How did play the original Game boy so much as a kid?

[SharpShooter]

So I was digging through my closet and found my original Game boy. I got a little nostalgic thinking about all the good times I had with it, so I slapped some batteries in it and played a little Mario Bro's. After only a few minutes I was cringing with eyestrain and had a headache. I love that Game boy and remember playing it for hours when I was a kid. I'm not sure if it's because that was all I had then and I have everything in HD now, or what.

Has anyone had a similar experience with retro consoles?

 

[Tycoonie259]

So I was digging through my closet and found my original Game boy. I got a little nostalgic thinking about all the good times I had with it, so I slapped some batteries in it and played a little Mario Bro's. After only a few minutes I was cringing with eyestrain and had a headache. I love that Game boy and remember playing it for hours when I was a kid. I'm not sure if it's because that was all I had then and I have everything in HD now, or what.

Has anyone had a similar experience with retro consoles?

The furthest I can go back is to a DS lite, and that's not that old (like only 8 years or so) so I don't really have problems while playing it, and even now, I can still play mario kart (hell yeah!) for hours without headache, though I know there's a pretty big difference between the DS and GBA so it doesn't really surprise me that you aren't used to it anymore.

 

[AFKATafcar]

I never dealt with eyestrain while using the older Gameboy handhelds. However, those screens definitely weren't the best looking, and I can see how your eyes would start to hurt after using one. I'd have to imagine that the 3DS would cause more eye sore than the older Gameboys, though, with the 3D effects. Not everyone can handle that for an extended period of time.

 

[Tycoonie259]

I love the Game Boy and honestly, I could go back and play some Mario Golf right now. I had the Game Boy Advanced and I loved it so much. I was a big Nintendo fan when I was a kid. I loved the Game Boy, then the DS lite and then the DSi. Those were some fantastic handheld consoles. Of course now, I didn't really find the need of getting the 3DS as I recently got the PS Vita, but overall, for sure, the Game Boy was such a fun console to play on. I mean, yes, we have gotten used to HD but going back to that nostalgic pixel gameplay is worth a few minutes of headaches

Yeah, it's weird how we could play the Game Boy for hours when we were little, while now it gives headaches.
Luckily, I don't get headaches when I play the old pokémon games on my DS lite

And you're not alone, I didn't find the need of getting a 3DS neither, until professor layton came out (big fanboy over here)

 

[Ridge]

I know I didn't get headaches from the original Gameboy back in the day. Can't say I've fired one up in around 15 years though. So who knows? Maybe we are all spoiled by pretty handhelds now.

 

[LitoLawless]

I would play the original handheld Game Boy all the time. My cousin had the original gray version when it was first released and I would spend hours on that thing. I didn't get my own until around the time that Pokemon Red and Blue came around. It was a done deal after that.

 

[wulfman]

I used to play a lot in the car on long road trips with my parents. I had to stop after awhile no matter how addictive the game was because I would feel dizzy and nauseous. Reading did the same thing to me after about an hour or so while in a car.

 

[Purrdy]

Yeah, motion sickness - I know what that's like. I think its the small screen that gives people the headaches - and the brightness, I know I can't stand bright screens anymore. Even the TV at night hurts my eyes.
I haven't played the original gameboy in years - though looking back, I think I should have gotten a battery charger.
I never got eye strain, but then I held it at a distance since I already had eye problems as a kid.

 

[Atlas_Hope]

Given that I haven't touched the original game boy's in a while I'm not too sure how my eyes would hold up but I think the worst thing about the old handhelds was the lack of a backlight, you'd have to play in the most perfectly lit area to see anything at all. Then the GBA SP came out and it was as if angel's had descended from the heavens and bestowed us with a holy gift.

 

[JayWifi]

I used to have a Gameboy Color and besides the screen being dark without a light attachment, it played pretty well. Of course I do stare at screens for hours on end everyday though. I've gotten used to staring at screens no matter how tiny they are.

 

[squallsnake]

Kids just don't realize how great they have it today. Playing on the original GB pea-green screen was pretty terrible. Image playing Metroid II on that. Things got better when Worm Lights came out for GBC and GBA units. But it wasn't until the front-lit GBA SP did things really start to get good. But I remember playing 2-player linking with the original GB Tetris, Dr. Mario, Faceball, and Tecmobowl. If you thought playing on an non-backlit screen was bad, trying playing tethered with an 8" link cable!

 

[dillinger10]

For me, the greatest appeal of the original Game Boy was the ability to take it with me and play games in the go. Sure, the screen as tiny, the graphics less than ideal but being able to play Tetris or Mario whenever and wherever made it all tolerable.

 

[Cereus]

I grew up with the Game Boy. I remember playing Tetris on the original. Then playing Pokemon and later on getting the Game Boy Pocket. From there I got the Game Boy Color to play Pokemon Gold/Silver. Those were the good old days haha. It was tons of fun hiding under the covers with a flashlight to play the Gameboy, trying to level up my Pokemon.

 

[Kitouski]

I'll still play Gameboy and Gameboy Color games on my GBA once in a while and I don't really have much in the way of problems with headaches or anything like that. I think the last thing I played was "Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3" a couple months back, and before that I brought "Qix" and "Heroes of Might and Magic" on a small trip I took with my Gameboy Color. I didn't really run into this problem, though I wasn't messing with the original Gameboy in both of the most recent times I can recall so that could contribute.

Guess I'll have to dig up the old fatty and see if this is the case. It might be worth mentioning that if you're talking about the original "Super Mario Land", that game had horrendous motion blur and could be contributing to it.

 

[sorrowscall]

I never really got eyestrain from older consoles or the original Game Boy. To be fair, I barely played a Game Boy before moving on to the Game Boy Color shortly thereafter. Still, none of those ever seemed to bother my eyes. It's possible it hurt you simply since it's been such a long time and you've been using HD for so long that your eyes got used to that instead.

 

[teabwoi]

The old gameboy will always be a classic I could remember the hours that I would spend just sitting and playing pokemon. I think that the reason that it would strain your eyes now is because you may be a bit older I know for sure that would be the problem with me now. I have gotten older so now my body has gone through a bit more.

 

[joshposh]

The original gameboy does have a place in history. Never before could this level of gaming be taken on the go. It sure made the bus ride to and from college bareable. If i'm not mistaken, wasn't the battery life on these things about 20 hours or so?

 

[squallsnake]

I'll still play Gameboy and Gameboy Color games on my GBA once in a while and I don't really have much in the way of problems with headaches or anything like that. I think the last thing I played was "Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3" a couple months back, and before that I brought "Qix" and "Heroes of Might and Magic" on a small trip I took with my Gameboy Color. I didn't really run into this problem, though I wasn't messing with the original Gameboy in both of the most recent times I can recall so that could contribute.

Guess I'll have to dig up the old fatty and see if this is the case. It might be worth mentioning that if you're talking about the original "Super Mario Land", that game had horrendous motion blur and could be contributing to it.

I have been talking with Ubisoft on trying to release the Heroes of M&M games on 3DS Virtual Console - I love those games. They just announced an HD re-released of Heroes III.

 

[Goldie]

Honestly, even at the time I never really got the fascination with Gameboy all that much, and a lot of it was because of the reasons you've stated. I just never got over the bad graphics and gameplay mechanisms but I'm sure it was a lot more forgivable back then when there weren't many other options around. I still much preferred the game Gear because of the lit screen though.

 

[Scottf13]

The only bad thing about the original Gameboy at the time, was that they made it a character on Captain N. Seriously... It's still better than those cheap handheld stand alone games that they tried to shill at the time... the ones with the little black digital renderings.