Review:: Gameboy Color

[Kiss]

The gameboy color was Nintendo's forth version of
gameboy. The gameboy color was released in Japan on October 21st 1998. In November 98’ it was released in North America. Following North America was Europe in 1999.
It features a color screen and is slightly taller and thicker than the gameboy pocket but smaller than the original gameboy.

The Game Boy Color featured an infrared communications port for wireless linking. However, the feature was only supported in a few games, and the infrared port was dropped for the Game Boy Advance and later releases. The console was capable of showing up to 56 different colors simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32,768, and could add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. It could also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colors, for a total of more than four colors. This, however, resulted in graphic artifacts in certain games; a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background was now colored separately, exposing the trick.

• One such trick occurred in Pokemon Red and Blue Players were supposed to navigate through Koga's gym by feeling around invisible walls and encountering rival trainers in the gym. On the Game Boy Color and Super Game Boy, these walls could be seen as clearly as dots.
• In Super Mario Land, there are many hidden sprites (in the form of hidden enemies/opportunities) exposed by using a multicolored palette. These and other "spoilers" can be avoided by using the monochromatic color palette as described below.
• In The Legend of Zelda| links Awakening(original version) there is an area full of statues, some of which are enemies and some of which are normal. The enemy statues blend in normally but the pallette trick in the GBC makes them stand out.

Game Boy Color games come in a clear plastic cartridge with a raised bump. Nintendo also made black cartridges that were compatible with the Game Boy Color, the older Super Game Boy and the original Game Boy. The black color distinguished these special cartridges from the grey Game Boy carts and the transparent Game Boy Color carts. The black cartridges had notches in the corner like old Game Boy cartridges, allowing an original Game Boy to be turned on when they were inserted, while the Game Boy Color cartridges did not. Special Game Boy Color palettes were built into the black carts, making it impossible to change their palette. Game Boy Color games also feature the different color cartridges for the hit game Pokemon.

The gameboy color's successor was the Gameboy Advance. It had succeeded the Gameboy Pocket.


Graphics Rating 7/10 9/10 for its time.
Game-play 8/10
Over-all rating 8/10