Game Boy Works reminds you that rare doesn't always mean good

Fish Dude is the collector's bubble in a nutshell. Crab shell? Whatever.

Last week, we explored the insanity of the price bubble that currently affects the retro gaming collectors scene, and here we have a perfect case-in-point: Fish Dude for Game Boy. It's a little nothing of a game, reminiscent of Shark! Shark! for the ancient Intellivision — not really the kind of play experience kids were hunting for in the early ’90s. And it's called "Fish Dude." Come on.

So, practically no one bought Fish Dude, and the few people who did presumably didn't take good care of it. And now, here we are: Fish Dude stands as one of the rarest Game Boy releases in the world, at least in its complete version. When the full set sells, it sells for massive amounts of cash… but it almost never goes up for auction, because it's so scarce. I've been hunting for the complete game for years, literally, even talking to people who have near-complete collections of the Game Boy library. And each and every one of them has shrugged and said, "Sorry, man."

Freaking Fish Dude. I tell you what.

Anyway. Given the unique status of this game in the console's library, and the vexing relationship I've had with the game (it's the reason Game Boy World output has slowed to a crawl this year — I was hoping to drum up a copy of the box somehow), I decided to put a little extra effort into this episode to mark the occasion. Please enjoy.