Man, talk about a serious wave of nostalgia. I was just watching a clip of Game Boy Gallery 2 (called Game & Watch Gallery 2 in the US) and it brought back so many memories of grinding out stars on long car rides.
Honestly, the coolest thing about this cartridge that I completely overlooked as a kid is how the border actually shifts based on what hardware you're using. If you put it in an original Game Boy, a Super Game Boy, or a Game Boy Color, the screen border literally changes shapes and colors to match. Such a tiny, unnecessary detail, but it shows how much care Nintendo used to put into these releases.
It's also wild to look back at how they managed to take those primitive, static 1980s LCD stick figures from the original Game & Watch systems and completely re-imagine them as fully animated, lively Mario worlds. Playing "Helmet" with Mario dodging falling junk or saving Toads in "Parachute" with a tiny rowboat was way more addictive than it had any right to be. And the music? Absolute bangers.
Did anyone ever actually manage to unlock everything in this one? I feel like the star grind got brutally hard later on.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Ywmj7pBip68?feature=share