Castlevania: The Adventure
Castlevania: The Adventure is a game I picked up almost 10 years ago and have played very little since. I saw this sitting in the little case at a Half Price Books store for $1 and figured I couldn’t go wrong. The label is very reminiscent of the NES Konami games, so I figured that alone should tell me all I needed to know about this gem. I felt like I had really scored here. A Castlevania game for a $1? I had to have gotten one over on old Half Price Books. I was ready to set off on a grand adventure, THE adventure as the game’s title assured me, but things weren’t as smooth as I had hoped they would be.
Castlevania: The Adventure isn’t exactly the same as the other Castlevania games of its era, especially considering it’s a portable version. The game consists of four fairly short stages filled with monsters to defeat throughout, each ending with a stage boss battle. The player starts off with three lives, consisting of ten hit points each, but this time around hearts are actually used to restore health. Along the way the player can also collect 1UPs as well as golden crosses that will grant the player temporary immunity to enemy attacks.
What would Castlevania be without a robust weapon system? It would be this game, that’s what. This time around there are no sub-weapons, but your whip can be upgraded by collecting crystals along the way. The whip can be upgraded twice, the final form being a flame whip, but any enemy damage will cause the whip to be downgraded.
Each stage has, what feels like, an erroneous time limit in which to complete the level. Even with this game being as slow as it is, which can sometimes be painfully slow, it doesn’t take anywhere near as much time as you’re given to complete each stage. And that’s where things fall apart for me, the speed of this game. Every Castlevania I’ve played has felt smooth, but this game is so slow. Was this a limit of the hardware? Maybe, but I feel it was done more to stretch the gameplay out since this is such a really short game.
For what Castlevania: The Adventure is it’s not terrible, I mean it’s slow but the graphics are actually really good. Considering the Nintendo Game Boy was released merely months before this game was released shows Konami took their time making it look good, but didn’t seem to worry about it being as smooth as its NES siblings. The game is extremely short and replay value is kind of there, I guess. Again, this game isn’t terrible it’s just different to the point that I feel one time around is enough.
Building the Ultimate Game Boy
Throughout my thrift store journeys I’ve purchased a handful of Game Boy consoles, most of which were in desperate need of repair or restoration. Some only needed elbow grease and care, but the others, sadly, were so far gone they became relegated to the parts bin. A few years ago I looked into my parts bin and saw an AGS-101 and a AGB-001 sitting there. I could feel the desire to become a part of something better burning deep within their souls, so I decided it was time to make my own backlit GBA (or as I call it the GBA-101).
The GBA I found had a broken screen and a heavily worn shell, but the rest of the console worked perfectly. The GBA SP I found worked perfectly, but its shell was heavily damaged and the moisture detector on the motherboard had turned pink, causing me concern about the console’s long-term reliability. Having previously reshelled a GBA I had a few shell options in which to place the newly formed GBA-101. I decided to mix and match and settled on an indigo front with the transparent back, inspired by the Gamecube controller with the same color scheme.
Having all the ingredients sitting there before me I only needed one more thing to pull this off, the ribbon cable adapter. For anyone thinking about creating their own GBA-101 you must take into consideration that the GBA has 2 motherboard variations: 32 and 40 pins. To see which type of ribbon cable adapter you need take the battery cover off the GBA and you’ll see a number at the top where the battery cover clips in. If the numbers start with a 1, it’s a 32 pin and you will need a type B ribbon cable. If the numbers start with a 0, it’s a 40 pin and you need a type A ribbon cable. While you’re ordering the ribbon cable you might want to buy an aftermarket shell, buttons and glass front lens for the GBA, but that’s all up to your personal desire.
Before the AGS screen will fit inside of the AGB, the shell has to be modified first. This part can be a bit tricky if you don’t have the right tools. I happen to have a very useful X-acto blade (X-Acto blade 17) that is flat and works really well in achieving the necessary cuts on the front of the shell. Carefully cut all the necessary parts down flush and you’re almost ready to finish up.
When you’re done modifying the front of the shell, you can now put everything back together, taking care to align the new, bigger screen. Put everything back together and make sure you plugged the screen into the ribbon cable correctly and you’re ready to go. Yes, on my first attempt I plugged the screen in backwards, no harm was done but nothing worked until I flipped the connector around. Some ribbon cables come with brightness switches, some come with an extra cable attached and some are just plain A to B ribbon cables. Mine came with an extra wire, which I didn’t solder onto the board, and it works perfectly fine.
I did previously make a GBA Macro (or as I call it the DS Boy Advance), which is the bottom half of a Nintendo DS modified slightly to become a backlit GBA, but those only play GBA cartridges. The benefit of the GBA-101 is that you’re not limited as to which Game Boy library you want to play. From the classic grey carts to the transparent GBC carts all the way to the GBA carts, you can play them all. I’ve always loved my main AGS-101, but my hands tend to cramp up after a few hours of playing a game. The AGB-001 form factor is perfect, so this modification was exactly what I wanted in a Game Boy.
Now I have to say I would never take apart two perfectly good working units to make one of these. There are kits available with screens and ribbon cables that don’t require cannibalizing an AGS-101. Had my AGS-101 simply needed to be reshelled I would have done so, but, again, the water indicator on the motherboard was pink indicating some moisture had come in contact with the board. The motherboard could be perfectly fine, but I personally wouldn’t want to spend the money to reshell it and the board short out sometime down the road, so I chose to make the GBA-101. Here are the conditions of both units as I found them at Goodwill:
Me and my Game Boy
While being slightly ashamed of this fact I’ve also tried to make it clear that I didn’t start gaming like most everyone else that I know. It wasn’t until my parents bought an Atari 2600 in the early to mid-90s, by which time the SNES was already in full control of the market, that video games had any place in my life. Needless to say I’ve spent the rest of my life playing catch up. There was, however, one console I owned that was still fairly relevant while I owned it, and that was the Nintendo Game Boy.
I don’t remember exactly which packaging my original Game Boy came with but I do remember getting it for Christmas with a copy of Kirby’s Dream Land. My birthday, being three months later, brought me a Doc’s Rechargeable battery pack with a wall adapter that did double duty of recharging the battery and running the system. From there I would go on to acquire F-1 Race, Metroid II, Micro Machines, NBA Jam, Super Mario Land and a few other games from kids in school and around the neighborhood who undoubtedly thought I was insane for wanting their old Game Boy games. I didn’t care, I still loved that plastic brick.
In fact, one year after Christmas break I remember returning to school and hearing a kid complaining loudly to his friends that his mother bought him NBA Jam T.E. for the Game Boy and not for the console he wanted. I remember being angry at his arrogance because I still truly loved the Game Boy. No matter how most kids my age looked down upon the grey block I still adored it and still do to this day. That was until I couldn’t pass a level on a certain game, that game’s name escapes me now. I gave in to childhood stupidity and bashed the screen of the Game Boy into the corner of a table over and over again, until the green of the screen turned to a thick, black mass. It only took a few seconds for my stupidity to settle in. I had ruined my favorite console, no longer could I play the games I adored so much. I had sunk into a selfish mentality myself and ruined the best thing in my childhood.
After concocting a story so horrible, like only a child’s mind could, about how the dog scared me with a bark and the Game Boy leapt out of my hands and landed perfectly onto the corner of the table and the screen shattered beyond any of my control, I was immediately punished. I wasn’t punished physically or verbally, no, I had to live without my Nintendo Game Boy. I called the 1-800 number on the back of the Game Boy and got the number to a repair center that was 45 minutes away from my house. My parents refused to drive me there, I had screwed up that badly. Such was my punishment.
For what felt like forever I sat through a whole summer without having my Game Boy by my side. The games sat dormant as the console lay silent, broken and in my mind dead. Days ached on as I tried my best to enjoy the summer. At some point life returned to a normal pace, as it does when you’re a kid, and my mind focused on Christmas once more. The Game Boy was the furthest thing from my mind, I wanted something better, I wanted a dirt bike! When I woke up on Christmas and didn’t see anything even remotely shaped like a dirt bike, I continued to open my presents, but noticed Mom had a few set off to the side. After the shirts, socks, underwear and other normal Christmas presents you have to smile and bear were opened my Mom handed me the other gifts. Inside was a Game Boy fanny pack, my excitement was quickly quelled as I remembered my Game Boy was dead. The next was a game, again I can’t remember the name, but the biggest was saved for last — it was a brand new black Play it Loud Game Boy in the clear plastic case!
I think my mother had watched me suffer through most of the summer and knew I had learned my lesson, and indeed I had. Nothing bad was going to happen to this Game Boy. The following summer I purchased myself a copy of Pokemon Red and absolutely loved every minute of it. A few friends and I wanted to hold a Pokemon tournament, but we never did. By this time I had learned to keep all the packaging for my video games so I had a beautiful CIB copy of Pokemon Red. My girlfriend at the time must have become jealous of all the time I was spending with Pokemon Red and asked to borrow it. Me being a teenager in love, I allowed her. Another lesson learned because I never saw it again!
Without my favorite Game Boy game to play the system fell into disuse. By now I had quite a few consoles to choose from and I was choosing them far more than my Game Boy. Eventually the years went by and that Game Boy stayed with me, even though I never used it. A time came in my life when guitars in pawn stores became far more important than some old games I hadn’t played in years, so the sacrifice was made. My Game Boy was listed on ebay and shipped out, never to be seen again. I still miss it to this day, as I haven’t seen another black Game Boy for a price I’m comfortable with. I just can’t justify paying what they sell for just to own one for pure nostalgia.
Today I own many Game Boys in varying states of functionality, a Super Game Boy, many Game Boy Colors, a few Game Boy Advances and even a Game Boy Macro, you know the bottom half of a DS modified to be a backlit GBA. Regardless of how many I own today I still miss the Play it Loud that I let slip away all those years ago, and even more so the Game Boy I needlessly destroyed in a moment of stupidity and frustration. Sure the frontlit and backlit consoles are pretty cool and all, but in my childhood mind that grey building block will always be the best.
Wave Race for the Nintendo Game Boy
Believe it or not I didn’t know the Wave Race series began on the Nintendo Game Boy until I found and purchased a copy a few years ago. Produced by the ever popular Shigeru Miyamoto, Wave Race was released on the Game Boy all the way back in 1992, but only for North America. Europe had to wait until June 1997, making it feel more like a portable sequel to Wave Race 64, while Japan seemingly never received a local release of Wave Race at all. Wave Race still sold well enough on the Game Boy that it achieved Player’s Choice status. Is it any good? Let’s find out.
Wave Race allows the player to play alone against AI, practice alone or compete against up to 3 of their friends, pending everyone has a copy of the game, a link cable and someone has the four player adapter. The overall goal of Wave Race is to race through 16 different circuits in 8 different locations and earn enough points to unlock faster, although also more difficult to control, watercrafts. There are two styles of racing available: circuits will see the player competing in a lapped series of races where finishing in a higher position will gain more points. The other style is slalom, which will pit the player against other players to see who can collect points pylons. Points here are solely dependent on collecting pylons and the race is over once all points pylons have been collected.
Along side competition, the player must also contend with varying track conditions and the inertia of the watercraft itself. Strewn about the tracks might be shallows, whirlpools or heavy currents that may all cause the player problems in their attempt to compete. To combat these setbacks there are also power ups in the form of a dolphin or octopus. Once a power up is collected the watercraft will flash and afford the player one of two abilities: collecting a dolphin will give the player easier maneuverability while collecting an octopus will allow the player to bump into opponents and steal some of their turbo.
Speaking of turbo, the only thing that confused me about this game was the button arrangement. B is throttle and A is turbo, where I’m far more familiar with things being the opposite way around, but that’s just a minor gripe. Competition, however, is pretty fierce and will bump and jump your watercraft off the course. If you manage to miss a pylon on the circuit tracks you will be forced to go back and go around it properly, and the AI knows this.
I have to be honest here, the whole time I played Wave Race I felt like someone cut down Micro Machines to just the boat stages and made it the whole game. That’s not to say Wave Race isn’t a great game in its own right, in fact I think the fact that it made me think of Micro Machines should be considered a good sign. I’m more familiar with Wave Race 64, so finding out the series began life on the Game Boy was a shock, but Wave Race is a really fun game and I’m seeing now why it achieved Player’s Choice status.
DragonHeart for the Nintendo Game Boy
When it comes to sheerly for profit movie themed video games the Nintendo Game Boy wasn’t without its own abysmal versions. Of all the films released in 1996 someone thought Dragonheart was the most viable option for a video game adaptation. Though I’ve never seen the film I have seen enough to assume an amazing Dragonheart RPG could have easily been born, but alas Torus Games developed a competent, time wasting action adventure game that Acclaim published.
The player takes the role of Sir Bowen, Dragonslayer extraordinaire, who was the sworn guardian of Einon, son of King Freyne. Einon was wounded while trying to save his father’s life while battling rebelling villagers. In order to save Einon’s life his mother, Queen Aislinn, took him to Draco, an evil dragon, who gave the prince half of his own heart. Although Einon’s life was restored, his heart, being half a dragon’s heart, was filled with evil that overcome Einon. Sir Bowen vowed from that day forth to slay all dragons until he found the one that turned Einon evil.
In each of the eight stages the player will start in an open field with a first-person view, much like Swords and Serpents, and have to navigate blindly until they find the map. To use the map you must press Select and move the sword cursor over to the map icon on the bottom right of the screen, this will open a screen showing the whole stage. At first the map will be essentially blank, but as you find towns and points of interest they will be displayed upon the map for you to find easily.
Within each stage the player will find towns with people who you may need to speak with, as well as random wanderers who may also have important information. The player must interact with people and will sometimes be given dialogue choices that seem to make no difference to the overall goal. To add a little depth to the game the player will be given small tasks to accomplish which will ultimately unlock the final destination of each given stage. Upon entrance to the final destination you’ll once again need to navigate the maze and find the map. Once the map has been found simply open the map, follow it to the end and prepare for the final stage battle.
For the final battle of each stage the game switches to a side view of Sir Bowen and the final stage boss. Controlling the battle isn’t exactly difficult, but it does feel overall clunky. In battle Sir Bowen can either attack with the A button or use his shield to block with the B button, with the added bonus of being able to direct his shield high and low with up and down on the D pad. You can also move closer or farther away from the battle with left or right.
Final bosses are mainly dragons, as Sir Bowen is a Dragonslayer out to slay dragons, but in the last stage you’ll be fighting soldiers and major story characters. Personally I found the dragons to be far more difficult as their fireballs are more difficult to predict, even though you can block them with the shield. Fighting human enemies is almost laughable. All you need to do is land one good blow and just keep spamming the attack button. With each hit they will get knocked back but still continue to mindlessly move forward into your attack. This isn’t to say they’ll never attack, but as long as you spam the attack button you should easily defeat them.
To save your progress Dragonheart offers a password system that is super easy to remember. Simply six characters, absolutely none of which are confusing like the letter O and the number 0. A password will be given after each stage, although the time given to write the password down seemed to me to be a bit too short, but the passwords are readily available online these days.
A few things that I found to be odd about Dragonheart was that when pausing the game you are presented with the option to quit by pressing B. I find this a bit dangerous because during my first time playing the game I was confused by even seeing the option to quit the game and accidentally hit it anyway. Another oddity, at least to me, was that inventory seems to be strictly for story items. The player isn’t given any chance to purchase usable items such as potions to regain health, and pressing any button while in the inventory simply takes you back to the gameplay.
At best Dragonheart is a single play through time waster, nothing exceptional or spectacular about it. The music is annoying, the battles aren’t very satisfying and the gameplay is a string of unrewarding tasks. With a little more work it could have probably been a fun RPG or maybe a decent Legend of Zelda clone. The only good thing I can say about this game is that is seems they worked very hard on making the pictures of the characters look very close to the actors portraying them from the movie, which was nice to see.
The Art of Cheating 2: A Little Help From My Friends!
Most vintage gamers prefer to play video games as they were intended, trying over and over to get just 1 more level and feel our hard work has paid off. Others will only try so many times before they pull out an old issue of Nintendo Power, look up a walkthrough, or find cheat codes. For the rest of us, and even all of the above, there was the Game Genie, Action Replay or Game Shark!
The main function of these devices is to alter the game’s coding so that we don’t have to struggle. Sometimes, with a little fiddling around, codes could help us forget about our struggles by completely altering the game in quite interesting ways. From infinite exp, gold or levels in an RPG, to allowing Mario to swim through thin air and complete levels untouched, these cheating devices offered endless possibility and helped many gamers beat a game, while all their friends were struggling to beat the game the intended way. Ha, losers!
As far back as the Commodore 64 days, cheating devices have been on the market. When the home console market started heating up many companies decided it was time to step up to that market and throw their name into the ring. I don’t own them all (I wish I did though!), but I will be going through the cheat devices I do own (or have owned) for each console and giving them a quick review.
Nintendo Game Boy
One of the earliest Game Genies I owned was for my Game Boy, which came with a little code booklet that had such small print it was almost of no real use. It also came with stickers that you could place on the back of each game and punch in codes at a glance. When the Game Genie started up the user was prompted to enter codes, meaning if the game you wanted to use didn’t have any stickers or wasn’t in the booklet, you were out of luck.
This Game Genie works universally with the DMG, Game Boy Pocket and the Game Boy Color, but it will not work with the Super Game Boy without modification. Even though Game Boy Color games fit, they blank out the screen on the Game Boy Color. They do seem to work on the DMG and Pocket, but GBC games won’t work on that hardware anyway, leading me to assume Game Boy Color games will not work with the Game Genie.
Many years later I acquired a Game Shark Pro, which encompassed both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color library of games. Although a little unorthodox in the way you connect the cartridge, the Game Shark was far superior to the Game Genie, in that it offers on-board memory to store cheat codes, as well as allowing the user to remove or even input new codes/games into the Game Shark’s memory. Unlike the Game Genie, the Game Shark will work in a Super Game Boy, but due to the lack of a notch for the power switch, it will not work in an original DMG.
Nintendo Entertainment System
The only cheat device for the NES I’ve ever owned is a Game Genie, but I do believe there is an Action Replay out there for the NES as well. The Game Genie for the NES was released in two forms, that I know of, black and gold, which are simply esthetic differences and have nothing to do with performance. The Game Genie was very straight forward in how to use it with the old NES box design, but if you own an NES top loader you will notice that the Game Genie is almost impossible to get in. With a little force it will work, but once it is within the console it is extremely hard to remove. Galoob did remedy this with an adapter, which has become too rare for me to ever find.
As with any Game Genie, all codes were punched in manually and if the game I wanted to use wasn’t in the booklet, I was out of luck. Sometimes I would get additional codes from kids around the neighborhood, as well as punching in random codes to see what the results would be. I mostly enjoyed my Game Genie with various Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 codes, to completely alter the game. Anything from changing the background textures or enemy textures, to allowing Mario to walk over pits and walk through obstacles and enemies alike, the Game Genie produced amazing results in those two games.
Super Nintendo
Again I must confess the only cheating device I’ve ever owned for the SNES has been the Game Genie, but I believe there was an Action Replay available for it and/or the Super Famicom, I’m not completely sure. The SNES version of the Game Genie was much like the NES version, as all you needed to do was piggyback the SNES cartridge on top, plug it all into the SNES and away you went. But sadly the Game Genie didn’t come equipped with the spare connectors that are used in games that utilize the Super FX chip. I’m not completely sure whether this affects using these two in combination, but I’m pretty sure those are essential and would indeed cause problems.
Another downside is that during the lifetime of the SNES, Nintendo got wise to all the game copying machines that were prevalent in that era. To stop these devices from working, and subsequently the Game Genie as well, Nintendo put a security measure in place that will prevent some games from loading correctly, if they detect they’re not connected directly into the SNES console. This means a lot of games, such as Killer Instinct, that you would like to use Game Genie codes for simply won’t load, defeating the whole purpose.
Nintendo 64
By the time the Nintendo 64 rolled out, Game Genie had become but a memory and left the other two devices to rule the console cheating device market. For the N64 I own a Game Shark Pro v3.3, which offers all the on board memory goodness that I’m familiar with in the Game Shark product line. Also by this time computers were becoming more prevalent, so the Game Shark offers a connection port on the back of the device, allowing for updates.
The N64 Game Shark Pro doesn’t allow for the comfortable, snug cartridge connection that I’m familiar with in all my other cheating devices, instead of function they went for form. This means the cartridge doesn’t always align properly, feeling very flimsy once its all put together, which often forces me to reconnect the game cartridge and the Game Shark to get it to function properly. Apart from the occasional need to reconnect the game cartridge I haven’t had many issues with the Game Shark, but I have heard many of them suffer from numerous problems and are often completely nonfunctional.
Sega Genesis
When I got my first Sega Genesis I had to find myself a Game Genie, so I did. Operation is the exact same as all the other Game Genies (punch in the codes and go!), as well as offering the familiar snug and comfortable fit between cartridge and Game Genie. I no longer have a Game Genie for the Genesis, so this means I can not offer pictures of it, but there is always Google.
The Sega Genesis version also came in 2 variations, that I know of, black label and gold label, again purely an esthetic change and nothing to do with performance. The Game Genie works with both the Sega Genesis model 1 and 2, but does not work with the Majesco model 3, which is a hardware limitation of the console and not the Game Genie. From what I understand this can be rectified by adding a few wires within the console to connect the points that need to be made for the Game Genie to work. As I’ve never owned a Nomad, or any other portable Genesis device, to test it with, I can not confirm or deny whether it works with any of those.
Sega Game Gear
Just like the Game Boy, the Sega Game Gear had a Game Genie as well. This one also had a compartment for a little code booklet, but unlike the Game Boy version the games actually went in the correct way around. My only real complaint is that once the unit is fitted to the Game Gear it becomes slightly difficult to properly plug in the power supply, which is almost vital for using a Sega Game Gear at home.
This version of the Game Genie seems to prefer loading the games first, requiring the user to hit the green reset button on the Game Genie to boot to the code entry screen. But once the Game Genie begins to boot you are greeted by a voice saying “Game Genie!”. Even more good news is that, unlike its Sega Genesis 3 cousin, the Majesco Game Gear will run the Game Genie with only slight glitches, but overall runs quite well on the games I have tested it with.
Sega Dreamcast
As the Sega Dreamcast was drawing its last breath, many stores were abandoning support for the terminally ill console. During this time I was trying to pick up as many games, VMUs and other things for the Sega Dreamcast as I could. One thing that caught my eye was a Game Shark Lite, in a pretty strange looking case.
As the media had changed from cartridge to disc, I was completely ignorant to how this disc would work, as I was still imagining the mating between cartridge and cheat device to be the way things needed to be done. The concept was far more simple than I could imagine, you simply boot the Game Shark disc and pick from the preloaded games, pick your codes and then swap out the Game Shark disc for the game disc. Everything was smooth and easy! I own the Game Shark Lite, which only requires the single disc to operate, but I have seen Dreamcast Game Sharks with specialized memory cards that are required for the whole thing to work.
Sony Playstation
When the Playstation launched with disc based media, cheating devices had to become more clever in the way they would be utilized. One of the first ways was to tap into the Parallel I/O port on the back of the early Playstation consoles, at least that’s what the Game Shark I own does. Simply plug this into the I/O port on the back and the Game Shark boots up first. This Game Shark also has a port on the back, again I assume to allow for updates.
But once Sony started seeing the Parallel I/O port being used for thing they didn’t like, or license, they decided to do away with it. This gave birth to the disc based Game Shark, such as my Game Shark CDX. I have two different versions of the CDX, one only requires the disc and saves to any Playstation memory card, but the other requires the disc and a memory card combo.
I’ve always enjoyed the simplicity of the Game Genie. The Game Genie only required a simple code and even went out of its way to avoid any confusion between the letter O and number 0, something that I’ve actually found to be a problem with one of my Game Sharks. For every Game Genie other than the NES version, they offered an on/off switch to allow users to have codes at the ready, just in case they were wanting to beat a game without cheating.
Most Game Sharks offered the on/off switch as well, but I feel it was put in more as a fail-safe, as I’ve found the Game Shark tends to lock up games quite a bit more easily than Game Genies ever have. The Game Shark has an inviting interface, and the fact that offers an editable memory of codes gives it more overall appeal. But either way, both the Game Shark and Game Genie have helped me out of binds on more than a few occasions, as well as made games more fun.
Codes for both Game Sharks and Game Genies can readily be found online, allowing anyone who finds one of these devices out in the wild to take it home and use it straight away. But as with anything on the internet, codes aren’t always to be believed and often times don’t work. But the internet has shown me that someone has released a Game Genie for the Famicom, which is something I’ll have to get my hands on for sure!
Game Boy Carry All by Nexoft / Asciiware
The Nexoft Gameboy Carry All was something I was seriously wanting to add to the portable storage article I wrote a while back, but I couldn’t manage to win one off ebay until recently. Although I’ve never seen one out in the wild I wouldn’t consider these storage cases to be rare, but they seem to be fairly hard to find! Always with an OCD for storing my video games and portable systems I had to own one, and here it is.
Mine says Nexoft, but I’ve seen them by Asciiware as well. From what I’ve seen online they are the exact same thing, just different company names. I’m assuming they were produced in the same factory and the names were printed on in different locations of that factory.
This case holds a Gameboy, up to 8 games, the Gameboy link cable, a pair of small earphones and possibly spare batteries, all within this compact unit. My only real annoyance comes not from the case itself but from Gameboy game cases. If you use game cases this will only hold a maximum of 4 games, but without cases you can store up to 8. Its not the carry all’s fault, but why would you only want to carry around (or store) 4 games?
4 games without cases or 2 with, why would you need cases within a case?
A very useful feature is the way it holds the Gameboy inside with a stationary bit in one corner and a quick release tab at the top. This keeps the Gameboy nice and snug within its own side, so you don’t have to worry about loose cartridges falling out when you close the unit up, just close it with the game part down.
I’m not sure whether this is common or maybe this particular one wasn’t used very often, but it doesn’t close well at all. I really have to give it a fair bit of pressure to get it to close. Being as old as it is I’m slightly worried about the plastic being too brittle. But once it all aligns the unit is held closed with a very sturdy clip, which holds it closed tight and secure.
As I only use it for storage the Nexoft/ASCIIWare Carry All serves its purpose of storing and protecting my Gameboy and a handful of games and accessories. Its small, light and compact with a carry strap, which I’ll never use but I’ll leave on anyway. But as I stated before with the plastic being this old it seems slightly brittle, so I couldn’t use this as a travel carrying case.