This is better, much, much better than we have ever had from Nintendo in the past! Increased CPU speed, bigger ram, double screen buffer, and bigger batteries. Which means this system packs an extra little punch.
      Holding it in you hands you will immediately notice that it is slightly bulkier than the Pocket and a little longer. The bulkiness comes from the extra room needed for the bigger batteries. And the bulkiness is only located in that area. And it comes in...... purple? A solid purple or a clear transparent purple are the choices of colors at launch. Later other colors became available along with specially designed units, like Pokemon. You hold the system and play it just like all previous Game Boys.
     Compared to the Black & White models, the Color really had a short life. It was seemingly an appetizer, or snack, to satisfy us for what was waiting around the corner. And it is impressive just how many games were actually made for the Color during its short life, over 400 in four years! Combine this with the Original Game Boy and you have one monstrous game Library to blister those thumbs of yours!

     There are three categories of gaming for the GB Color. There is all of the "Original Game Boy" games, the "hybrids," and the "GB Color."  Everything old is now new again! All of the previous gray scale, monochrome Game Boy games are compatible. And there is more, the old games can be colorized. Using basically the same type of technology as the "Super Game Boy," an adapter cart made for the SNES, GB Color assigns color to the different shades of gray. It even gives you choices of different palettes. At the Game Boy logo, when turning on the unit, use the directional pad to choose, left, right, up, or down. You can also combine that with pushing the "A" and "B" buttons. You can see the changes before the logo goes away. The GB Color is preprogrammed to recognize up to 10 classic Game Boy games, as I understand, with special palettes to enhance those particular games, Metroid 2 being one of them (looks great). Any of those older games that were enhanced for the “Super Game Boy” the Game Boy Color will not recognize those enhancements. It is great fun going through all of your older games and trying different color palettes. You might even find a favorite to play the game with everytime you fire it up for a round. And for any of you that have the "Super Gameboy" cart for the SNES, no the cart will not detect the color part of the game in the hybrids. It only detects the grey scale. Yeah I know,… bummer.
     There was at this point another out pouring of games during the transition stage. I think there might have been a little desire here of not abandoning the Old Game Boy gamers. Nintendo was doing a bit of a weaning process from the “shades of gray” to the color system. There was a hybrid Game Pak created. These Game Paks have a dark gray or black plastic housing. They are made to play on the Old Game Boy in the four shades of gray. On the New Color Game Boy, they play in full color. They are just as much fun to play on the older systems, but the color seems to add so much to the game making it so different looking. I guess we can become spoiled to color. Also with the color you don't get the blur. I'm not sure how many that there are of these games. These game paks still have the same notch as the Old Game Boy game paks. I'm thinking that the amount of "hybrid games" was very limited and the old system was quickly abandoned as soon as the sales of the Color Boy caught on fire and took off. This hybrid paved the way for the next generation of Game Boy game carts. On the R-Type DX cart there are three games available on the cart when using the Color Boy, but only two when using the Gameboy Pocket. One game is color only.
     The next generation cart was the outpouring of games that were pacifically designed for the GB Color and used the full resources of the system. These Game Paks have a transparent plastic housing and have a bulge on the end of the Game Pak. They do not have the notch in the Game Pak. They will play only on the GB Color and newer systems such as the Game Boy Advance. They will not play on the older systems before GB Color. Interestingly, you will get a message that will come up on the screen saying that it is made for the GB Color if you try it in the Pocket system. So they anticipated that it would happen?
      In the Nintendo GB Color you can see the maturing of the system in its games. Due to the Color having a much shorter life span we do not see the Color reach its potential as the past monochrome Game Boy, which is sad. It is really a little more than having an NES in the palm of your hand. What stands out in the category of GB Color "must have" is the Zelda series of games, next would be Super Mario Deluxe, Wario Land 3, and then Donkey Kong Land, OK, Pokemon too. There are a host of great third party titles as well. There are a few titles that you are able to use in the N64 transfer pak to open up extra things in the games, one of them being Mario Tennis.