FEATURES | A Short Guide on Game Boy Backwards Compatibility Feature

MUCH like blood types, some game paks are more compatible than others.

The Game Boy (GB) has a long history with backward compatibility. When the Game Boy Color (GBC) was launched in 1998, the handheld lets you play with the GB's grey carts on the GBC while the solid black cartridge is backwards compatible with the GB letting you play Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening DX (sans the colour stages) on your old monochrome handheld.

But I digress. Let’s start from the beginning.

The original DMG Game Boy that was released in 1989 used a proprietary game paks, a square-shaped solid grey cartridge, to play all their games. Simple enough.

Nearly a decade later, this was followed up by the Game Boy Color which came in two cartridge variations, a solid black cartridge that was shaped the same as the original game paks and a smoky transparent cartridge that was shaped the same as the original game paks but without the cut-out corner for the lock-out slot. 

From here we have our first glimpse of the backward compatibility feature as you can insert any GB grey cartridges onto the GBC and play the games there while the GBC's black cartridge is backwards compatible with the GB, letting you play the GBC games in monochrome. Playing on the GBC lets you choose the default colour palette during the Nintendo start-up by holding either the A or B button and press any direction of the D-Pad for your choice of colour palettes from the now-iconic green pea soup to an all-brown affair. 

Inserting the transparent game pak into a GB will not work as the lack of cut-out tabs makes it impossible to properly fit the cartridge into the slot. 

On the Game Boy Pocket, a redesign of the original GB without the lock-out tab, upon inserting the transparent game pak there will result in a warning title screen telling you that it’s only playable on the GBC handheld. One example is while you can play full coloured games like Pokemon Gold and Silver (they are, after all, solid coloured cartridges) on your old Game Boy, inserting a Pokemon Crystal cartridge into a Game Boy Pocket will not run the game as it was specifically made to take advantage of the GBC’s processing power.

So to recap, the grey and solid black cartridges are playable on the GB and Game Boy Pocket, while the smoky transparent cartridge is only playable on the GBC.

In 2001, the Game Boy Advance (GBA) made its debut and subsequently with the more superior GBA SP in 2003 which introduced game paks that is half the size of a normal Game Boys cartridge. Right off the bat, these GBA game paks will not fit into your GB or GBC. 

Fortunately, the GBA can still play all the previous Game Boy generation’s cartridges with ease, making this particular handheld the ideal choice if you’re planning to play all of your GB and GBC cartridges with the benefit of GBA SP AGS-101’s crisp LCD screen and backlight feature. The color palette swap also works when playing older GB titles. Just don't expect the same backwards compatibility with the Game Boy Micro as that handheld is only meant to play GBA game paks.

Similarly, the Nintendo DS and DS Lite had limited backward compatibility with the Game Boy, more specifically, the second slot only lets you access all of your GBA game libraries. The Nintendo DS has the same features you would expect from a GBA SP with slightly improved LCD for your viewing pleasure. 

Geeks Republika