Game Boy

Benn Venn Game Boy Cart Dumper

Another device I’ve been wanting to get for a while was a Game Boy Card ripper. There are a few varieties of these, but I went with the Benn Venn Joey Jr. The key feature here, is the ability to copy off Saved files. I can get ROMs anywhere, what I really want is to preserve my old Save Files. This device does Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advanced titles.

The most important title worked right off the bat. My original Pokemon Blue is not preserved forever with my original Charizard. There are ways to get these OG Gen 1 Pokemon into modern games I really want to look into next.

Despite that so far I have had hit and miss luck getting things to work, I already wish I had one for the SNES, though those seem to be considerably more expensive. N64 would be nice as well, I’m less worried about my NES carts, most of them don’t really use battery based saves, and I can beat Zelda 1 again in a few hours.

The Benn Venn device is pretty slick. You insert the cartridge, then plug it into a USB Port, and it just shows up like it’s a flash drive. The results have been weirdly hit and miss. Maybe half of my games copied off and the save files loaded no problems. The other half either didn’t get a working save or didn’t even get a working ROM. Two I really care about that did not work that I want to troubleshoot through are Final Fantasy Legend 1, and Zelda Oracle of Ages. The weird thing is, Oracle of Seasons worked just fine.

I even tried some other ROMs of the same game with the save files and no luck yet.

Once the copies are done though, the device still has some fun uses. For one, it lets me dump photos off of my Game Boy Camera. I always have been looking a bit into ways to “hack” the GB Camera with lenses and such, but getting the files off is one important key need. I also want to see if I can write a program that will upscale the files cleanly as they are very tiny images.

I also want to try out what happens when I try to copy TO a cart. It may go immediately nowhere. I don’t have a blank ROM cart, which I will probably get eventually, but I want to try copying to a cart. I have two carts to test. One, I own an extra Pokemon Blue. Maybe I can hack a full Pokedex into the cart. I also have a bootleg Pokemon Emerald, which feels maybe more likely to work.

Either way, something I want to look into is hacking these save files a bit. I want to get my Charizard into my copy of Ultra Moon. I want to add in all the missing Pokemon from Blue. Though maybe not straight add them, try to transplant from a Red save to a Blue save maybe. Maybe these ideas will go nowhere but trying to make it work is like half the fun.

Review – Battle Arena Toshiden (GB)

Jan 28th, 2012

by Ramen Junkie.

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1-2 Players

Fight to be the ultimate fighting master in this uh.. fighting game! I haven’t played any other Battle Arena Toshiden Games, so I can’t really comment on how close this comes.

Graphics: 8/10
Super deformed anime characters all around plus the occasional cut scene sequence. There’s even a nice little animation of Ellis at the beginning. It’s easy to tell your fighter from the other fighter and when a character fights himself the opponent is darker in color. I haven’t played two players ever so I don’t know if the player controlling is always normal colored to themselves. It’s also Super Game Boy enhanced with it’s own border!

Sound: 7/10
A good selection of music is nice, and the sound effects are pretty good. No digitized voices or anything though, all blips and beeps.

Game Play: 7/10
Each character has strengths and weaknesses as should be expected for a good fighting game. However like any good fighting game it can be repetitive as it’s the same thing over and over and over. It’ not too hard though and is fairly easy to get to the later bosses, who are quite a bit more difficult. The text speech between battles is cheesy. There are 8 normal fighters and at least two boss fighters (probably four). I forget if there is a way to play as the bosses.

Overall: 7.3
This is one of my newest Game Boy games, I bought it so I would have a fighter besides Mortal Kombat 2. I’d say it’s pretty good, if you need a Game Boy fighter I would recommend this game.

Tip: I have no tips for this. I don’t even know any moves.

Review – Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge (GB)

May 16th, 2000

by Ramen Junkie.

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Capcom | 1 Player

What’s better than a console Mega Man game? Well not necessarily a portable one, but who am I to say? Too bad they left out Guts man and Bomb man.

Graphics: 7/10

It’s Mega Man, what do you expect? Well ok, the Blue Bomber is now the Grey Bomber and he doesn’t change color when a different weapon is equipped. The sprites seems big as well, which is a plus and a minus. Plus, they are easy to see, there are less per screen, you don’t have to navigate for a mile to exit the screen, ect. Minus because, it’s hard to dodge? I suppose they may seem weird next to a NES Mega Man game.

Sound: 6/10

No new music really, it’s just rehashed from Mega Man one on NES. I guess Elec Man’s theme will always be Elec Man’s theme. The sound effects are Ok I suppose, nothing spectacular.

Gameplay: 8/10

Well, like I said, it’s Mega Man. Despite being almost identical to every other Mega Man game, it’s fun. Plus it seems a lot easier than the NES games, which is saying quite a bit. At first there are four bosses and levels from Mega Man 1, then you fight through a Dr. Wily stage and fight 4 more bosses from Mega Man two. On an additional note, the rest of the Game Boy series nicely continues this trend, with MM2 having the remaining four Mega Man 2 NES bosses then four Mega Man 3 bosses.

Overall: 7/10

Pretty good if you like Mega Man games. The only other MM GB game I’ve played though is Mega Man 2. I think 5 had completely original robot masters, so you may want that instead if you don’t want NES rehashes.

Tip: My suggestion is to try beating Elec Man first, he has an easy pattern. Then fry Ice Man, cool off, Fire Man, and finally, put the heat on Cut man.

Review – Shadowgate Classic (GBC)

Apr 14th, 2000

by Ramen Junkie.

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1 Player

Graphics: 6/10
I’m sure they would be a bit better if I had a GBC to play this game on, however since I
only have an original black and white GB, it kind of limits the graphics. Also some of
graphics aren’t all that great. The perspectives seem weird, ect. They are identical to
the NES version of this game. The menu set up is different, but this is more to accommodate
the smaller GB screen.

Music and Sound: 6/10
Not all that many sound effects. Doors opening, the occasional fire blast. It’s not much
of an action game. The music changes at least every once in a while. The music tends to
match the mood, it gets suspenseful when something evil appears, etc. Nothing all that
spectacular.

Gameplay: 6/10
A nice puzzle solving game. I think I’d have enjoyed this game a bit more if I hadn’t
played it so many years ago on the NES. There is fairly little replay value in this game.
Once you play through once and now what to do it’s the same thing every time. It’s not
even action filled like an RPG would be. This is the biggest drawback of this game.

Overall: 6/10
If you like Uninvited or Deja Vu (both NES) then I would recommend this game. If you
really liked this game on NES and don’t have a copy I would say go ahead and get it, but
you may find it’s not all that hard.

Tip: Not many codes for this game. Just make sure you pick up everything you can and
save often.