Even with the jump to full colour the Game Boy Color still offered several bad game releases. Whether they are quick and easy cash grabs to badly executed and poorly designed messes these are the worst of the worst of the Game Boy Color games.
Rules:
European Game Releases Only
10: Animorphs
Developer: Runny-Fun
Starting the list of is with an RPG based on the scholastic books by K. A. Applegate where the characters are able to transform into various animals. Animorphs on the Game Boy Color suffers from a ton of serious problems including terrible turn based battles where attacks barely hit enemies and fights become insanely difficult and areas where often confusing to get through due to little to no guidance to where to go. It is also an RPG where you don't save on a battery but instead only by utilizing passwords and I mean that is just incredibly stupid and dumb on all levels. Who would any RPG be using passwords to save your progress at that point in gaming?
9: WWF Betrayal
Developer: Wayforward Technologies
Before Wayforward became so known for Shantae they turned out a rather terrible wrestling game that was WWF Betrayal, rather than a standard wrestling game on a portable device wrestling fans were treated to a side scrolling beat em up and it wasn't fun. Attacks were sluggish, lackluster movesset, gameplay was monotonous, you only got to play as four characters and it just didn't feel like a WWF/WWE game (whatever) at all and something different entirely. This game got wrestled down and pined out quickly by better wrestling games especially ones that were out at the time like WWE No Mercy on the N64 which is more worthwhile and entertaining than this tedious slog that is a “Betrayal” to the WWF/WWE license.
8: The Mask of Zorro
Developer: Saffire
The Mask of Zorro had a series of great swashbuckling movies and books which although really insanely old are still vastly entertaining to look into. The games based on those however are not so good because being one of those movie tie-in games it shouldn't be surprising to anybody that this Game Boy Color is absolute trash. It was a poorly designed pile of garbage with difficult and annoying enemies alongside having horrible controls, awful platforming and combat and poor collision detection. Even if you are a fan of the classic films or books of Zorro this utterly flawed and boring trash is one to avoid.
7: Godzilla The Series Monster Wars
Developer: Crave Entertainment
Godzilla the king of the monsters has had a fantastic series of monster movies over the years alongside different cartoons that were not so good including the 1998 American cartoon based on the 1998 American film. Then Crave Entertainment gave Godzilla fans games based on that cartoon series with two Game Boy Color games that are vastly identical to each other in terms of gameplay and if I have to decide the worst of them all it would be Godzilla The Series Monster Wars. Every single stage is on-rails as you simply go to the right and move a crosshair to fire his fireballs to defeat enemies which all consist of human soldiers and armed tanks, helicopters with each stage having face off against other giant monsters like El Gusano Gigante, the Nanotech Creature and lastly Cyber-zilla. The gameplay was very boring and seriously repetitive and doesn't offer up any challenge what-so-ever let alone any semblance of controlling the giant monster. You don't get to destroy any buildings which as Godzilla is something you should be doing but in this game. It is seriously a Gozilla game where this and also the other game on the Game Boy Color should be destroyed by Gozilla's breath.
6: Men In Black The Series
Developer: Tiertex Design Studios
While the brief cutscenes may look nice for a Game Boy Color game everything else about the Men In Black The Series game however is completely terrible and the team responsible for this turd is none other than Tiertex who were known for terrible ports of arcade games including Street Fighter so it is no wonder why this game sucked. The gameplay was horrendous suffering from sluggish controls, shooting enemies is a chore due to enemies being too small making them impossible to shoot and trying to shoot upwards is very unnatural. There is no variety to any of the levels, has very simplistic gameplay that is not very fun to play, the game itself is super short and lastly the music audio is so awful. Everybody who dares to play this game should be neuralyzed and pretend that this doesn't exist.
5: Mortal Kombat 4
Developer: Digital Eclipse
Mortal Kombat 4 was the first entry in the over the top violent fighting game series to make the jump into the 3rd Dimension with 3D character models albeit still remaining on a standard 2D plane. While it wasn't any kind of big leap for fighting games when compared to the Tekken series and had some issues but still Mortal Kombat 4 was still a decent fighter introducing temporally weapons, a more robust combo system and a bigger character roaster. After being released in Arcades, PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and the PC Digital Eclipse thought it would be great to bring Mortal Kombat 4 to the Game Boy Color instead of it being 3D it goes back to being 2D but with its own designed character sprites and using the fighting engine of the Game Boy port of Mortal Kombat 3. Everything about the Game Boy Color port of Mortal Kombat 4 is massively downgraded from the game mechanics to the fighting system, the characters were reduced to nine with the hidden unlockable character being Reptile, blood is not shown and Fatalities were reduced to horrible looking FMV screens, there are no combos, the AI was horrendous, no two player mode, the moves are basic as there are no combos and no temporally weapons to use. The game even runs poorly with a very abysmal frame rate and the soundtrack is disgusting for any Game Boy Color game. This is one Mortal Kombat port that rightfully deserves the Spike Pit Fatality.
4: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Developer: Gamebrains
Everyone's favourite vampire slayer has had a film which then went on to create an excellent TV series that lasted seven seasons, plenty of novels and only a handful of video game tie-ins with the Game Boy Color game with a doubt being the worst of them all. The gameplay was a bare bones beat em up with little to no variety of enemies, the fighting is tedious with a very basic move set with no weapons and only a can of paint to throw at enemies and soda cans to give you super punches and kicks and you have to stake the enemies when you knock them down otherwise they get back up and while true to the source material it becomes massively very repetitive fighting one single enemy at a time and then finishing it off. This game deserves to be staked in the heart and be prevented to taking another a bite on any player who plays this tedious boring game.
3: Shrek Fairytale Freakdown
Developer: Prolific
Shrek has a number of films that is well liked by families and from it's success came up a series of video game tie-ins that were expected to be terrible. Shrek Fairytale Freakdown tried its hand at a Shrek fighting game featuring characters from the films and it is arguably one of the worst fighters on the Game Boy Color. There is no strategy what-so-ever to the combat as there is no special moves, it had awful AI, simplistic arenas and no two player mode to speak of. You can easily beat the AI by doing one move over and over till you win and you do it for every enemy making everything too easy even by fighting game standards. This miserable piece of garbage deserves to get a uppercut by much better fighting games Game Boy systems than this.
2: Star Wars Yoda Stories
Developer: Lucasarts/Torus Games
While the force has been strong for many Star Wars video games there are some games that came from the dark side of the force to reign disappointment on fans and Star Wars Yoda Stories is easily the worst. Although the game's purpose to be desktop adventure game that was meant to be beaten quickly by casuals but the game itself is so poorly designed. The gameplay was a terrible Zelda clone with awkward combat, really terribly dated graphics & animations, atrocious sound and really bad controls. Missions in the game were nothing more than a series of fixed objectives that grew repetitive no matter what you ended up in and this barely has anything to do with Yoda. Even if this game had more to do with Yoda I'm sure that he would say this famous line. “That is why you fail!” With awful scavenger hunt objectives, dated visuals and horrendous gameplay this game has gone on to become on the lowest reviewed games in the Star Wars franchise.
Dishonourable Mentions:
Resident Evil Gaiden (M4)
X-Men Mutant Wars (Hal Corp./AVIT)
Rugrats In Paris The Movie (Software Creations)
Dogz (Saffire)
Disney's Dinosaur (Digital Eclipse)
1: Austin Powers Oh Behave! & Austin Powers Welcome to my Underground Lair
Developer: Tarantula Studios
Austin Powers a comedy spy movie series deserved anything better than whatever these games are supposed to be. These are two games that got released together while two others were planned but were never released and for good reason. Both Austin Powers Oh Behave! And Wellcome to my Underground Lair are nothing more than a bunch of silly minigames on top of a reskin knock off of Microsoft Windows which no one not even huge Austin Powers fans would find any of them amusing. The minigames range from a terrible Pac-Man clone with versions of Othello, Reversi and Rock, Paper, Scissors and each of these are dreadful and unfunny. These games have nothing groovy in them that is entertaining and for what game is inside them are so boring and completely lackluster. You are better off watching the films instead.
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