Nintendo were late to the party when it came to creating a colour handheld console, but they were fashionably late. At the behest of Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo waited until they were truly ready to launch a colour handheld console, watching as competitors tried and failed to trump their technologically inferior machine.
In the aftermath of the launch of the Game Boy, Atari and Sega had released handhelds to rival Nintendo's machine but despite displaying LCD colour screens, neither the Game Gear nor The Lynx made a big impact. First up was the Lynx in 1989 but it was far more expensive than Nintendo's console and even an attempt to relaunch the handheld in 1991 with a reduced price and sleek new look failed to convince. The fact was that it didn't have enough brilliant games and, even if loads of all-time classics had been developed for the Lynx, gamers wouldn't have been interested because the six batteries that they'd forked out for would be dead after four hours of gameplay.
Console War As for Sega's Game Gear, it suffered from similar problems. Despite a marketing campaign that tried it's best to discredit the Game Boy as the inferior machine (one TV ad apparently showed a gamer hitting himself in the head with a dead squirrel in an attempt to see colour in the Game Boy's monochromatic screen), Game Gear couldn't compete with the Game Boy and once again, battery life was its downfall. Six batteries were needed to power six hours of game life and not even the appearance of Sonic The Hedgehog could withstand such limitations.
As you may have read in last week's Game Boy feature, it was always Gunpei Yokoi's insistence that Game Boy would only go colour when Nintendo could make an affordable colour machine that didn't drain battery life. By 1998 the time had come but sadly Yokoi would not be around to see it. The failure of the Virtual Boy had lead to his resignation from Nintendo in 1996, days after his Game Boy pocket was released. He moved on to work on the WonderSwan with Bandai but was tragically killed in a car accident in 1997.
Although developers wanted a new Game Boy with colour visuals, Nintendo also wanted gamers to be able to play their old games so they created a backwards compatible console that could play all the old Game Boy games. This was important because not only could the new handheld display 56 different colors simultaneously on screen, it could also add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. Games such as Pokémon Yellow and Super Mario Land benefited from this.
New Classics Some games such as Tetris and Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening were re-released to take advantage of the new handheld. Tetris DX and Link's Awakening DX were arguably even better experiences in colour and then there was Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. Released in 1999, this was an update of the original Super Mario Bros., the game that ONM voted as its best Nintendo game of all time. It featured multiplayer, a challenge mode and eight additional worlds based on the notoriously difficult Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels. This unlockable extra wasn't called "For Super Players" for nothing.
Yet the biggest stars of Game Boy Color weren't Nintendo old timers such as Mario and Zelda, but Pokémon. We've already mentioned Pokémon Yellow but Pokémon Gold/Silver were the first Pokémon games to be released exclusively for Game Boy Color. The games launched in the UK in 2001 and by this time Pokémon was massive, partly thanks to the TV series which was broadcast every Saturday morning on Ant & Dec's SMTV. With 100 new Pokémon to catch, new items and the introduction of Pokémon breeding, Gold/Silver lived up to the hype and sold millions of copies worldwide.
The amazing thing about Game Boy Color is that brilliant games were still being released right up until the end of its lifespan. The Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Ages/Seasons, two of the best games on the handheld were released in the UK in October 2001, three months after Game Boy Advance launched. Yet while millions bought Oracle Of Ages/Seasons, by the time Harry Potter And the Chamber Of Secrets came out a year later, most people were ready to move onto the Nintendo's latest handheld: Game Boy Advance. You can read more about GBA next week.
Poké Power Pokémon rule the world Pokémon really were the driving force behind the success of the Game Boy Color. Red/Blue had been a huge success on the original Game Boy but it was during the GBC era that the 'mon went into overdrive. In addition to Gold and Silver, Nintendo also released Crystal for the console. Then there was Pinball, The Trading Card Game and Puzzle Challenge. It wasn't just about the games either - Nintendo released four special Pokémon-themed Game Boys, including the Pokémon Gold/Silver, Pichu/Pikachu, Pokémon Center and Pokémon (pictured) editions.
Pick Your Palette Choose a different colour As you have already read, games designed for the original Game Boy could be played in colour on the GBC but you could actually select the colour palette yourself by pressing buttons when the Game Boy logo appeared. For example, if you pressed Up, you'd get a brown palette, Left and A would be Dark Blue and Down and B would be Yellow. Still got a Game Boy Color? You can see a guide to the full selection of colours here.
High Five Five landmark Game Boy Color releases
1. Pokémon Gold/Silver With a manageable amount of monsters to catch and the introduction of Pokémon breeding, this is still a fan favourite today. A fact that's been reinforced by the recent success of the DS re-releases in Japan. We can't wait for HeartGold/SoulSilver to be released in the UK next year!
2. Legend Of Zelda: Oracle Of Ages/Oracle Of Seasons Link's Awakening DX is brilliant but it's just a colour update of the old Game Boy game, albeit one with a new dungeon. These two amazing games were developed by Flagship for Nintendo and were released simultaneously in 2002. While both games saw Link travelling to a different land, the plot was only revealed once you completed both of them.
3. Super Mario Bros. Deluxe With the brilliant Mario Golf and Mario Tennis also on release, the plumber was on fire on Game Boy Color but it was this update of the classic Super Mario Bros. that really excited Nintendo fans.
4. Metal Gear Solid Metal Gear Solid was considered by many to be the best PlayStation game of all time and this handheld version offered more classic stealth action. Featuring almost all the weapons from the original, Solid Snake's adventure was a surprising handheld hit.
5. Wario Land 3 Wario's first GBC-exclusive was right up there with Mario's efforts. Wario has to release a guy who is stuck inside a music box and although Mario's rival can't die, the puzzles were tough enough to draw hardened gamers. Brilliant.
