The Handheld That Kept Us Up All Night
By: Phillip Caron
Tags: Videogames, Culture, Nostalgia, Self, Gaming

The Handheld That Kept Us Up All Night

I stood outside the wishing well at eight years old, clutching my penny with quiet desperation. I was going through a turbulent time, and I had a lot I could ask from the well that had collected so many coins over the years. I wonder if anyone's wishes had come true?

What would be my wish?

A Sega Game Gear.

Don’t judge me; I was eight, and I desperately wanted to play Sonic ever since one of my best friends unveiled his sleek black handheld complete with a carrying case.

My coin gently plunked into the well, and I soon forgot about my wish. Months went by when I finally received my first handheld gaming machine. I tore through the bright red wrapping paper that Christmas morning, utterly unaware of my surroundings.

What was inside?

I didn’t get a Game Gear.

What I got instead was the monstrous gray Game Boy.

Photo by Ravi Palwe on Unsplash.

The Game Boy gobbled up Four AA batteries at a time to keep itself alive. That immense joy producing machine weighed in at 7.8 oz—nearly half a pound for a paltry 2.6-inch screen that only delivered variations of gray. The batteries lasted a mere fifteen-hour average before you had to change them out. There was no recharging or plugging in the handheld to extend battery life. When the batteries died, your playtime was done.

Even though it wasn’t a Sega, I was grateful and put hundreds of hours, and batteries, into that giant machine.

I invested my time playing Kirby’s Dreamland, Tetris, and The Legend of Zelda, but the short battery life and heavy design hurt my wrists over time and dissuaded me from extended play sessions.

One day all of that changed.

On October 21st, 1998, nearly nine years after the original, Nintendo released the Game Boy Color into the market.

Photo by Elias Castillo on Unsplash.

This new sleek and slim handheld changed my world. The weight clocked in at almost half (4.9 oz), and so had the batteries (2). With this new lightweight frame came an improved 3.5-inch x 5.8-inch screen, which brought forth a never before seen array of colors. The battery life now went from 15 hours to 35 hours, and the lightweight frame enabled me to sneak the Game Boy Color quickly into my backpack.

I secretly brought the Game Boy to school and showed off to my friends during our first recess of the day.

This new Game Boy was my best friend. I remember clutching my new, yellow Game Boy Color and sliding on the power button for the first time. The controls were crisp. They had the perfect bounce-back for my little fingers. The machine felt light as a feather compared to its parent model, and I was on cloud nine.

A year later, Nintendo released Pokémon Yellow. The Pokémon T.V. show made Pikachu famous in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Pokémon Yellow was essentially the same game, except you had no choice of starting Pokémon, and Pikachu refused to stay in a Pokeball. I must have poured hundreds of hours in those early titles, and the distraction they offered me may have contributed to me surviving difficult moments in my childhood.

My father made the terrible mistake of allowing for a lock on my bedroom door. My room was in the garage. The door was an old blue-gray painted front door from an earlier house. The lock, combined with my new extended battery life, allowed me to have extended play sessions of Pokémon, Super Mario, and Mario Tennis.

Mario Tennis was a borderline addiction. In 2001 I was fourteen years old, and I enjoyed the power shot dynamic. I would angle myself perfectly when the time was right and would unload a strong overhand into the back corner. The strategy worked like a charm. The frenetic electronic music, which now gives me anxiety, pushed me through match after match. Even when you weren’t in a competition, the electronic music blared, encouraging you to move through the game at a breakneck pace. Blisters formed on my thumbs from the hours of back and forth with Mario himself.

When my batteries died from hours of playing, I would ride my bike down to the local AM/PM gas station to buy some reserves. I never wanted to be without my spare batteries.

Many nights, after dark, I would set the Game Boy down and think, “Just one more match.”

The Game Boy Color went with me everywhere.

Animation by Gregory Darroll on Dribbble.

I couldn’t get over the jump to beautiful colors. Every day I attended school, I thought about playing Game Boy when I got home. I couldn’t wait. My inability to wait got so bad that I tried starting up Pokémon Yellow during takeoff of a family vacation, only to have my entire game erased. I learned my lesson about turning off my electronics the hard way.

During the darkest moments of my childhood, the Game Boy Color was by my side. You couldn’t break this little machine. I dropped, sat on, and threw that little joy producing rectangle, and the Game Boy always turned on. My Game Boy Color never showed me an ounce of resentment despite my continued abuse; it was the gift that kept on giving, and it continued to work until the day I put it in storage.

Perhaps the nostalgia of this new machine was what kept me up at night. Maybe the massive improvements in technology are what drive positive feelings to the forefront of my brain. Whatever the reason, we will always remember the Game Boy Color as an underrated gaming system.

You can keep your phone; I’ll stick with the classics.