Truly innovative, Nintendo has always been at their coolest when they enact another one of their surreal, unique experiments - authentically weird and deeply horrifying for no other reason than for shits and giggles (which I admire). For what this is, it's impressive. However, you can knock out absolutely everything this thing has to offer in maybe an hour? After that you've pretty much just got the camera, which let's be honest - the novelty is neat but you can only take so many each time before it gets stale. The random scary faces are iconic, though.

I remember seeing this bad boy as a kid and being in absolute awe. Its big chunky eye, its quirky, cute graphics, the strange little world of tiny games lurking in there, and the sheer novelty of being able to take pictures of your face with a Game Boy was incredible. I spent a lot of time fiddling around with it, as delighted as a toddler spending their first day at the circus, and I have very fond memories of it.

This is the kind of inventive spirit that made the gaming world so exciting in the late '90s. Everything was weird, and innovative, and fun. It wasn't just a camera, as novel as that already was, but it was a little box of secrets, a bizarre little world that you could transport into, add your face onto a juggler, and finally feel fulfilled, slowly catching those balls in your little cup-hands.

And playing it again over 20 years later, it still feels fresh, crisp, and exciting. I still feel that pure, unadulterated joy when I snap a tiny picture of my face with a press of the A button.

Game Boy Camera, you are so beautiful. I love you.

If you're interested, you can see some of my Game Boy Camera snaps here!

Being someone who's own this when it was 2 years old in the market, its probably one of the funnest little things Nintendo has created for the Game Boy. In its time, there was barely any affordable digital cameras. So this little thing was there to fill in for us Game Boy owners. Has multiple lens options (like mirrored or panorama), stamp and doodle feature, slideshow maker (which is what I used to create movies that were similar to YTPs), hotspots that make transitions to other pictures you took, the game and watch game ball that has you post a face on it, a DJ music mixer, and several more fun extras. This is also the first Nintendo product to feature Pokemon in it in places outside of Japan. Way before those weird promotional videos and the anime. Pokemon Featured are Bulbasaur, Squrtle, Charmander, Pikachu, Meowth and Mew as stamps. And Venusaur, Blastoise, Charizard and Mewtwo as an image on album B.

Overall, it was a fun little device during its time. In the current age, it probably won't see as much use anymore considering digital cameras have gotten better as well as there being apps that function similarity to the doodle and stamp functions. Still a fun little device to look at if you're curious on what 90s kids used as digital cameras.

Pros: This is more than a game, it is a creative application, where you can take literal photographs in 8-bit black and white form. But... This is more than a creative application, it's also a game! A very very good game! And also just plain old FUN! Boundless modes of creativity here, from decoration, to stamps, to unlockable album pics, to an entire DJ mode, and several minigames like G&W Ball, a vertical shooter, a button mashing runner, all of which you can put your face into. Several modes and features, like making animations set to music, all within menus and folders with tons of personality and incredible presentation to them. And my favorite part of all, you can make your own GAMES! Well, sorta, there's this mode called 'HotSpot', that lets you put hidden buttons behind specific spots on a pic of yours in your album, if you click one of these spots you could make a number of actions happen, like moving to a different picture, creating a sound, an effect, etc. And by piecing all of these elements together, you could make your very own games! I made several HotSpot games for friends and family to play, and they made several for me to play, this was a super fun social game.

And I didn't even mention the Game Boy Printer! You could print anything you took a photo of or drew or decorated in here, print from the unique Game Boy Printer peripheral that took 8000 batteries, but didnt' require ink for its paper rolls! Hah! They were fun little prints that you could sticky anywhere you'd want, good times

Cons: WHO ARE YOU RUNNING FROM?

What it means to me: As you could probably guess from the pros section, I had a lot of fun with this one. Friends, family, we all shared photos of each other, made games, played around with this device for years and years and years. It's a very special game. Thanks, Hip.

(side note: this is the game that introduced me to Pokemon, as several of the monsters were included as stamps in the game, including Mew!!)