Fusion: NES and Game & Watch

Here’s something interesting that has eluded my attention these past six or so months that I’ve been handling Re:Retro. It’s the Game & Watch Gallery for the Nintendo Game Boy. Gosh, talk about taking advantage (in a good way, of course) of intellectual property rights. Nintendo, in a brilliant move, swiped remade four Game & Watch classics to feature present-day video game icons, including Mario and Donkey Kong Jr., and to play on the Game Boy.

Let’s take a closer look at the four games:

Manhole: Like in the original Game & Watch classic, you have a few people walking across a platform riddled with gaps. In this version, though, you must maneuver Yoshi to hold up a manhole cover to fill in the various gaps and prevent Mario, Toad and Donkey Kong Jr. from falling.

Oil Panic: In this game, Mario reprises the role of the pathetic blot of a character catches leaking oil in a bucket and dumps it out a window into the waiting bucket of his accomplice, Yoshi.

Octopus: Mario dives for treasure in this Game & Watch masterpiece while evading the tentacles of a monstrous octopus.

Fire: No burning skyscrapers here. Instead you have a castle burning with Toad, Yoshi and Donkey Kong Jr. jumping out the window to escape the inferno. The game, however, isn’t complete with brothers Mario and Luigi manning the tarp that bounces the three victims to safety.

Well, personally, Mario and the gang, and the once-fancy machine called the Game Boy can’t replace the real thing. But it’s always fun to play different versions of games that we have come to love.