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GB and GBC (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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I had my mind blown yesterday, twice.

First, at the local game store I saw one of my favorite childhood PC games: Jeff Gordon XS racing, but in Game Boy form! Had no idea it was ported to GB. Had to get it.

Side note, XS racing on PC is a killer game, sadly very few have heard of it, go play it!

So it worked great in my OG game boy. Super fun but ofc not as good as the PC one.

I decide to look the game up. Everything about it says gameboy color. It is NOT a gameboy color cartridge. However, it WILL play on a gameboy advance SP in color! So i learned there are some backward compatible GBC games.

Also someone told me years back OG GB games dont work on an SP. Well, they do!!

Just some fun weird facts!

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[-] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 7 months ago

Reminds me of when I discovered I could put playstation 1 CDs in an audio CD player and they were often setup to play the soundtrack

[-] Durandal@lemmy.today 4 points 7 months ago

"track number one contains computer data so don't play it... but you probably wont listen to me anyway..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF2htc3XDaw

[-] missingno@fedia.io 8 points 7 months ago

Gray cartridges run in GB mode. The GBC can apply some limited colorization, the firmware has a database of game IDs to apply specific palettes to, or you can select one manually with a button combo on startup.

Black cartridges are dual mode, they'll run in GB mode on original hardware or GBC mode on a GBC.

Translucent green cartridges are GBC-only. If you try to boot them on an original GB you'll get an error screen telling you this game is only for GBC.

[-] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago

Had no clue the color mattered!

[-] Redkey@programming.dev 6 points 7 months ago

Not only do GB and GBC games work on the GBA, but some of them even have special GBA-only content. I know that at least one of the Legend of Zelda Oracle games has an extra house in the village on GBA. When you play the game on a GB/GBC, there's just an empty lot in that place.

[-] Toes@ani.social 4 points 7 months ago

Fun fact, while the gameboy is turning on you can press a specific button combination to change the colour palette being used by the legacy gameboy games.

You can read about it here: https://yuhao-c.github.io/gameboy-user-manual/docs/changing-screen-color/

[-] DmMacniel@feddit.org 5 points 7 months ago

just like in the instruction manual stated: :)

[-] audaxdreik@pawb.social 2 points 7 months ago

I used to have a little notebook when I was younger where I tried out every option for every game and wrote down my top 3 favorite choices for what looked best on each one.

this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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