A "childhood guide" given to you by a group of old men who love retro games.
In 2019, we once promoted the book "The Visual History of Red and White Machines", and in the comments section of that issue, the highest praise belonged to another legendary model from Nintendo, the Game Boy.
Born in 1989, this small handheld machine, thanks to its lightweight, portable, high-quality design, once launched, successfully entered the streets of the world. Starting with Super Mario Andys, to Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda, and more, many young players are inspired by classic games on Game Boy.
People who grow up now may not remember the games they played as a child, but they will always remember the name of Game Boy.
That's the most fascinating aspect of Game Boy's history, a history of gaming and handhelds that have made each other happen.
Now, someone has collected these historical relics for us and compiled them into this "GAME BOY Complete Archive". This may be a good choice for players who want to get back their childhood memories.
The 320 pages of GAME BOY Complete Archives are printed on coated paper, and the color and clarity are biased towards the hardcover magazine or illustrated book, which is very practical to hold in the hand. The cover is designed in original Japanese after translation, and each year from 1989 to 2003, a cassette of a special work was chosen as a representative of the cassette, such as 1991's Legend of the Sacred Sword, 1996's Pokémon Blue, and 2000's Metal Gear Phantom Tower.
You can count and have a few of your own favorites
The book is roughly divided into four sections: hardware equipment, game software, thematic topics, and software search forms.
Hardware devices mainly introduce six generations of devices from the classic Game Boy to the Super Game Boy. This part is not too long, but fortunately, the fuselage, packaging box, equipment parameters and other information that is usually difficult to find are displayed, supplemented by text introductions and some advertising poster design, which is enough to satisfy the curiosity of most friends.
Some poster designs still seem outdated
The more important part is the game software column, "Game Boy Complete Archive" includes about 1200 games that have landed on the Game Boy family, and they are listed separately by year. This information includes the date the game was released, the price, the publisher, the livecard of the cassette cover, and the in-game screenshot.
The editors wrote more or less a brief introduction to each game, and put it away with the intensity of four games on one page - if they encountered a heavier one, they would simply occupy the position of two games to tell readers more about the importance of the game.
If I had to say it, the moment I opened the book, it felt like I was back in the rental card shop in elementary school. The owner of the store took out a thick collection of materials and spread it out in front of your eyes, looking at the variety of game materials, you can't decide which game to let you spend this lazy afternoon with for a while and a half.
These games have all appeared in the 14-year history of Game Boy, and they will more or less have some features that deserve people's attention.
In order to facilitate the query, the side of the book is printed with the year in which the game appeared, and you can directly open the era book you want to see from the side page. At the end of the book, a software search table was also compiled, and in order to facilitate the use of domestic readers, it was also re-sorted in pinyin. All kinds of new and old games are printed with different background colors according to the difference between the universal and exclusive machine.
But to put it this way, Game Boy Complete Archives is at best a good illustrated book. What's interesting about this book is that the editors are very happy to stuff some game accessories, advertising design, and limited mainframe introductions in the corners and corners. This part, known as the feature, is mostly hidden at the end of each vintage, and while rare, it reads enough to be evocative.
A page introducing accessories around the Game Boy
Overall, this Game Boy Complete Archive is a very comprehensive "database" of Game Boy and its game ecology, containing clear graphics and text materials that are precious enough today. For readers, it's not only suitable for a dictionary-style book collection, but also for occasionally flipping through previous retro games, and maybe taking some inspiration from interesting settings.
As for the retro game hobby club signed by the author, it is from a group of fans in Japan who specialize in retro games. The detailed information, pictures, various types of text and product information in the book must have been selected with considerable effort. When you hold the heavy book in your hand, you must be able to feel their heavy heart connected to game Boy.
GAME BOY Complete Archives is also available in our Research Mall, where you can go to the mall to buy and get a more detailed introduction to this book.