GameBoy-ified version that can be downloaded from gunmanclive.com, but don't take that as a complaint.

After all, even this pea-green-and-black recreation of the first Gunman Clive's first level is pretty darn awesome.

It was produced by Hörberg himself, by the way. Here's what he had to say about the effort on the site linked to above.



"I've always felt that it's basically a GameBoy game at its core. I emersed myself completely in the world of 8-bit assembler code, four-color tiles and monochromatic screens, and I enjoyed myself tremendously.

"But it ended up taking a lot more time and going a lot slower and than I anticipated. After over a month of intense development I finally have a presentable demo. There's a few more things I'd like to do with it, but I don't know if I can justify spending any more time on it."

I haven't yet tried it for myself, but apparently this ROM can be played using any "decent" GameBoy emulator or even on an actual piece of GameBoy, GameBoy Color or GameBoy Advance hardware--assuming you have access to a working flash cart.

Shall We Do It? (THE 'DENPA' MEN 3 and three versions of Rainbow Islands)

Those of you who've read the last few "Shall We Do It?" posts I've published may be wondering why I didn't include Tomodachi Life in this installment's header. That would be because I recently--as in, this past weekend--stopped playing it. I wouldn't go so far as to predict that I won't pick it up again, but I have to imagine I'll no longer check in on my island's inhabitants every single day as I previously was compelled to do.

I'm pretty much done with another 3DS game that's received a lot of play on this blog over the last few months, too--with the game in question being THE "DENPA" MEN 3. That's not because the bloom is off the rose, so to speak, or because this digital RPG has otherwise lost its appeal, mind you. No, it's because I finished this game within the last week or so.

By the way, it may interest some of you to hear that, in the end, I put more than 40 hours into this sucker. That's quite an accomplishment when you consider I nearly gave up after getting stuck around the seven-hour mark. It only got better and better after that unfortunate hurdle, thankfully, and now that the adventure is over I've got to say it was well worth the time and effort I put into it.

Does that mean I'd heartily recommend THE "DENPA" MEN 3 to all who own a 3DS? No, it doesn't. On the contrary, I have a feeling some of its quirks would turn off a lot of those who wander into it without ample warning. If you like RPGs with turn-based battles, though, and if you're not an easily annoyed gamer, it's possible you'll get as much enjoyment out of this title as I have so far.

As for what I've been playing now that both THE "DENPA" MEN 3 and Tomodachi Life have been put to bed, well, the header above kind of gives it away, doesn't it? Of course, the header doesn't mention which versions I've been playing, so at least there's a bit of new information I can share here.

In that regard, the Rainbow Islands ports I've been playing the last few days are the Famicom, GameBoy Color and PC Engine ones. The latter iteration is the one that's been getting most of my attention, thanks in large part to the fact that it's pretty much arcade-perfect, but the Famicom conversion has gotten a good amount of play, too.

Going back to the PC Engine version of this Taito classic, whose subtitle is "The Story of Bubble Bobble 2," I actually reached its end--the real, "good" one, too, not the "bad" one that's encountered if you failed to collect all of the game's "big diamonds"--for the first time ever a couple of days ago. The last few stages alone--one of which is an homage to The Fairyland Story, while two others pull enemies and other aspects from Darius and Bubble Bobble--were worth the price of admission, if you ask me, as were the song and animation sequence that accompanied the game's credit roll.

I can't say I've been as enamored with the Famicom and GameBoy Color ports of Rainbow Islands at this point, but I'm still enjoying them more than you might think given their various deficiencies. The GBC version, for instance, feels a bit "off" in terms of its controls (jumping, especially) compared to every other iteration I've experienced, but it looks so good--better than its Famicom or Sega Master System counterparts, that's for sure--that for the moment I'm willing to ignore that niggle.

The Famicom release, on the other hand, controls well enough--although not perfectly--but is a bit of a letdown in the graphics department. Actually, that's not an entirely fair assessment, as individual sprites--Bob, Bub and their enemies, especially--look pretty darn nice, all things considered. There are so many fewer colors used here than in the arcade original, though, that the overall impression is a disappointing one.

Honestly, I could fill this post with comments on and impressions of Rainbow Islands for the Famicom, but I don't want to do that, as it's already plenty long. Instead, why don't I round them up and share them in a "Second Chances" write-up that I can publish in a few days?

See also: previous 'Shall We Do It?' posts

Five arcade classics I wish had been ported to certain handhelds

You may be wondering what prompted me to write this post. Strangely enough, it came to mind while I was playing the Game Gear port of Namco's quarter-munching classic, Mappy, last week.

While admiring the quality of the adaptation, I couldn't help but wonder why Namco ended its Game Gear ports with Galaga, Mappy and Pac-Man. What about Warp & Warp (aka Warpman), The Tower of Druaga or Dig Dug?

That line of thinking then led to me to ponder why some other arcade classics--like the five detailed below--were never ported to the following handheld systems despite the fact that they would've been perfect fits (or at least interesting fits) for each other.

Baby Pac-Man (DS or 3DS)--I've wanted to play this half-Pac-Man-game-half-pinball-machine oddity at home ever since I encountered it in a local arcade as a teen. I can see why it never earned a console conversion, of course, but a DS or 3DS version could've been (or could still be) magical. The question is: who would develop and publish it, Bally Midway or Namco? (My guess: neither!)

Detana!! TwinBee (WonderSwan Color)--For some strange reason, the folks at Namco only made one game, Beatmania, for the WonderSwan, and even then it was for the original black-and-white version of Bandai's niche-y handheld rather than its colorized follow-up. Why they never ported this pastel-coated cute 'em up to the WonderSwan Color is beyond me, as I have to imagine a lot of gamers would've enjoyed playing it with their portable of choice held vertically.

Dig Dug (Game Gear)--I'm sure the powers that be at Namco had their reasons for not green-lighting this handheld port, but for the life of me I can't fathom what they may have been. After all, the company's portable re-imaginings of Galaga, Mappy and Pac-Man are about as spot-on as could've been expected. (By the way, I also wish Namco had made and released a Game Gear version of Marvel Land--even though its graphics would've had to have been downsized and simplified quite a bit.)

Don Doko Don (GameBoy Color)--Don Doko Don has long had a place in my pixelated heart for all sorts of reasons, which is why it saddens me that Taito never released a handheld version. Although the GameBoy Advance could've received an arcade-perfect port, I think I'd actually have preferred to see one that was more of an homage to the original (a la Bubble Bobble for Game Gear), hence my call for it to be made for the GameBoy Color instead.

Mr. Do! (Neo Geo Pocket Color)--I don't know about you, but I think it would've been awesome it someone had brought this Dig Dug-esque game to SNK's brick-like handheld in some form or fashion--especially if they'd updated the graphics a bit like ADK did when they remade Make Trax for the system (after renaming it Crush Roller). Instead, NGPC owners were given a million pachinko simulators. Not fair!

Four GameBoy titles I'm surprised never saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun

You may have heard--you know, at the bar down the street, in that dark alley outside your apartment, over on that cesspool of social interaction (I kid ... for the most part) known as Twitter--that I've got GameBoy on the brain at the moment.

OK, so it's really been on my brain for the last eight or 10 months.

Anyway, as a result of my, er, obsessive thoughts (for lack of a better word) on the subject, I've been discovering and re-discovering all sorts of "gems" that were released for Nintendo's first handheld, including the four discussed below--each of which I was surprised to learn were never released in the system's home country.

Balloon Kid--I know this one was released in Japan eventually, but that didn't happen until 10 years after it appeared elsewhere, and even then it was only released (for the GameBoy Color) as part of the Nintendo Power flash RAM cartridge system. Which is a shame, as the GBC version of Balloon Kid (called Balloon Fight GB in Japan) is top notch and its packaging surely would've featured some awesome art.

Buster Bros--I only recently discovered that this odd, Capcom-developed action game had received a GameBoy port (courtesy of Hudson Soft). Shortly after, I discovered--much to my dismay--that while it was released in Europe (as Pang) and North America (as Buster Brothers), it never made it to Japan. I find that kind of strange, especially since similar games like Tumblepop and Snow Bros. Jr. saw the light of day in that region.

Dig Dug--This may be the worst offender of the bunch, as the "New Dig Dug" mode included in this portable release is all sorts of awesome (as well as hair-pullingly frustrating at times, it has to be said). Also, a Japanese release of this game would've allowed me to compare and contrast its cover art with that of its North American counterpart (which I actually find to be more than acceptable).

Update: shortly after I published this post, someone brought it to my attention that both of the above-mentioned Dig Dug games were included in the 1996 Japan-only release, Namco Gallery Vol. 2, which you can read about here.

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters--Full disclosure: I've barely spent any time with this one over the years, despite the fact that the original Kid Icarus is one of my all-time favorite NES games. Of course, the main reason for that is I've heard some terrible things about it. So, maybe it's a good thing Of Myths and Monsters never earned a spot on the shelves of its country of origin?

See also: 'You really need to try these three GameBoy titles, if you haven't already'

12 import games I bought in 2012 but didn't tell you about until now: Dragon Quest Monsters (GameBoy Color)

I know what at least a few of you are thinking right now: "Wait a second ... you bought a copy of Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland even though you don't understand Japanese?"

Yes, I did. There's more to the story, though, than me stupidly spending money on a game that's surely going to force me to consult a guide or an FAQ should I want to get through it.

You see, I came across this particular copy--and its wonderfully colorful cover art--of the original Dragon Quest Monsters while perusing eBay on a quiet Sunday morning this past May.

(OK, so I don't remember if it was a Sunday morning or if it even happened in May, but it did happen sometime early this year.)

Anyway, it caught my attention because it was selling for just one cent (plus a few bucks for shipping). "That's interesting," I thought. So, I placed a bid for, you guessed it, a single cent--with no expectation that I'd actually "win" the auction at that price (or at any price, to tell you the truth).

Of course I did win it, although I'm not exactly sure what to do with it now that I own it. Oh, well, the cover art isn't nice, don't you think? Also, its instruction manual may be a good candidate for a future installment of "Manual Stimulation."

One last thing before I hit "publish": Two additional (and more intriguing, if you ask me) photos of this acquisition can be found on my Flickr photostream, should any of you be interested in such things.

See also: Previous '12 import games I bought in 2012 but didn't tell you about until now' posts

You really can't have too much Mario-inspired art, can you?

Does the headline above--or, rather, the fact that just a few words of it flow into the second line--drive any of you nuts?

Honestly, it drives me nuts, but I'm too lazy right now to rewrite it in a way that will be less annoying.

Anyway, who cares about that, right? We're hear to talk about Mario-inspired art! Specifically, we're here to talk about the Mario-inspired art seen in the photo below (and here).



It was made by "The Artist Known as SUIKA™," by the way. (Sorry for the playful editorializing there, SUIKA.)

Oh, and the Mario sprite that's front and center on this canvas was pulled from Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, a GameBoy Color title released in 2000.

To see more of this talented artist's stuff, check out melonjaywalk.blogspot.com.

Let's Play: 'Which Box Art is Better?' (Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland edition)

This edition of "Which Box Art is Better?" is going to be a trip down memory lane. Or at least it will be for me. I'm guessing some of you (many of you?) have never even heard of the original Dragon Quest Monsters title, let alone played it.

Still, I'm going to devote a post to the game because, well, I like the box art that's been made for its many iterations.

Speaking of which, here's the art that appeared on the cover of the initial release of Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland (called Dragon Warrior Monsters in the States):

And here's the box art that was produced for the PlayStation remake, released in 2002, of the same game:

Finally, here's the art that will grace the cover of the soon-to-be-released--in Japan only, for the moment--3DS re-imagining of this portable, Pokémon-esque RPG:

As for which one I like best: Although I quite like the art that was conjured up for the latest iteration of this charming game, I think it's my least favorite of the bunch.

The cover of the GameBoy Color-based original is really nice, too, and I'd probably put it at the top of my list if the rainbow-hued illustration were a bit larger. As it is, though, I'm going to have to give that honor to the box art made for the PSone-centric Dragon Quest Monsters 1+2.

Now that I've had my say, what do all of you think?

See also: Previous 'Which Box Art is Better?' posts

Speaking of Balloon Kid ...

The colorized update of Balloon Kid, called Balloon Fight GB, floated onto the Japanese 3DS eShop a few days ago (on Oct. 19, to be exact).

For those of you who've never heard of it, Balloon Fight GB was released in 2000--ten years after Balloon Kid was released in North America--via Nintendo's Japan-only Nintendo Power service.

Balloon Fight GB is more than just Balloon Kid in color, by the way; it also added a map screen and Super Game Boy features and allowed players to save their progress.

Anyway, here's hoping Nintendo of America does the intelligent thing and releases Balloon Fight GB--and not the black-and-white (or black-and-green) original--on the North American eShop sooner rather than later.

(Via tinycartridge.com)

LEGO GameBoy Color

I don't know about you, but I think the only way the mock GameBoy Color, made out of LEGO blocks, seen in the photo below (it's on the left) could be any more impressive would be if its screen displayed an overly pixelated approximation of one of the portable system's most popular games, like Super Mario Land or Tetris.

Of course, it's possible (perhaps even likely) that attempting such a thing would have ruined the illusion, isn't it?



To see this crafty creation from a number of different angles, check out the photostream of Flickr user lego27bricks.

See also: The million or so LEGO Pokémon posts I've published on this blog thus far

I thought the graphics were better in the GameGear version

How would Rebecca Black's rather inane (I know, that's putting it mildly) hit single, "Friday," look and sound if it were a GameBoy Color title? Here's how a couple of comedy writers who call themselves Smales and Payne recently answered that question:



The imaginary game depicted in the video above was made using MS Paint, by the way, while the audio was produced by Nick Maynard. (The latter can be downloaded here for a buck.)

A Link's Awakening remake would be 'sew' awesome, too

Especially if Link looked something like this:

The plush above was created by Brazil-based animator and illustrator, Xurume, by the way.

Would the brass at Nintendo really give the green light to a Kirby's Epic Yarn-esque remake of the fourth installment in The Legend of Zelda series? I kind of doubt it, but who knows?

(Via superpunch.blogspot.com)

In my dreams: Nintendo would remake Balloon Kid

I'm not usually one to beg for remakes, but that doesn't mean I'm completely opposed to them. For instance, I'd really like to see the able folks at Nintendo release an updated version--for, say, the Wii--of the GameBoy classic, Balloon Kid.

For those of you who have, sadly, never experienced this Balloon Fight sequel, here's the lowdown: It's a flying platformer that was developed by Pax Softnica (yeah, I've never heard of the company before either) and published and released, in Europe and North America, by Nintendo in 1990 and 1991, respectively.



What in the heck is a "flying platformer," you ask? Well, it's a platformer--think Super Mario Bros.--that calls on players to navigate the game's many stages using balloons à la Balloon Fight. Balloon Kid turns the genre on its ear in few other ways, too, such as by forcing gamers to move from right to left rather than left to right and by making the protagonist a girl (Alice) who is out to save a boy (her little brother, Jim).

As for how I'd like Nintendo's developers to remake this gem of a game: In my dreams, they'd make it look like it was drawn with colored pencils--the game kicks off in Pencilvania, after all--à la the masterful Yoshi's Island.

I know the likelihood of either of the above happening is somewhere between slim and none, but I'll hold out hope anyway.

See also: 'Balloon fightin' kid to the rescue!' (at geozeldadude.wordpress.com)

Raise your hands if you're looking forward to the 3D remake of Link's Awakening

Hmmm ... I don't see many hands.

Well, read this article and watch this teaser trailer and then tell me you aren't looking forward to the fan-made remake of this GameBoy/GameBoy Color classic.

In the meantime, shake your ass (or at least laugh your ass off) to this classic commercial--used (in Japan) to promote the 1991 release of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past:



I know, I should have posted an ad for Link's Awakening instead. Here's a rather hilarious one for anyone interested.

Ninjas and shurikens and Tanooki testicles! Oh my!

I'm a sucker for games that try to take things back to the good ol' days. Which means I'm *very* interested in the game shown in this here video:


Ninja Senki Trailer from pixeltao on Vimeo.

The game, Ninja Senki, isn't a long-lost GameBoy Color ROM. It's a brand new game that's being made by Jonathan Lavigne, an artist/coder at Ubisoft Montreal. (Lavigne's previous credits: the Open Season and TMNT titles that were released for the GameBoy Advance.)

According to Eric Caoili over at TinyCartridge.com, Lavigne hopes to release Ninja Senki before Christmas. Here's hoping he releases it as a GameBoy Color or GameBoy Advance ROM.

Five favorites: portable platformers

Truth be told, I prefer to play platformers on a TV. There are moments when that isn't possible, though--and in those moments I pull out my trusty GameBoy Advance (or DS, depending on the situation) and insert one of the following cartridges.

1. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (GameBoy)--I know Wario's first solo outing isn't considered by many to be his best, but for some reason it's the one I turn to whenever I need my Wario fix. That said, you can't go wrong by playing any of the Wario Land games that appeared on the GameBoy (or the one that appeared on the Virtual Boy, from what I've been told).

2. Balloon Kid (GB)/Balloon Fight GB (GB Color)--Let's count the reasons I keep coming back to this long-lost gem: 1) It's about a girl who has to rescue a boy, 2) it's no walk in the park (in fact, it's pretty damn difficult--take that, Super Princess Peach), and 3) it inverts the left-to-right progression that has become a platforming cliche. (Oh, and it features some fab tunes courtesy of Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka.) In other words, it's a portable platformer that's well worth your time, too.

3. Donkey Kong (GB Color)--Considering the quality of this title, it's crazy that Nintendo hasn't remade it once or even twice. (Actually, it seems they planned on releasing a remake of sorts, titled Donkey Kong Plus, for the GameBoy Advance, but canned it in favor of the similar-but-not-quite-the-same Mario vs. Donkey Kong.) Until they do, I'll be playing this classic platformer-puzzler combo on a regular basis.

4. Drill Dozer (GameBoy Advance)--Well, well, well ... what do we have here? Another platformer with a female protagonist--and it doesn't suck! Actually, it's the complete opposite of sucky. Like the aforementioned Balloon Kid, Drill Dozer turns the platformer genre on its ear, although this game accomplishes that feat with a gigantic drill instead of a bunch of balloons.(Fun fact: This developer of this title, Game Freak, also develops Nintendo's Pokémon games.)

5. Kirby Canvas Curse (DS)--When the crew over at 1UP.com reviewed this title, they called it "the DS's first great game." The guys and gals at IGN.com, on the other hand, hailed it as "incredibly innovative." Unfortunately, the critical acclaim didn't have much of an affect on consumer interest and it sold less than 150,000 copies (in the U.S.) in its first two months. If you see a copy (new or used) out in the wild, do yourself and your DS a favor and pick it up--you'll be glad you did.

The 10 tennis games you should be playing when you're not watching the US Open

I've played tennis since I was a youngster, so it should be no surprise to hear that I've always loved virtual versions of the sport.

Honestly, I think I've played nearly every tennis game that's been released since the early days of the NES. The only exceptions I can think of are the Smash Court games that were released for the PS2, the Top Spin games that have been released for practically every system under the sun and all of the Virtua Tennis games released after the first sequel.

As such, I thought it might be fun to come up with a list of my favorite tennis games--especially since the US Open is in full swing. (Go Rafa and Dementieva!) Here they are, in no particular order (though I have arranged them according to when they were released):

1. World Court Tennis (PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16, 1989) - A launch title for the TurboGrafx-16, if I'm not mistaken, World Court Tennis deserves a spot on this list simply because it was the first (and last?) tennis game to include an RPG mode.

2. Final Match Tennis (PC-Engine, 1991) - World Court Tennis may be unique, but in truth it isn't a very good game. Final Match Tennis, on the other hand, is a *great* game. It's as pick-up-and-play as you can get (each player has just two shots; typically a flat shot and a slice or a flat and a topspin shot) and it's fast--faster than any other title on this list, in fact. Check it out if you like arcade-style sports games.

3. Super Tennis (SNES, 1991) - If someone forced me to select one of the titles on this list as the *best* tennis game ever, I'd probably have to go with Super Tennis. No other tennis game, in my humble opinion, has been able to match its silky smooth controls--with the possible exception of the eminently playable Wii Sports.

4. Top Rank Tennis (GameBoy, 1993) - If I'm remembering correctly, this tennis game was the first (that I played) that allowed me to create my own player and then take that player to the top of the rankings (hence the title). That alone means it'll always have a special place in my heart.

5. Wimbledon Championship Tennis (Genesis, 1993) - Truth be told, I'm not sure Wimbledon Championship Tennis belongs on this list. I wanted to include a Genesis game, though, and Jennifer Capriati Tennis was an absolute stinker, so I had no choice but to include this solid, but unspectacular, title.

6. Ace wo Nerae/Aim for the Ace (Super Famicom, 1993) -You know how I said Super Tennis might be the best tennis game ever? Well, Aim for the Ace might be the second best. The only thing keeping it from the top spot is the possibly-seizure-inducing pseudo-3D effect that follows the player around the court.

7. Mario Tennis (GameBoy Color, 2001) - Call me crazy, but I prefer this title to Mario Tennis: Power Tour, released for the GameBoy Advance in 2005. Both titles share a lot of similarities - including an RPG-ish training mode - but I think this one is the more charming of the two.

8. Virtua Tennis 2 (Dreamcast/PS2, 2001/2002) -Virtua Tennis 2 is a lot like a 3D version of Final Match Tennis, mentioned above. It sets itself apart from that and other arcade-y tennis titles, though, by including amazingly deep create-a-player and world-tour modes.

9. Mario Power Tennis (GameCube, 2004) - I decided to include this title instead of Camelot's earlier effort, Mario Tennis 64 (released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000), because, well, this one is better in every way. I know some players hate that you can't turn off the "power shots" (or at least their animations), but they've never bothered me.

10. Grand Slam Tennis (Wii, 2009) - I know what you're thinking: "How can he include this game on the list and not Wii Sports?" My response: Well, as much as I love Wii Sports' tennis, Grand Slam Tennis plays just as well while adding a multitude of other options--including online match-ups.