Highlights
- Nintendo outperformed SNK and Bandai in the handheld market by releasing the Game Boy Color, making their devices feel outdated.
- The WonderSwan had a strong library of games, including intriguing offerings like Front Mission and Rainbow Islands: Putty's Party.
- Gunpei Yokoi, the creator of the WonderSwan, was honored with a puzzle game called Gunpey, and the WonderSwan featured popular games like Golden Axe and Judgement Silversword.
The Nintendo 64 is a great console, but it was ultimately the runner-up in the late 1990s. The rise of Sony's PlayStation and Nintendo’s insistence on cartridges over CDs lost it key third-party support. But it wasn’t all bad. When SNK and Bandai tried entering the handheld market with the Neo Geo Pocket and WonderSwan, Nintendo embarrassed them both by releasing the Game Boy Color during the latter stages of their development in 1998.
With just one new piece of hardware, Nintendo made both machines feel outdated as soon as they hit store shelves. Both SNK and Bandai quickly put together color versions, but it wasn't enough. Both companies left the handheld race shortly afterward. Still, both devices managed to have a strong library of games, with the WonderSwan having some particularly intriguing and incredible offerings.
7 Front Mission
The original Front Mission was a 1995 tactical RPG for the SNES where players pointed and clicked their way through maps with mechs called “wanzers” (from “wanderpanzer”- “walking tanks”). They could be customized in different ways, and target different parts of their foes to disable one weapon or function or another. It was intriguing, but the West wouldn’t get to play it until the 2007 DS port.
However, Squaresoft managed to squeeze the full game into the WonderSwan Color in 2002. The graphics had to be cut down to fit into the handheld’s smaller screen, but the gameplay survived the porting process. The only drawback is that it’s a story-heavy game that’s all in Japanese, and only the SNES version got a fan translation. So, only those fluent in Japanese have seen how well the game turned out on the device.
6 Rainbow Islands: Putty’s Party
The Bubble Bobble games don't have some serious, expansive lore behind them. But it used to be easier to keep track of them. Bubble Bobble was first, Rainbow Islands second, then Parasol Stars third. Then things got tricky when those older games got sequels and spin-offs of their own. When does Bubble Bobble Part 2 happen? Between the first one and Rainbow Islands? And where does the WonderSwan version of the latter fit in?
Rainbow Islands: Putty’s Party has a new protagonist, a young girl called Putty. She has to hop up vertical levels, beat enemies with her rainbow projectiles, and collect items and gems to save Bub & Bob and have a tea party. It plays just as well as the original, and even kept the possibly copyright-infringing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”-esque jingle from the original game. All it lacks is color as, for a game named after rainbows, it's all in grayscale.
5 Rhyme Rider Kerorican
Still, Rainbow Islands has been ported to everything. The WonderSwan also had some intriguing exclusives in its library. After introducing rhythm games to the PS1 with Parappa the Rapper, Masaya Matsūra and his company NanaOn-sha brought the genre over to Bandai’s handheld with Rhyme Rider Kerorican. It's one of their quirkiest games, playing similarly to Vib Ribbon, but with more music and colorful graphics.
Players controlled Kerorican, a girl in a frog-themed spacesuit. As she strolls along, players have to jump, duck, kick, or dodge different obstacles and enemies in her way, which each adds a beat to the background music. The better they do, the higher their combo count, which earns them a crown that can be used to automatically skip obstacles. It’s easy to pick up, tricky to master, and addictive to play.
4 Gunpey
The WonderSwan was created by Gunpei Yokoi, the man behind Metroid, Kid Icarus, the original Game Boy, and much more for Nintendo. He left them in 1996, seeking more creative opportunities with his new company Koto. Through them, he helped make the Tamagotchi and the WonderSwan, until his work was cut short when he was killed in a car accident in 1997.
In tribute to their founder, Koto created Gunpey, a puzzle game where players had to connect different line fragments to form one whole horizontal line. They could even earn bonus combo points if they managed to add extra branching paths to their line too. It received a color update with Gunpey EX, but only the original monochrome game has a fun if strange Story Mode that throws in extra obstacles like bombs and shadow panels.
3 Golden Axe
Being Japan-exclusive, most of the WonderSwan's library require some knowledge of Japanese to get ahead. Luckily, Golden Axe's MO of hitting enemies until they fall is clearly understood worldwide. Players have to pick either Ax Battler and his broadsword, Tyris with her longsword, or Gilius and his axe to stop the evil Death Adder from taking over the world. If swift strikes and kicks feel pretty ho-hum, the game mixes things up with a few extras.
Players can mount beasts and ride them like horses into battle, swiping enemies with their tails or breathing fire breath. They can even knock enemies off their steeds and mount them instead. Battler, Tyris, and Gilius can also cast a variety of spells if their magic bar is full enough. They’ll need them too as, be it on the WonderSwan, Genesis, or elsewhere, Death Adder’s forces can get quite strong.
2 Judgement Silversword
Shoot ‘em ups were as popular as beat ‘em ups in Japan back in the 1980s and early 1990s, but they became fairly niche by 2001. But that didn’t stop M-KAI from winning Qute’s WonderWitch development contest that year with Judgement Silversword, a vertical shmup inspired by other cult-classic shooters like Blazing Stars and Radiant Silvergun. It was pretty straightforward on paper: shoot enemies, dodge bullets, and earn points.
However, that didn’t mean it was easy. The enemies can be relentless, and their fire can rival bullet hell games. The player’s ship does have a shield, but it can only last so long against the barrage, so they have to get good at switching between the thin but powerful narrow blasts and the wide but weak open fire. The game is a joy for shmup fans and can now also be played on Steam via the Resurrection edition.
1 One Piece Grand Battle Swan Coliseum
One Piece has become one of the most successful manga and anime franchises of all time nowadays, but twenty years ago it was still rising up the ladder. Particularly in video games, where even Japan had few options at the time. Ganbarion produced two fun 3D fighters on the PS1. Yet Dimps managed to outdo them by porting their efforts to the WonderSwan Color with One Piece Grand Battle Swan Coliseum.
It's basically Super Smash Bros. with the Strawhats and a few of their friends and foes. Players can run, jump, and double-jump their way around the stages, beating each other with moves and items until they can hit their Finisher, which is split into three “Bombstock” levels. Players can unlock new characters, stages, and attacks in Event Battle, recreating events from the series, or simply fight for fun in Grand Battle mode. It's a lot of platform-fighting fun squeezed into a little cartridge.