Virtual View

10 Virtual Boy Games Worth Playing

Although the Virtual Boy may be hated by many gamers, it’s really only the hardware they hate. The games the Virtual Boy has are actually great and deserve to be played by more people. You don’t even have to own the system to play the games, since emulation is available. I asked Planet Virtual Boy to help me with this blog and I was able to make a list from their community’s suggestions of 10 games worth playing.

Before I start talking about the 10 games there were 7 games that received votes, but not enough to appear on the list.

V-Tetris:
Basically Tetris with a new mode that allows you to clear lines around a cylindrical playing field.

Mario Clash:
A remake of the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. in the third dimension. The game has more enemies like Para-Goombas and Boos. Also the game never ends; how high of a score can you get?

SD Gundam Dimension War:
A turn based strategy game by Bandai, in which you try to defeat your opponents. Once you encounter them, you fight.

Space Invaders Virtual Collection: 
Although it’s basically the classic 1978 game, this version has a virtual 3D mode and challenge mode available.

Blox:
Blox was created by KR155E and plays similarly to Sokobon and The Adventures of Lolo games. You have to move boxes around so they are in the target tiles. Although that may sound simple, it gets more and more difficult as you progress. Depending on the difficulty you choose you will be playing through 10-30 levels, and if you want to end your game, passwords are available.

Blox 2: 
The sequel to KR155E’s homebrew game, Blox 2 plays similarly to its predecessor but adds 3D backgrounds, music, cheats, and over 1000 levels. The game even has an introduction story and language selector. For being a hombrew game, Blox and Blox 2 show how much lover there is for the Virtual Boy.

Jack Bros.: 
You pick between one of three Jack Bros.: Jack Frost, Jack Lantern, and Jack Skeleton (Ripper), each with their own weapon. Frost gets snowballs, Lantern gets fireballs, and Skeleton gets a knife. Each character has their own attributes too. The game has a shorter length with experienced gamers being able to beat the game in about 2 hours.

 

With those games out of the way, now onto the actual list. These games are in order by how many votes they received. Also, the gameplay footage of Virtual Boy games is difficult to do, so videos showing footage of the games will look fuzzy. When playing the games on the actual console, the image is very crisp and clear.

Behold the Virtual Boy’s big game. The second game in the popular Wario Land series, you play as the fat garlic loving Wario on another journey to get as much treasure as you can. The game may only have 14 levels, but it has multiple endings and two difficulty modes.

The game has excellent controls, great scaling 3D effects (if you’re playing on the Virtual Boy), and is full of secret rooms to find.

The console’s pack-in game has 7 playable characters, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. A few playing options are available like being able to pick singles or doubles in either tournament mode or 1 vs COM. Characters are well animated and have different animations depending on what happens.

Once called Space Ball, this was one of the launch titles and is loved by fans of the Virtual Boy. Although it may seem like your typical Pinball game, just in black and red, Galactic Pinball offers you 4 space themed tables, each with different gimmicks and obstacles in them. The game even has a save feature that saves the top 5 scores.

This unreleased game has a rather large following in the Virtual Boy community. It was planned to be released in August of 1996 but the VB was discontinued in March of the same year. The game was even finished too.

You play as Chalvo, a robot who is after alien invaders that plan to destroy the Earth. You destroy the aliens on a playing field by landing on them and then throwing them off the field. The game has 4 modes to choose from: Adventure of Chalvo, Score Attack, random game, and Pocket and Cushion. The game has a password feature and excellent 3D effects if you’re playing on the console.

If you like 2D space shooters like Zanac or Gradius, you’ll love Hudson Soft’s Vertical Force. You have a life bar which lets you take damage rather than dying in one hit like most games of the same genre. Also you still have upgradable weapons and multiple difficulties. Each level has a cutscene that has great 3D effects if you’re playing on the system, along with a good soundtrack. The game may be a bit short for some since it only has 5 levels.

Like Starfox? Or 3D space shooters in general? Although the graphics may look bad with the wire frames, enemies and projectiles are easy to see, and if you’re playing on the Virtual Boy, everything pops out with the excellent 3D the game offers. Like Vertical Force, Red Alarm is on the shorter side with 6 levels total. This was also one of the only Virtual Boy games that used every button on the controller.

Although I talked about this game in my Japanese Virtual Boy games blog I’ll give a brief summary of the game again.

This game takes elements from Pong, Super Glove Ball, and Cosmic Smash in puts them in 1 cartridge. The goal is to defeat your opponent in a game of third person pong. The game has excellent controls and great graphics, but it’s rare.

 

A game that I just received for my birthday, Panic Bomber isn’t a Tetris clone, but more like Puyo-Puyo/Kirby’s Avalanche with Bomberman. Blocks fall down from the top of the screen and you need to place them so that at least 3 identical blocks touch each other either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The more blocks you clear, the more you can screw over an opponent and fill a meter on the right side of the screen. Once full, you get to use a mega bomb to destroy huge chunks of blocks and further screw your opponent over. The loser is determined when the blocks reach the top of the screen. The game has a password feature too.

Teleroboxer takes Punch Out and replaces the human competitors with robots and will be having you fight in a first person perspective. You have multiple moves to perform to defeat the nine competitors which don’t go down without a good fight. The game has great music, excellent graphics, and sweet 3D effects. Like Red Alarm, Teleroboxer uses every single button on the Virtual Boy’s controller.

This would be North America’s final Virtual Boy game, being released in March of 1996, and only in the region. As the name implies, the game is based off the Russian puzzle classic, Tetris. However, this game takes the simple concept of blocks falling and adds an extra dimension. Rather than clearing rows, you clear layers. The camera slowly rotates, letting you see where to place a block along with a radar and shadow to show where the block will land. Although graphically simplistic like most Tetris games, the game has excellent 3D when played on the system.

Contributors:

Special Thanks to Planet Virtual Boy.

Also if you’re interested, checkout Virtual Boy Emulation and the Flash Boy Cartridge.

Thanks for reading my article and feel free to leave a comment. In the next part of the Virtual View series I’ll be reviewing Mario’s Tennis, the pack in game for the Virtual Boy.