This is the most biased rating I've ever given.
When I was three my parents decided it would be a good idea to buy a GameBoy for me for Christmas in a bundle pack with two games, Tetris Attack and, my first video game ever, Super Mario Land. I'm pretty sure they got it in a bundle pack or something, but the only image of a silver GameBoy Pocket with either of those games I could find was this one, which only had Super Mario Land in it, so I'm pretty sure my parents bought Tetris Attack separately, knowing basically nothing about video games and noticing that it said "Nintendo" on it and that the box art was colorful. A few month later, they noticed that I wouldn't shut up about Catrap, a game I had been playing at my babysitter Judy's house, the same babysitter who introduced me to the GameBoy in the first place, albeit on the original big clunker brick GameBoy instead of the Pocket I would eventually get. I was really into the cartridge art of the 3D digital-looking environment with the anime-esque art of the characters being something I had not been exposed to yet, and the game itself being a puzzle game but also a side-scroller where you climb ladders and pushed blocks was all a three-year-old me needed to think it was cool. One day after coming home from Judy's I was gifted with, you guessed it, Catrap. Catrap is fine.
My point is that my parents made a gigantic mistake and I love them for it.
Balloon Kid fills me with the same kind of feeling that I get when thinking about why I love some other GameBoy games, despite the clear age on the games and hardware itself. It's a clunky experience with a poor framerate, consisting of auto-scroll levels where you have to dodge obstacles to eventually get to a boss at the end, containing a few catchy tunes that play on the Balloon Fight leitmotif a la pretty much every Mario game released after Super Mario World. The game itself isn't gonna blow anyone's mind or anything, but it's impossible for me not to love something that represents such a specific part of video games so close and dear to my heart.
As it turns out, all I need in a video game is simple enough gameplay with good music from the GameBoy sound chip.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. I love you.
When I was three my parents decided it would be a good idea to buy a GameBoy for me for Christmas in a bundle pack with two games, Tetris Attack and, my first video game ever, Super Mario Land. I'm pretty sure they got it in a bundle pack or something, but the only image of a silver GameBoy Pocket with either of those games I could find was this one, which only had Super Mario Land in it, so I'm pretty sure my parents bought Tetris Attack separately, knowing basically nothing about video games and noticing that it said "Nintendo" on it and that the box art was colorful. A few month later, they noticed that I wouldn't shut up about Catrap, a game I had been playing at my babysitter Judy's house, the same babysitter who introduced me to the GameBoy in the first place, albeit on the original big clunker brick GameBoy instead of the Pocket I would eventually get. I was really into the cartridge art of the 3D digital-looking environment with the anime-esque art of the characters being something I had not been exposed to yet, and the game itself being a puzzle game but also a side-scroller where you climb ladders and pushed blocks was all a three-year-old me needed to think it was cool. One day after coming home from Judy's I was gifted with, you guessed it, Catrap. Catrap is fine.
My point is that my parents made a gigantic mistake and I love them for it.
Balloon Kid fills me with the same kind of feeling that I get when thinking about why I love some other GameBoy games, despite the clear age on the games and hardware itself. It's a clunky experience with a poor framerate, consisting of auto-scroll levels where you have to dodge obstacles to eventually get to a boss at the end, containing a few catchy tunes that play on the Balloon Fight leitmotif a la pretty much every Mario game released after Super Mario World. The game itself isn't gonna blow anyone's mind or anything, but it's impossible for me not to love something that represents such a specific part of video games so close and dear to my heart.
As it turns out, all I need in a video game is simple enough gameplay with good music from the GameBoy sound chip.
Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Dad. I love you.
Reviewed on Mar 25, 2023
2 Comments
Hell yeah, this game's music always activates the waterworks in my eyeballs.
appreciations
1 year ago