dopple's Full Review: Nintendo Game Boy Color White Console
I never really understood the popularity of the original Gameboy, especially when far superior systems like the Sega Gamegear and Atari Lynx hit store shelves offering better technology and cooler games - yet for some reason Nintendo's primitive, slow, Black & White console with the hits & miss game library stood strong while the competition faded away.
It took a long long time before Nintendo finally gave gamers what they wanted - an update to the Gameboy. And it was a very small one: The Gameboy Color. Really, there are only a few improvements - it can now display 56 different colors instead of just 4 shades of green, the screen was much more visible in normal lighting, and it was much more compact. The size change wasn't actually a big improvement, it actually made it more inconvenient to hold for those of us with normal to large size hands - but it was now more pocket-sized.
The Gameboy Color is pretty much like a slightly slower, portable NES, but with a bigger screen resolution therefore you couldn't fit as much on the display, either. I'm a fan of the NES, but I don't care for the Gameboy.
For one, theres the issue of games. There are a lot, but most of them suck. The only ones worth playing are really the RPGs (role-playing games), which are rooted more in story & text-based activity that graphics or action. There are tons of great RPGs for Gameboy, from Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Dragon Warrior to more adventure-types like Legend of Zelda.
Aside from these though, the system offers little more. There are a lot of platform games, but most are pretty poor, offering unimaginative gameplay and usually ugly graphics. It wasn't until the final year of the Gameboy Color's lifespan that Nintendo finally got the brilliant idea of using the system's similarities to the NES and actually porting classic NES games - rather than making cheesy attempts at Super Nintendo or N64 ports. And thus we get excellent retro titles like Super Mario Delux and Crystalis!
But before this idea really went far, Nintendo unleased the Gameboy Advance, and it was unlikely we would see any more NES games revived on the GBC. So the Gameboy library remains pretty deprived of quality gameplay outside of RPGs. The RPGs are good, but not everybody is into them and they're not really replayable once finished.
If the Gameboy Color was actually dropping to reasonable clearence prices, I might be easier on it but seeing as - despite the fact that it's replacement is available - it's still $69.99, you may as well get a Gameboy Advance, which is just $20-$30 more and boasts backwards compatibility and a MUCH more promising game library.
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