The first two weeks of February had three Game Boy releases, but they were all games we’ve already covered. That leaves two games on February 21st and three more for tomorrow as the only new Japanese releases for the month.
Ikari no Yousai 2 (Jaleco)
This is the sequel to Fortified Zone, but it was Japanese-exclusive until a retro rerelease in 2025. It’s largely the same idea. You move around some maps that look straight out of Metal Gear and do some top down shooting. The sequel has more weapon variety, but there are no more powerups and the music gets pretty repetitive. I’ll probably go back and finish it.
Contemporary Western reviews were all from German and French outlets and all almost exactly 70%. In Japan, it got a 22/40 from Famitsu and an 18.6/30 from Family Computer. It was generally praised for its graphics, but criticized for inconsistent difficulty and not changing enough from the first game. It was released for the 3DS Virtual Console in Japan, which may be why there’s a good amount about it online for how mediocre its original scores were.
Rating: 3
Rolan’s Curse II (NMK/Sammy)
The original Rolan’s Curse was notable for being basically Zelda long before Nintendo got around to that series’ Game Boy debut. The sequel is basically more of that, but it’s not as impressive now that we’ve already seen Seiken Densetsu. It barely has a story and is fairly basic graphically. Movement felt absolutely awful right after Ikari no Yousai 2 since you can’t move diagonally and basically every action locks you in place. “Stiff” does not begin to describe it.
Two German outlets each gave it about a 70% score. GameFAQs has two extremely positive written reviews and quite a few guides. I did not find much from Japan. Gesato had a detailed walkthrough and an unscored review that highlighted the music and QoL improvements, but hated the movement as much as I did. That page also includes an advertisement from release showing that it cost 4,300 yen, which is more expensive than most GB games I’ve seen. Between that and the incredibly high eBay price for the game, I’m guessing it was a limited release that not many people played.
Rating: 1. I’m tempted to give it a point for those high review scores, but the movement is just so bad.
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