5 Game Boy Color hidden gems you should play

Did you get an Analogue Pocket this year? I did, and that thing rules. Not only is FPGA emulation incredible technology, it’s also a perfect excuse to dive back into various retro libraries in search of hidden treasures. A few weeks ago I took a look at various cool ROM hack projects inspired by my AP adventures. This week I’m going over some games that are a blast to play, and not the usual suspects when you think of the classics. I’m focusing on the Game Boy Color here, a system that is mostly known for the big hits and a massive pile of licensed games. Whether it’s novel genre mashups or technical prowess, these games stand out for being like nothing else on Nintendo’s second 8-bit handheld.

Power Quest

I loved this game as a kid, and it was great to discover I’m not alone while doing research for this list. The best way I can think of to describe Power Quest is, “What if Pokemon TCG was a fighting game?” The way the game’s story and navigation are structured is reminiscent of RPGs of the time, but the gameplay itself is a Street Fighter 2-inspired fighting game. You pick your robot based on various fighting archetypes, make it stronger over time, and eventually solve a dark plot lurking behind the scenes of an anime-like competition.

Survival Kids

Before we had games like ARK or Minecraft, Konami explored the idea of survival mechanics with the aptly-titled Survival Kids. This is a hugely ambitious game for a GBC title, offering not only a challenging gameplay loop with several systems to keep your character alive, it’s also a very open, non-linear story with multiple endings depending on what you discover and accomplish as you survive.

Magical Chase GB

Before the team at Quest made RPG classics like Ogre Battle and Tactics Ogre, it made a whimsical side-scrolling shmup for the TurboGrafx-16 called Magical Chase. The publisher went under just as Magical Chase was released, making it one of the most expensive games out there on the secondhand market. It was later ported to Game Boy Color, and is one of the most impressive ports on the little handheld. This cute but challenging shooter looks like it should be pushing the GBC to its limits, but it runs smoothly and is a blast to play for hours. It doesn’t have much text, but there is a fan translation available, making this a perfect hidden gem for unofficial hardware or repro carts.

Star Ocean: Blue Sphere

Sure, there are plenty of RPGs on the Game Boy Color. But few of them are direct sequels to a console RPG many consider one of the all-time greats. Star Ocean: The Second Story remains to this day an all-time classic, and Blue Sphere was a surprising follow-up instead of a spinoff, which is what folks usually expected from handheld entries. Being a sequel isn’t just what makes Blue Sphere notable, though. It’s also absurdly complex for a Game Boy Color game, and those complexities land, especially with Blue Sphere’s real-time combat system. Like Magical Chase there’s a fan translation available, with this one being much more impressive (and required) due to its scope as a full-fledged RPG.

Legend of the River King

Longtime fans of Harvest Moon are plenty aware of series like Story of Seasons or Rune Factory. But Marvelous has another RPG/life sim hybrid that was much more obscure, largely because of its extremely niche premise. River King only saw a few entries localized over the years, with the Game Boy Color games being the ones that stuck around in the minds of those who played them. Imagine a fishing minigame in something like a Zelda game, but the whole game revolves around it. You’ll have to fight spiders and other critters, gather bait and hooks, and make sure you match the right equipment for the fish you’re targeting. The whole fishing experience is at play here, which includes patience. So, so much patience.

There are plenty of other strange, hidden gems and cult classics on the Game Boy Color, but these five stand out the most in my mind. Whether it’s a unique, genre-bending hook you won’t find anywhere else, or the kind of technical prowess that makes it hard to believe you’re looking at something running on a GBC cart, playing these is a must for anyone looking to round out their knowledge base or simply play something different from the obvious choices. Did I miss something you feel deserves a shout? Tell me what it is! I wanna know, especially after playing Magical Chase for the first time.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.