I'm still working away on this website behind the scenes, but seeing as it's not every day you get to write a news story for Virtual Boy,
let alone one about games that have been lost for 30 years, I figured it would be a good time to write a quick VR32 News flash!
The Virtual Boy community has finally received the long awaited titles Dragon Hopper and Zero Racers with todays Nintendo Switch Online update!
These games were last seen way back at E3 1996, as part of an initiative to relaunch the system with games that take further advantage of the systems unique capabilites.
These games were reviewed favorably at the show, and release felt certain when they were previewed in magazines and shown off in video ads.
Then one day, these promising looking titles were unceremoniously cancelled as Nintendo decided to cut their losses with Virtual Boy. In the years since, hunting down
pre-release copies of these games has become a top priority for the Virtual Boy Community. 3 decades later Nintendo shocked the community with the reveal that these long lost titles
would be added to the Virtual Boy Classics app! We've had our Switch Virtual Boys for just about 7 months and finally, these games have been released to the public.
I haven't had too much time with these games yet, and they will both get full reviews and write ups on our games page, so these are just my initial thoughts on this update day.
I started with Zero Racers, which while neat, I unfortunatley didn't find amazing. The game sets a good first impression with a catchy tune and similar wireframe graphics to Red Alarm.
You fly your machine left, right, up and down, through the tunnel like courses while picking up boosts on the way to the finish line.
The game control feels resposive, though I found it very easy to end up ping pong-ing between the walls of the course when trying to correct my turns. I tried a few different courses but in
what I think is the real let down of the game, they all look identical. There is no visual difference between one area and another. Pair this with the fact that there is no music during the
actual races (which feels crazy to say about an F-Zero Game), and I imagine that when really giving this game a full playthrough this will start feeling monotonous quickly.
I spent a bit more time with Dragon Hopper, and in that time I can already say that this game is gonna become a new favorite for Virtual Boy enthusiasts.
The game intro is nice, investing you into the story and introducing the stakes. The music sounds nice and fits the envoirnments well, and the graphics are very detailed with
similar depth to the character sprites you would see on games like VB Wario Land. This game is viewed from a top down perspective,
and the platforming is often vertical, jumping from plane to plane to speak with NPC's, find keys and battle enemies.
I find this a very fresh and interesting style, with the jumping reminding me of another cancelled Virtual Boy game Bound High.
The closest non Virtual Boy comparison in gameplay I can think of would be isometric games like Sonic 3D Blast or the Spyro Season of Flame and Ice games on gba.
But where those games failed at conveying a sense of depth perception, the Virtual Boy's 3D visuals make Dragon Hopper excel at this. I got to a point
where you unlock a new form that allows you to break through certain floors and stomp enemies, and I'm interested to see what abilities are next.
This is a quality title that deserved to see the light of day, and fortunatley for us, it finally has.
That pretty much wraps up my current feelings on the latest update. I'm excited to get more in depth with these games when I get around to writing their full reviews, so stay tuned for those in the near(ish) future!
In 1995, the Virtual Boy was released by Nintendo as an answer to the rising interest in virtual reality technology.
The system used oscillating mirrors and red LED displays to produce steroscopic 3D images.
It was once planned to feature full color graphics, but due to the cost of LED tech at the time, only red was feasible to keep the console affordable,
leading to the consoles unique red and black aethstetic. The Virtual Boy was not succesful, selling only 770,000 units, making it Nintendos worst selling standalone console.
This led to the Virtual Boy library consisting of only 22 games.
Welcome to my first web page!
I don't really know what I'm doing, but the plan is for this site to cover the history of the virtual boy, promo materials and my over all thoughts on each of the consoles games!
While I figure this out slowly, here's some test links!
Virtual Boy for Switch Online!
