(PT-BR) Tentaram por um jogo de PS2 dentro de um GameBoy e o resultado foi desastroso. Mal da pra ver o rosto dos personagens, fora que objetos que eram 3D são 2D agora nessa versão, e pelas limitações do console, a gameplay da ação ficou pior e a exploração péssima, já que a cada vez que a câmera “muda de posição”, eles tem que criar um novo cenário simulando um lugar 3D ah esquece

(ENG) They basically tried to put a 3D game inside a GameBoy, a handheld console where you can just play 2D games. They tried to turn 3D scenarios into 2D, and the result was a mess of a map, with really bad exploration mechanics. I will not try to explain more than that on why you should play the PS2 version.

Very hilarious of me to not close this log back when I first tried it out thinking I would have the energy or desire to really put in multiple sessions into it. What can I say? I don’t play horror games and I did not grow up with adventure games, but I did think this was a wacky title to be a part of Nintendo Switch Online’s Game Boy player right on launch. Though, after playing it, I understand why they might want it alongside hits like Kirby and Mario Land. This game is one of those 2001 Game Boy Color games that really stretches the limits of what a handheld can do. Definitely really interesting to see how the resolution on this handheld is handled when adapting this type of game. While I think it doesn’t work at all at the end of the day, mainly because of how it handles combat (quick time events I think would’ve been better, lol), this definitely deserves to be a part of a little showcase of what the Game Boy Color tried to do.

Aesthetically, this is like nothing I've seen before on the Gameboy Color. There is a genuinely impressive atmosphere of gothic mystery established by the incredible backgrounds. (Although strangely most of the game lacks any comparable sound design or music) With a fixed camera in various different positions, your pixelated character sprite changes size as it moves around, which I've never seen some before on a Gameboy game. As interesting as the aesthetics are, however, the gameplay is incredibly frustrating. It can be almost impossible to find the doors you need to go through, as they blend into the muddy backgrounds, and the changing camera angle can be extremely jarring. Additionally, the combat sections are pretty janky, and while ammunition seems plenty in the early game, by the end I was in a position where I had only six bullets and there were more than six enemies, which basically softlocked me. Still, it's worth a play for the atmosphere alone.

Something I will always find kind of amazing is that we got not one, but TWO full-fledged survival-horror titles on a pre-DS era Nintendo handheld, this and a rather notorious Resident Evil spin-off. Now, I realize the company has gotten quite a bit more liberal with what they'll let release on their hardware over the years. Properties such as the mega horny Bayonetta franchise becoming one of their exclusives for example, and even back in the day they'd slip out the occasional M-rated curveball like Conker. Still, it's surprising nonetheless. Not only because they came out during a time when the Japanese juggernaut's identity and family-friendliness were as synonymous as peanut butter and jelly, but due to the technical limitations developers would have had to work around as well.

Shockingly enough, The New Nightmare on GBC offers a pretty solid imitation of what was going on with the genre on home consoles during that period. Using tricks like screen changes to simulate transitions between fixed camera angles and craft faux 3D environments. There are even tank controls in the combat scenarios. It follows the expected formula of exploring environments for items that will either help you solve puzzles or refill your ever-dwindling supply of ammunition and health potions in preparation for the next monster attack, so it captures a nearly identical feel to its obvious inspirations.

Unfortunately, the ambition of this (otherwise fairly successful) attempt to recreate a PS1/Dreamcast caliber experience on far less powerful technology exceeds the ability of said far less powerful technology in a few crucial ways related to the gameplay and presentation. For one it's ugly as sin. The backgrounds often look like pixelated garbage and protagonist Edward Carnby somehow ended up resembling a child's bad Microsoft Paint project. More critically however is the severe lack of atmosphere. There's no music outside of cutscenes, which makes it really jarring whenever they do occur, so you're largely wandering about in silence for the majority of the adventure, preventing any air tension from forming. That paired with how enemy confrontations work means the fear factor you'd hope for is sadly missing.

You do experience a degree of apprehension upon entering a new area, but that's more the result of a questionable design decision/flaw more than anything. I think most know careful inventory management is a huge part of these type of games as you struggle to not run out of bullets or wind up without so much as a band-aid to cover your wounds. Traditionally, to contend with their limited quantities you are given the option to try and avoid any deadly creatures you come across. Yet, that isn't the case here. Foes are hidden behind JRPG-style random encounters that are always announced via dialog that keeps the appearance of these threats from being able to scare you and renders costly confrontations with them unavoidable. You're regularly forced to burn through your precious reserves and this is particularly problematic in the second-half where replenishments aren't as plentiful. I actually had to restart from the beginning on my first attempt through of this because I simply had nothing reload my guns with anymore. The tragic consequence of venturing into too many rooms comprised solely of ambushes.

Luckily, the frustration such a fault could have brought is alleviated by the "Nightmare's" relatively short, breezy nature and the fact that you have the ability to save your progress at any point and pick up from the exact place you left off. A feature that wasn't even terribly common in many GBA releases. Overall, this may not be great, but is made noteworthy thanks to the impressive feats it accomplishes under the restrictive confines of Nintendo's first full color handheld. I can't truly recommend it for entertainment value alone, as it's admittedly somewhat low on that. Rather, the novelty of how well it mimics its big brother, which had homes on systems like the PS2, provides enough reason to check it out.

6.9/10

(GBC version)
It's a very impressive achievement for the system, especially since this was actually released unlike the port of RE1. There is a certain charm that I find with pixelated horror games, and this is no exception.
For the most part it plays just fine too, although the battle sections aren't too fun and certain items are barely used. Thankfully the game is rather easy and short.
If there is one complaint I have, it's the fact that due to the battles not being very good to control, you can easily not have enough ammo for the final boss and get softlocked at the end. Like, what the hell.

Early horror demake that you could play for the novelty of what it does on the Game Boy Color platform, try its full-sized console versions, or skip over without too much consequence.

No doubt about it: what you want is the Dreamcast version. It has the highest resolution, smoothest mechanics, and it's good because it's on the Dreamcast. The PSX version, meanwhile, is a scrubber, lower framerate version and even the PS2 and PC copies, handled by a different studio entirely, are junky and lower resolution, lower color palette copies.

Failing all that, there is the Game Boy Color version, now made available on the Switch, which is one of the many peculiar releases Nintendo have put on their online service. This is, however, the second version you could play, if you wanted to play this game.

"Hey, what the hell was that? Looks like trouble... better be ready for anything!" goes the game between every. single. combat. segment. There are a good handful of those and they're all exactly the same -- dropped into an isometric perspective, you shoot a few varieties of enemies and then go back to the adventure segment of the game... a less actionable approach would suit the hardware here.

What we're thinking about here, no doubt, is always the hardware: either how the game is pushing the limitations of the Game Boy Color, or how the game is limited by them. It goes in turns. There's some special small stuff: some effects, cross-hatched shading, simple bits of 8-bit geometry expanded into compact, generally readable rooms.

Shockingly it moves through the game mostly the same as the console versions, with a fixed camera, and a character that can move across all planes in faux-3D movement. Like the cancelled and much-discussed Resident Evil for Game Boy Color, there is a cool novelty to this sensation of a demake of a technically already unoptimized game, shoved onto strictly limited hardware.

The solutions given are surprising, in the adventure segment. It's often damn hard to get your barrings, so often this aesthetic approach is overstated with positivity. These games are also already hard to navigate on consoles. So, you can imagine that on a smaller room, with one-second bursts of rooms and disorienting always-shifting perspective at a small scale, the game is always throwing you for a loop.

What begins very promising, with a fairly faithful rendition of the part from the initial airplane landing, done through read text this time, which is maybe better than on Dreamcast, where characters talk, but their mouths don't move -- I must talk but I have no mouth -- but then, reading anything on the Game Boy is an ordeal.

What makes it possibly a deal-breaker is that the game flashes every couple seconds as you move from environment to environment. While the path to the mansion and sometimes the interiors of that space itself are fairly clear and readable, that's absolutely not true of later stages. Given this demade translation to a smaller screen, eventually we get to listless mazes and corridors that work hard against the perspective. It's good that besides the signposted combat sections, nothing is quite a danger to us, as trying to navigate and survive, would make this an impossible videogame.

What sells the game, and these are small and isolated moments, are flashes of what demade survival horror could possibly be with infinite resources and committed development time on an early handheld. There are minor suggestions of jumpscares, things passing by windows, small artifacts of environmental horror, which are just really astounding details to fit on the Game Boy Color.

The best way to play the game is probably to just tinker around with it for a little while and do some of the preliminary adventure sections. Find those keys and crowbars, explore the mansion, and then maybe put it away as a technical novelty that outshone the possibilities of the platform, but is fairly daunting to play today. Then check out the Dreamcast version, which is still not a good videogame, but is also pushing the hardware.

An absolute graphical marvel for the hardware! Right off the bat, the character scaling as Carnby moves from the background to the foreground is legitimately stunning, I've never seen anything like this on GBC before. It even plays semi-competently as an adventure game, but a lack of a scrolling camera quickly becomes an issue. The edge of each screen is hyper-sensitive, any touch in the general area will take you to the next screen. In classic survival-horror fashion, each bit of a room or hallway is viewed at a different angle, so keeping your bearings can be frustrating, and getting a sense of the space you're in is often difficult. Also, combat is done with random encounters for some reason?? My guess is they didn't have the storage space for size-scaling sprites for enemy characters, so instead of having them move across the more impressive pre-rendered backgrounds, you enter a JRPG-esque battle arena when it's fightin' time.

I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone with NSO play this for a bit, there's a good chance you've never played anything quite like it! It's a bit too obtuse to recommend finishing, I tapped out after about an hour of screwing around and getting lost, but I had a good enough time with it. More weird stuff like this on NSO please!!