Gameboy Advance Font Generator
Stayla Casillas
Edit: They are all not working. It works no game on the citra core but it works on citra stand alone emulator. It works a lot of games on other cores like gameboy advance or nintendo ds, but not on this one.
Processor & Memory:
The original Game Boy is loaded with an 8-bit microprocessor based heavily off the Zilog Z80 series, the same type used in early home computers like the ZX Spectrum, TRS-80 and Amstrad CPC. Thus, the software built for it had to be written using a slightly different form of assembly language than the NES, which was built on 6502 architecture. The core clocks at just over 4 MHz , although the Game Boy Color added an additional mode that could run at 8.3 MHz. The original and Pocket run with just 8kiB of RAM, whereas the Game Color bumps the number up to 32 KiB.
What Makes The Game Special:
Another example of ported software trying earnestly to crunch itself inside of a Game Boy cartridge, Faceball 2000 deserves mention not as a gameplay achievement (its painfully low frame rate makes it just barely playable) but as an example of another unique and unintended application of the Game Boy hardware: First-person 3D environments.
Faceball (known at first as MIDI Maze) originated on the Atari ST as a quirky and simple multiplayer deathmatch game featuring cartoon smiley faces. On the Game Boy, it retains the honor of being the only title to have supported 16 simultaneous players, although special hardware was required to make this possible. Also, good luck finding even one other person who owns this insanely obscure game.
What Makes The Game Special:
The scrolling parallax layers in Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS are a prime example of a Game Boy screen packed to the gills with graphics. Unlike with the Donkey Kong Land series, the limited color palette is implemented smartly, utilizing nearly every available pixel of the screen to build complex textures and sprites without confusing the player or overwhelming the system memory.
What Makes The Game Special:
Faceball 2000 is usually the main example given of psedudo 3D graphics being utilized on the original Game Boy, but a Japan-only titles that was released 6 months after Faceball 2000 also uses some creative programming to try to imerse gamers in a 3D world in an 8-bit, monochrome world.
Admittedly, a few scenes have been abbreviated, but the 29 distinct scenes that are present is certainly more than expected out of a 32-megabit Game Boy Color game. Its color palette is less than that of the arcade version, but instead of dithering colors to create new ones, the team at Digital Eclipse repainted the entire game in a more pocket-friendly manner.
There were some wonderfully colorful GBC games released in 2000 and 2001, but Warlocked was one of the most skilled in using the limited color palette strategically to create different environments and adapt them to different factors. For instance, in a snowy level, the entire color palette seems to change to become more winter-like.
What Makes The Game Special:
While not nearly as impressive as ZAS, Konami was no squelch when it came to shmups on the Game Boy either. You can see some early examples of parallax layer scrolling in Gradius: The Interstellar Assault and its prequel, Nemesis. The latter was also, during its time, one of the larger games put be put on a Game Boy cartridge (2 MBit).
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What Makes The Game Special:
An obscure title arriving late in the console cycle, Project S-11 for the Game Boy Color is pretty average as far as shmups go. But it deserves special mention for its outstanding soundtrack, one of the very few for Game Boy made by demoscene composers.
The use of color on Alone in the Dark is outstanding and the the backgrounds look like paintings specially colored for the Gameboy Color. The game actually does portray a creepy experience, but personally, I look at this title as more of a technical demo than a good form of entertainment.
What Makes The Game Special:
A simple puzzle platformer that had the misfortune of releasing around the same time as the Game Boy Advance in 2001, you can tell Toki Tori got some special treatment as a late-to-the-party Game Boy Color release. The main character animations are obviously a cut above the rest, and look CGI quality. Many of the backgrounds also move on separate layers, creating an amazing sense of depth rarely seen on similar GBC platformers. The soundtrack, though repetitive and nauseatingly cheery, also fills out nicely compared to other titles.
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Since the core gameplay was so rudimentary, developers were left with plenty of room to include faux-3D animation effects as balls roll around and the pool cue circles the table. A novelty at best, but it deserves mention in that it signifies a point when even small-time developers saw fit to push Game Boy games beyond the typical sprite-centric paradigm.
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Also worth noting: As far as file size goes, this game is huge. The cartridge it comes on uses MBC5, the last and most spacious memory module made to house Game Boy Color software. In this case, most of that space is likely devoted to storing that impressive (though admittedly gimmicky) opening FMV and various CGI menu animations. But the rest of the graphics are nothing to scoff at either, and the game as whole stands as a decent port of the PC original.
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What Makes The Game Special:
While not quite as visual engaging as Shantae, Wendy: Every Witch Way is from the same era and it shows. This late release is colorful and vibrant with a great cartooney look that makes good use of the Gameboy Color. However, there is more than visuals that make Wendy worthy of this list.
What Makes The Game Special:
Just as it was surprising to see Street Fighter Alpha 2 show up on the Super Nintendo, it was equally surprising to see a port of the original Alpha game on the Gameboy Color. Crawfish Interactive (the team behind the Alpha 3 port for the GBA) produced a surprisingly good port of this great fighter, complete with amazing graphics and excellent control.
What Makes The Game Special:
The graphics in Dragon Warrior III are vastly improved over the NES version. In fact, this game is based off of the Super Famicom (the Japanese version of our SNES) incarnation of the game. Thus the game features colorful sprites, more varied tiles, and animated battles. With all of this graphical wonderment, it is no wonder the game takes up a 32 Meg cart.
What was really neat about the animations was that every enemy had different animations, depending on what attack they performed, and they all were smooth and accurately portrayed. In addition to the battle graphics, the towns all looked unique. Every little area is well-detailed, and many places look better than a lot of what has been seen on the SNES.
Mario Tennis also has a lot of shading instead of having big ugly blocks of solid color. A tennis court will be lighter at the top then gradually fade into a darker shade at the bottom. Mario Tennis has many vibrant colors and nice looking environments. The best example is shown when flying to the Island Open as you can see the ocean and various islands.
What Makes The Game Special:
Rare did an excellent job on bringing their SNES powerhouse game, Donkey Kong Country down to the Gameboy. So why not try to bring their headlining N64 shooter to the Gameboy Color as well? Obviously, this time around there needed to be more drastic adjustments in the graphics.
With parallax scrolling and wonderful special effects the game almost reaches Super NES quality. The animation in the game is also very impressive. Alice probably has more frames of animation than some of the characters seen on more powerful home consoles. The locales are ripped right from the cartoon and the characters resemble their on-screen counterparts. The developers did their homework in the graphics department and Disney should be proud to have a game with such fantastic visuals associated with its license.
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What Makes The Game Special:
These three Gameboy Color games are third person adventure games that have a similar style to the LucasArts PC adventure games of old. They were both humorous and enjoyable, but they also utilized the color palette to effectively create enjoyable scenes.
Due to the comical nature of the game, the graphics are animated in a 2D cartoon style which is generally very clean, fresh, and pleasing to the eye. However, due to the limitations of such a small screen, some areas come across as too busy, with the developers obviously trying to cram in as much detail as possible.
What Makes The Game Special:
The first Wario Land brought new life to the fairly plain Mario Land series on the Gameboy while not only bringing a new gameplay dynamic, but also upping the size of the sprites. Two more Wario Land installments followed, including Wario Land 3 which utilized the Gameboy Colors extra processing power to bring some amazing colors, scenes, and graphical effects.
Each level is very vivid in detail and each enemy is very unique. The trees sometimes have leaves falling from them and other elements such as fire are very well-done. This platformer, Wario Land 3, in addition to Shantae are excellent transition games between the Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance.
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What Makes The Game Special:
As usual, Nintendo packaged a wonderful combination of graphics and music in this late entry of its landmark series for the Game Boy Color. If this had been on the original DMG-01, this choice would have been a no-brainer to be a top selection.