Older games with compatibility issues with newer Game Boy models

Nintendo's handhelds are generally compatible with games from 1 to 2 generations back. However, some games fail to work (wholly or partially) on newer Game Boy revisions, typically due to very specific hardware quirks.

Games with major compatibility issues

Games that exhibit issues that make the game impossible or difficult to play, such as crashes, physical incompatibility or lockout screens.

GB games with compatibility issues on GBC and later hardware

Barcode Boy (Accessory used by Monster Maker: Barcode Saga and Battle Space)

The Barcode Boy is a Game Boy accessory that reads barcodes on special cards. The accessory connects to the Game Boy using a short link cable. This link cable is using the DMG style link plug, which doesn't fit in the smaller link port used by the Game Boy Pocket, Color and Advance. The link cable that comes with the accessory is likely special in that it probably connects the power supply pin of the link port to power the Barcode Boy. The accessory could probably work with newer Game Boy models in principle if you built a suitable adapter, however it's incompatible by default.

Legend of Zerd

This game relies on the STAT bug, which sometimes triggers a spurious LCD interrupt when the STAT register is written. This issue was fixed on the GBC, but its absence can cause issues for some games. In Legend of Zerd it causes the game to crash during the intro screen.

Pocket Sonar

Pocket Sonar is a special Game Boy cartridge that connects to a sonar device that help you fish. It is reported to not work on Game Boy Color and newer, however it's not known at the time of writing this article why. It may potentially be due to a power problem where electrical interference the sonar is causing something to misbehave.

Road Rash

The original release by Ocean relies on the STAT bug, which sometimes triggers a spurious LCD interrupt when the STAT register is written. This issue was fixed on the GBC, but its absence causes Road Rash to lock up with a white screen after the level selection. A GBC-only rerelease by EA is available.

GB and GBC games with compatibility issues on GBA hardware

Bionic Commando - Elite Forces

According to Nerdly Pleasures this game has load/save issues on the GBA. (TODO: confirm whether this is true, and if so figure out why.)

Burai Fighter Deluxe

According to Nerdly Pleasures "Kills character almost immediately when first boss appears". (TODO: confirm whether this is true, and if so figure out why. Possibly related to video timing.) There is a GBC exclusive version of this game called Burai Senshi Color.

Chee-Chai Alien

Chee-Chai Alien is using the IR sensor of the GBC as a light sensor, which is a core gameplay mechanic in the game. For this reason, the game includes a lockout screen, similar to the one many GBC games show when run on a pre-GBC console.

Kirby Tilt'n'Tumble (on the GBA SP)

This game is using an accelerometer to control aspects of the gameplay. While it will still work on a Game Boy Advance SP, the controls will be inverted because the cartridge is located upside down on the bottom of the console.

Pocket Music

Pocket Music is a DAW (digital audio workstation) for the Game Boy. One of its features is sample playback. Unfortunately, sample playback sounds really bad on the GBA, because of a quirk that produces a spike in the waveform every time the wave buffer is reloaded. For this reason, the game includes a lockout screen, similar to the one many GBC games show when run on a pre-GBC console. A patch exists that both fixes the wave playback issue, and removes the lockout screen.

Zok Zok Heroes

This game is using an bespoke external controller device that commnuicates through the GBC's IR port. The game only lets you play up to a certain point before it requires using this device, and thus effectively locks you out from playing the game on a GBA. more information on Edge of Emulation

Games with minor compatibility issues

Games that exhibit minor issues, like graphical or audio glitches, but are still over all playable.

GB games with graphical issues due to flickering on SGB and later hardware

Some games designed for the original Game Boy used interframe blending to create a transparency effect between two images. The technique works by switching back and forth between two images every frame, and relying on the slow response time of the DMG's LCD screen to produce something close to the average intensity between the two images. Such an effect may look slightly worse on a GBC or GBA with their fast LCD response time, but it's typically not so bad that the game is unplayable. The real issue happens when playing on a Super Game Boy (and presumably on a Game Boy Player as well) because the Super Game Boy framerate (61.17 Hz) is not synchronized to the SNES's framerate (60.0988 Hz for NTSC, 50.007 Hz for PAL). In effect, you get may get missed frames, especially on PAL, which can make the output very flickery when one of the alternating frames is repeated on or more time, leading to a much slower apparent frequency of the blending effect.

Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS

This is probably the game that's most famous for using this technique for a fullscreen simulated vertical parallax effect. In my opinion, it's nearly unplayable on a Super Game Boy because the flickering is so annoying.

Wave Race

This game is using this technique for showing the status bar at the bottom of the screen with a transparency effect. However, a workaround in this game is to press select to make the status bar solid.

Serpent

This game is using this technique to superimpose full screen text over the screen in the attract mode that activates if you don't press any buttons for a while in the title screen. Luckily, this is not an issue for gameplay.

Other examples of this issue probably exist as well.

GB games with minor graphical issues on GBC and later hardware

Donkey kong land 1-3

The Donkey Kong Land series is using very tight routine for copying data to VRAM. On the GBC, the video timings are different by 1 CPU cycle, which sometimes causes writes to be mistimed and not go through. This is visible as horizontal lines in sprites in some instances.

GB games with minor audio issues on GBC and later hardware

R-Type (on early GBC revisions)

On Game Boy models prior to the GBC, the wave channel buffer will contain semi-random values on a cold startup. R-Type doesn't initialize the wave channel buffer for its title screen music and is thus playing back a random waveform on every startup. On GBC, wave channel buffer will consistently contain all zeroes on a cold startup, resulting in the wave channel being silent in the title screen. This is a hardware issue, but a later revision of the GBC boot ROM contains a "hotfix" for this issue by initializing the wave channel with a simple waveform. R-Type DX, which is a dual platform title, initializes the wave channel buffer and sounds consistent on all Game Boy models.

Final Fantasy Adventure, Final Fantasy Legend II, Panel Action Bingo, Prehistorik Man and probably others (on early GBC revisions)

Early versions of the GBC SoC has an audio hardware bug where notes on pulse channels will randomly be cut off early if the length function (in NR11/NR21) has been used on the channel and the pitch of the channel is modulated quickly. Games which do that are susceptible to this bug. This was fixed in later revisions of the GBC SoC.

GBC games that use the IR port

The Game Boy Color has an infrared transceiver that can communicate with other Game Boy Colors or, in the case of Mission Impossible with a TV by recording remote control codes. The IR port is missing on the GBA, so any game that is using this port will lack the functionality that it's using the port for. Chee-Chai Alien and Zok Zok Heroes are listed in the previous section since they're using the IR port for a main game mechanic and lock the player out of playing the game on a GBA. However, for most games, the IR port is only used for for minor gameplay functionality. Moby Games has a list of the 37 GBC games using the IR port and would thus be affected.

• Arle no Bōken: Mahō no Jewel
• Austin Powers: Oh Behave!
• Austin Powers: Welcome to My Underground Lair!
• Bomberman Max: Blue Champion
• Bomberman Max: Red Challenger
• Carl Lewis Athletics 2000
• Catz
• Dancing Furby
• Disney's Aladdin
• Dogz
• Donkey Kong Country
• Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado
• Hamtaro: Ham-Hams Unite!
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Laura
• Mickey's Racing Adventure
• Mickey's Speedway USA
• Mission: Impossible
• NHL Blades of Steel 2000
• Papyrus
• Perfect Dark
• Phantom Zona
• Pokémon Card GB2: GR Dan Sanjou!
• Pokémon Crystal Version
• Pokémon Gold Version
• Pokémon Pinball
• Pokémon Silver Version
• Pokémon Trading Card Game
• Rayman
• Return of The Ninja
• Robopon Sun Version
• Robot Ponkottsu: Star Version
• Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - Shiro no Sho
• Spirou: The Robot Invasion
• Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
• Toonsylvania
• Warlocked

GB/GBC games with sample playback that is broken on GBA

One of the several methods to play back sampled audio on the Game Boy is by periodically refilling the channel 3 wave buffer. If this method is used on the GBA without disabling the channel in the NR51 IO register ($FF25) during the buffer reload period, there will be a spike in the waveform. This produces a loud audible buzz. A number of games has this issue, however the only known example of a game that locks out potential players out of fear that they will experience this issue is Pocket Music, as listed in the previous section.

Another somewhat popular method for sample playback is by setting one of the pulse channels to play a tone above the audible range, and using the DC offset produced by the volume setting to output a sampled waveform. On Game Boy models before the GBA, the audio is mixed using an analogue circuit and the tone above the audible range will be filtered away by filtering components as well by the player's ears. The GBA on the other hand has digital mixing which in this case can produced glitched or no audio playback due to sample aliasing.

According to Nerdly Pleasures Nintendo published a list of 14 GB/GBC games with audio issues on the GBA.

• Densha de Go
• Densha de Go 2
• Hamster Paradise 3
• Hamster Paradise 2
• Disney's Tarzan
• Sakura Taisen GB
• Koro Koro Kirby
• Doreamon - Study Fighter 99 Games
• Japanese Chess
• Battle Athletic
• Game of Go
• World Soccer GB2
• Tokimeki Memorial Pocket: Chapter of Culture
• Tokimeki Memorial Pocket: Chapter of Sports

(TODO: Test and figure out the issue with each of those games, and list any other games that are affected.)