Wave Race - Does it make a Splash on Super GameBoy - Advent Countdown - Day 22
0I hope you are all healthy and safe wherever you are in the World right now and whatever challenges you are facing.
I thought I'd do a countdown to Christmas 2022 with a GameBoy Cartridge themed advent calendar. I'd hoped to make the videos a little more slick but this is a rough and ready proof of concept really to see if anyone wants to countdown to Xmas with 24 different GameBoy games - one each day!
The footage is genuine cartridges running on a SNES via the Super GameBoy. As a Xmas gift feel free to use the footage in your own videos (just give credit or link to my channel)
This is Wave Race - a series best known for the technical tour de force of the N64 game Wave Race 64. The first game in this loose trilogy (with Wave Race: Blue Storm on GameCube) is Wave Race on GameBoy. It is a fairly simple top down racer where you compete against 3 other Jetski's in a series of 4 races (per class with each class 550cc, 650cc & 800cc having a series of 4 races). You have an accelerate & a limited amount of Boost although this recharges. There are also a couple of power ups you can pick up. Alternatively you can play the Slalom mode which sees you competing to pass first through more Gates than your opponents.
The thing with this game is that it is really meant to be played via Link Up. Like F1 Race it was designed for the 4 player link up where each of you would have a console & a copy of the game and then using cables you'd play multi-player. I suspect the Slalom would work a lot better with the other 3 jet-skis under human control.
By default the palette the Super GameBoy uses doesn't really work for this title making it look like you are racing on Lava. So I use the Custom Palette feature to change up the palettes to something more suitable. The first palette I use is how I used to play the game with blue for the "track" and green to denote land however in really the bit outside the track is also water so I do a second version with dark blue to denote the track - i.e. deeper water and light blue to denote the shallower water. I still prefer the first one though as I think it makes it easier to see where you are supposed to go.
Which do you prefer?
The Super GameBoy has always fascinated me and fans of my channel will know I love it when portable games can be played on the big screen! It still has the limitation of the GameBoy in that 4 shades can be used as the games need to be compatible and playable on the console - however some clever palette switching and game design means you can show more colours on screen by defining different palettes for different areas of the screen.
I play it here through the Super GameBoy in order to show the game a little clearer. For some reason my capture card always seems to struggle with the SNES (and therefore the Super GameBoy) not sure why as everything else pretty much works fine through it.
I'm also thinking of doing a series of videos on specially enhanced Super GameBoy compatible games - including the very clever game and programming designed to maximise the use of colour while remaining compatible with the original monochrome handheld, multiplayer modes, enhanced sound and even a hidden game. Let me know if you'd like to see this sort of thing.
As always if you enjoy this video let me know. As always this is running on original hardware in this case a SNES & Super GameBoy peripheral (one day I'll get a GBA Consoliser or Analogue Pocket!!!!) I do have my old GBA De Advance which was a mod to allow GBA games on TV so perhaps I'll use that to capture games too? Also let me know if there are particular games or systems you'd like to see.
As always this is uploaded under the Fair Use Policy - no money is being made from this video.
Stay strong, stay safe and stay healthy - Grey Fox