8 Obscure Game Boy JRPGs Games Made By Big Developers

There's a lot that can be said about how much the Game Boy changed gaming. I was born in the '90s, and even my life changed when I was given my own Game Boy Color with Pokémon Yellow Version. I'm sure some of you know what it was like watching your games go from strictly on your TV or computer to being held in your hands a bit better than I do. It's an everyday affair now with our phones and even the Nintendo Switch consoles around, but the future we're living in wouldn't be the same without the Game Boy.

Just like how some of the first role-playing games were made with only kilobytes of memory, it didn't take long before some developers got ambitious enough to stick a JRPG on this humble gray brick. Obviously, the aforementioned Pokémon games are debatably the Game Boy's biggest impact on gaming history, but the SaGa series got its start in the GB as well. Not every Game Boy JRPG was that memorable, though, so here's some you might've forgotten from developers you know and love.

Capcom

Straight away, we're back to bonding with battling partners. If you ask me, Metal Walker is like if Pokémon and Robot Wars had a baby. You put your robot friends in an arena, tell them how to navigate the arena, and then they run into each other and duke it out. The winner keeps scrap metal they can use to build more of these sentient robots called Metal Busters.

There was a fair bit of ambition behind Metal Walker, too. You could explore towns and dungeons with your robot pal and run into random encounters to gather scrap and cores to progress. You could only have one Buster with you at a time, but they'd follow you on the overworld like Pikachu in Pokémon Yellow.

Unfortunately, Capcom's little Metal Walker that could just... didn't. It launched three years after Pokémon, and with Digimon starting to find its footing in the same year, the damage was already done. It looked like just another monster-raising game on the shelf, especially to the critics who played it.

7 Great Greed

Namco

Judging from the box art, I think Great Greed didn't catch on because it looked more or less the same as 10 other games from just the cover. Maybe we all shouldn't have judged it based on that, because Great Greed had a lot to offer, even back in 1992.

In the game itself, it has an art style reminiscent of the SaGa series with battles that feel similar to Dragon Quest. It's definitely clear where the game takes its inspiration from, but it comes with a twist in that all the buttons execute different actions when in battle instead of letting you select them through menus.

This Game Boy JRPG from Namco deals with saving a world of food-based people from a polluting villain named Bio-Haz. How '90s is that? When the day is saved, you are given the option of marrying one of the king's daughters. But if you pester any of the male NPCs, they'll agree to marry you instead. This feature was probably included as a joke, but it manages to be one of the earliest examples of gay marriage in RPGs regardless.

6 Legend of the River King GB

Victor Interactive Software

Fishing has been a prominent part of all kinds of JRPGs — and adjacent games — over the years. It's an entire class in Final Fantasy XIV Online, you can fish in plenty of farming simulators, and none of us really mind. Back in the day, though, Victor Interactive Software had the brilliant idea to make an entire RPG centered around fishing itself.

In Legend of the River King GB, your sister is sick, and the only way to cure her requires that you catch the famous Guardian fish. You embark on a journey to find this cure-all fish by talking to townsfolk and exploring the world. Like many old RPGs, you have to find most of the info out on your own by talking to people or reading the manual. The game itself doesn't hold your hand. It more or less just throws you in and tells you to sink or swim. This might've been why this fishing game never really caught on. Doesn't help that it was easier to make sense of what was on the screen on a Game Boy Color.

It's not all doom and gloom, though. The developers, Victor Interactive Software, made a hit or two in its time. If you've played Harvest Moon GB or maybe Harvest Moon 64, then you've played one of their games! Victor Interactive Software was eventually bought by Marvelous, which likely means it is still developing Story of Seasons games to this day.

5 Bomberman Quest

Hudson Soft

So, how many of you knew there was a Bomberman JRPG for the Game Boy? Because I sure didn't, and that's exactly what Bomberman Quest is. While traveling to deliver some troublesome monsters to Planet Bomber, Bomberman's shuttle is attacked. The attack leaves him stranded on a completely different planet with every single engine of his ship missing. It's up to you to find out who stole the items, and fight them to regain custody of them.

It's a charming little JRPG with a surprising amount to it. There are secret bosses if you go through the dungeons twice over, and there's even a true final boss and ending to match. It was even created by Bomberman's original developers at Hudson Soft. Hudson Soft was purchased and merged with Konami in 2012.

The merger might not have marked a loss for Bomberman fans, but for fans of Hudson Soft's other projects, it was the end of an era. If you don't know the studio from Bomberman, you might recognize it from Mario Party, Bulk Slash, or Lode Runner.

4 The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls

Intelligent Systems

Even though this game hasn't left Japan at all, there might be a chance you're familiar with this game anyway. It's an important one to Nintendo, and it's appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Super Smash Bros. titles.

The beginning of The Frog For Whom the Bell Toll is pretty simple, but funny. It tells the tale of two rival princes who get too into being better than the other. When a princess has been kidnapped, the two royals turn it into another competition. While you rush to beat your rival and save the damsel in distress first, you're scammed by a witch who gives you a potion that turns you into a frog when you touch water.

If you're a fan of Nintendo games, you should know what Intelligent Systems has made already. Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, and Advance Wars are a few of its prominent titles.

3 God Medicine

KCEN

This game would've likely been a great hit in this day and age, especially with all the isekai anime there is to watch. Sadly, it's another game that never left Japan. God Medicine is a game about three RPG fans who stumble upon a game world invading the real one. The warriors from the game world are defeated in battle, and the gamers are entrusted with their powers to stop the demon that threatens both worlds.

Interestingly, the game features a system that's not dissimilar to Final Fantasy 7's materia system. You can also save in God Medicine at any point of the game, including during battle. It's a save scummers dream come true. There's plenty of self-referential humor to match the game's premise, but it also shows its age as a JRPG for the Game Boy.

The most impressive thing about God Medicine is who developed it. Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya (KCEN) is the very team who brought you this frustrating yet dedicated love letter to the genre. KCEN also had a hand in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Vandal Hearts, and... The Grinch for the PlayStation? I suppose they couldn't all be winners, huh?

2 Puyo Puyo Gaiden: The Puyo Wars

Compile

"Wait," I hear you say, "isn't Puyo Puyo a Sega IP?" Yes, dear reader, it is. Which makes this Game Boy Color game all the more interesting and weird. For a while, Puyo Puyo was owned by its creators, Compile, which saw games in the series appear all over the place. This led Puyo Puyo to be on the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo within the same brief window.

During Puyo Puyo's height at Compile, it seemed that the developers wanted to experiment and do different things with the IP just like Capcom had done with Mega Man and Mega Man X. The result is a strategy JRPG shoving the fantastical Puyo Puyo into a science-fiction mecha setting. Yep. Puyo Puyo Gaiden: The Puyo Wars is Fire Emblem with robots and Puyos somehow.

It has a strange premise, but the presentation is honestly top-notch. If by any chance you miss what Compile used to do with Puyo Puyo before Sega took over the IP, I recommend at least checking out what Gaiden brought to the table.

1 Spud's Adventure

Atlus

When I found out about this game, I had to put it on this list. It's the perfect surprise to end this walk through obscure JRPGs. What do you mean Atlus made a JRPG about a potato back in the day? This isn't a fever dream, as much as it might feel like it is.

The game starts off as most adventures do. A princess is stolen, and the knights set out to save her haven't returned. Never fear, Spud the Adventurer is here, setting out to free the princess from her tower and spitting out bullets against anyone who gets in his way. Cute, wacky, and a perfect time capsule of games at the time, Spud's Adventure is a great humble start to the JRPG giant Atlus has become now.