r/ModRetroChromatic

Feel like a ten-year-old kid again! 🤘

Available Here: https://coljam-official.itch.io/fred-the-frog

Spoiler image: a language puzzle

Spoiler text: a minor error

>!This word is suppose to be "EACH" but what is suppose to be "C" (marked a red dot below it). It is missing an ' in the upper right. I think most people would figure it out, as EAMH is not a word, and the bottom part of M is longer than the text image which it being shorter matches C more, but the ' is missing. Didn't know where to point it out for the dev.!<

Has anyone else had games arrive without factory seals in place?

Doesn’t bother me that much as I’m going to open them and play them, but it bothers me enough to post about it

Just bought this chromatic today and as soon as I got in my car with it I put in my pokemon crystal and loaded it like normal all good, but when I pressed continue it popped up a “huh?” And hatched an egg, which was a dragonite…… which then led to it crashing. I load it back up and press continue and it just keeps crashing, and then it loads up once and my character is now changed to a female. I turn it off and on a few times and my save file deletes…… loading back up and starting a new game hoping my save file was just corrupted and it has nothing to do with the chromatic and now this…… what is even happening??? My pokemon silver plays flawlessly.

Edit: crystal works flawlessly in my gameboy color, pins are perfectly clean and shiny, never had any issue with the cartridge until this chromatic

Hello all!

Just wanted to take a moment to post photos of my Pokémon Legacy Trilogy. I made these from inside gadget flash carts, and commissioned two artists on Etsy to make me the labels and boxes. Love to play these on my Chromatic (minus emerald - but Chromatic Advance anyone!). Highly recommend the Pokémon Legacy Rom Hacks.

All credit to SmithPlays Pokémon for making my favorite romhacks!

The wind fish is awake. Now I must sleep.

1st Edition Game Stop spotted in the wild has these really weird marks on the cartridge tray.

Anyone know what we are looking at here?

Rayman 2

Earthworm Jim

Game boy to calm the mind. 😌☮️

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?

Your next monster-catching adventure is waiting for you! PachiPals is mixing RPG adventure, Pinball (Monster catching), and Pachinko (Duels and random encounters).

Get yours: https://incube8games.com/

Standard Edition ($49.99 - release in October) includes:
- Sealed box
- Clear gray cartridge
- Clear cartridge protector
- Instruction booklet
- PachiPals stickers sheet
- Silkscreened PCB with artwork on the back side

Digital Edition ($13.99 - release August 18th) includes:
- Game ROM
- Digital Instruction Booklet
- Game cover

Demo includes:
- Game ROM