Yes, people of the world. Like I said earlier. It's my blog, I do what I want. I'm not bound by the constraints of time and space. Well, actually I am. I haven't been whisked away by the Doctor yet.
| Forever waiting to hear the whirr of a distant TARDIS |
Anyway, we're not going to talk about that today. Instead, I'm going to exercise my right to free speech by telling you my favorite 10 Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games.
Yes, I spent many a happy hour as a preteen and a teenager hunched over first my green Game Boy Color and later my silver Game Boy Advance SP.
"But your favorite color is purple. Why are neither of them purple?"
Because one's green and one's silver. There is no other explanation needed. Honestly, people!
Anyway, I need to give a huge shout out to one of my best childhood friends Jennifer who introduced me to this world of video games and staring at a tiny screen for hours on end. Okay, obligatory thing done.
Now, to get to the controversial part, where I rank my personal favorite Game Boy games, which, invariably, everyone will disagree with at some point. For the record, Pokemon was evil, and I didn't know exactly what Legend of Zelda was, so you must immediately forgive any and all exclusion of those.
10. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2--Ah, the joys of shooting tiny little tan Army Men on the screen as your green army man is intent on winning some sort of victory over some sort of big deal (I was too busy pressing A during the talking partsto actually follow the story line.). Initially, I played as the girl character Vikki all the time. Then I started getting to these points where I couldn't get past levels effectively, and my brother's were like, "Yeah, it's because she doesn't have this feature the guy characters do." And I'm like, "Seriously?" Really, Nintendo, let's think about this. Forgetting the fact it's a girl character, why would you choose to make one of your playable characters not be able to get past levels? I mean, really? I have to remember what levels to use Vikki for and which levels to use the guys for? Anyway, good game because it was probably my only combat-related game I had (no Call of Duty or Halo in our house); bad game for not making one of your characters be able to do certain things.
8. Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak--I literally waited months to play this game after someone sent it to me for my birthday, and I wasn't getting my Game Boy Advance SP until Christmas. Oh, those five months of waiting were worth it, though. Armed with nothing but a complete walkthrough they had also sent me, I took on the game starting on Christmas Day, and eventually messed up, even with the walkthrough, so I had to restart and play again. I never even really watched Hamtaro, but I had a lot of fun playing this game and collecting words for the little dictionary who's words had gotten wiped out and exploring all the little worlds and playing all the little games and meeting all the other little hamsters.
5. The Harvest Moon Series--I'm sorry. You really want me to break this up into five different ones? Not happening. Okay, so it's a farming game. Don't look at me like that! It's cool and fun and stuff! And it was before your Farmville, so I was WAY ahead of the curve. Basically, you could raise plants and animals, and in some games get married and have kids! There were three games for the Game Boy Color and two for the Game Boy Advance, and I owned all of them. The first Harvest Moon got us addicted to playing farming games, but it did this automatic save thing, so if you messed up, you were stuck with your problems (This was also the first one I played, way back in 2000, on the same day I played Mickey's Racing Adventure!). I don't talk about the second one--it's my least favorite. Harvest Moon 3: Boy Meets Girl introduced marriage, but if you were a girl, the game ended when you got married, but it was still my favorite because I actually completed it as a girl! (PARTY!) The first one for Game Boy Advance was called Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, and you could only play as a boy. They made More Friends of Mineral Town, finally, though, where you could plays as a girl and get married and KEEP PLAYING! Unfortunately, as much as I loved the last two, I never completed them because I'd lose interest after a while, and one of my brothers, knowing I hadn't touched it in a while, would save over my game BECAUSE THERE WERE ONLY TWO SAVE SLOTS! Aside from that little annoyance factor, this was an awesome series, and my main reason for not breaking them up was the play was so similar in each one, they just can't really be divided into separate categories.
4. Frogger 2--It's simple. Get the frog across the streets and rivers, collecting all the gems as fast as you can, without getting squished by frogs or eaten by gators. Or, you know, falling into the water or lava pits. Or getting crushed my the lesser balls of fire or the greater balls of fire. And in the end, the whole goal is to rescue those little frogs that just keep running away from home. Frogger is honestly a terrible parent/uncle/babysitter/nanny/daycare worker if he keeps letting this happen all the time. This gets ranked as #4 because even when I won it, I could easily always go back and play again and again and try to be faster and better than my brothers.
3. The Little Mermaid II Pinball Frenzy--Don't ask how much time I spent on this game. If someone else's name was on the High Scores, I would play and play and play on that board (Melody or Ariel) and setting (Slow or Fast/3 Ball or 5 Ball) until I had knocked them off. If I couldn't knock them off, I'd clear the whole game, and then sit around and play the game for a week, barely putting it down until I controlled the high score table again...and had also restored all the mini games because clearing the high scores also deleted all the mini games you earned. Yes, I was extremely competitive. Am extremely competitive. Plus, it had this cool "Rumble" feature that made it go all wibbly wobbly in your hands sometimes. The sad part was we had to turn it off during the times we also had to play Game Boy with the sound off, which made it less fun. Still, that was a small price to pay in order to keep playing and playing and playing pinball! This was also my first ever Game Boy game I owned, so it always has a special part in my heart...or twitching thumbs.
2. Super Mario Bros.--Okay, here comes the part where people get shocked about how this isn't my #1. I talked about Mario a lot at college. Well, duh, of course I did. A lot of the people I knew were Mario people, and you talk about what they like. Plus, obviously, if it's my #2, that means I did like it A LOT. And I do. There's something awesome about running around as Luigi (Yes, I was the oldest, but I preferred playing as Luigi), winning all the regular levels on your save (Another bonus: 3 save slots and 3 kids), then playing them all again trying to win the High Score/Yoshi Egg/Red Coins, then playing all the games on the Luigi picture when you unlock it, and finally playing the Boo Races. I mean, yes, aside from my personal save, everything else was almost always a combined effort among my brothers and me, but that also made it fun. We collected all those High Score and Yoshi Egg and Red Coin things working as a team. Actually, there was one High Score we never could beat no matter how fast we ran or how many coins we collected. That kept bringing us back, though.
1. Donkey Kong Country--Yes, THIS is my number one. What makes Donkey Kong Country better than Super Mario Bros.? Well, they're equally awesome in that they both had 3 saves for 3 kids, which was a HUGE blessing in a game for us. However, I loved how I could switch between Donkey and Diddy whenever I wanted. I liked collecting bananas and riding roller coasters. I liked defeating the bosses. I hated levels where the lights went out, but it just made it a race to the next "on" switch, giving it more difficulty. I will admit, when I couldn't figure out why I never earned 100%, I did go online and check a walkthrough, but upon discovering all I needed to do was play it with each of the Barrel settings (DK and Continue) off, I was good to go. I think I only checked in again when there was a sticker pack I couldn't find, but I basically completed the game all by myself without much outside help. And that is why it is my number 1. In a close race between Mario and Donkey Kong, this one always seemed to win out by just a little bit.So, there it is, my top 10, which some may disagree with and some may love, love, love! I spent many long car rides and many more long hours at home entertaining myself in this way, and that is basically a summary of probably way too much of my teenage years.
Bonus Shout-Outs To the Runner Ups, in alphabetical order:
Arthur's Absolutely Fun Day
Galaga
Pong
Toy Story 2
Winnie the Pooh Adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood
Sorry to these 5 for not quite making the cut, but I still loved you...a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, in a "I wish I hadn't told my mom it was okay to throw out my Game Boy games" sort of way. Yeah, but I did, and now you're gone out of my life forever.
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