Retro boss fight time! 🎮👾
Today’s clip from Retro Gaming Life showcases a battle from Metroid 2 DX, the Game Boy Color enhanced version of Metroid II: Return of Samus. In this scene, Samus Aran confronts one of the evolving Metroids hidden deep in the caverns of SR388.
Classic atmosphere, intense gameplay, and pure handheld nostalgia.
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World 2-1 gameplay from Super Mario Land in its DX color version on the Game Boy Color!
Classic desert platforming and pure handheld nostalgia.
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World 1-3 from Super Mario Land DX delivers classic castle platforming with lava hazards and flame attacks that keep you constantly moving.
Seeing this Game Boy classic in full color makes the experience feel fresh while keeping that original retro challenge intact.
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One hazy night, while I was a guest in the hospital for reasons I dare not share, I found a Grape Analogue Pocket on Ebay that was far overpriced. I threw in a lowball offer, and had a fitful night of rest. When I awoke, I was surprised to find that the seller had accepted my offer. In a panic, I sent them a message trying to cancel it. After all, I didn’t need a new device to play Gameboy Color games, and cartridges are expensive! Upsetting me at the time, the seller sent me a rude “No” to cancelling it, and shipped it off.
Despite that initial panic and regret, I eagerly awaited the package, and I found some cartridges to play. And I was blown away almost immediately, it felt great (as it should for the price) and the screen was just gorgeous. I didn’t understand how authentic, and incredible, the screen would look in person. The Gameboy Color is my favorite console of all time, and this really feels like the optimal way to play those games.
The Analogue Pocket is an FPGA handheld console, which can play Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance cartridges. The display has a perfect 10x integer scale for Gameboy and Gameboy Color, and it is unlike anything else I have used. It can play a handful of other systems if you buy cartridge slot adapters, however I haven’t dipped my toes into those experiences. And it has OpenFPGA, which I do not use, but I know is a big deal to many people who buy this device. I’m 100% cartridge right now, and for that experience it has been incredible.
While I was waiting for the arrival of my Analogue Pocket, I dug through my garage and found my original copies of Tetris and Pokemon Pinball, and stopped by a local shop to get a few others, mostly focusing on games I had never played before. Namely, the Pokemon: Trading Card Game, which I had been eyeing since I was a kid.
The first thing I did was play Tetris, with the green monotone filter to mimic the original Gameboy, and it was just incredible. Reviews and photos cannot do the screen’s impressive visuals justice. It felt both like I was taken back to my childhood, but also enhanced and modern, in a perfect blend. I’m still just as bad at Tetris as I was back then, maybe even worse now, but I had a huge smile on my face as I did it.
The next thing I did was load up Pokemon Pinball, and I almost cried. My Pokédex completion from playing the game 25 years ago was still there. The rumble still worked, and the game looked perfect. I did not realize how much of this tactile experience I was missing out on with software emulation. Taking carts in and out of the device, blowing on them when there’s some dust, it all feels so real and somehow fun.
Even getting into cart maintenance and repair has been fun. I learned how to solder to replace the battery on The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages since the copy I was gifted wouldn’t save. Opening up cartridges to clean or repair them makes me feel like I’m preserving history.
The Gameboy Advance experience on the Pocket isn’t as good as the Gameboy experience, but I still like it quite a bit. The games look nice, and being able to bind the L and R buttons to where X and Y would be is excellent. The L and R buttons on the Pocket are fairly uncomfortable, but that makes up for it. There is some letterboxing, but I am easily able to ignore that. I would like an Analogue Advance at some point, to make it a bit easier to enjoy GBA games, but they’re still quite good on here.
Overall the Analogue Pocket has been incredible for my mental health, and my focus. I am able to grab a cartridge, and play it, and not worry about what else I could be playing, or have to wade through a huge menu of games to make a decision. It has helped me stay in the moment. The sleep mode also makes it easy to hop in and out to play in short bursts when I have the chance. I have beaten more games in the past month than I did the entirety of 2025.
Hunting for cartridges has also become an activity for my whole family. My wife has a DS Lite that she started collecting DS games for, my kids each got a 2DSXL for Christmas, and they’ve also enjoyed browsing and collecting child appropriate DS and 3DS games.
Unfortunately, here comes the part I have been dreading. As much as I love the Analogue Pocket, I cannot recommend hunting on Ebay and paying scalped prices, and that is the reality of buying one of these right now. Analogue hasn’t has a restock in quite some time, and secondhand prices are going wild. If you want to hunt and hope for a good price, because you love the Gameboy Color like I do, absolutely do that. But if you just want to buy something new that works, I would suggest what I would’ve bought had I not gotten this lucky break, which is the Funny Playing Gameboy Color. That is a different FPGA Gameboy Color, which is probably more than good enough for most people, and I probably would’ve loved it almost as much as I love the Analogue Pocket.
At the end of the day, I do love the Analogue Pocket, it is going to be my companion for the foreseeable future. There are new Gameboy, Gameboy Color, and Gameboy Advance games coming out, and I have so much to explore and collect in that realm, in addition to all of the older cartridges I am also collecting. 2026 is the year of the Gameboy Color in my eyes, and I hope others enjoy it too, in any way they can!
Wario Land 3: A Lesson in Humiliation
(And I kind of liked it?)
Growing up, Wario was such an unappealing character that I completely shied away from his games. No Wario Land series, no WarioWare, until I got gifted a copy of WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the Wii. And I thought it was okay. I didn’t love it; it didn’t ingratiate me to the character of Wario. But Wario Land 3 might have! Not to say he isn’t a foul character, but I now have a fondness for how foul he is. He’s genuinely funny, and I finally understand why he’s become a beloved character.
Unfortunately, Wario Land 3 has not ingratiated me to the Wario Land series. I am sure the other games aren’t exactly the same, I know that many people love Wario Land 4, but Wario Land 3 ultimately lands as a solid “meh” from me, but a “meh” that is so immensely charged with feelings. I want to love Wario Land 3, but I didn’t feel like it loved me back.
[[MORE]]Wario Land 3 feels like an exercise in humiliation training, where you either submit to being humiliated, or quit. When the puzzles were intuitive to me, it was one of the best games I’ve ever played, the game has plenty of highs, but the lows were some of the most infuriating things. I don’t enjoy having to look up the solution to a puzzle, just to find out it’s essentially a 90’s adventure game “try X on Y” situation. And I avoided looking up puzzles as long as I could, I’d try each one for 15-20 minutes before acquiescing. At the start of the game, I had to look up very few puzzles. By the end, I was looking up every third or fourth solution.
The main issue I have is not that the puzzle solutions are even *that* esoteric or hard to figure out, it’s that the game wastes so much of your time between attempts at solving said puzzle. Mess up one, and you’re running around on fire for 30 seconds, dropping back to the bottom of the level, and you must make the climb back once more. The first time, fine. The twentieth? I couldn’t take it. But the game expects you to. It expects you to watch Wario run around on fire, or float to the top of the level in anaphylaxis, before trying again. Wario continues to be humiliated, and by extension, so do I as a player. If I could just get it right, I wouldn’t have my time wasted.
Back onto some positives, visually the game is stunning. The Gameboy Color is already my favorite console, and the art is so expressive and engaging. I am glad to have picked up a copy of Wario Land 3 to see it all in motion, if nothing else. The music was also great (when I wasn’t listening to the ‘running around on fire theme’) and I don’t have anything negative to say about the game’s presentation as a whole. The audiovisual experience is part of why I wanted to love Wario Land 3.
The puzzles were also engaging, when I was able to understand them and execute effectively. And I know a lot of these problems are due to my small brain and aging hands, but I genuinely feel like some of it is significantly too punishing to my time. It’s not a “game over” animation and I start over, it’s watching a fish drag Wario slowly to a current, spitting him back out, and then watching Wario float down the river until I can control him again to try again. The animation is cute, I understand the intent of Wario (basically) never dying, but my god it made anything I didn’t figure out immediately completely infuriating.
I don’t want to sound too down on the game though, I love so many parts of it. I just can’t bring myself to love it as a whole, and the parts I didn’t love weigh heavily on my soul. I did kind of like the experience, and I think the game forced me to enjoy the humiliation by a point, or I would’ve stopped. Wario Land 3 will always be memorable to me, and for that was worth the $35 I spent on the (very nicely maintained) cartridge.
Thank you for reading, I hope that next review makes me significantly less frustrated!
P.S. Fuck that golf minigame, the game would be 30% better without it.
Kirby battles the Stage 4 Boss in Kirby’s Dream Land DX for the Game Boy Color 💗🎮
Retro handheld perfection with DX enhancements.
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Nothing beats classic handheld nostalgia 🎮
Super Mario Land 2 DX brings new color to a timeless Mario adventure on the Game Boy Color. Retro platforming at its finest!
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Taking it back to the Game Boy Color with Kirby’s Dream Land DX – Stage 4 gameplay 💕
Soft colors, charming enemies, and classic Nintendo platforming.
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Redesign of the Sega logo - Mid 1990’s vibes
I added a lot of stripe effects as a tribute to the line art font used for the original logo. Scroll to see a distressed poster version and an ad mockup!
Reimagined Game Boy Color Ad. Full offense to #pantone ’s “color of the year” being white. All colors are welcome here!
I joined two friends in making a little lo-fi walking-sim for a videoclip! Alberto Moscone’s videoclip, edited by the talented Mattia Napoli with illustrations by Valentina Marcuzzo, features a few clips from that pixel world!
You can also actually play the game on my Itch!
Take a stroll down the moody streets of Rome at night - no objectives, no unlockables, no battles - just vibes. This places does not exist, but it also certainly does in my heart.
(Game is in italian only atm, I’d love to make an ENG version)
💊 Dr. Mario DX – Game Boy Color Edition (Retro Gaming Life)
The doctor is in — and this time it’s Dr. Daisy! Watch as she takes on Level 5’s toughest viruses in the colorful, addictive puzzle world of Dr. Mario DX.
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