I have to admit that I was disappointed in this month’s game selection as the voting process did not go the way I was hoping (Battle Arena Toshinden). The truth is that I suck at Killer Instinct. I always have. Arcade, SNES, didn’t matter. I sucked. Other fighters, no problem. Some of them I’m legitimately good at. But for some reason, KI has been a puzzle that I can’t solve.
I had never played it on Game Boy, however, so I went into this month hopeful that narrowing down to two buttons would make the game a bit more accessible to me.
It legitimately took a full week of playing to win a single match and I only won a second match twice in the past two weeks.
Bearing that in mind, I will try and describe what I think of the game. First, the positive: the gameplay is smooth and really feels like playing Killer Instinct, which is the most important part of being a Gameboy port, though it can get button-mashy trying to find combinations since there are only two buttons. The negative is that the graphics leave something to be desired, particularly the player sprites. I understand it’s GB so it is not going to be as good as the SNES, but there are times where I legitimately could not make out the player sprites in action, particularly having a hard time distinguishing them from the background. That said, the artwork is terrific when colorized through a GBC or Super GB (though the sprites are still difficult to distinguish from the background). As for the sound, the music absolutely rocks, especially the title screen, though the sound effects are weak.
So, in sum, this is probably a good game but I just suck so badly at it that I can’t say for sure! –Peter P. (@dmachetto on Twitter)
Yokoi Kids 