The Game Boy games of March 19-29, 1991, were R-Type, Fastest Lap, Family Jockey, and Gem Gem.
R-Type (Bits/Irem) (March 19th)
A port of the 1987 arcade hit. Although the move to Game Boy obviously comes at the cost of any colors, the game does a remarkable job of otherwise preserving the look and feel of the arcade version. It helps that R-Type was always a slower shmup, so there’s less screen blur than in similar games and the narrower playspace compared to something like Gradius leaves more room for sprite detail. The sound could be better, but you can’t have everything.
R-Type was a hit with critics on basically every platform it ever released on. Although the Game Boy version ranks decently behind the near-90% averages of some 90s home console and PC versions, its 80% score is only barely behind the arcade original by MobyGames’ estimation. That’s also good enough to be the #16 game on Game Boy. Wikipedia cites a 1992 source as saying it sold ‘squillions’ on this system, so the success wasn’t limited to critics.
In Japan, the ever-pessimistic Famitsu went for a 25/40, but Family Computer came in at the higher end of their scale with a 21.9/30. Given all the other ports, this version is unsurprisingly not often played today.
Rating: 3. It’s really impressive for what it was, but you could play better handheld versions on Switch, Steam Deck, or mobile today.
Fastest Lap (KID/VAP) (March 20th)
I’m kind of fascinated by all the F-1 games because I was under the impression that it didn’t get popular in the US or Japan until the last few years. This is yet another F-1 sim, and it didn’t even bother releasing in Europe, the home of most fans. It’s also the title most deserving of being called a ‘sim’ so far, with even an exhibition race giving you access to three practice qualifiers before the main event and the option to tune your car before all four possible events. Once you’re actually driving, it’s the fastest top-down racer I’ve seen so far, but makes two critical mistakes. First, the track takes up nearly the entire screen most of the time, so you often have no reference point to provide a sense of speed. Second and more importantly, there’s no track map and the turn indicators come at you quickly, so you’ll need to memorize the track in order to drive a good lap.
Critic reviews averaged out to 76%, although none of the ones MobyGames cites really say anything useful about the game. The two user reviews there absolutely despise it, but seem to be outliers next to the 26 reviews on GameFAQs that average out to about a 70%. Japan does not seem to remember this game for anything other than the music, which was done by Nobuyuki Shioda, a composer I’ve never heard of who seems to be decently well-known there.
Rating: 2.
Family Jockey (Use Corp/Namco) (March 29th)
This is somehow the first horse racing game on Game Boy. It’s a port of a 1987 Famicom game that had an extra gambling-focused mode, but that was removed for the handheld version. What’s left is a relatively simple racing game that is all about mashing A at the right times to preserve your stamina. It’s pretty boring.
The game never released outside Japan, but did well with critics there. Famitsu gave a 26/40 and Family Computer a 20.8/30. Both scores were lower than those outlets gave to other versions, and much lower than what PC-Engine reviewers gave to that port, but decent relative to other GB games. Despite having a sequel on GB and there being dozens of newer Japanese horse racing games, it is still getting gameplay videos and atwiki reviews of it are positive.
Rating: 2. I think it’s bad, but it clearly has fans.
Gem Gem (Graphic Research/Vik Tokai) (March 29th)
A game that probably resulted in a lot of disappointed kids. It came in a box that screamed Dragon Quest or Zelda, but it’s actually a puzzle game about rotating the tile you’re standing on in order to move through a maze. Combat is limited to rock, paper, scissors against monsters. It has decent music and nice enough graphics, but is very boring.
The first Japanese result for this game was a very positive review that claimed it was held it high regard, but there’s very little else about it in any language. I saw one other positive post and one information snippet, but otherwise that’s pretty much it. Quite forgotten.
Rating: 1.
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