Nintendo Virtual Boy Collection, Retrospective, Review, and Best & Worst Games

please enjoy the following video the Virtual Boy arguably Nintendo's biggest failure the poor machine adorned toy store shelves for less than a year before being swept under the proverbial rug virtually forgotten by the masses but to those who know better the Virtual Boy in its miniscule library is completely unique and worth remembering I have a complete North American collection and while many bash Nintendo's crimson gamble is a pure flop I personally like it quite a bit gaming in 3d had always been a dream for Nintendo the secret a pair of oscillating mirrors and a separate image delivered to each eye it was the brainchild of gunpei Yokoi creator of the Metroid and Kid Icarus franchises and venture of the Game Boy and Game & Watch line and manager of Nintendo's research and development one team but Nintendo's 3d dream would become something of a nightmare full-color LCD displays would have been ideal but due to exorbitant costs intend Oh opted for the least expensive alternative red LEDs convincing gamers that red games played by hunching over a glorified viewmaster was the next evolution in gaming was a tall order a problem made worse by consistently mixed reviews and reports of headaches players of the Virtual Boy may experience certain side effects eyestrain headaches nausea dry mouth confusion or stiff muscles dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing discontinue use of the Virtual Boy if any of the following occur long range projectile vomiting perpetual diarrhea leaky skin or bleeding of the eyes severe liver problems sometimes fatal were reported nevertheless Nintendo released the Virtual Boy on August 14th 1995 I remember seeing kiosks at Target and scratching my head but now when I press my eyes and divisor and experience the only genuine uncompromised 3d effect in gaming history I can understand the virtual boys allure all systems have their share of peculiarities but the virtual boy seems like a Frankensteinian composite of every bass awkward for Huy Rd Nintendo could brainstorm read games an awkward wiry stand ambidextrous controllers this thing an unused two-player expansion port and being marketed as portable no and no it seems like the boys at rd1 were writing the magic warp pipe through the Mushroom Kingdom if you know what I mean the box art is surprisingly good for most games most games for some reason Nintendo went with this red and blue motif that I've never really liked the games however came with these cool little dust covers sleek and snug the virtual boys library slowly trickled out over an eight month period in many ways these 14 games feel like glorified tech demos and prototypes rushed to release but there are a few truly fun games as you might imagine it's notoriously difficult to capture footage from the Virtual Boy so before I go on I want to thank yo Han Oberg for graciously allowing me to use his so here are my quick opinions and my rankings of each game I'll rate each game on a scale between 1 and 5 virtual boys and between 1 and 5 money bags for price let's go no Virtual Boy I'm gonna do this part number 14 verse ball there's not much to say about this game it's a baseball game it's a lot like the 1975 World Series Reds vs. Red Sox this is just bare-bones baseball no tension no excitement no frills and no fun it's pretty bad number thirteen Waterworld Waterworld is one of the rarer games on the system it's rare because it's a failed game on a failed console based off one of the biggest failures in celluloid history the shallow gameplay has you rescuing drowning red people who are doing jumping jacks in the tar black ocean by killing jet skiers not fun let him drown number 12 golf golf which despite some very impressive 3d should have been called 18 holes on Mars or maybe more fittingly Li Trevino's bloody massacre I mean look at the title screen it's too long to play in the hunched over position required and screams read more than any other game on the system the game is just golf number 11 Nestor's funky bowling its stars Nestor from Nintendo power and it is bowling but there's nothing special about it and I'm clueless as to why they call it funky it's not a bad diversion but aside from Nestor's animations it's not particularly fun number 10 the red alarm red alarm is a wire-framed polygonal 3d shooter in the vein of starfox but once the novelty wears off you realize it isn't fun where the heck am I going is this a wall or an opening without textures the game is terribly frustrating nearly unplayable I can see what they were trying to do but unfortunately I can't see what I am trying to do still it's worth checking out some people really love it number nine 3d Tetris this spatially cerebral puzzler was the last virtual boy game released in North America the game essentially involves putting strangely-shaped blocks in a box it's not horrible and it has an interesting concept but it starts off slow and never hooked me the way other tetris games have number eight panic bomber panic bomber is a puzzle game loosely linked to Bomberman it's actually pretty good with a sort of adventure mode in boss battles but it doesn't lend itself to 3d and therefore it seems kind of pointless on a system that was built from the ground up with 3d in mind number seven in talero boxer talero boxer is a first-person robot boxing game with great graphics and interesting controls but unfortunately the gameplay is repetitive every time I play it I'm reminded of punch-out and then I start thinking I'd rather play punch-out what else can I say about a game that makes you want to play another game but as far as Virtual Boy games go I played this one quite a bit number six vertical force vertical force is a vertical scrolling go figure shoot-'em-up that allows you to alternate between two planes of altitude it includes a helper bot powerup and a health meter that's right a health meter in a shooter not typical for a shooter but it's a welcome addition I love shooters and this game is pretty fun but it's not very innovative number five Mario Tennis this was the system's pack in game and it shows off the system's 3d capabilities fairly well as the ball moves between the background and the foreground and though Mario Tennis is simple tennis the pure rkt simplicity and quick matches make it a joy to play number four Jack Brothers Jack Brothers gets collectors all hot under the collar because it's the rarest most expensive game on the system but this Halloweeny floor hopping key collectathon is still pretty fun and other than warioland it's the only game that even resembles an adventure it's expensive but it's pretty good number three Mario clash Mario clash is a pseudo sequel to the classic Mario Brothers arcade game with a 3d twist that allows you to move between the background and foreground and throw shells between the two planes really fun the only downside is that it has quite a few levels and no save feature number two galactic pinball galactic pinball was designed by gunpei Yokoi himself and ooze is a futuristic space alien theme with four unique 3d tables the game is fantastic and full of replayability but it never seems to get the recognition it deserves number one Virtual Boy Wario Land if you've ever played the series on Gameboy you know what to expect but with the multi-layered textures and springs that launched Wario into the back and foreground it uses the 3d to great effect it's refined well designed and super fun too and almost universally lauded as the best game on Virtual Boy worldwide only about a million systems were ever shipped to retail and despite constant markdowns even fewer actually sold the layers of price tags on my system tell the sad story unfortunately gunpei yokoi was blamed for the failure and parted ways with the company he helped bring to greatness even sadder is the fact that Yokoi was killed two years later in a tragic auto accident but the virtual boy lives on thanks to fan sites like Planet virtual bullet cool devices like the flash boy a dedicated homebrew community and gamers that give it a chance to shine I wouldn't take it to a bullfight I'll tell you that

Channel: NESComplex

Views: 36,218

Keywords: virtual boy games, best games, virtual boy, Virtual Boy (Video Game Platform), Virtual Boy Review, Virtual, Review, Collection, NESComplex, NES, Complex, Gunpei Yokoi, Boy, wario Land, Galactic Pinball, Mario Clash, Jack Bros. (Video Game), Mario's Tennis (Video Game), Teleroboxer (Video Game), Nester's Funky Bowling, Panic Bomber, Water World, Golf, Virtual League Baseball, Red Alarm, Vertical Force (Video Game), 3D Tetris (Video Game), Retrospective, top 10, nintendo, nintendo 64

Id: kbnDfS6zj-A

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 12 2014