Having owned a Game Boy for five years now I appreciate the reliable source of enjoyment and distraction it has been, and I want to keep that experience as long as I can without making any compromises.
My current console is a blue Nintendo Game Boy Pocket, made in around 1997-98. I love its robust build and frugal use of AAA batteries, but I am aware of its biggest limitation, an LCD display with no backlight that also slowly fades with age – playing the Breakout-like game “Alleyway”, I’ve often realised I can’t see where the bouncing ball is going, even when playing in a brightly lit room.
I cannot expect the console to keep working forever, so I decided to take advantage of the growing market in Game Boy clones, arising from the love of the machine, its game library, and the fact that Nintendo built it with largely off-the-shelf components – the Z80-derived processor found in the original Game Boy, Pocket, Light and Color is also found among 1980s computers like the Sega Master System, Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC range.
My first option was to buy another Nintendo console, but not their latest Switch – I already own the games I play, so I don’t need to buy them again from the Nintendo eShop. I bought a Game Boy Advance in 2021, which also plays the original cartridges, but its screen is also not backlit – the later folding Advance SP has both front- and blacklit versions, and accordingly sell at a premium, just like the Japan-only Game Boy Light. Admittedly, I had not done my research, but the Advance was later sold for more than I bought it for, a mark of increasing interest and appetite for these consoles.
My next consideration was a refurbished console. An enormous demand has grown for after-market Game Boy screens – backlit, of course, but only able to approximating screen resolutions – console shells and components. I have no aptitude for this kind of modification and assembly, especially more delicate tasks like connecting a new screen to the motherboard, but the ability to order one, encased in exactly the colour of case and buttons you wish, was very appealing. It is an ideal choice to extend the life of existing Game Boy hardware, if you can look past the age of the motherboards – the last Game Boy Colour was sold in 2003, and the last Advance SP in 2010 – but the rework usually with its own warranty.
I then decided to at all-new hardware. A company named Funny Playing makes the “FPGBC”, a Game Boy Color clone using a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip to replicate exactly the original machine’s processors, largely guaranteeing compatibility with cartridges and peripherals. Like refurbishing an existing console, you can buy the FPGBC motherboard, pre-assembled with screen attached, and build your own case around it, or have one built for you. Aside from its using a rechargeable battery, this is the closest available console to the original Game Boy, the perfect choice if you simply want to play games using all-new hardware.
The only reason I didn’t go for the FPGBC myself was seeing the price tick up when I looked at assembly options for the case and button colours I wanted, followed by the cost and time of delivery, because it pushed my expected cost towards the Analogue Pocket, a console produced in limited numbers since 2021 that, while assuming a mostly similar shape and button layout to a Game Boy, uses its FPGA chip to replicate the Sega Game Gear, Atari Lynx, PC Engine and Neo Geo Pocket, although the extra cost of cartridge adaptors made this less desirable. Furthermore, its continued use of a plastic case and similar rechargeable battery like the FPGBC, while costing up to twice as much as one, soured me a bit, high-resolution screen or not – their shipping costs from the US to the UK didn’t help either.
My final option was announced in June 2024. The ModRetro Chromatic comes from Palmer Luckey, a former virtual reality headset designer who got into modifying Game Boys as a teenager, and now owns a company named Anduril, making armed drones – this fact might be a deal-breaker, but the Chromatic, advertised as a strictly limited “1st Edition”, is already sold out as of the time of publication, so it has already become moot.
The console is built like a smartphone: a bespoke display matching the resolution and colour temperature of the Game Boy Color, rather than appropriating a screen made elsewhere, and encased by sapphire glass; durable clicky PBT plastic buttons, and a painted magnesium-aluminium alloy case seemingly doubling as its warranty, in the hope of making it indestructible. It is completely overbuilt for its purpose, and more expensive than a FPGBC that could do the same job just as well, and while you can connect a USB-C cable to capture or relay the video from the screen, do you really need that?
I pre-ordered the Chromatic four months after it was announced: I surmised that if Luckey wanted to make money from it, it wouldn’t have been made the way it had been, or would cost more than the $199 asking price – I expect future editions will be cost-reduced, and more in line with the FPGBC.
However, the 1st Edition might be the best Game Boy not made by Nintendo themselves. I bought it in “bubblegum” (pink, with purple A and B buttons), and feels incredibly solid and well put together, although heavier than I was expecting – with cartridge and AA batteries installed, the Chromatic weights 270 grams, versus 160 for a similarly prepared Game Boy Pocket. The crisp, legible and colourful screen is a revelation – the backlight is so powerful that I have it at one level above “off”, so I expect it, and the console, to last a very long time, although my main concern is avoiding any chipping of the paintwork.
In short, buy the FPGBC to enter the world of Game Boy gaming to avoid using old hardware, and if you want a Game Boy Advance, buy a refurbished console if you can, or an Analogue Pocket. If you don’t want to compromise, learn to compromise.
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