Nintendo’s Game Boy is one of the most influential consoles ever and easily the reason why Nintendo still exists to this day. Losing several wars in the home console wars over the past 20 years, it’s been the Game Boy family of consoles that allowed the brand to fight another day and eventually dominate with the Switch, which is arguably another handheld console.
While it’s easy to look at the Switch as a wonderful success, the Game Boy’s amazing library of games, in its own way, helped make the great titles we see today possible. In this exclusive Old School gamer Magazine list, we take a look at five amazing Game Boy games you might have missed or don’t appreciate nearly as much as you should.
Super Mario Land: Really? Why? Because Super Mario Land represented an opportunity to make a Mario game that was best suited for the Game Boy- and it succeeded. While maintaining some elements of the original Super Mario Bros., it’s a fresh new experience that is incredibly difficult.
X: One of the most underappreciated games on the console- its development helped make Star Fox possible. Play it.
Solar Striker: Featuring one of the best soundtracks on the console and some superb shooting, Solar Strikes is a classic that is beloved by those who truly embraced the console.
Play Action Football: The Game Boy isn’t known for its sports games so a quality sim like Play Action Football (in spite of awful visuals, even by GB standards) should never be overlooked.
Penguin Wars: Essentially a game of dodgeball with adorable characters, this is a game that has been redone on several other consoles, but never has captured the same sense of magic it had on the Game Boy.
Patrick Hickey, Jr., is the founder and editor-in-chief of ReviewFix.com and a lecturer of English and journalism at Kingsborough Community College, in Brooklyn, New York. Over the past decade, his video game coverage has been featured in national ad campaigns by top publishers the likes of Nintendo, Deep Silver, Disney and EA Sports. His book series, "The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult and Classic Game Developers," from McFarland and Company, has earned praise from Forbes, Huffington Post, The New York Daily News and MSG Networks. He is also a former editor at NBC and National Video Games Writer at the late-Examiner.com
