u/sora_heart

Out of all the consoles to have ever released, the Game Boy is by far one of the easiest consoles to just try games for. Between the pick-up-and-play nature of its library, the relatively short playtime needed to finish many of its games, and the simplicity of the 8-bit aesthetic (both graphically and musically), the Game Boy often compels me to venture outside of my comfort zone in search of games I might otherwise never think to try.

However, I've noticed three recurring problems while revisiting the retro Game Boy library.

The first is that I've already played a majority of the "must-plays" that tend to show up on everyone's lists: aka, your Pokémon, Mario/Wario, Kirby, and Zelda titles. Don't get me wrong, I still love and regularly replay many of these games (Link's Awakening is in a three way tie as my favorite Zelda game), but there's only so many times I want to revisit the same classics when there's an entire library out there to explore.

The second issue is that, personally speaking, I am not a "score attack" motivated person. Classics like Tetris, Game & Watch Gallery, and SolarStriker often get dropped after one or two "good runs," never to be played again. Basically, without some kind of meaningful progression system to keep me moving forward, I tend to lose interest pretty quickly.

The final issue is the surprising number of games that don't feature some way of continuing your progress after shutting the console off. Amazing games that I genuinely enjoy, like Ninja Gaiden Shadow, are unfortunately held back for me by the fact that I have to beat the entire game in one uninterrupted session. That's often not ideal given that my average play session when using my Game Boy is only about 15–20 minutes. Of course, save states could fix this, but as someone playing on original(ish) hardware, that solution doesn't really apply to me.

And that's where this list comes in.

The games I'm about to spend several words discussing are mostly original DMG titles that I've personally played over the past two months and found to offer a more substantial single-player experience, complete with some way to preserve your progress between sessions through either a traditional save system or passwords. None of them are necessarily massive time sinks, nor are they all particularly obscure, but they scratch that same itch of having something I can slowly work my way through whenever I pick up my Game Boy.

It should also go without saying that I haven't played every game in the Game Boy library, so this isn't meant to be a definitive list. There are plenty of games that could probably fit right alongside these - Final Fantasy Legend II and Legend of the River King immediately come to mind - and I fully intend to check them out in the near future. I just haven't gotten around to them yet because I've mostly been prioritizing games published by Nintendo, with one exception that I'll explain later. If anything, finding more games that fit this description is part of why I'm making this list in the first place.

With all that out of the way, here are my personal recommendations for anyone looking for a new Game Boy experience they can really sink some time into:

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1) Mole Mania

To be honest, Mole Mania was the main inspiration for putting together this list, and there's a good reason for that. This puzzle-focused adventure takes the block-pushing puzzles from Link's Awakening to their logical extreme, managing to craft an experience that's easy to work through regardless of how much time you have to play during any given session.

Each of the 7 levels is broken into multiple self-contained rooms with its own puzzle to figure out, and the game does an excellent job of continually building on its relatively simple mechanics as you progress. New challenges and increasingly elaborate room layouts are introduced at a steady pace, keeping things fresh without ever making the solutions feel overly complicated. This allows the game's difficulty to hit that perfect sweet spot of making me stop and think while still feeling solvable without resorting to a guide.

10 hours was my final in-game completion time, and individual rooms generally took me anywhere from 2–10 minutes to figure out. More importantly for this list, the game auto-saves whenever you transition between rooms, making it incredibly easy to knock out 2–3 puzzles during a short session and put the game down without losing anything. There's always a tangible sense that you've moved forward, even if you've only played for ten minutes. Couple that with a charming soundtrack and fun aesthetic, and you have yourself a fantastic little adventure for anyone looking to test their brain.

That being said, there are some red flags I'd like to bring up before moving on. The controls can be a bit sensitive when navigating the more complex rooms, which resulted in me constantly retrying some of the more difficult puzzles because of unintended inputs. More frustratingly, the unlockable 8th level is incredibly disappointing (>!who seriously thought a boss rush where you only have one checkpoint was a good idea?!<) and introduces a huge difficulty spike focused more on executing precise movements and actions than the puzzle-solving you have to master just to unlock it in the first place.

If you can get past those issues, Mole Mania is one of the easiest recommendations I can make on this list. I played using the fantastic DX Mod, which lets you experience the entire game in full color and only added to my enjoyment, though the original monochrome presentation is plenty charming on its own. More than anything, Mole Mania is basically the game I had in mind when I started searching for experiences like these: a substantial adventure I could slowly chip away at, one short session at a time.

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2) Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters

Out of all the games that I'm going to write about, Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters is probably one of the most forgotten games that matches my loose "Substantial Single-Player Campaigns" criteria, which I think is a shame given how much I personally enjoyed the experience.

Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters is a sort of sequel/remake to the original Kid Icarus on NES and adds a lot of great quality-of-life features that make it much easier to play than the original title. The two best changes are that you can save between each stage and it is now possible to backtrack within stages, allowing you to better plan out when to use resources like hot springs to fully heal or revisit sacred chambers if you don't have enough experience to upgrade your bow. The game also boasts an impressive amount of enemy and level variety, including stages you need to traverse vertically and enemies with surprisingly complex behaviors and patterns for a Game Boy title, which really helps keep things fresh throughout the entire experience.

This adventure is on the shorter side, taking me about 5–6 hours to complete across two playthroughs. The first took roughly 3–4 hours, while my second was closer to 2 once I was able to optimize my route and had an easier time after learning how the game's mechanics and hidden experience system actually worked. In that sense, the game reminds me a lot of Zelda 1, where part of the fun comes from optimizing routes and utilizing secret doors and items hidden throughout each level to create either an easier or harder challenge depending on the kind of playthrough you want to have.

However, the Zelda 1 comparisons aren't only applicable to the enjoyment factor. Like Zelda 1, the game was designed with you, the player, utilizing the manual for key aspects of the experience, like fleshing out the premise and characters, explaining game mechanics and item uses, and providing important context for some of its more cryptic progression systems. This, coupled with a very front-loaded difficulty curve (>!the first boss is arguably the hardest boss in the game!<) and the lack of saving or checkpoints during the three longer, more exploration-based labyrinths, can make the game feel daunting and archaic for anyone more accustomed to streamlined, modern game design.

Even so, if you're willing to put up with those quirks, Pit's Game Boy adventure is absolutely worth experiencing. What really sold me on the game was how much more rewarding it became once I understood what was happening underneath the hood. My first playthrough was largely about figuring out how everything worked, while the second became about putting that knowledge to use - finding better routes, planning around upgrades, knowing when to use my limited hammers to access hidden secrets, and generally seeing how efficiently I could make my way through the adventure. Very few games have me itching to start a second playthrough immediately after finishing the first, and Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters managed to do exactly that.

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3) Balloon Fighter GB (Balloon Kid Remake)

This is one of the choices I'll need to explain a bit. Balloon Fight GB was a Japanese-only enhanced remake of Balloon Kid on the Game Boy, which is unfortunately one of those "complete in one sitting" types of games that would normally disqualify it from being included on this list. Fortunately, one of Balloon Fight GB's many improvements was the addition of a proper save function, allowing you to preserve your progress whenever you finish a stage or lose all your lives. The remake also added a world map and color graphics while retaining compatibility with the original Game Boy.

For those who have never played it, Balloon Kid is an auto-side-scrolling platformer that acts as a sequel to the NES/Famicom classic Balloon Fight, expanding on its formula in an impressive way considering the more limited hardware. The aesthetic is insanely charming, the stages are short, and the mechanics are rather unique given the genre it's in.

In terms of completion time, this is the shortest of the games I'll be recommending today, as it only took me about an hour and a half to complete, which I spaced out over the course of a week or so. Despite only having 8 stages, the game gets fairly challenging after the first two or three, often requiring you to really get a handle on its mechanics before making progress to the next stage. The final stage alone took me about 4-5 sessions to finally beat, but that's also where the added save system really started to shine. Instead of having to replay the entire game just to get another attempt at a section I was struggling with, I could spend a session practicing that particular challenge until I finally mastered it. Each stage essentially became another small hurdle to overcome, building on the skills I'd picked up from the stages before it.

There is also a less "get gud" approach if that isn't your thing. Since the game saves your progress, you can revisit earlier stages to stockpile extra lives before taking on the harder ones. I didn't personally play this way, but it's a nice option for anyone who would rather grind out a little extra insurance than repeatedly throw themselves at a difficult section. Obviously, doing so will also push your completion time beyond my roughly 90-minute playthrough.

The biggest caveat, and what makes this a bit of a fringe pick, is that Balloon Fight GB isn't exactly a game you can easily get your hands on. Not only was this version exclusive to Japan, but it was also originally distributed through Nintendo Power GB Memory cartridges. That makes tracking down an original copy a lot less straightforward than simply picking up Balloon Kid.

It's an unfortunate bit of history for what I consider the definitive version of Balloon Kid. An hour and a half may not sound like a particularly substantial campaign, but I think that's also what makes Balloon Fight GB such an interesting example for this list. Rather than asking you to eventually string together one near-perfect run, the save system lets you break the game into smaller challenges that you can practice and master over time. For someone like me who usually plays for 15–20 minutes at a time, that completely changes the experience. I wasn't just slowly working my way through the game; I was getting better at it one stage at a time.

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4) Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls)

From one Japan-only release to another, The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls (I'm just gonna call it Frog Game going forward for simplicity) has been my white whale since getting back into the Game Boy scene. The legacy, high praise, and alleged connection to one of my favorite games of all time made it one of the first games I imported when I started collecting Game Boy games again. And after finally playing it, I can confidently say I see where the hype comes from.

Despite often being brought up alongside Link's Awakening, Frog Game actually reminded me less of Zelda and more of another popular RPG from around the time of its release: Mother (EarthBound Beginnings for Western players). The game is less about conquering elaborate dungeons or mastering combat and more about solving silly scenarios with equally quirky solutions. It frequently had me chuckling thanks to an excellent fan translation that manages to maintain the game's charm without compromising what I perceive to be a pretty tightly written script.

This is also where Frog Game fits perfectly into the type of experience I'm recommending with this list. My playthrough took me about 7 hours without using a guide, which I spread across a week-long family road trip. The ability to save at practically any point made it incredibly easy to play in short bursts, while the handy journal gives you something to reference whenever you come back to remind yourself of what you've already accomplished and what you should probably be working toward next. For a game built so heavily around figuring out what to do and where to go, that little feature goes a long way.

Unlike something like Mother, however, one of the few flaws I have with Frog Game is that it's very much a "one and done" type of experience. The "combat," if you can even call it that, is basically predetermined, and the game leaves very little reason to replay it due to the nonexistent secrets or variance in its story/gameplay. The game also suffers a bit from that "strict sequencing" problem present in a lot of RPGs from the era, where you as the player may figure out the solution to a problem before the player character technically does. Progress can sometimes depend on talking to a specific NPC before the game lets you move forward, which can sadly drag the experience down when you already know what you're supposed to be doing.

While I don't think I'll ever find myself replaying Frog Game like I frequently do its supposed spiritual successor, Link's Awakening, it was absolutely worth the time I spent with it and is an experience I think should be had at least once - and as blind as possible. If you're in the market for another quirky RPG with a great sense of humor that you can slowly work through over several play sessions, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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5) Donkey Kong (1994)

This is probably both the most popular and most well-known of the "hidden gem" titles in the Game Boy library, but it still surprises me just how often the game gets overlooked, even by people within the community. DK '94 might masquerade as an enhanced port of the 1981 arcade classic at first, but quickly pulls the rug out from under you after those opening stages and reveals itself as one of the most charming and well-executed 2D puzzle platformers you can get your hands on.

Even when directly comparing it to the later-released Mole Mania, which actually shares some development staff with DK '94, the presentation and controls are insane for the hardware. From the charming cutscenes between worlds, to the variety of environments and obstacles, to the sheer number of animations and actions Mario can perform, there's an incredible amount of personality packed into this cartridge. More importantly, the game actually puts all of that variety to good use. New mechanics and increasingly elaborate puzzles are introduced at a steady enough pace that the experience rarely grows stale, while Mario's surprisingly versatile moveset gives you plenty of opportunities to experiment with how you approach each challenge. Having played both games relatively close together, it's not hard to see some of the design DNA that would eventually carry over into Mole Mania.

If there's one area where the game struggles, it's ironically with the amount of commitment required to make meaningful progress. My playthrough took around 9 hours, but the game only records your progress after completing each set of 4 stages. Individual puzzles are generally short, but this effectively asks you to treat those four-stage sets as a single play session if you want everything you accomplished to stick. There were several occasions where a puzzle took longer than expected or I simply didn't have my usual 15–20 minutes available, resulting in me having to replay stages I'd already beaten. It's a strange limitation for an otherwise excellent handheld experience, and one area where Mole Mania's ability to save between individual rooms makes it much easier to pick up when you only have a few minutes to spare.

Still, DK '94 is easily one of my strongest recommendations on this list. There's something incredibly charming about starting what appears to be a familiar little recreation of arcade Donkey Kong, defeating DK, and then realizing that your adventure has barely even started. What follows is a consistently satisfying journey that takes that simple arcade premise and expands it into something far more ambitious than you'd ever expect from its opening stages. For a list built around finding substantial single-player experiences hiding within the Game Boy library, it's hard to imagine a game that represents that idea better than Donkey Kong '94.

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6) Metroid II: Return of Samus

Okay, calling Metroid II: Return of Samus an "odd-ball" Game Boy game is admittedly stretching the definition quite a bit. It's Metroid, after all, and I'd imagine most people reading this are at least familiar with the game even if they've never actually played it. However, I still think the original Metroid II has become strangely overlooked over the years, especially now that >!both the fan-made AM2R and!< an official 3DS remake, Metroid: Samus Returns, exist as more modern interpretations of Samus' trip to SR388. And that's a shame, because I think there's a lot about the original that remains unique within the series.

Unlike the sprawling interconnected worlds Metroid would eventually become known for, Metroid II is almost entirely focused on moving forward. SR388 is divided into comparatively small sections that gradually open as you eliminate the Metroids living within them, with a persistent counter constantly reminding you how many remain. There's still plenty of exploration and upgrades to find, but the structure gives the adventure a constant sense of forward momentum. Couple that with the claustrophobic screen size, surprisingly detailed sprites, and eerie sound design, and the Game Boy's limitations end up giving SR388 an oppressive atmosphere that feels unlike almost anything else in the series.

Perhaps the strangest part is that I've actually come to appreciate the game's infamous lack of a map. SR388 is considerably smaller and more compartmentalized than later Metroid worlds, and the game provides more navigational help than it initially appears to. Large shafts act as landmarks, individual areas branch away from a central path, earthquakes and receding lava clearly signal when it's time to move deeper underground, and even the music helps orient you - the recognizable main theme returns whenever you make your way back into the central cavern connecting these areas. You can even embrace the old-school design and draw your own map on graph paper (or just print one out like I did), which adds a strange sense of gratification as SR388 slowly transforms from a confusing maze into a place you actually understand.

My playthrough took around 7–8 hours, and for the most part, this structure worked perfectly with the shorter sessions I've been talking about throughout this list. Killing another Metroid, finding an upgrade, or simply figuring out how two areas connect always made it feel like I'd accomplished something before putting the game down. Unfortunately, the sparse save points occasionally work against this, and there were times when I needed to stop but had to continue playing until I could find somewhere to save. The controls also show their age: Space Jump can feel inconsistent, Spider Ball is painfully slow, and by the end it sometimes feels like the Game Boy simply doesn't have enough buttons for everything Samus needs to do. The limited background assets can also make different areas look frustratingly similar, occasionally undermining the landmark-based navigation the game otherwise handles surprisingly well.

Even with those quirks, I think the original Metroid II is absolutely worth experiencing. For those who don't mind using fan patches, I played with the EJRTQ Colorization Patch, which gives different areas their own distinct palettes and went a long way toward addressing my biggest navigational complaint. It's not necessary by any means, but it added a lot to my experience and is the way I'd personally recommend playing. The remakes may offer more modern interpretations of the same adventure, but the original is a strange, occasionally archaic, yet incredibly memorable experience that feels specifically designed around the Game Boy - and that's exactly why I don't think either remake has truly replaced it.

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7) Catrap

And we've finally reached the one exception I alluded to all the way back at the start of this list: Catrap, the only game here that wasn't published by Nintendo. So what was it about this relatively obscure puzzle game that convinced me to break my own completely arbitrary rule? Well, Catrap presents you with a seemingly monumental task: clear all 100 of its increasingly difficult puzzle stages. Your reward for doing so? Your motivation for embarking on this grand adventure? Well... the game never really bothers to explain that part.

That's right, unlike every other game on this list, Catrap doesn't really have a story. It also doesn't have a save function. So what gives? Why is it here? Well, that's thanks to three core aspects. First, the game has an incredibly forward-thinking quality-of-life feature that allows you to rewind any action you take during a level. Not only is this extremely impressive for the time (Mole Mania would have really benefited from this feature), but it also allows the developers to design levels less around executing a room perfectly and more around slowly working out the solution one move at a time.

The second core aspect is the optimized password system. While plenty of games require long strings of letters, numbers, and symbols, Catrap's passwords are only four characters long, making them incredibly easy to either memorize or quickly jot down whenever you need to stop playing. This leads me to the final core aspect: the pacing. Levels are not only fairly quick to knock out, but the difficulty curve does an amazing job of gradually going from simple to complex across all 100 of them. Later puzzles even start requiring you to switch between the two player-controlled characters within the same level, adding another layer of complexity that helps keep things interesting as you make your way toward the end.

In terms of playtime, the game took me a comfortable 7 hours to complete without a guide, and that's only counting the main 100 levels. If I had spent more time utilizing the phenomenal level creator to experiment with the developer-made bonus levels or other custom creations, I could have easily added a few more hours to that playtime. I've mentioned it already, but it's difficult not to stress just how forward-thinking and technically impressive this little puzzle game is for a Game Boy title.

If you enjoy puzzle games or just need a good brain teaser, Catrap is an easy recommendation. Admittedly, the puzzles and impressive mechanics are pretty much all the game has going for it. The presentation is fairly barebones, with forgettable music, character designs, and level assets, and there are stretches where some of the 100 puzzles inevitably start to blend together. As impressive as that number is, part of me probably would have preferred fewer levels if it meant giving the game a little more personality along the way.

But at the same time, Catrap doesn't really need much else to accomplish what it sets out to do. Those 100 puzzles essentially are its campaign, and between the rewind mechanic, bite-sized levels, and incredibly convenient password system, slowly working my way through all of them became surprisingly addicting. There was always another puzzle waiting whenever I had 10–15 minutes to spare, and watching that level counter creep closer and closer to 100 gave me exactly the kind of persistent progression I was looking for when I started putting this list together.

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And that's everything I've got for now! Like I mentioned at the start, this is by no means meant to be a definitive list of every substantial single-player experience on the Game Boy - just a collection of games I've personally played and felt were worth recommending.

If you've played any of these, I'd love to hear whether you agree or disagree with my picks, especially if you had a completely different experience with one of them. More importantly, though, I'd love to hear what I missed. I'm particularly interested in the odd-ball picks: the games that don't usually show up alongside the typical Pokémon, Zelda, or Mario recommendations. If there's a Game Boy game with a proper campaign, some form of persistent progression, and enough substance to keep coming back to over multiple sessions, please throw it my way. My backlog can always get a little bigger.

Depending on how many more games I get around to playing, I could definitely see myself revisiting this idea in the future. I've barely scratched the surface of the Game Boy's third-party library, and I intentionally left the Game Boy Color out of this list despite knowing there are plenty of games there that would qualify. I also wouldn't mind diving back into the modern homebrew scene and seeing what else people have managed to squeeze out of this hardware.

So, what should I play next?

Hi everyone! Over the weekend, I finally got around to playing through Self Simulated and, just as I've been doing with several of the other GBC homebrew games I've finished, decided to document my thoughts in the form of another long-form critique.

Unlike the last couple of games I've written about, my feelings on Self Simulated ended up being much more mixed. The game immediately grabbed my attention with its atmosphere, premise, and precision platforming, and I can absolutely see why it's become one of the most talked-about games in the ModRetro lineup. At the same time, the more I played, and especially the more I replayed it, the more I found myself wrestling with several design decisions that ultimately kept the experience from living up to the promise of its opening.

Since this review leans more toward constructive criticism than glowing praise, I want to reiterate that my goal with writing these critiques has never been to belittle or undermine the incredible achievement that goes into developing and releasing a Game Boy Color game. If anything, I think it's a sign of how much potential I saw in Self Simulated. Many of the thoughts below come from wishing the game had fully capitalized on the ideas it introduced, and I think it does both the game and the developer a disservice to only celebrate what it gets right without also discussing where it could have been even stronger.

With that said, I'll start with what I think the game did exceptionally well before transitioning into the areas that didn't quite land for me.

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What kept me playing (everything I loved)

• The game does a great job of establishing itself early and keeping you invested all the way through. The initial hook, premise, and tone immediately grabbed my attention, and I found myself wanting to piece together the plot across all three of my playthroughs. The atmosphere especially reminded me of sci-fi stories like Ghost in the Shell and Signalis, leaving me eager to uncover what had happened before the events of the game.
• The game also does a fantastic job of designing around the strengths of the Game Boy Color. Autosaves are quick and frequent, stages are easy to read, and platforming obstacles never feel unfair because of the hardware. Individual levels are short enough that retrying never becomes frustrating, and the generous accessibility options let players tailor the experience to their skill level. I actually brought the game with me on a weekend family vacation and found it perfect for picking up for a few minutes at a time before putting it back down again. It constantly felt like it respected both my time and the strengths of the hardware it was designed for.
• The developer nailed many of the fundamentals of the precision platforming genre, which is especially impressive given the limitations of the Game Boy Color. The core movement feels responsive, retries are nearly instantaneous, and the game's challenge steadily escalates without feeling unfair. More than anything, it captures that addictive "just one more try" feeling found in games like Celeste and N++. That's particularly impressive coming from someone who generally isn't a fan of precision platformers.
• Despite only taking about an hour to complete, the game offers a surprising amount of replay value. Between difficulty modifiers, Speedrun Mode, Level Select, and the various accessibility options, there's plenty of incentive to revisit stages and challenge yourself in different ways. Players who really click with the platforming will find no shortage of additional challenges to master.

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What held it back (things that didn't quite land for me)

• The game's central mystery never reaches a satisfying resolution. Throughout the game, its biggest questions are treated as the driving force behind the narrative, constantly reinforcing that understanding them is essential to making sense of the story. By the time the credits rolled, however, I felt like I had learned surprisingly little about those mysteries from the player's perspective. While the narrative implies that the other characters have reached an understanding of what happened, I never felt like I had enough information to reach that same conclusion myself. Rather than feeling invited to form my own interpretation, I walked away wondering whether I had simply missed something.
• The game encourages players to investigate its mysteries without giving enough confidence that the investigation is meaningful. I genuinely wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking something before criticizing the story, so I completed two additional playthroughs (including the alternate ending) and thoroughly searched for clues using the accessibility options. I revisited dialogue, experimented with different interactions, and looked for hidden details that might change my understanding of the plot. Unfortunately, I came away with the same questions I had after my first completion. Instead of feeling rewarded for paying close attention, I ultimately felt like my investigation had reached a dead end rather than a revelation.
• The air dash and movement momentum often felt like they were fighting against my inputs. Many of the tougher platforming sections require chaining an air dash directly onto a platform. However, I frequently found my character continuing into a ground dash immediately after landing, causing me to slide off the platform and die. I also struggled to understand how momentum carried between actions, particularly when trying to jump immediately after performing a slide. Whether I was misunderstanding the mechanic or the game simply wasn't communicating it clearly enough, I never developed much confidence in how my movement would behave in those situations. As a result, some of my deaths felt less like failures in execution and more like I was fighting the movement system rather than the intended challenge.
• The stomp mechanic felt awkward enough that I ended up enjoying the game more with Auto Stomp enabled. While the animation itself lacks much impact, my biggest issue was how easily the stomp activated by accident while landing from jumps. I frequently triggered it when I intended to slide, making it feel like there wasn't enough separation or input buffering between the two actions. The manual input also made it surprisingly difficult to reliably time stomps on enemies while already airborne, causing what should have been satisfying platforming sequences to feel more cumbersome than they needed to be. Once I enabled the Auto Stomp accessibility option during my second playthrough, the platforming immediately felt more intuitive and consistent. Not only did accidental stomps largely disappear, but intentionally stomping enemies became far more reliable as well. That left me questioning whether manually mapping the stomp to the D-pad added anything meaningful in the first place.
• The game's impressive 119-stage campaign feels somewhat inflated by tutorial rooms and remixed challenges. While Self Simulated does a great job introducing new mechanics, many of its early stages are little more than brief tutorial rooms that can be completed in a matter of seconds. Later on, the game begins revisiting earlier layouts with increased difficulty rather than introducing entirely new challenges. Combined with the fact that nearly every stage takes place within the same test chamber environment, the second half gradually lost some of the sense of discovery that made the opening so compelling. I couldn't help but feel the game would have benefited from a shorter, more focused campaign built around fewer, but more distinct, stages.
• The boss fights felt disconnected from the rest of the game's strengths. While there aren't many of them, I found myself looking forward to them less than the standard platforming stages. Rather than testing the movement, execution, and precision platforming skills the game had spent time teaching me, they mostly revolved around memorizing attack patterns and waiting for safe opportunities to act. As a result, they felt more like obligatory boss encounters than natural extensions of the gameplay loop. I couldn't help but wish they had leaned more heavily into the platforming challenges that made the rest of the game so enjoyable.
• This will probably be my most controversial criticism, but I couldn't shake the feeling that several accessibility options were solving design problems rather than simply giving players more ways to tailor the experience. To be clear, I'm not criticizing the inclusion of accessibility options themselves: I think they're a fantastic addition, and more games should include them. My concern is that features like Auto Stomp, disabling specific damage types, and granting an extra jump often felt less like accessibility tools and more like ways to work around mechanics that could have been refined further. I completed my first playthrough without using any of these options because I wanted to experience the game as it was originally balanced - not because I think that's the "right" way to play. As the difficulty ramped up, I couldn't shake the feeling that parts of the late game weren't as tightly designed around the default moveset as they could have been.
• Several accessibility options also felt like missed gameplay opportunities. Rather than simply making the game easier, some of these toggles made me wonder whether they could have been integrated into the game's progression in more interesting ways. The ability to become immune to specific damage types, for example, could have led to creative puzzles or level mechanics if it had been earned and then toggled on and off as part of the campaign. Instead, it exists as an optional toggle outside the game's design, making it feel like an interesting idea that never became part of the experience itself.

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Final Thoughts

If you made it this far into my write-up (or skipped to the end for the TL;DR), then it's probably obvious that Self Simulated ultimately didn't click with me in the way I had hoped. Whether that's because I expected more payoff from its story, never fully meshed with some of its gameplay quirks, or simply wanted different design choices than what the developer was aiming for, I walked away feeling more disappointed than impressed. As a result, I have a difficult time recommending it as a "must-buy" for someone looking to build a modern Game Boy Color collection.

I think what makes writing this so difficult is that, beneath all of the criticism, I was genuinely rooting for this game to become one of my favorites. The opening hooked me almost immediately, and I spent the next two playthroughs convincing myself there had to be something I had overlooked. Even while writing this critque, a part of me is still hoping someone points out a piece of the story I somehow missed or that a future update smooths out some of the gameplay quirks that held the experience back for me. Very few games have made me want to be wrong about my own criticisms, and I think that says a lot about how compelling Self Simulated is at its best.

At the end of the day, I don't think Self Simulated is a bad game - I think it's one of the most fascinating and ambitious Game Boy Color homebrew games I've played. There are moments where it genuinely feels like something special, which is exactly why its shortcomings stood out to me as much as they did. While I can't wholeheartedly recommend it in the same way I would games like Dragonyhm or Kero Kero Cowboy, I also don't regret spending time with it. If you're someone who enjoys demanding precision platformers, clicks with the way the game controls, and isn't particularly invested in the story, I can absolutely see why this game has earned such a passionate following. For me, however, the mystery and several gameplay quirks ultimately kept it from becoming the experience I was hoping it would be.

But enough about what I think. I'm genuinely curious where everyone else landed on this one. Did the story click for you? Did I overlook something important? Or did you walk away with some of the same frustrations? I'd love to hear your thoughts and discuss the game, especially if you came away with a completely different perspective.

Hi everyone. I finished Kero Kero Cowboy earlier this week and, as I've been doing with the Game Boy homebrew titles I've played, wanted to document my thoughts in the form of a more critical look at the game. Out of the three Game Boy homebrew titles I've finished so far, I think Kero Kero Cowboy does a lot of things right. That said, a few recurring design decisions keep it from reaching "must-play" status.

As always, the goal of these critiques isn't to tear games down or dismiss the incredible work that goes into making them. If anything, I write them because I see so much potential in these projects and enjoy discussing both what they do well and where I think they could be even stronger.

Over the past couple of months, I've been diving into the Game Boy homebrew scene and have played quite a few releases. While some have kept me engaged from start to finish by leaning into the strengths that make the Game Boy such a unique platform, others I've put down for reasons like feeling more like technical demonstrations than complete games, having controls that never quite clicked, writing that sometimes felt more like a personal outlet than a story that complemented the game itself, or simply not feeling well suited for original Game Boy hardware. Kero Kero Cowboy definitely falls into the group of games I'd happily recommend, but it also exposed a few design choices that became harder to ignore the longer I played.

With my preamble out of the way, I'll start with what the game did well and then move into the areas that held the game back for me.

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What kept me playing (everything I loved)

• The game does a great job of establishing and maintaining its "cartoon animal western" atmosphere (think Rango) through both its presentation and mechanics. Everything - from the main character and power-ups to the environments and enemies - feels like it belongs in the same world. Despite sticking closely to its western theme, the game introduces enough variety that it rarely feels repetitive or cliché.
• The game absolutely nails what I would describe as the "Game Boy feel." Playing on original hardware, sprites are easy to read, enemy attacks are clearly telegraphed, screen space is used wisely, individual levels are concise, and the game frequently saves your progress, making it incredibly easy to pick up and play in short sessions.
• The controls, for the most part, are snappy, tight, and responsive. Any missed jumps or damage I took from poor positioning were almost always the result of my own mistakes rather than shortcomings in the game's design.
• The game does an excellent job of drawing inspiration from other platformers without ever feeling like a collection of borrowed gimmicks. Each familiar mechanic has been adjusted just enough to fit naturally within the game's own identity. Swallowing and spitting enemies may immediately bring Kirby to mind, but the tighter range and emphasis on positioning make it play very differently in practice. The same can be said for features like the Cowboy Boot, clearly inspired by Super Mario Bros. 3, or the Mine Cart stages reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country. They're recognizable influences, but they never feel like simple copies: they've been thoughtfully adapted to complement Kero Kero Cowboy's pacing and level design.
• The level progression is equally well paced. Each world typically introduces one or two new mechanics before gradually building on them throughout the remaining stages. Just as importantly, every level manages to establish its own identity through new enemy combinations, hazards, and objectives. The game rarely falls into the trap of repeating the same beats, and by the time the credits roll, it feels like you've truly mastered each mechanic without any of them overstaying their welcome.
• I thought the 6-Shot Revolver and purchasable checkpoint system were some of the game's best design decisions. I enjoyed challenging myself by avoiding both so I could maximize my "bonus pay" and earn extra lives, but I never felt punished for changing my approach. Whenever a level started giving me trouble, I could simply invest in a checkpoint or use the Revolver to deal with a troublesome enemy without feeling like I was sacrificing the "intended" experience. The game is generous enough with its rewards that these mechanics feel like optional tools rather than crutches.
• The game is surprisingly substantial, featuring 30 fully realized levels: a scope that, in my experience, feels surprisingly uncommon for both Game Boy homebrew titles and the original Game Boy library. Each of the game's five worlds consists of four mandatory levels, a bonus stage unlocked by collecting every secret coin in that world, and a boss level that must be cleared to progress. Completing everything the game has to offer took me around 3–5 hours, which I think is just about the perfect length for a platformer like this. It offers enough variety to stay engaging without ever feeling like it overstays its welcome.

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What held it back (things that didn't quite land for me)

• Unfortunately, the game does suffer from some noticeable performance issues that led to several deaths during my playthrough. Whenever more than two or three moving objects appeared on screen, the framerate could drop quite dramatically. What made this especially frustrating was that the slowdown wasn't always consistent. The framerate would occasionally recover mid-section, causing the controls to suddenly feel tighter again after briefly becoming floaty and sluggish. I'm not sure how much of this comes down to Game Boy hardware limitations versus optimization, but it was one of the few issues that consistently pulled me out of the experience.
• The otherwise excellent eat-and-spit mechanic also has a handful of quirks that make it feel less reliable than it should. Certain projectiles, particularly enemy bullets, would often damage me while I was in the middle of swallowing them despite seemingly identical timing to previous successful attempts. The game would also sometimes fail to display the proper "spit" idle animation, making it difficult to tell whether I had actually swallowed an enemy. Neither issue ruined the mechanic, but together they occasionally made failure feel outside of my control.
• My biggest design criticism is the game's uneven difficulty curve. The first two worlds are so forgiving that they gave me the impression I was playing a fairly relaxed platformer. World 3 begins introducing more meaningful challenges, but Worlds 4 and 5 represent a much steeper jump, introducing enemy combinations and platforming sequences that didn't feel adequately built up over the previous stages. I eventually adjusted, but I think a steadier increase in difficulty throughout Worlds 2 and 3 would have made the late-game challenges feel more earned.
• The boss fights unfortunately mirror many of the same pacing problems. The first two bosses you fight are extremely easy and you honestly spend more time waiting for damage opportunities instead of being tested on your skill as a player. This becomes even more noticeable if you choose not to use the Revolver, since you're forced to wait for specific attacks that provide something to swallow and spit back at the boss. Then, almost without warning, the third boss introduces a much faster and less predictable moveset. I actually appreciated that the fourth boss shifted toward more platforming-focused challenges, but the final boss once again ramps up the difficulty significantly with>! a two-phase encounter that must be completed in one attempt!<. While I enjoyed overcoming the challenge myself, I suspect many players will struggle less because of the fight itself and more because the game never properly prepared them for it.
• The bonus levels unlocked by collecting every secret coin are also somewhat inconsistent. The first two are fairly forgettable, while the middle stages lean heavily on trial-and-error platforming that I found more frustrating than satisfying (I'm still a little salty about World 4's bonus stage). The final bonus level was perhaps the biggest disappointment,>! replacing platforming almost entirely with a lengthy combat gauntlet!<. Considering the reward for completing every bonus objective >!is purely cosmetic!<, I don't think most players are missing much if they choose to skip full completion.
• My last notable criticism is the soundtrack. While there are a handful of memorable tracks, much of the music settled into a fairly generic western sound that rarely stood out on its own. It fits the game's atmosphere well enough, but it's not a soundtrack I found myself thinking about once the credits rolled.

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Final Thoughts

If someone asked me to summarize this critique in a single statement, it would be this: "Kero Kero Cowboy is one of the most polished Game Boy Color homebrew games I've played, but not one I'll likely be thinking about a week later."

That isn't meant as a jab at the game's quality. If anything, it's the opposite. Kero Kero Cowboy consistently understands what makes the Game Boy Color such a great platform. Its controls are responsive, its mechanics are introduced thoughtfully, and nearly every design decision feels intentional. It's a game that respects both the hardware it's running on and the player's time, resulting in a platformer that's easy to pick up, difficult to put down, and consistently enjoyable throughout its runtime.

Because the game is so consistently polished, the handful of rough edges become much harder to ignore. The occasional performance hiccups, uneven difficulty curve, and a handful of inconsistent mechanics don't undermine the experience, but they do stand out precisely because the rest of the game is so well crafted. With a little more refinement in those areas, I genuinely think this would have become one of my favorite Game Boy Color homebrew titles.

Instead, I walked away with something a little different. While I had a great time playing the game, I don't think it's one I'll find myself reflecting on months or years from now. It doesn't have that one defining mechanic, unforgettable level, or standout moment that lingers after the credits roll. What I'll remember most is how consistently well designed the experience was from beginning to end. In a way, that's both its greatest strength and the one thing that kept it from becoming one of my personal favorites.

But as always, these are simply my thoughts after a single playthrough, and I'm sure other players will come away with different experiences. I'd love to hear where you agreed, where you disagreed, or if there were aspects of the game that stood out to you more than they did to me. Half the reason I enjoy writing these critiques is the discussion that follows, and I'm looking forward to hearing everyone else's perspective.

Hi everyone. I finished my second Chromatic original game, Wicked Plague, last night, and like I did with Dragonyhm, I thought I'd put together a more critical look at the experience. This one left me with much more mixed feelings, and I found myself wanting to unpack why.

As with my Dragonyhm critique, this isn't meant to diminish what the development team accomplished. Developing entirely new games for original Game Boy hardware is an incredible achievement, and there are several aspects of Wicked Plague that I think were executed extremely well. It's also worth remembering that this is the developers' first, and currently only, commercial release. Because of that, I hope nothing I say here comes across as discouraging. If anything, I hope the team continues making games, because there are plenty of moments throughout Wicked Plague that showcase creativity, ambition, and a lot of potential.

With all of that out of the way, I'll start with the aspects of Wicked Plague that I thought were executed extremely well before moving into the areas that didn't quite work for me.

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What kept me playing (everything I loved)

• The first thing that really grabs your attention in Wicked Plague is the "rule of cool" style it has going for it. From the gothic metal-inspired character designs and oversized weapons to the modern everyday-supernatural world (a la the anime "Kekkai Sensen") and stylized sprite work, the game does an excellent job establishing and maintaining its identity, even within the limitations of the Game Boy Color hardware.
• The seven bosses are excellently designed. Their attack patterns feel distinct, are easy to read, and do a great job building off one another in terms of complexity and the skill required to overcome them. Anyone who enjoys classic Mega Man will probably have a great time learning these encounters and chasing no-hit clears. Not only are these clears completely achievable, but figuring them out on your own is incredibly rewarding (a point that becomes important later in this critique).
• I was really impressed with how the game implements a surprisingly deep moveset despite the Game Boy's limited button count. Mapping additional abilities to button combinations, such as Up + B for a gunshot and Down + A for a dash, feels intuitive and gives the player far more options than you would expect from a two-button handheld.
• The soundtrack is incredible given the hardware. While there aren't many tracks, the complexity and richness of the compositions almost feel like witchcraft coming from a Game Boy speaker. The boss theme never got old despite being used for six of the seven bosses and each area's unique music further reinforces the game's outstanding atmosphere.

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What held it back (things that didn't quite land for me)

• The world building feels surprisingly absent from the game's story, which is a shame because the universe has a lot of fun ideas and concepts. Instead of introducing the setting naturally as you play, the game seems to expect you to understand its societal rules and terminology by reading the manual beforehand. As a result, many of the in-universe terms and everyday occurrences feel confusing rather than intriguing. Something as simple as a short text crawl or opening cinematic showcasing the world's premise would have gone a long way toward making the setting easier to understand and become invested in.
• The story itself feels more like a one-off adventure or filler episode than a complete narrative. Many plot developments are either predictable or end without a particularly satisfying payoff, and the characters, including the player, often feel like professionals simply doing their jobs rather than driving the story forward. I actually think the premise would have worked better if the game had embraced that idea by giving players multiple smaller extermination jobs through a level select, with each one gradually building toward a larger case instead of stretching a single mission into something more grandiose.
• The exploration and progression systems never felt like they reached their full potential. The powers you unlock throughout the game are rarely used in interesting ways for either combat or exploration, and the method of unlocking them doesn't make much sense until very late in the game. The final ability, which requires purchasing every energy drink from the vending machines scattered throughout the world, was especially frustrating due to how poorly this requirement is communicated. I spent a good amount of time backtracking through every area convinced I had missed an item or sequence-broken the game, only to discover that the solution was simply buying every drink. Even then, the reward is ultimately just an extension of an ability you already had. Combined with maps that often contain large stretches of dead space, the connected Metroidvania world never felt essential to the experience. Replacing it with a traditional Mega Man-style level select honestly wouldn't change much about how the game plays.
• The movement never completely clicked with me. The player character feels surprisingly floaty and slippery, often causing me to overextend my movement and take avoidable damage. Likewise, jumps keep you airborne longer than I would have liked, leaving you unable to react or defend yourself until landing. I found myself wishing movement had a snappier, more responsive feel, especially during later boss fights where precise positioning is often the difference between taking damage and avoiding it. On top of that, I would occasionally perform a jump or backwards turn when trying to execute a dash, making the controls feel less reliable than they should during the game's toughest encounters.
• The dash also feels inconsistent in how it's meant to function. Sometimes it allows you to pass safely through attacks, while other times you still take damage despite clearly dashing through an enemy. This became even more confusing after unlocking the flaming dash, where I could damage enemies while still getting hit myself. Since the dash becomes such an important part of your toolkit during later encounters, I would have appreciated clearer and more consistent feedback about exactly how it was intended to work.
• Performance becomes an issue during some of the later boss fights. Encounters with more enemies, projectiles, or effects on screen frequently caused noticeable slowdown. While this occasionally made certain attacks easier to react to, it just as often threw off my timing and disrupted the rhythm of the fight. Since learning boss patterns is one of the game's greatest strengths, I found it disappointing that inconsistent performance sometimes got in the way of an otherwise excellent combat experience. I wish the game had been better optimized to maintain a more consistent frame rate during these encounters.
• Some of the game's mechanics are simply not communicated very well. The difference between checkpoints and vending machine saves, certain attacks dealing two points of damage instead of one, and the rules surrounding dash invincibility all contributed to moments where I wasn't learning from my mistakes so much as trying to figure out what the game expected of me.
• The boss retry system creates an unnecessary point of friction. After dying, the game offers an immediate rematch, but only with three health and without refunding any healing items you've already used. This leaves players with an awkward choice: either learn the fight under less favorable conditions or quit back to the main menu to reload a save with full health and resources. I chose the former and ended up enjoying the challenge, but I could easily see other players finding the system more frustrating than rewarding.
• The game is a very short, one-and-done experience. Most players will likely finish the game with 100% completion in around an hour and a half. While there is an unlockable Boss Rush mode with both Normal and Hard difficulties, there's very little incentive to engage with it beyond improving your clear time. A campaign hard mode, gameplay modifiers, alternate weapons, or even a second playable character would have gone a long way toward giving players a reason to revisit the game. This becomes especially noticeable given the game's $40 asking price and the lack of a lower-cost digital version for players using flash carts. For some people, that won't matter at all. But for others, the relatively short runtime and limited replay value may make the overall package a harder sell.

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Final Thoughts

Wicked Plague ended up being one of the more difficult games for me to form an opinion on. Throughout my playthrough, I found myself constantly bouncing between moments where I thought, "This is really cool," and others where I couldn't help but feel that some of its best ideas weren't being fully realized. Even after reaching the credits, I found myself thinking less about what the game was and more about what it could become.

The gothic metal aesthetic, memorable boss fights, satisfying challenge, and surprisingly deep combat all left a strong impression on me. At the same time, I couldn't shake the feeling that many of the game's strongest ideas stop just short of reaching their full potential. The world is fascinating but underexplored, the Metroidvania structure rarely justifies itself, and several gameplay systems could have benefited from more polish or clearer communication. None of those issues ruined the experience for me, but together they kept Wicked Plague from becoming an easy recommendation.

For me, it ultimately lands as a "maybe" game instead of a clear-cut yes or no. I'm genuinely glad I played it, and I think it's a game I'll remember longer than many other Game Boy Color titles I've enjoyed simply because it gave me so much to think about. While it didn't completely come together for me, I can absolutely understand why it might resonate more strongly with someone whose priorities and tastes differ from my own.

As always, these are just my thoughts after a single playthrough. If you had a different experience - whether you loved it, bounced off of it, or fell somewhere in between - I’d love to hear your perspective. One of my favorite parts of writing these longer posts is reading the discussions that follow, and I'm always interested in seeing how other players interpreted the same game differently.

Hi everyone! It's been a few weeks since I got my Chromatic, and I finally got around to finishing Dragonyhm.

After seeing so many glowing reviews, I thought it might be interesting to share a slightly more critical perspective. To be clear, I really enjoyed the game overall and have a ton of respect for what the developer accomplished here. Creating an RPG of this scope as essentially a one-man project is incredibly impressive, and it's easy to see how much passion and energy went into every part of the game.

For me, Dragonyhm is a game that makes an incredible first impression. The first half is genuinely excellent, and I remember thinking I had found one of my favorite games in the Game Boy library. Unfortunately, the further I got into the second half, the more that momentum faded. The pacing began to drag, a few design decisions started wearing on me, and by the time the credits rolled, I don't think the game quite lived up to the incredibly high bar it set for itself early on.

That doesn't mean I think it's a bad game—far from it. I'd still recommend it without hesitation to anyone looking for an excellent 8-bit handheld RPG. I just came away feeling that it was a winning game rather than the home run I thought it was on track to become.

With a sequel currently in development (super excited based on what we've seen so far), I figured it would be more productive to talk about both the things I loved and the areas where I think the experience could be even stronger. I'll keep things organized into Positives and Negatives. These are simply my thoughts after one complete blind playthrough without using a guide, so if I misunderstood a mechanic or missed something important, I'm more than happy to be corrected. I also welcome disagreements and discussion: I always enjoy hearing how other people experienced the game.

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The first half (Everything I loved)

• The presentation in this game is insane. From the title screen and opening cinematic to the sprite work, battle effects, and boss intros/outros, it's hard to believe this is all running on Game Boy hardware.
• The soundtrack is incredibly catchy, and many of the tracks have been stuck in my head long after putting the console down. Even now, I find myself listening to the OST while writing this post. This was one aspect of the game that stayed consistently strong from beginning to end.
• The story does a great job of grabbing your attention and laying the foundation for something much bigger. Without getting into spoilers, it strikes a nice balance between being straightforward while constantly hinting that there's a larger mystery unfolding behind the scenes. It was more than enough to keep me invested in seeing where everything was headed.
• The game's pacing is excellent during the first half. The stretches between major dungeons rarely feel like filler, as the game balances exploration, story progression, combat, and smaller objectives well. It always felt like I was making meaningful progress toward the next destination.
• The game isn't content sticking to one gameplay formula. It constantly introduces new mechanics and ideas throughout the adventure, and I genuinely admired how willing it was to take risks instead of playing it safe.

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The second half (things that didn't quite land for me)

• While I appreciated that every dungeon tried to introduce its own gimmick, they eventually started feeling different for the sake of being different rather than building naturally on the game's core mechanics. Instead of expanding ideas I'd already mastered, many dungeons introduced entirely new systems that were only used once before being abandoned.
• Because the game is constantly introducing new mechanics, not all of them feel equally polished. Many are explained poorly or require such precise execution that I often felt like I was adapting to jank rather than solving a puzzle through intuition. (I'm looking at you, >!Water Temple Trampolines!<)
• The game has a strange imbalance between combat and puzzles, with the two often working against each other's strengths. The puzzles encourage experimentation and problem-solving, while combat frequently acts as a stat check that interrupts that momentum, especially during the game's larger level spikes.
• Once I found an optimal gear, skill, and magic combination, battles rarely asked me to rethink my strategy. Experimenting usually made encounters harder rather than rewarding creative play, so combat eventually settled into a repetitive cycle of buffing defense, dealing damage, and healing.
• Without getting into spoilers, the story's payoff leaves a lot to be desired. While the A-plot ending was satisfying enough, the larger mystery is left feeling incomplete. I imagine some of those answers may be tied to an >!extended ending!< that I didn't unlock, which stings quite a bit because I felt like I explored the world thoroughly and engaged with its characters far beyond what the game expected.
• I was hoping to discover more meaningful secrets or collectibles throughout the adventure. Most of what I found felt more like New Game+ milestones or completionist rewards rather than discoveries that meaningfully impacted my first playthrough. I kept hoping to stumble upon something akin to a Zelda Heart Container or a hidden weapon that fundamentally changed how I approached the game.
• Restricting saves to designated statues that often require backtracking made the game surprisingly difficult to enjoy in short portable sessions, especially during dungeons where fast travel is disabled. A simple quick-save feature would have gone a long way toward making the game easier to pick up and play in the way a handheld RPG naturally encourages.

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Final Thoughts

Despite how critical parts of this review may have sounded, I genuinely enjoyed my time with Dragonyhm. If anything, I think my criticisms exist because the game set such a high standard for itself during its opening hours. For a while, I was convinced I had discovered one of my favorite Game Boy RPGs, and even though the second half didn't quite live up to that promise for me, it never stopped being an experience I wanted to see through to the end.

More than anything, I came away impressed by the game's ambition. It constantly takes risks, experiments with new ideas, and confidently carves out its own identity instead of simply trying to imitate the classics that inspired it. Not every experiment landed for me, but I'd much rather play a game that's willing to swing for the fences than one that plays everything safe.

Would I recommend it? Absolutely! I think anyone who enjoys classic handheld RPGs owes it to themselves to give Dragonyhm a try. Even if it didn't become the home run I was hoping for, it's still one of the most memorable Game Boy RPGs I've played in a long time.

That being said, these are simply my thoughts after one complete blind playthrough. They're not meant to be the definitive take on the game: just my own experience with it. If your experience was different, I'd love to hear why. One of my favorite parts of writing these kinds of posts is hearing how other players interpreted the same moments, and I'm always happy to have my perspective challenged.

Hi there everyone. After spending close to 40 hours on what many have hyped as one of the best Pokémon ROM hacks available, I couldn't help but feel like my experience overall was rather middling compared to the praise I have watched, listened to, and read online. So rather than keep it all to myself, I decided to document my thoughts into a long discussion post to share some of my disappointments with the hack.

For some context, I have only played about 2–3 ROM hacks ever, and the last one I played before this was Crystal Clear back in 2019, so I'm no expert when it comes to comparing ROM hacks with one another. I also played Prism entirely on original Game Boy Color hardware (ModRetro Chromatic to be specific) using a flash cartridge, so I didn't have access to emulator conveniences like save states, fast-forward, or cheats. Because of that, some of my criticisms may be more specific to the experience of playing the game on real hardware than through emulation. I also understand that this hack was a bit of a pioneer at the time of its original release before the Big N killed it with a C&D notice, and that some of the issues I have with the game might be more a product of its age than outright bad design. Finally, I want to make it clear that these thoughts are not an attack on the game, the devs, or the people who love this hack. I simply have some thoughts and thought it would be interesting to share a more critical perspective than most people leave in this subreddit.

That being said, I'll be talking about Prism based on how I felt after finishing it today. I went into the game completely blind, with no background knowledge or research outside of the overwhelmingly positive word of mouth I've heard over the past few years. With that out of the way, I thought the easiest way to organize my thoughts would be by topic rather than trying to recount every moment of my playthrough. That should make it a little easier to explain both what I enjoyed and what ultimately kept the game from fully clicking with me.

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## Building a Team ##

The biggest highlight of Prism, and one of its most appealing aspects, is its unique approach to the available Pokémon. Instead of simply expanding the Pokédex into the 300–500 Pokémon range, Prism keeps the roster to roughly 252 Pokémon and swaps out many of the more forgettable Gen 1 and 2 choices for interesting additions from Gens 3 and 4. It creates the perfect balance between feeling nostalgically Gen 2 while still maintaining that sense of discovery. Running into Pokémon like Makuhita, Shinx, or Snorunt genuinely kept me guessing about what I might encounter next, and that excitement never really wore off throughout the adventure.

I even ended up adopting an athlete-themed nickname scheme because I was constantly finding new Pokémon I wanted to try. Throughout the adventure, I was constantly adding one or two new team members every other area, including old reliable Mons I've used for decades and new Mons I hadn't used before. I also regularly kept swapping Mons in and out of my party to better match what I needed at the time. Mons like Ludicolo, Xatu, Manectric, Banette, Rapidash, Relicanth, and Exploud all stood out because Prism gave me a reason to use them for the first time.

That being said, while I enjoy the smaller Dex size and curated Pokémon selection, the distribution of certain types feels oddly uneven. Specialized types like Fire, Fairy, Dark, and Fighting often felt surprisingly scarce while types like Water, Bug, and Steel felt abundant with multitude of different options. This made team building more restrictive than I expected anytime I tried patching up weaknesses against some of the more difficult matchups, including gyms, the "evil team", and rival matches.

Fighting-types in particular stood out to me in this regard. Before the 4th gym, your realistic options are either: A) catch a level 2 Makuhita after finishing Mound Cave and switch train it into the 20s before it can hold its own; B) grind out 1,000 Adoption Points at the Pokémon Orphanage by donating 20 Butterfree to receive a level 20 Riolu; or C) switch train a Shroomish until it evolves into Breloom.

None of those options felt particularly enjoyable, especially in a game where trainer battles are already fairly demanding. Instead of encouraging experimentation with new team members, the game often made me feel like I should just stick with whatever I already had.

Trainer AI and enemy movesets often felt like they prioritize disruption over interesting decision-making. Having to turn back to the Pokémon Center every time I fought a Pineco or Geodude (and Koffing to an extent) because of the combination of Sturdy and Self-Destruct was hardly enjoyable. Likewise, constantly running into strategies built around Confuse Ray, Screech, paralysis, and flinch moves made many battles feel more irritating than challenging.

One smaller thing I found myself conflicted on is Prism's selective modernization. The addition of Abilities and the Physical/Special split alongside an otherwise Gen 2 battle system often made the game feel like it was caught between two generations. This is definitely more of a personal preference than an outright criticism (I'm weird and actually like types being all phsical or all special), but I found myself wishing the game either leaned further into modern mechanics or committed more fully to the Gen 2 experience.

Building a satisfying moveset also often felt more restrictive than rewarding. Whether through level-up learnsets, TMs/HMs, breeding, or the Move Reminder (who seems to be locked the post-game sadly), many Pokémon seemed to lack reasonable access to the moves that would make them feel complete. That's not to say that I don't appreciate some of the design philosophy behind this. For example, I really liked how strong physical Ground-types often receive special Ground moves early so that their preferred physical STAB options can still have impact during the later parts of a Mon's learnset, or how breeding certain Pokémon together can unlock unique, build-defining moves. One example is Makuhita only learning Drain Punch, one of its strongest STAB options as a slower, bulkier Pokémon, by breeding with a Lucario that leanred Drain Punch by leveling up. However, that philosophy doesn't always translate well across the rest of the roster.

Throughout my playthrough, I repeatedly ran into Pokémon that felt like they were missing obvious pieces of their kit. Manectric was largely limited to Electric- and Sound-type attacks, Eevee and Scyther often outleveled their ideal evolution points and missed many of Espeon and Scizor's best STAB moves, and all three Johto starters felt starved for strong STAB attacks until the late 30s or even mid-40s. As a result, many Pokémon felt like they were operating with incomplete toolkits for a much larger portion of the game than I expected.

That feeling also extended to certain Pokémon archetypes. Ghost-types rarely felt as useful defensively as I expected. On paper, their immunity to Normal- and Fighting-type moves should make them valuable switch-ins (switching in on a predicted Self-Destruct will never not feel amazing), but so many of the Pokémon that rely on those attacks also carry Dark-type coverage that the immunity often felt irrelevant. Meanwhile, Ghost-types themselves don't always have the coverage or power to threaten those Pokémon back, making the matchup feel surprisingly one-sided.

Looking back, I think that's where my biggest disconnect with Prism's team building comes from. The game constantly gave me reasons to want to experiment with new Pokémon, but its progression systems often pushed me toward sticking with the team I already had. It's a shame, because the curated roster is easily one of the hack's greatest strengths.

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## Exploration and Progression ##

I was hesitant at first to try a hack that didn't just reuse or "fix" Johto and Kanto, but surprisingly, Rijon won me over with its well-designed, distinct map layout. No two towns feel alike, and I often found myself coming back to them for the services exclusive to each location. The dungeons also strike a nice balance between being fun to explore without feeling like impossible labyrinths, with many featuring enjoyable puzzles to solve.

That being said, I didn't love every minute of exploring Rijon. In fact, many of the dungeons and routes became frustrating because of the high encounter rates, heavy HM usage, and the awkward level gap between wild Pokémon and trainer battles. While none of these issues were deal breakers on their own, they often slowed the pace of the adventure more than I would have liked.

Encounter rates, especially in caves and forests, always felt drastically overtuned. If I didn't have a Repel active, it often felt like I was getting an encounter every 5–10 steps. These constant interruptions broke up the flow of exploring and solving puzzles, forcing me to stop every few seconds just to mash "Run" before getting back to what I was doing. Dungeons such as the Haunted Forest and Milos Catacombs changed from enjoyable brain teasers to final exams of patience after seeing my 20th Geodude and 30th Gastly in a row. (Shout out to Run Away Eevee for making escaping so painless.)

While Repels are easy enough to buy, and Prism's Gen 5-style prompt for reapplying them is a fantastic quality-of-life feature, keeping a healthy stock of them proved surprisingly difficult. Prism is one of the few Pokémon games where I actually found myself budgeting my money. Trainers don't give out much cash, and there was hardly a moment where I didn't feel strapped for money, especially since I was constantly catching new Pokémon and trying to save up enough to win at the Pachisi Board as early as possible (do not make the same mistake I did). As a result, many of my dungeon crawls became less about exploring and solving puzzles and more about repeatedly mashing the Run button between every few steps.

This leads me to the elephant in the room: HMs. Now, despite what I'm about to complain about, I actually am not an HM hater. I've always liked the idea of having your Pokémon do more than just battle, but I felt the HM usage went a bit overboard while exploring Rijon. From random Cut trees blocking optional paths and even gym entrances, to Strength being locked behind the 7th badge, to a secret laboratory suddenly flooding and requiring Surf out of nowhere, you're either going to end up with several compromised movesets or be forced to keep an HM mule with you at all times. (Shout out to Feraligatr for somehow carrying Cut, Strength, Surf, and Rock Smash.)

What surprised me most is that this design choice felt a little at odds with the rest of Prism. The hack isn't afraid to modernize other parts of the Pokémon formula by adding features like Abilities, the Physical/Special split, and even the Gen 5-style Repel prompt. That's why the heavy reliance on HMs felt so out of place to me. I don't think HMs needed to disappear entirely; I just wish they had been used a little more sparingly so they complemented exploration instead of interrupting it.

The level curve being another one of my issues feels very on-brand for Gen 2, since the issue is also present in Gold, Silver, and Crystal. Now, to be transparent, some of this was probably my own fault for constantly adding and rotating Pokémon, but having to switch train new captures just to close a 5–8 level gap before they could help against the trainers in the same area was where I spent far more time than I'd like to admit.

This did improve somewhat after unlocking the EXP Share around the 3rd or 4th gym, and switch training itself is much less painful than in the mainline games thanks to Prism removing the EXP penalty for switching Pokémon. However, it still made integrating new team members feel like a chore, especially after the 6th gym, where wild Pokémon remain in the mid-30s all the way until Victory Road while trainer levels climb into the mid-40s and eventually the mid-50s. Since I played entirely on original Game Boy Color hardware, every minute spent catching a new Pokémon up to the rest of my team was done at normal speed. I imagine players using emulator features like fast-forward probably won't feel this quite as strongly, but on real hardware, it noticeably slowed the pace of my adventure.

Overall, I loved exploring Rijon itself. My frustrations rarely came from the region's design and instead stemmed from the systems surrounding it. While towns, dungeons, and world layout constantly made me want to keep moving forward, I do wish the journey between those moments maintained that same momentum.

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## Ideas That Didn't Quite Land ##

One thing Prism consistently impressed me with was its willingness to experiment. It introduces a surprising number of unique mechanics and ideas that I hadn't seen in other Pokémon games or ROM hacks. Unfortunately, several of them felt like they stopped just short of reaching their full potential, leaving me wishing the game had committed to them a little more.

The best example of this, for me, was the introduction of the new Sound- and Gas- types. This will probably date me a bit, but the new types reminded me of being a kid first discovering Dark- and Steel-types in GSC, or Fairy-types in XY. At first, nobody really knows the matchups, but those games gradually teach you through gym leaders, NPCs, and repeated encounters. With Sound and Gas, however, I never really felt like that learning process happened, so I often found myself either guessing or forgetting the types altogether.

The idea behind these new types is genuinely interesting, but I had a difficult time understanding how they fit into the battle system. Not only do very few Pokémon actually have these types, but I also rarely felt confident about what resisted them or what they were super effective against. Despite talking to the NPCs I encountered throughout the Rijon region, I never came across any meaningful explanation of their type interactions. If one exists, I completely missed it, which left many of those encounters feeling more like trial and error than informed decision-making.

Another example, and one often cited by people discussing the game, is Prism's unique exploration mechanics. I really enjoyed the rare moments when Prism was using its own ideas to enhance exploration. Using Electric-types to power generators and light up an underground cave or sending a single Pokémon to explore an area the player couldn't reach were genuinely memorable moments that helped give the game its own identity.

Unfortunately, those moments were also surprisingly rare. By "rare," I mean mechanics that are introduced once or twice early in the game before being replaced with simpler one-off ideas like side-scrolling dungeon segments that add a "Jump" mechanic or exchanging keys to solve a door password. Those mechanics are perfectly fine on their own, but they never felt as memorable or creative as the ideas that came before them. I kept waiting for Prism to revisit and expand upon its strongest concepts, but it rarely did.

Since these thoughts are based solely on my first playthrough of the main story, it's entirely possible there are later examples that I simply didn't experience. Still, based on what I played, I found myself wishing these mechanics had become recurring features instead of isolated moments.

Finally, I need to talk about the Bike. Holy mother of everything, what have they done to my Bike? I can't tell you how excited I was to get my hands on it before the second gym, but sadly, it turned out to be a bit of a trap. The thing is absurdly fast, so fast in fact, that I often spent more time bouncing off walls than actually getting where I wanted to go.

I understand the argument that "if the bike isn't faster than running, then what's the point?" but I think Prism swings a little too far in the opposite direction. Before the inevitable "skill issue" comments roll in, let me be clear: I'm not asking for the speed to be removed. Honestly, just give me a toggle between normal running speed and the current turbo mode, and I'd be perfectly happy. That way I'm happy, my thumbs are happy, and the speedrunners who love launching themselves across Rijon at Mach 6 can be happy too.

...At least the bike theme is a banger.

If this section has a common thread, it's that Prism is bursting with ideas. From Sound- and Gas-types to unique exploration mechanics, the game constantly finds new ways to surprise the player. Even mechanics I barely interacted with, like the surprisingly deep crafting system, gave me the impression that Prism was constantly overflowing with ideas. More often than not, I simply found myself wishing some of those ideas had been woven more tightly into the core adventure instead of remaining isolated features or one-off mechanics.

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## Final Thoughts ##

To wrap this admittedly very long post up, and despite how critical much of it may have sounded, I'm really glad I finally got around to playing Prism. I wouldn't have willingly sunk nearly 40 hours of my increasingly limited adult free time into it if I wasn't having fun.

More than anything, I think this post exists because Prism left an impression on me. The passion people have when they talk about this hack is infectious, and after finally trying it for myself, I completely understand where they're coming from. I may not have loved every design decision, but I never found myself questioning the amount of heart, creativity, and ambition that went into making it.

However, I also think that's exactly why I ended up writing something this long. Going into Prism, I was expecting to walk away with one of my new favorite Pokémon experiences. Instead, I found myself constantly bouncing between moments where I thought, "This is brilliant," and moments where I wished those same ideas had been polished just a little more. That's ultimately why my feelings on the game ended up being more mixed than I expected—not because I think Prism is bad, but because I saw so much potential in what it was trying to do.

At the end of the day, these are simply the thoughts of someone who experienced Prism for the first time, completely blind, on original-ish hardware. I'm sure there are things I missed, mechanics that clicked differently for other players, or perspectives that only come from spending more time with the hack.

So now that my thoughts are out there, I'm curious what everyone else thinks. Did anyone have similar frustrations, or am I an outlier? Am I being too critical of a ROM hack made by fans in their spare time (part of why I didn't even mention the story or characters)? I'd genuinely love to hear other perspectives, because if nothing else, Prism gave me plenty to think about, and in my opinion, those are the kinds of games worth discussing.

UPDATE: I ended up reaching out to customer support and they told me to ship it back to them and they'd send me a new unit once they get it back. Hoping the next one won't have the same issue!

Hi everyone! Finally bit the bullet and decided to get a Midnight Chromatic the other day to replay some of my childhood classics + try some newer games. However, after updating the console on my computer like the packaging instructed, I noticed the unit was getting warm on the back. When I opened the console, I noticed the top battery was extremely hot while the other two where simply just warm. I assumed it was a problem with the batteries that came with it and decided to try a different set I had at home.

After playing Tetris for a little over 5 minutes, I had the same problem and after opening it up and removing the batteries, noticed that it got so hot, that it started peeling the sticker on the batteries. I have since put the console back in the box and have sent customer support an email hoping to figure out some way to get it fixed or get sent a replacement unit since it feels like that I might have just gotten unlucky with my unit.

Has anyone else had any overheating or battery issues with their Chromatic? I tried looking for similar threads, but didn't really find one that matched the problem I described. I'm hoping I get this resolved quick since I've been really excited to get back into my retro collection!