Twenty years ago today Nintendo released the gamer from the tethers of cords and cables. No longer the exclusive province of the living room, den, or bedroom, the Game Boy freed the avid Nintendo player to enjoy his (or her) favorites in the backseat of the family car, at the bus stop, or on the perimeter of the playground—far removed from the athletic contests of the more vigorous.

Or something like that.

Though it seemed like nothing of the sort back in 1989, this humble little handheld device would be the lynchpin of Nintendo’s continued success and set the tack for the direction it would take in the future. Its tenure would not be without missteps and doldrums but the Game Boy could arguably be the most important game system Nintendo ever released.

I don’t intend to speak for everyone. Nor do I intend to provide a comprehensive history of the Game Boy and its contemporaries. I only intend to provide my own personal experiences with this handheld system.

Most of the gaming sites—big and small—have already covered the Game Boy’s twentieth back in April. That’s when the Game Boy made its first tentative step into the world in Japan. We Americans didn’t get ours until July of 1989. Though I have no concrete recollection, I assume that I must have received my own Game Boy that fall as a birthday gift. The timing makes sense. My parents were not inclined to purchase expensive electronics for me in the middle of the summer and 2 months, plus the lead time from being a loyal Nintendo Power subscriber would have given me plenty of time to wheedle and plead.

At the time the competition to the Game Boy was not seen as any home console, but those irritating little LCD devices. I never saw a real Game & Watch which apparently were actually kind of fun. The ones I was familiar with were typically licensed trash that mostly involved moving something from side to side as obstacles “moved” toward the bottom of the screen. They were shrill, repetitive, and not much fun. Yet those were just the things parents at the time thought of when they thought of handheld games—if they thought of them at all. Considerably pleading was required.

So one autumn day as I celebrated my tenth birthday I opened a present to find the neon blue wireframe box I so desperately wanted. Carefully removing its contents from the styrofoam—yes, they used styrofoam back then—tray I beheld the Game Boy in all its blocky grayness. It really never was much to look at.

I tell you what did impress me though: the headphones. I’d never seen earbuds before. They were so sleek, so cool. Every Walkman I’d ever owned before came with a pair of clunky padded earmuffs bound together with wire. These were tiny.

I thought this was the coolest thing ever.

Even more impressive still to me was the little plastic case the game carts came in at the time. Over the years, these neat little dust covers have fallen to the wayside. When I first opened my Game Boy, I thought it was hot shit. It still looks pretty nifty to me today.

My plan for this retrospective is to devote a number of posts to particular high points in my history with the Game Boy. I want to spend more words than I care to tack on to this remembrance on each individual game, so I’ll be splitting them into single game posts.

Next time: In Soviet Russia, blocks stack you.

Lately I went and got myself a real tough Mankey on my back. Thanks to the Talking Time forum and a recent push to chip away at my pile of shame I started my journey through Sinnoh in Pokémon Pearl afresh. Now I’m irrevocably hooked like I haven’t been since the Gold and Silver generation.

I’d picked up Pearl back when it was released late 2007. I even pre-ordered it so I have the promotional Palkia stylus (which I’ve never opened not from a collector’s instinct but because these special styli are a tad unwieldy). It just didn’t grab me at the time. I meandered through 3 gyms or so, never got to feel attached to my team, and set it aside. I have far too many games just like this sitting on shelves not being played.

So I started playing it again and I started from the very beginning, picking the adorable “Piplup”:http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Piplup_(Pokémon) as my starter, and I’m considerably more engaged. So engaged that nearly all of my crafting endeavors have fallen to the wayside. I’m not wholly pleased about that part.

Thing is, I’m having fun. Actual fun. So I can’t be too hard on myself so long as I make certain to ensure that necessary chores around the house are still being taken care of. It has come to my attention that I far too often don’t allow myself fun, being a concentrated ball of worry and anxiety. So a little obsession should be tolerated in the interest of joy.

I’m still hard at work on your Robot Ninja Haggle Man buttons. My free time of late has been paltry and I’m not as far along as I’d like, but I’m continuing to crank them out at as fast a pace as I can manage. I sent a batch of them the other day. If I mailed yours you should have received an email. The rest of you, hang tight. It’ll get to you.

Haggle Man (alternate pose)

Reader Zachary Robinson took the time to draw some more sprites from Retro Game Challenge for which I am terribly grateful. In addition to other games like Guadia Quest and Cosmic Gate he sent along an alternate pose for my favorite robot ninja. I turned it into a pattern and if you haven’t heard from me yet and you’d like this one, give me a shout.

By the by, in case anyone was wondering where the name Haggle Man comes from, it’s a joke. It’s an intentional mistranslation of the Japanese word hagaruma (or if you want to be fancy はぐるま or even fancier still 歯車) which means “gear.” Like the gears that Robot Ninja Haggle Man throws as shuriken (or later installs as upgrades). NES era localization was shoddy at best. The name Haggle Man is a sly nod to lazy translators.