Saturday, March 17, 2012

Level Up: Game & Watch Gallery 3


If you thought Nintendo’s first handheld games were on the game boy, then you would technically be wrong. Before the Game Boy- heck even before the NES- Nintendo had the Game and Watch series. You might know this name due to Mr. Game & Watch, a fighter in the last two Super Smash Bros. games, but I heard it first on a compilation game. Now, normally, compilation games like this would go in a “collection collection” review, but I have to talk about the history behind the series, so I have enough material here. Let’s look at Game & Watch Gallery 3 for the Game Boy Color.

The Game & Watch series is historic because it’s partially responsible for turning Nintendo from just another game maker into the giants they are today. The series itself consisted of several portable devices, each one with its own game displayed on an LCD screen. The device also had a clock and alarm built in, so we have a “Game” and a “Watch”. Though the games seem simple now, the fact that they were all portable and that most allowed you to adjust the difficulty made these quite noteworthy at the time. (Or, so my research says; I was two years old when they decided to stop production.) Several years later, in 1997, the Game Boy was going strong, and it seemed the Game & Watch series had been forgotten. However, the first Game & Watch Gallery then comes out. Not only did this offer four historic games on one cartridge, but also “modern” remakes of every game using Mario characters. This series would continue for 4 editions (dates and the number of the games change if you’re in Australia).

The first game on this collection is called Egg. The concept is pretty simple: objects will be sliding down, catch them before they hit the ground. The next one is Greenhouse, a game where pests will be after flowers and you have to get rid of them. A thing to note here is that this was originally a dual screen Game & Watch game (it’s like the DS’s Grandfather), and when playing the classic game, you can shift focus (though both screens are always visible). Next up is Turtle Bridge, where you have to try to get a package across a bridge of turtles (or birds in the modern version) that will go away randomly and let you fall if you stay on one too long. Just keep getting packages to the other side and don’t miss your step. The 4th game is actually called “Mario Bros.”, but it has no relation to the arcade game or the Super Mario series. Basically, the two brothers work on an assembly line, and each one needs to be in his proper place when a piece needs to move from one conveyer belt to the next. If a part falls, you get a strike. And lastly, there’s Donkey Kong Jr. It’s simpler than the NES game that carries the same name, but follows the same concept: avoid enemies and get Jr. to save his dad (this version has you navigating the level 4 times to free him once though).

Now, as I’ve already said, this game has both the classic and a “modern” version of each game. Not only does the modern version look better, sound better and run smoother, but there are also extra rules. For example: in modern Mario Bros, Bowser will occasionally reverse the conveyer belts.

But what incentive do you have to play the classic versions if the modern ones are all around better? Well, getting a certain amount of points on each game and each difficulty get you stars. The more stars you have, the more stuff you unlock, which include Game & Watch game info, music and more games. Yeah, Game & Watch Gallery 3 actually has 11 games total, but 6 need to be unlocked and they don’t have modern version of them. Still, it’s worth it.

I am really glad games like this exist: as the Game Overthinker once mused in his “Open the Vault” episode, it allows new gamers to easily experience older games important to the history of the industry, and I think these games are very important to remember. Despite that, they’re now so simple, it makes Game & Watch Gallery 3 into more of a Minigame collection by today’s standards, but a very good one! This edition in the series had almost double the amount of games than the previous installment and the modern versions are incredibly well made bringing a new level of fun to some already great games. Though I sometimes found star collecting to be tedious, it actually made me want to keep playing. I give Game & Watch Gallery 3 for the Game Boy Color 9 levels out of 10.

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