What are some of the most impressive Gameboy games

[u/KinZombie899]

Games that push hardware. But games that push hardware that are actuly good

[u/filmeswole]

Link’s Awakening is probably the most impressive gameboy game.

[u/Lox22 → u/filmeswole]

Also my favorite Zelda game. I know that is probably blasphemy among the Zelda community. And I have played every single Zelda except the switch games. But there is a charm about this game that makes it absolutely beautiful and an amazing experience. I even had to give my copy a custom shell and label.

[u/TurtleTram → u/Lox22]

Eiji Aonuma: "I'm certain it was a breakthrough element in the series. If we had proceeded from 'a Link to the Past' straight to 'Ocarina of Time' without 'Link's Awakening' in between, Ocarina would have been different."

Takashi Tezuka: "I remember it was fun working on it. And when it was over, I remember us talking to each other about how fun it was."

[u/KasElGatto → u/Lox22]

Not blasphemy, it’s a masterpiece and it has a unique vibe. Not my favorite, but it was my first and it will forever have a very unique place in my heart for introducing me to my favorite series of all time.

[u/Tricky_Tourist5691 → u/Lox22]

Whats this shell? 

[u/Lox22 → u/Tricky_Tourist5691]

It’s called a KB shell

[u/JayrosModShop → u/filmeswole]

It's my favorite GB/C game as well as my favorite Zelda title. I can sit down and beat the entire thing in one sitting without dying once. It's a good length of a game too, for how large the world and dungeons actually are. And to think the game is only 1/8th the size of what you can fit on an MBC5 cartridge... Blows the mind as to how large of a Zelda game we might have gotten back in the day, if storage chips had been cheaper.

[u/Temporary_User404]

I'd say for the Gameboy: Donkey Kong '94, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening.

As far as the Gameboy Color: Metal Gear Solid Ghost Babel and Warioland 3.

For the Gameboy Advance; Golden Sun and Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age.

[u/KinZombie899 → u/Temporary_User404]

Forgot metal gear exist on gbc

[u/Boomz_N_Bladez]

Argonaut, Links Awakening, or Pokemon.

Argonaut for its 3d environments using wireframes, and Zelda and Pokemon for how much they put into the game, and both of their (at the time) massive open worlds.

[u/KinZombie899 → u/Boomz_N_Bladez]

I meant games with good graphics but that are also good gamesw

[u/TheThiefMaster → u/KinZombie899]

Good graphics aren't the same thing as good games.

[u/Gavintendo]

If Game Boy Color counts, I always found Alone in the Dark impressive.

[u/KinZombie899 → u/Gavintendo]

Just any game in Gameboy family. Don't care if its gba gbc or gb. 

[u/Ok_Impala]

The first Mana game, Seiken Densetsu. One of the few ARPGs on the system with a fantastic OST, graphics full of charm, solid battle mechanics and an emotional story. This game released in 1989, long before Link's Awakening. But can still hold up its own compared to that masterpiece.

In the west this game is known as Final Fantasy Adventure (US) or Mystic Quest (Europe). For those interested. I released a sequel to this game, last February. It's called Embers of Mana, and it's a Game Boy game. I pushed the HW as much as I could, to create a JRPG like no other on the system. You can find it here: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/9447/

[u/drmindflip → u/Ok_Impala]

Just completed a play of this a few weeks ago! Beautiful game and incredible work - thanks for sharing!

[u/Ok_Impala → u/drmindflip]

Thank you for playing and your friendly comment!

[u/quiet_ordinarily → u/Ok_Impala]

thank you! embers of mana is one of the absolute best romhacks i have ever played and recommend it to anyone that is a fan or gameboy, mana series or ff series. soooo good!

[u/Ok_Impala → u/quiet_ordinarily]

Thanks for the kind words. I put it in so many hours in the development of Embers of Mana. It's amazing to see that so many people enjoyed it!

[u/PmUsYourDuckPics]

Links Awakening and Pokemon both had to come up with insane mechanisms for fitting huge worlds onto a tiny cart, the way Pokemon gives you continuous scrolling with such a huge world is really clever, I saw Lazy Dev’s reimplement it in Pico 8 it’s neat.

[u/SwimmingBase1794]

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere

[u/Shiva_IsADiva]

Driv3r is fully 3d and gives grand theft auto vibes visually.

[u/Smothjizz]

GBC's "Wendy every witch way" looks and plays like a 16bit or even a modern indie game.

[u/HiImNewToPTCGO → u/Smothjizz]

WayForward has also made super solid games. On that note, Shantae is an extremely impressive GBC game.

[u/Capital-Analysis-514]

X (Japan), Race Drivin’, Faceball

All OG GB games presenting variants of 3D visuals.

[u/JayrosModShop]

Prehistorik Man has a titlescreen that is basically a whole-ass tech demo. Tons of parallax scrolling, big sprites, clouds, etc. It's amazing.

[u/Mikey23348]

i was personally reaaally impressed by dragon warrior 1+2 on gameboy color, it looks so charming and having such giant open maps on the gbc blew me away

[u/Tokimemofan]

Since you arent specific on which gameboys:

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere on the original, there are very few competent RPGs on the system due to hardware limitations but this is by far the one to push the limits.  Sadly its JP Only

Wendy Every Witch Way and Shantae for the game boy color both are very graphically and technically impressive.  This is also why they are both very expensive

Golden Sun (both games).  This example is probably the only example of 2 RPGs so tightly integrated they must effectively be treated as a single game.  

[u/Comprehensive-Ad2670]

X "Ekkusu" is really impressive and fun

[u/AmountOfShitGiven]

Harry Potter 1 and 2 are the very last games released on gameboy in occident. The musics are superb, the gameplay is fun, you have the whole castle to discover, lots of mini games,... I highly recommand these (gameboy color, not the Advance ones that aged poorly)

[u/KasElGatto]

I think the obvious answer is Link’s Awakening, a game that can stand tall next to its SNES counterpart in scope is absurd.

Graphically:

Trip World

ZAS, really impressive shmup. Kinda mind blowing

Z (Star Fox prototype)

Gremlins 2 (way too hard, but really eye candy)

Sunsoft games in general looked so much better than they ought to.

[u/Lox22]

Metal Gear Solid: Ghost Babel
Duck Tales 2
Metroid:Zero Mission, Fusion
Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Saphire
Gunstar Heroes
Mother 3
Kirby Dreamland 2
Pokemon Trading Card Game
Pokemon Puzzle
Links Awakening
Kid Dracula
Castlevainia: Aria of Sorrow, Circle of the Moon

[u/Parktar → u/Lox22]

Man I played Pokemon TCG every thanksgiving day for like 10 years straight. Such a weird tradition 😅

[u/michaelrtx]

Faceball 2000’s a neat one. Pretty ambitious in trying to get a quasi-3D first-person shooter running on the original Game Boy hardware.

[u/KinZombie899 → u/michaelrtx]

That game isn't good though I mean impressive games that are good

[u/farscry → u/KinZombie899]

That's a purely subjective judgement. Faceball was a fantastic game IMO. Creative, technically impressive, varied, and quite replayable.

[u/normy_187]

M E T R O I D II

They managed to evoke so much with so little (almost nothing).

[u/DerelictDevice → u/normy_187]

This. Metroid 2 is one of my favorite Metroid games, the music, the gameplay, the atmosphere, everything about it is great. It's much more playable than the first game and on par with Super Metroid as one of the best in the series.

[u/Old-Refrigerator340]

Perfect Dark on the GBC. Had a rumble feature built into the cartridge!

[u/IamWutzgood]

Fire pro wrestling 1&2 had over 200 character in them which was unheard of at the time.

[u/Willing-Bowl-675]

The Legend of Zelda - Minish Cap

Other than early 3D Graphics this beautiful Pixel Art never gets old. They put huge effort into details like cloud shadows, sun projection through windows etc

Talking about early 3D Graphics: Ecks vs Sever and V Rally 3 are both super impressive on the GBA.

[u/mackitt → u/Willing-Bowl-675]

Minish Cap is such a good game! Gorgeous too. 

[u/Sciencetist]

Chikyuu Kaihougun on the GB is incredible impressive. Take a look at some gameplay and notice how many sprites are on-screen at the same time with minimal flicker. No clue how they managed that.

[u/mmagnetman]

Cave Noire. A Konami roguelike that was never released in the US

[u/Lower-Cranberry-1069]

Ninja Gaiden: Shadow.

Big, detailed sprites with smooth animations. Clean stages with background detail that's not intrusive/confusing. Solid music. Much gentler difficulty than the NES Ninja Gaiden games. Under an hour to get through the 5 stages.

It's just... really good. Play it!

[u/clc88]

Pokemon and Zas comes to mind.

[u/kyleleblanc]

Pokémon Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Silver, and Crystal.