I played on Medium difficulty which may have been a mistake. I found this game brutally hard and dying to a pixel perfect jump set me back a lot. The actual game is fun to play though, the movement is decent and eventually you get used to grabbing cliff edges properly. There's a lot of weapons but a lot of them feel similar to each other.
1992
Fun game boy version of the TG16 game. This one is easier than the TG16 version and shorter too. It's always fun to see Bonk go grumpy mode when he eats some meat.
I'm not sure why they made so many of these games, this one felt just like the last two, but now in color. It did feel like it had bigger levels though. Not sure if that's actually true or not.
One of the better licensed titles I've played on the Game Boy. Short, focused platformer with some fun mini-games.
This one is really odd. It's a somewhat ambitious platformer where you wander around a mostly open level looking for items to use in certain places. Almost like a metroidvania, but not as big and more linear. Sometimes you have to use your limited web shots to solve what are almost puzzles but they are not communicated very well. I liked the attempt at making something unique here but it's not great. Having to go gather all your items when you game over is dreadful because you need to die a lot to figure out how you're gonna hang spidey from a web just the right way to get through a roller coaster.
A simple platformer that is really let down by the level design. I have never played a game with so many leaps of faith. Everything feels like it's off screen and then there's this awful auto scrolling level right at the end that requires you to memorize where to jump. Didn't get much out of this one.
1990
A very simple shmup with 6 stages. The boss of the stage 4 is the hardest part by far for some reason. There is very little to say about this game... maybe the most interesting thing about it is that Gunpei Yokoi produced it.
Kind of a janky action platformer that I thought was let down by the level design in later levels and the frustrating web slinging movement. It's a pretty early Game Boy release though and I still had some fun with it.
1990
A short, forgiving platformer where you can fly with a parasol and dodge birds pooping on you. I liked the presentation and game boy charm. I almost had a pacifist run going but you have to attack the final boss and a boulder. It's apparently based on a cartoon I know nothing about, but it's a fun game by itself.
1990
A simple dungeon crawler that's perfect for the game boy. Small maps and quick fights make it easy to pick up and put back down. I played using an English patch and I'm pretty sure it glitched and wiped my save file when I was on the final palace. Oh well, it's a very predictable game, and you get exactly what's on the tin. There are some neat abilities like Substitution where you can make the enemies attack each other. It's crucial to use these abilities until you've grinded your current floor enough. Cool box art too.
1994
It's fun to figure out the levels. You get a surprising amount of movement abilities and mechanics, and there's some clever level design and boss fights. The polish is quite high for a game boy game, lots of animations and flourish. Maybe it's too easy, I ended the game with over 50 lives, but I think being able to just casually play the game without any worries like that is just fine.
I have only played this for the first time recently and it was really stressful at certain parts. Shooting things was really satisfying and I managed to luck my way into getting the best ending on accident. I played as Chris because he's on the fucking cover of the game but all my loser friends tell me I should have picked Jill. OK.
It's too bad this is the last bump combat Ys game (from what I understand), as this was the most fleshed out and enjoyable incarnation of it. It's got cool boss battles, a couple anime cutscenes, glorious classic Falcom CD music, and now a charming fan English dub. Playing this game made me realize the SNES was obsolete earlier than I realized. It's a shame the Turbo CD didn't catch on here in the states.
I just replayed this on a whim to indulge in some nostalgia. It's still quite fun to pick some random pokemon and see how they do against the elite four. Something I didn't notice when I was a kid is that psychic types are so powerful because of a lack of moves that are super effective against them!