Super Game Boy

[Enduro75]

Currently playing this.... Its the nes port and I never could beat the final boss on the nes game

 

I'm a bit rusty... I'm way off the final boss now! ... 

Edited April 5, 2022 by Enduro75

[johannesmutlu]

Back then i liked the supergameboy on paper but once i tryed it by myself, i conclude that it doesn’t add much value to your games or the snes itself,you can have only 4 colors atonce on screen during gameplay and it definitely feels like a downgrade to your snes,also those background borders from supported games does not add any value to those games, the supergameboy feels nothing more then just a gimmick,only space invaders fully utelized the supergameboy’s full capability by running the game into snes mode, i wish that those donkeykong land turn into 16bit on the supergameboy but nope,

now if sprites could,ve been colorized individually from backgrounds, then i would,ve liked the supergameboy much more,

yes i do own one but i only used it for once in a while but that’s it.

Edited April 5, 2022 by johannesmutlu

[Tanooki]

And with that you'd be wrong.

 

It does add a lot, just not in your singular use.  Sure you can only have 4 colors, but that's the reality of a 4 mono shaded GB game will allow for.  The thing is, the obvious one, a lot of people aren't handheld gamers or can't be due to the small and piss poor ghosting screen the old system had.  Having that blown up on tv with a super comfy SNES controller makes a huge library of games instantly easy to see, easy to hear, and very very accessible to anyone.

 

But the other overly obvious bit, it does add... a lot, there are 100s of SUPER Gameboy enabled games.  They do run sadly a spectrum of halfassery up to some epic stunts.  The cheap side you get a basic MS paint quality border and a minimal four color splash to the game just so they can include the 'works on SGB' icon.  But quite a few games they usually doubled the color, minimally...some added 3x or more the color because there were qualified tricks you could do because of how sprites and backgrounds work on the GB.  You aren't stuck with picking 4 shades and that's it, done.  Uniquely you can ration off sections of the screen at various background and sprite layers and give each of those up to 4 colors.  Obviously the seller for the system Donkey Kong(94) was the obvious because you had like 10-12 colors going on the various map screens and in a few other spots.  Other games like the SNK neo geo ports that Takara did this too.  You'd have your life/stats bar a set of colors, then the sprites had their 4, and the background had another 4.

On top of colors, the system also allowed for clean digital samples made the SNES sound chip, quite a few games had some clear voices or sound effects the GB alone would not do.  The wind on the map in Kirby's Dream Land 2, Pauline screaming HELP! in DK, called moves from Takara fighters in battle are some examples.

 

And finally you could put a whole added game on there, only Space Invaders did it, but you had a SNES only booting copy of the old arcade game to play, then the SGB enabled version of the game, and then the old gameboy black and white version so it was a 3 pack.

[qrysdonnell]

I had one at the time and I enjoyed it then. Keep in mind playing games on a Gameboy was kind of painful. And it's not the sort of old school pain where you didn't know it sucked until something better came along. The screen was hard to deal with at the time. The Donkey Kong game was the only one that really unlocked the potential on it and was always my preferred way to play that title. If I was a click-bait YouTuber I'd say that this was the original Nintendo Switch!

[Tanooki]

Weird, but I guess in a loose sense.  I mean you do techncally dock a gameboy (full chipset within the cart shell) into the SNES as a beefed up passthrough to the screen.  But by that logic, then the GB Player on Gamecube would be Switch beta 2? (and the ratty PiiU a beta fork that sucked balls, they killed.)

 

It's too bad more SGB games didn't get more effectively used, a few did, but not always coming overseas outside Japan, or in the case of Space Invaders it did and then hid an actual SNES ROM on there too making it like a 3pack.

[+atari2600land]

I like my Super Game Boy. It makes seeing the Game Boy's screen easier. But it does have its faults:

- it apparently overclocks the Game Boy a little. This messed up my timing while playing Wario Land once. I had to beat the level I kept dying on on a real Game Boy.

- no Game Genie support. Why did Nintendo hate the Game Genie so much as to make it incompatible with the Super Game Boy?

[Tanooki]

5 hours ago, atari2600land said:

I like my Super Game Boy. It makes seeing the Game Boy's screen easier. But it does have its faults:

- it apparently overclocks the Game Boy a little. This messed up my timing while playing Wario Land once. I had to beat the level I kept dying on on a real Game Boy.

- no Game Genie support. Why did Nintendo hate the Game Genie so much as to make it incompatible with the Super Game Boy?

Yes it's off by a few percent, barely noticeable other than by speed runners and those susceptible to small changes in motion and audio, then it's an issue.  Recently a pet project was put out that you can repair the clock issue with running a very VERY basic part you solder directly to the board with just a few drops of it.  I did it to mine just because it felt like the right thing to do as the part is super cheap.  https://www.tindie.com/products/qwertymodo/super-gameboy-clock-mod/

 

Game genie is no loss.

[Cobra Kai]

Super Gameboy is terrific! It addressed everyone's main gripe  about the handheld, BACKLIGHT. 

[M-S]

On 7/19/2022 at 6:43 PM, atari2600land said:

I like my Super Game Boy. It makes seeing the Game Boy's screen easier. But it does have its faults:

- it apparently overclocks the Game Boy a little. This messed up my timing while playing Wario Land once. I had to beat the level I kept dying on on a real Game Boy.

- no Game Genie support. Why did Nintendo hate the Game Genie so much as to make it incompatible with the Super Game Boy?

There's no way a Super Nintendo Game Genie would work on what was essentially a Game Boy inside a cartridge, you can use a Game Boy Game Genie but you need an adapter because of physical limitations.

 

13 hours ago, Cobra Kai said:

Super Gameboy is terrific! It addressed everyone's main gripe  about the handheld, BACKLIGHT. 

It sacrificed portability for the sake of having the biggest GB screen before the GBP and emulation.

On 7/18/2022 at 6:28 PM, Tanooki said:

Weird, but I guess in a loose sense.  I mean you do techncally dock a gameboy (full chipset within the cart shell) into the SNES as a beefed up passthrough to the screen.  But by that logic, then the GB Player on Gamecube would be Switch beta 2? (and the ratty PiiU a beta fork that sucked balls, they killed.)

If you connect a SGB and a GB with a link cable you would essentially have a setup like the Wii U or GC linked to a GBA.

One thing people seem to forget is that the Super Game Boy wasn't simple GB hardware, some games had custom color palletes instead of just 4 tones, the borders and the resolution were also above the capabilities of the original system, it was basically prototype GBC hardware, and it went full circle with the second version that came out exclusively in Japan.

The problem is that nothing after that came close, there were a few unlicensed accessories for PS1, N64 and GC that used emulation, the Gameboy Player was functional, but wasn't as pratical as the plug and play of the SGB and didn't had the same personality, and aftermarket adapters have their own problems, the "Super Retro Advance" by Retro-Bit was one of the first atempts of cloning the GBA, so compatibility and quality were very low, and there's a recent adapter called GB Boy Adapter, that has exactly the same hardware inside as the clone of the same name that unfortunately displays a 4:3 image. 

Edited July 21, 2022 by M-S

[Tanooki]

@M-S Oh yeah I know that.  I never cared to link up so the SGB2 was only a passing interest because of the timing fix, but well that's moot with my quick under 5min soldering job.

 

The device is rather sweet, the fact that a decently long list of first party published (but not always Nintendo made, like SF2) have custom changing palettes by the screen, section, arena, etc.  It's just like they did once more again on the GBC too, didn't advertise it on that one, but that first time you pop in like Kirby and he's suddenly pink with various colors slapped on the background and you have that WTF moment... suddenly you start popping in every cart you have and realize like SGB the published by Nintendo games got special treatment.

 

You're right nothing did it right, other than the GB Player which was like SuperGB the sequel basically to cover the Advance.  All those unlicensed things from that decade and since have been garbage fires, bad emulation, some having no audio at all for some idiotic reasoning, etc.  Just bad.

[M-S]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

@M-S Oh yeah I know that.  I never cared to link up so the SGB2 was only a passing interest because of the timing fix, but well that's moot with my quick under 5min soldering job.

 

The device is rather sweet, the fact that a decently long list of first party published (but not always Nintendo made, like SF2) have custom changing palettes by the screen, section, arena, etc.  It's just like they did once more again on the GBC too, didn't advertise it on that one, but that first time you pop in like Kirby and he's suddenly pink with various colors slapped on the background and you have that WTF moment... suddenly you start popping in every cart you have and realize like SGB the published by Nintendo games got special treatment.

The SGB 2 was released in 1998, a time when only Visual Novels were releasing for the SFC in Japan, it should have been released for the N64, but Nintendo considered it too much of a flop to make, there was a prototype for it, but it was only made so the media could record and take screenshots. Releasing another adapter only for the Gamecube was a mistake since it uses disks instead of cartridges, not that the expansion ports are used for much other than the GBP, but needing a disc for using it is inconvenient.

[Tanooki]

Can't say I agree about the using of discs but either way, it's easily circumvented with a few very cheap options these days that won't require optical so there are work arounds.