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[kevboard]

Yellow was my first Pokemon game. Have fond memories of that game as a kid.

My Gameboy was stolen sadly but I begged my parents for another.

Went through AA batteries like a fiend.

It was also my first Pokemon game. I never liked how Red and Blue looked (sprite designs specifically),
when yellow released however I liked the new designs, which were now based more closely on the Anime.

it also helped that it had color support (although very minimal).


I thankfully had an A/C cable for it, so at least when playing at home I didn't burn through batteries as much lol

 

[Inanilmaz]

Wait until you dive into romhacks.
There is so much amazing stuff.

Google pokemon Prism

I want, but I wish there were German pokemon hacks :/ it would be much more comfortable to play

 

[MooMilk2929]

If you guys wanna try a new experience, try downloading the vietnamese version of pokemon crystal. Really bad english translation.

 

[Spukc]

If you guys wanna try a new experience, try downloading the vietnamese version of pokemon crystal. Really bad english translation.

Please tell

 

[kevboard]

I want, but I wish there were German pokemon hacks :/ it would be much more comfortable to play

true.
it's hard enough memorising the names of 900+ pokemon in one language...

 

[MooMilk2929]

An example:

Examples of Poor Translation

In the Xiaojin Broadcasting Tower (aka Goldenrod Radio Tower) quiz, you need to answer a series of questions correctly, which is made almost impossible by the poor translation:

• Question 1: IS IT THE MONSTER COMING ONLY IN THE MORNING THAT EXISITS?

• Question 2: CAN YOU BUY IT IN SHUDONG'S STORE?

• Question 3: MAY THE SECRET MACHINE BE NOT CONSULTED?

• Question 4: IS IT HEYADUO THAT CAN CONTROL THE BIRD MONSTER AND THE GYMNASIUM LEADER OF MUQIANG TOWN?

• Question 5: IS IT A PORTRAIT ON THE COIN OF THE GAME STORE

Also, Pokemon are called elfs. I think theres a few f-words in the translation too.

 

[PurePlatinum]

Even with the early Game Boy models you could see Nintendo taking a broader approach to design rather than "how much power can we pack into a small space".

The battery life on these are great, the build quality is good and durable, and they really delivered some phenomenal portable games. Every other handheld competitor has come and gone.

 

[Inanilmaz]

true.
it's hard enough memorising the names of 900+ pokemon in one language...

The attack names or even items for me, if i remember correctly some are very different, needed to google everytime my pokemon wanted to learn a new one. The last time i played pokemon red in English 12 years ago. The only thing i remember that i was tired after the playthrough haha still had fun

 

[electricmastro]

Just for fun, best-selling Game Boy games based on various sources (including Nintendo's official site, magicbox, and player's choice labels):

• Pokémon Red / Blue / Green – 31.05 million
• Tetris – 30.26 million
• Pokémon Gold / Silver – 23.73 million
• Super Mario Land – 18.14 million
• Pokémon Yellow – 14.64 million
• Super Mario Land 2 – 11.18 million
• Pokémon Crystal – 6.39 million
• Dr. Mario – 5.34 million
• Pokémon Pinball – 5.31 million
• Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land – 5.19 million
• Kirby's Dream Land – 5.13 million
• Super Mario Bros. DX – 5.07 million
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages / Seasons – 3.99 million
• Donkey Kong Land – 3.91 million
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening – 3.83 million
• Pokémon Trading Card Game – 3.72 million
• F-1 Race – 3.41 million
• Yoshi – 3.12 million
• Donkey Kong – 3.07 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4 – 2.50 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories – 2.39 million
• Kirby's Dream Land 2 – 2.36 million
• Donkey Kong Land 2 – 2.35 million
• Dragon Quest Monsters – 2.35 million
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX – 2.22 million
• Wario Land 3 – 2.20 million
• Donkey Kong Country – 2.19 million
• Kirby's Pinball Land – 2.19 million
• Golf – 2.12 million
• Tennis – 1.99 million
• Alleyway – 1.94 million
• Tetris DX – 1.88 million
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone – 1.73 million
• Metroid II: Return of Samus – 1.72 million
• Baseball – 1.61 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters – 1.60 million
• Dragon Quest Monsters 2 – 1.57 million
• Yoshi's Cookie – 1.53 million
• Wario Land II – 1.48 million
• Tamagotchi – 1.45 million
• Tamagotchi 2 – 1.45 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters II – 1.45 million
• DuckTales – 1.43 million
• The Final Fantasy Legend – 1.37 million
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater – 1.33 million
• Yakuman – 1.28 million
• Tetris 2 – 1.24 million
• Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble – 1.23 million
• Game & Watch Gallery 3 – 1.22 million
• Game & Watch Gallery 2 – 1.22 million
• Solar Striker – 1.20 million
• Mario Tennis GB – 1.18 million
• Qix – 1.15 million
• Super RC Pro-Am – 1.14 million
• Donkey Kong Land 3 – 1.03 million
• Game & Watch Gallery – 1.00 million
• The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle – 1.00 million
• The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 – 1.00 million
• Mickey's Dangerous Chase – 1.00 million
• The Little Mermaid – 1.00 million
• Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge – 1.00 million
• Mega Man II – 1.00 million
• Wave Race – 1.00 million
• Star Wars – 1.00 million
• DuckTales 2 – 1.00 million
• Mortal Kombat – 1.00 million
• Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands! – 1.00 million
• Space Invaders – 1.00 million
• The Smurfs – 1.00 million
• Street Fighter II – 1.00 million
• James Bond 007 – 1.00 million

 

[kevboard]

The attack names or even items for me, if i remember correctly some are very different, needed to google everytime my pokemon wanted to learn a new one. The last time i played pokemon red in English 12 years ago. The only thing i remember that i was tired after the playthrough haha still had fun

yup, remembering what blubber and blubbstrahl are called in English, mixing them up etc. is very annoying.
hard enough not mixing them up in german

 

[Northeastmonk]

I found a few classic Game Boy games that were pretty good a few years ago: Chalvo 55 and Trip World.

 

[kevboard]

Just for fun, best-selling Game Boy games based on various sources (including Nintendo's official site, magicbox, and player's choice labels):

• Pokémon Red / Blue / Green – 31.05 million
• Pokémon Yellow – 14.64 million

so first of all... WOW, Yellow alone getting almost half of red/green/blue combined. that's crazy.

HOWEVER, why combine Red, Blue and Green... but not yellow?

Pokemon Blue was the third Japanese edition, which had changes to the code and especially the graphics (almost all Pokémon sprites were redrawn).
and this third Japanese edition, which was called blue, was then the base that was used to develop the international versions named Red and Blue.

Japanese Red and Green were different versions altogether, that we in the west never got.

Pokémon Crystal, the 3rd version of Gen2, is listed separately after all, and Blue was the third version of Gen1 in Japan.

so I find it questionable how they got combined tbh.
listing them either as:
Pokémon Red/Green (Jap)
Pokémon Blue (Jap)
Pokémon Red/Blue (Int)
Pokémon Yellow

or just combine every Gen1 game into one would make more sense, but maybe they didn't have the more granular sales data for that and only have numbers for them all combined.

 

[mrpants]

Tetris was my first GB game, I remember the OG GB was like a brick

 

[GateofD]

it really was amazing what they managed to do with the GB and Color.
fondly remember Tetris, Mario 6 Golden Coins and Kirby's Dream Land

 

[electricmastro]

so first of all... WOW, Yellow alone getting almost half of red/green/blue combined. that's crazy.

HOWEVER, why combine Red, Blue and Green... but not yellow?

Pokemon Blue was the third Japanese edition, which had changes to the code and especially the graphics (almost all Pokémon sprites were redrawn).
and this third Japanese edition, which was called blue, was then the base that was used to develop the international versions named Red and Blue.

Japanese Red and Green were different versions altogether, that we in the west never got.

Pokémon Crystal, the 3rd version of Gen2, is listed separately after all, and Blue was the third version of Gen1 in Japan.

so I find it questionable how they got combined tbh.
listing them either as:
Pokémon Red/Green (Jap)
Pokémon Blue (Jap)
Pokémon Red/Blue (Int)
Pokémon Yellow

or just combine every Gen1 game into one would make more sense, but maybe they didn't have the more granular sales data for that and only have numbers for them all combined.

Yellow was prob seen as a distinct enough special edition to list separately. Same with Crystal: https://www.installbaseforum.com/fo...hardware-sales-data-from-1983-to-present.170/

 

[kevboard]

Yellow was prob seen as a distinct enough special edition to list separately. Same with Crystal: https://www.installbaseforum.com/fo...hardware-sales-data-from-1983-to-present.170/

sure, but it's a wierd line to draw.

gen1 was pretty messy. 3 distinctly different versions under the hood essentially.
Version 1 = Pokemon Red(jap)/Green(jab)
Version 2 = Pokemon Blue(jap)/Blue(int)/Red(int)
Version 3 = Pokemon Yellow

each sub-version had graphical changes, programming changes, and of course changes to Pokémon spawn rates etc.

 

[electricmastro]

So how come people were buying F-1 Race more than Donkey Kong?

 

[vodka-bull]

I would have to mod my GBC and GBA to enjoy the games on it. No backlight and the overall quality of the display is horrible to look at in 2026.

However, I do enjoy my GB, GBC and GBA games on my Vita if I can't find my 3DS.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Just for fun, best-selling Game Boy games based on various sources (including Nintendo's official site, magicbox, and player's choice labels):

• Pokémon Red / Blue / Green – 31.05 million
• Tetris – 30.26 million
• Pokémon Gold / Silver – 23.73 million
• Super Mario Land – 18.14 million
• Pokémon Yellow – 14.64 million
• Super Mario Land 2 – 11.18 million
• Pokémon Crystal – 6.39 million
• Dr. Mario – 5.34 million
• Pokémon Pinball – 5.31 million
• Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land – 5.19 million
• Kirby's Dream Land – 5.13 million
• Super Mario Bros. DX – 5.07 million
• The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages / Seasons – 3.99 million
• Donkey Kong Land – 3.91 million
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening – 3.83 million
• Pokémon Trading Card Game – 3.72 million
• F-1 Race – 3.41 million
• Yoshi – 3.12 million
• Donkey Kong – 3.07 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4 – 2.50 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories – 2.39 million
• Kirby's Dream Land 2 – 2.36 million
• Donkey Kong Land 2 – 2.35 million
• Dragon Quest Monsters – 2.35 million
• The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX – 2.22 million
• Wario Land 3 – 2.20 million
• Donkey Kong Country – 2.19 million
• Kirby's Pinball Land – 2.19 million
• Golf – 2.12 million
• Tennis – 1.99 million
• Alleyway – 1.94 million
• Tetris DX – 1.88 million
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone – 1.73 million
• Metroid II: Return of Samus – 1.72 million
• Baseball – 1.61 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters – 1.60 million
• Dragon Quest Monsters 2 – 1.57 million
• Yoshi's Cookie – 1.53 million
• Wario Land II – 1.48 million
• Tamagotchi – 1.45 million
• Tamagotchi 2 – 1.45 million
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters II – 1.45 million
• DuckTales – 1.43 million
• The Final Fantasy Legend – 1.37 million
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater – 1.33 million
• Yakuman – 1.28 million
• Tetris 2 – 1.24 million
• Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble – 1.23 million
• Game & Watch Gallery 3 – 1.22 million
• Game & Watch Gallery 2 – 1.22 million
• Solar Striker – 1.20 million
• Mario Tennis GB – 1.18 million
• Qix – 1.15 million
• Super RC Pro-Am – 1.14 million
• Donkey Kong Land 3 – 1.03 million
• Game & Watch Gallery – 1.00 million
• The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle – 1.00 million
• The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2 – 1.00 million
• Mickey's Dangerous Chase – 1.00 million
• The Little Mermaid – 1.00 million
• Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge – 1.00 million
• Mega Man II – 1.00 million
• Wave Race – 1.00 million
• Star Wars – 1.00 million
• DuckTales 2 – 1.00 million
• Mortal Kombat – 1.00 million
• Mickey Mouse: Magic Wands! – 1.00 million
• Space Invaders – 1.00 million
• The Smurfs – 1.00 million
• Street Fighter II – 1.00 million
• James Bond 007 – 1.00 million

Pokemon Yellow selling so much on top of Red/Blue is insane. Goes to show the crazy power of the IP in its prime, and the success of the cartoon. While I myself am guilty of getting every mainline version on GB/GBC, I never liked Yellow that much. The design improvements were nice and you could get all the RB starters in a single run, yeah, but the gym leaders' Pokemon were horribly overleveled. And the grind was still very real.

Super Mario Land is up there only by virtue of being a launch window game.
Apart from Mario and Pokemon, the other big successes for the system barely scrape 5 million copies. Which is still very big numbers for any game in the all-physical era, but when it comes to Pokemon it's like every GB owner bought 5 more GBs when those games came out. It's crazy.

So how come people were buying F-1 Race more than Donkey Kong?

F-1 Race is a pretty early game from a time where there wasn't much competition on the system.
DK on the GB was the poor kid's version that you'd get if you didn't have a SNES, or the rich kid's extra version if your parents had enough money to buy you the GB version too.

 

[HRK69]

Shout out to the Gameboy Color Atomic Purple

During summer vacation, I worked for it at my mom's butchery. I didn't have enough money left to buy a game, but I bought the handheld anyway

When I got home, my mom surprised me with Pokémon Yellow

Best and worst summer ever. Because when the summer was over, my stepmom confiscated my Game Boy and sold it.

 

[Power Pro]

heads up however if you ever want to play Pokemon Yellow.
despite its cover art, Pokemon Yellow is in fact a GameBoy Color game. but it also has Super GameBoy support. the Super GameBoy version has worse colors however, since the SGB is more limited when it comes to color palettes.

so definitely play it in GameBoy Color mode.


the story behind why Yellow has a normal GameBoy cover, while being a GBC game is down to its development.
because the game was in fact a non-Color game in Japan, as the color support was added super late in development and wasn't ready for the japanese launch.
the whole western promo stuff and PR plans were made with it being a non-Color game in mind. this extended to the game boxes as well, as they already printed the boxes with the normal GB spine art.

I can't find any confirmation of this anywhere. I'd like to see how different the colors are on game boy color vs super game boy (or super game boy 2)

 

[electricmastro]

Pokemon Yellow selling so much on top of Red/Blue is insane. Goes to show the crazy power of the IP in its prime, and the success of the cartoon. While I myself am guilty of getting every mainline version on GB/GBC, I never liked Yellow that much. The design improvements were nice and you could get all the RB starters in a single run, yeah, but the gym leaders' Pokemon were horribly overleveled. And the grind was still very real.

Super Mario Land is up there only by virtue of being a launch window game.
Apart from Mario and Pokemon, the other big successes for the system barely scrape 5 million copies. Which is still very big numbers for any game in the all-physical era, but when it comes to Pokemon it's like every GB owner bought 5 more GBs when those games came out. It's crazy.


F-1 Race is a pretty early game from a time where there wasn't much competition on the system.
DK on the GB was the poor kid's version that you'd get if you didn't have a SNES, or the rich kid's extra version if your parents had enough money to buy you the GB version too.

Felt to do a top franchises ranking for comparison:

1. Pokémon — 116.7 million

2. Mario — 42.2 million

3. Tetris — 34.6 million

4. Kirby — 11.2 million

5. The Legend of Zelda — 10.0 million

6. Donkey Kong — 9.6 million

7. Wario — 9.3 million

8. Yu-Gi-Oh! — 9.1 million

9. Dragon Quest — 5.5 million

10. Yoshi — 4.9 million

11. Game & Watch Gallery — 3.7 million

12. Tamagotchi — 2.9 million

13. Final Fantasy — 2.5 million

14. DuckTales — 2.4 million

15. Mega Man — 2.1 million

16. Mickey Mouse — 2.0 million

17. Bugs Bunny — 2.0 million

So Pokemon is def very far up ahead. No doubt many were buying the Game Boy to play Nintendo franchises on there, but then you also have non-Nintendo published games like Dragon Quest, Tamagotchi, Final Fantasy, and Mega Man, as additional high-profile names that further compelled people to buy the system. There's also of course the media tie-in franchises like Yu-Gi-Oh!, DuckTales, Mickey Mouse, and Bugs Bunny, Yu-Gi-Oh! in particular possibly being the non-Nintendo franchise people were mostly likely to get the Game Boy for.

 

[Mownoc]

Played Donkey Kong Land recently. Impressive how well DKC gameplay translates to the Original Gameboy.

 

[electricmastro]

Played Donkey Kong Land recently. Impressive how well DKC gameplay translates to the Original Gameboy.

Also:

 

[JohnnyPhats]

Finally opened my Chromatic after getting it a few weeks ago. What a wonderfully made device.

 

[AJUMP23]

I appreciate those early mobile days.

 

[kevboard]

I can't find any confirmation of this anywhere. I'd like to see how different the colors are on game boy color vs super game boy (or super game boy 2)

super gameboy 2 has no difference in how it plays games. it's only new feature was link cable compatibility. (and I think a slightly higher clock speed... which I guess could reduce slowdown)

the main issue of the Super GameBoy is that can not define separate colors for sprites, it can only give specific segments of the screen a set colour palette. similar to how color on the ZX Spectrum worked.


edit: so I just tested it myself, and it seems when pressing X on Super GameBoy you can swap between a more optimised version, and a bland colored one.

as you can see, the one that is closer to GBC looks decent, but a bit washed out.

here is a comparison of the intro, both in SGB and GBC mode.
where you will notice the color limitations of the SGB, as it can only set a palette for screen segments, not for sprites:

GameBoy Color

Super GameBoy 2

due to not being able to set palettes for sprites, Pikachu has blue cheeks in some scenes here, because the blue was needed in the pallet for the background he is in front of.

while the GBC can give the Pikachu sprite his yellow and red palette in every scene.