Five Virtual Boy Games That Are Actually Worth Playing!
Get ready for some MAJOR eye strain, kids!
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Nintendo isn’t known for dropping the ball.
Indeed, every time the company the releases a product that underperforms, they have a track record of firing right back with yet another license to print money.
For example, the GameCube was considered a financial disappointment compared to the success of the PlayStation2 and Xbox — only for Nintendo to come back and kick both Sony and Microsoft’s ass with the Wii one console generation cycle later.
The Wii U is another relatively minor Nintendo misfire — which in turn spawned the Switch, which is on pace to be one of the best selling pieces of video game hardware in history.
Really, Nintendo has only had one outright, unmistakable, colossal hardware failure not called the 64DD in its 100-plus-year history — and even now, the company tends to look back on the Virtual Boy with utmost shame.
The dismal marketplace performance of the VB is certainly understandable. For one thing, it was released in the thick of a transition from the 16-bit era to the 32/64-bit epoch — not exactly the best time to introduce a product with instantly dated tech.
And as far as specs go, the Virtual Boy was hardly impressive. Like the original Game Boy, it was a product with an extremely limited color palette. And unlike the GB, the VB was anything BUT portable, requiring users to anchor themselves to this clunky plastic headset that forced you to hunch over to play it.
Factor in the uncomfortable position with the (literally) nauseating black and reddish-pinkish-purplish graphics and you had a piece of hardware that was actually physically painful to use. Needless to say, the product design definitely should’ve gone through a couple of more rounds before the final consumser device hit store shelves.
But even with all of that factored out of the equation, the VB was still destined to be a disaster. Why? Long story short, the software library to accompany it just wasn’t there.
In the U.S., less than two dozen games were officially released for the unit — in fact, Nintendo ended up discontinuing the system less than eight months after it was initially launched.
Now, had the VB had a stronger software lineup, is there a chance it could’ve fared better? We’re always going to conjecture about that, but as it stands, there’s a mere 22 U.S. games to play on the system. And yeah, by and large, the bulk of them are quite forgettable. Waterworld, Mario Clash and Golf? No thanks, I think I’d rather eat my own shit.
That said, not everything released on the Virtual Boy was irredeemable rubbish. In fact, not only were there a few surprisingly decent games to be played on the console, there were even one or two that were genuinely great.
Don’t believe me? Well, a fond look back at the following five game might just change your tune …
Virtual Boy Wario Land
Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Nov. 27, 1995
The next time somebody tells you the Virtual Boy sucked, point ‘em towards this game. VB Wario Land is EASILY the best game to come out on the not-so-handheld unit and about as close as the machine got to a bona fide killer app. The same way the 32X was redeemed by Virtua Racing and Alien vs. Predator salvaged the Atari Jaguar, this is indisputably the high point for the extremely short-lived console.
It’s a game that plays identically to the previous Wario Land games on the GB, and trust me, that’s not a negative. If you’ve never played any of those games before, I guess the best way to describe them are sort of a Metroidvania take on the tried-and-true Mario formula. You’ve got lots of exploration, you’ve got lots of hopping and bopping on bad guys, you’ve got plenty of awesome power-ups and you’ve got a ton of intricate, well-designed levels to monkey around in. And of course, there’s a lot of grate screwball humor, too — probably my favorite is the bit where you have to launch watermelons at moving targets to open a locked barricade.
It’s not a terribly challenging game and some of the boss fights are a bit underwhelming. Still, no other game on the VB took advantage of the augmented reality hook and the fusion of traditional 2D and (then) emerging 3D gaming as well as this one. It might only take an hour or two to finish the whole thing, but it certainly has replay value. If you play just one game on the VB, this ought to be it — indeed, it’s arguably the only piece of software on the system worth going out of your way to experience at least once.
Galactic Pinball
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Aug. 14, 1995
It’s pretty hard to fuck up pinball in the abstract, and as far as VB offerings go, this one certainly had greater replay value than most. It’s not a truly outstanding video pinball game by any stretch, but it nonetheless gets more things right than it gets wrong — and as far as the three-dimensional hook goes, it’s easily one of the better representations of the gimmick on the system as a whole.
As the name suggests, each of the tables in Galactic Pinball have a sci-fi theme to them. And surprisingly, each table does feel quite distinct — one table has a giant alien head in the middle of it while another has a ton of twisting ramps and floating objects to bang off of and whiz past. And since it is a video pinball game, there’s a whole lot of extracurricular, gimmicky stuff going on while you’re bouncing off bumpers and trying to make UFOs explode and shit.
The biggest downside to the game is twofold. For one thing, the 3D playing field sometimes gets a little too blurry when there’s a lot of action happening onscreen, which makes it really easy to miss shots and lose an errant ball down the drain. Secondly, the physics can sometimes iffy, with the ball periodically defying the laws of physics to float wide left or wide right when it should follow a straight arc. Those complaints aside, though, it’s still a very solid and fun to play pinball experience. And the music — especially for the “Colony” table — is just kick fuckin’ ass.
3D Tetris
Developer: T&E Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: March 22, 1996
Well, if you’re going to release a new Nintendo handheld — even if it’s technically impossible for it to be categorized as a genuine “handheld” — it’s probably not a bad idea to have at least one Tetris-like title in the offing. And while 3D Tetris is hardly the earth-shattering portable powerhouse that the Game Boy got all the way back in ‘89, it’s still an interesting and fairly entertaining little puzzler — and even if you don’t like it, per se, you still have to admire it for taking a few chances with the conceptual material.
Right off the bat, the developers of the game give you several different modes to tinker around with, although at the end of the day, they don’t really feel all that dissimilar. The marquee mode definitely takes some time to get used to, with a clunky interface that makes gauging the placement of the blocks a very imprecise science. Probably the easiest way to get into the groove of things is to use the little square “radar” screens on the right side of the screen, which tell you for sure where your pieces are about to end up.
I’ll be the first to say it, this isn’t a very intuitive game. Any asshole with two thumbs could figure out all the nuts and bolts of the original Tetris in about five minutes, but with this game, the learning curve is far steeper. As long as you’re willing to invest the time and suffer through a few hours of frustration upfront, you might find 3D Tetris to be a pretty fun diversion once you get the more-complex-than-they-should-be mechanics down. Still, if you’re not very patient — or just plain hate puzzle games that force you to work on several planes at the same time — this probably isn’t the first cartridge you might want to squeeze into your Virtual Boy unit.
Red Alarm
Developer: T&E Soft
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Aug. 14, 1995
Long story short, this was Star Fox on the Virtual Boy — albeit, without any actual appearances by Fox McCloud and the gang. Rather than capitalize on a proven commodity, the Big N (for whatever reason) opted to keep things woefully generic with the branding on this one — which is a shame, because with a bit more polish and refinement, this thing actually could’ve turned out to be a top-notch little rail shooter.
From the outset, the wireframe graphics instantly call to mind a ton of early ‘80s arcade classics. The visuals might seem a little fugly at first, but after a few minutes, you’ll slowly begin to appreciate the simplified visuals — had the developers gone with solid fill objects, you wouldn’t have been able to see shit anywhere on the screen. It’s traditional space shooter action, through and through; you pilot your fighter jet through hordes of robots and attack drones and do battle with jumbo-sized bosses at the end of every level. It’s not the most unique concept in the world, but on a very fundamental level, it just plain works.
Red Alarm ultimately becomes a frustrating experience, though. The gameplay is almost where it needs to be, but the control setup just kills it. Even maneuvering your jet past non-combatant objects in the game is a chore, and heaven help you if you have to turn around — that shit takes forever. There’s also some issues with draw-in, which frequently makes enemies on the distant horizon impossible to target (even though they can still target you, of course.) Even weirder, you never seem to hit a consistent speed; either you’re vessel is traveling at a snail’s pace (and left vulnerable to attack) or you’re just blazing through the level so fast you don’t even have time to lock onto an enemy ship. Needless to say, there were an abundance of small things that should’ve been corrected prior to this game’s release; and had those issues been rectified, Red Alarm had the potential to be a genuinely great game. As is, however, it’s still a moderately above average release — albeit, one with some obvious deficiencies.
Nester’s Funky Bowling
Developer: Saffire
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: Feb. 26, 1996
As Wii Sports demonstrated roughly a decade later, never underestimate the intrinsic appeal of a good virtual bowling experience. Granted, Nester’s Funky Bowling isn’t exactly the pinnacle of achievement — like many other VB originals, its faults and foibles are glaringly apparent — but it still manages to pack enough fun in the experience to make itself a game almost worth going out of your way to play. You know, for historical posterity and all that shit.
For starters, how weird is it that Nester — the unofficial mascot of Nintendo Power magazine — got his own game? The Fido Dido wannabe seemed like a natural fit for a basic platformer game, but for whatever reason, the suits at N decided the character’s very limited recognizability was better suited for a bowling simulator. Who even knows how they came to that decision — fuck having a new Mario Kart or Metroid games on the system, let’s give the masses a facsimile of something they could do anytime they wanted at fuckin’ Bowlero.
There’s not a whole lot you can say about any bowling video game, and there’s probably even less you can about Nester’s one-and-done software sojourn. The aiming mechanics are extraordinarily simple (basically, you just time button presses to two swinging meters) and there’s no major deviation — aesthetically or mechanically — from one alley to the next. The physics also seem a little off, so even if you time both meters perfectly, there’s still a good chance the ball is going to magically float around a few pins and deprive you of a strike. It’ll hold your attention and there are certainly worse bowling video games out there, but this one just doesn’t have much character or charm to make the game worthy of more than a few brief plays. The bare bones offering does just the bare minimum to get by here — which, in a way, seems to sum up the software library of the ill-fated Virtual Boy as a whole.
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