September 1991 was the biggest month so far for North American Game Boy game debuts. Technically one of these is also a PAL debut since neither lists a specific day, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that one landed in NA first.
Crystal Quest (Nova Logic/Data East)
A port of a 1987 Mac game. It was apparently one of the first games to use color on the Mac II and is best remembered for that, so porting it to a monochrome system was certainly a choice. It plays like a really simple version of Geometry Wars and has no sound other than for shooting and destroying enemies. The enemy explosion sound turns off all other sound when it plays and, at least in my setup, is mono despite the shooting sounds being stereo. It’s not a good sound.
The game got mostly positive reviews on other systems, but the Game Boy version only managed a 48% on MobyGames. Despite Data East being a Japanese company, it never released outside North America.
Rating: 1
Tecmo Bowl (Sculptured Software/Tecmo)
A port of the 1987 arcade game that was more famous as a 1989 NES game. It uses a TV-like side view rather than the vertical view that previous Game Boy football games tried and is much more playable for it. I couldn’t figure out how passing was supposed to work before I got bored, but it’s at least always clear who has the ball and who you need to be running away from. It also sounds and looks far better than the competition.
Reception was positive, but not to the same extent as the NES version. It averaged a 72% and was typically criticized for being slower and having fewer plays available than its big brother. It released in Japan on September 27th and could technically be a Japanese debut, but I decided to break the tie for NA.
Rating: 3. It’s not necessarily good, but it’s a masterpiece next to the other options.
Navy SEALs (Ocean)
This is based on a movie and may have been a PAL debut. Ocean was a British dev, but Wikipedia suggests the US debut was on September 1st and MobyGames only lists a US release. At any rate, it’s a fairly standard platformer with decent graphics and sound. The only thing that really stands out is that you have limited ammo, which may be a Game Boy first. Combining that with infinitely respawning enemies was almost as interesting of a decision as the Crystal Quest port.
It averaged a 72% from 12 reviews on MobyGames, but they were very polarized reviews. The only review that says anything useful in a language I can read is from Total!! UK, who used a lot of words to say that it doesn’t do anything interesting. From their screenshots, it also seems like there’s only one enemy type in the whole game.
Rating: 1
Gauntlet II (Eastridge/Mindscape)
Yet another port. This time, it’s a 1986 arcade classic. The Game Boy version removes all the color, and nearly all of the sound, but did at least retain four player co-op via Game Link. MobyGames has it at a 71% average from 13 critics, which is only 6% behind the game’s overall average. That’s pretty shocking to me considering how it compares to the arcade, but contemporary critics were impressed that nearly all of the content and the 8-directional movement made the transition.
Rating: 1. I guess this was impressive for 1991, but there’s no novelty to portable Gauntlet anymore.
Spot: The Video Game (Software Creations/Virgin)
A game that sounds like a movie license but is actually a marketing ploy for 7-Up soda. It’s a two or four player board game where each player starts in the corner and can place a piece adjacent to any of their other pieces each turn. If you place a piece next to an enemy piece, you flip it. The winner is whoever is the last with remaining pieces.
The game had respectable reviews on most systems considering that it’s a soda license. The Game Boy version got 70% from four contemporary reviews, none of which are archived to be able to check what they liked about it. It got a Japanese release in 1992, but I couldn’t find anything useful about it in that language either. Seems largely forgotten.
Rating: 1
Altered Space (Software Creations/Sony)
The title is technically Altered Space: A 3-D Alien Adventure, but that’s too long. It’s arguably the first isometric Game Boy game unless you count Marble Madness. The graphics are extremely impressive next to the competition, but that comes at the expense of minimal sound and the isometric genre’s eternal struggle with intuitive controls. Luckily, the punishment for death is almost non-existent, so falling into the spike pit here either because of the controls or because it looks like a floor texture is not a big deal. Gameplay is basically just a series of puzzle rooms.
It got a 73% average from 7 Western reviews, with critics predictably divided on whether the controls were great or terrible. User reviews are dire on both MobyGames (1.4/5) and GameFAQs (2.22/5). It did get a Japanese release, but may have been a limited production there. Resale carts are pretty expensive and I only found one review, which echoed modern Western players in criticizing its difficulty. English Wikipedia lists Famitsu giving it a very low 19/40.
Rating: 1
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