Game Boy works returns for a limited birthday engagement
Celebrating two anniversaries in one!
We've already looked back at the 30th anniversary of Nintendo's Game Boy with this week's podcast, but the occasion has a little extra significance for me. After all, on the system's 25th anniversary, I launched myself headlong into the world of being a YouTuber, sort of. I would not exactly consider the Retronauts Video Works channel a giant within the gaming space, but I do publish a video retrospective fitting into a console's chronology every Wednesday. And it all started with Game Boy Works.
I have put Game Boy Works on pause until I finish Virtual Boy Works (which admittedly won't take long), because frankly Virtual Boy was a fancier Game Boy with more eyestrain and less portability. But even so, I felt compelled to mark the channel's anniversary (and Game Boy's) with a one-off return to Game Boy Works, which also marks the beginning of the coverage that will eventually land in the Game Boy Works Vol. III book.
These are not earth-shaking games! But they're not terrible, either. Square Deal is a kind of neat hybrid of card game and puzzle game that combines poker and Puyo Puyo, and if it didn't include such a dramatic difficulty spike a few levels in, I'd actually really enjoy it. Meanwhile, Parasol Henbee is a somewhat rough-hewn platformer that plays like a better version of Chubby Cherub in a lot of ways. It trips over some of its own ambitions, but it's kinda OK-ish?
Anyway, "interesting but flawed" seems very on-brand for Game Boy and my video channel a like, making this a perfect dual-anniversary celebration.
