Battle Bull & Navy Blue 90 retrospective: Not so bullish | Game Boy Works

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

"Crush." might be my favourite piece of pop-up text in Video Game history. It's so blunt and to the point, with an added bit of grammatical weirdness and a fairly dull emphasis due it just ending on a full stop.

[@Megoodfilmguy]

That was my thought too! Well said!

[@JonnyD79]

"And, bless Navy Blue 90's heart, it doesn't even pretend." Okay THAT made me laugh XD

[@robotlorekeeper9880]

Oh my god, that little cartoon of the sad sailors at 9:12 is so hysterically sad. They’re too cute! I’m sorry, wee guys! It’s my fault! I failed youuuuuu!

[@jasongarrett768]

1:36 Popcorn?! By Hot Butter? I’m still baffled every time I’m reminded of Vermon CaTaffy, but this is the same company that gave us Paula Abghoul and Fred Askare years later.

[@samfrito]

A future generation will see game booklets from this era as some sort of conspiracy theory or predicted alternate history.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Seriously, one does not just start playing "Popcorn" without warning. I'm gonna have that stuck in my head for days now. Anyone else here get introduced to it thanks to an 80s PC game called Digger?

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

@@jasonblalock4429 That or a certain Russian cartoon from the 70's that used it as well!

[@KuraIthys]

@@jasonblalock4429 Yep. At least, I think that's what it was. Keep forgetting the name of the game... nope. Digger it is. I always thought it was made for that game until only a few years ago when I found out what it really was... xD

[@deepx77]

I just started watching all your game boy works videos... again... Love them, keep making them please.

[@JeremyParish]

I have two episodes in the works now!

[@gameboydadtm37]

I was just watching some of your old gameboy episodes last night than this video comes out. This is a good morning

[@Reepicheep-1]

Battle Bull was completely winnable, with just a little practice. Fun game.

[@EvanCWaters]

I gotta figure it can't be TOO hard to program a Battleship-like game with the computer having a fog of war. Sure it stores the information about where your ships are, but the code for it selecting a tile to shoot doesn't have to reference that. It can just be told to pick a tile at random, then pick further tiles depending on whether it hit or missed.

[@absolutezeronow7928]

Glad to see a new episode of Game Boy Works. Had no idea there was essentially a Combat Sokoban game for Game Boy.

[@travishawks5371]

I get a good chuckle from the melancholy teasers for the next episodes.

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

1:08 OH DON’T GET ME STARTED ON NES METAL GEAR!

[@Bluegoo]

Dude, thank you so much for covering Battle Bull. I played so much of that game as a kid. It's so weird, yet so awesome.

[@JeremyParish]

I wish I liked it more than I do! I feel like its heart is in the right place, but the flesh isn't as willing as the spirit. Or something.

[@radracer8889]

Battle bull has a nice soundtrack

[@MaidenHell1977]

Amazing as always. Super nice touch with that Battleship game commercial from the 70s.

[@powruser0]

Excellent work as usual! Stay well Mr. Parish!

[@FloatingSunfish]

I remember being so frustrated even with Battle Bull's earlier levels that I dropped the game even though I thought it was super cool. Gameplay and fun are king, after all!

[@slightlyevolved]

I kinda felt bad thumbing this up... The like counter was at a lovely 777. I had to ruin it.

[@AltimaNEO]

Yeah, that gameboy library... left a lot to be desired. But kid/teenage me didnt care. It passed the time and satiated my need for video games.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

Aw hell yeah, Sokoban Battle & Chase.

[@hazy33]

Surprised to see Captain Birdseye on the cover! One for the uk viewers.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

Fish Fingers for all!

[@superjoy1337]

"The third and final Navy Blue game" Might be fourth technically, there was a Navy Blue game on Famicom released two years after '90, tho it could be based on the GB sequel as it uses the same soundtrack

[@gerbilsmith]

Glad you said Battle Bull is like Pengo...I was sure thinking it lol

[@7thangelad586]

Are you familiar with Mysterium on the Game Boy?? Might be worth a glance for something entirely different on the gray plastic brick. Now I’m off to adapt BattleBull to a carport in real life.

[@Firestorm2900]

I owned Battlebull and looked up the Japanese version of the story, and it is what you think it is, a robot battle arena game. I think the importers thought that was too violent a concept for kids. I think I got around the whole economy thing by saving when I did a major upgrade so I could go through a few levels to build up to the next upgrade and if I died, just used the code where I didn't have any cash. I think there was a way so save and keep your cash of you want to save scum? Also, I wasn't as big on the piercing missile, I found it left too many levels empty of blocks too fast and fire too slow. Plus, shoving 3 bots into one block is a bit addicting

[@jasonblalock4429]

Yeah, it's funny. For as many great games were launched for Gameboy over the course of its very long life, people tend to forget just how much of its catalog was disposable filler. For every SML2 or Gargoyle's Quest or Pokemon, there are ten puzzle games that all vanished into the memory hole a week after release.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

It's the same with all Nintendo handhelds. It's identical for the DS!

[@JohnZyski]

I liked Battle Bull.

[@samfrito]

I dug BattleBull. Probably because of the look of its tank. Heiankyo Alien was my bargain basement game of choice for games on the go until BattleBull surfaced. Its not the best, but after beating SML a few more times the top down look of Battle Bull grew on me. Hell, now playing Crackdown, Sega Genesis collection on Switch, I realize portable games that look straight down on your character were my sweet spot.

[@IanSane]

I don't see why the AI for a Navy Blue has to be so bad. The computer knows where your pieces are but it doesn't remember at all times. It would logically have to check some variable to know where you are. As long as it doesn't "peak" when executing the logic to guess where you are it shouldn't have to cheat. It would be easy to program a routine that randomly picks an available spot on the grid to fire at with logic to fire at spaces next to a direct hit if in the process of sinking a ship. You could tweak it also to narrow it's search to available spaces. IE: if the five piece aircraft carrier is the only remaining boat then it only needs to guess at spots that allow for five pieces to fit. There is no need for the AI to look at where you are aside from the developers deciding to make it work that way.

[@Saturnome]

Well I didn't knew about Pengo and it looks neat!

[@JeremyParish]

It is a good arcade classic!

[@Marzimus]

Battle Bull would work better if every continue asked you to take away one power-up. That way you'd only have "the controller" to blame. 😂😂

[@fingrati]

Such a disappointment to see that Navy Blue 90's computer AI is unbalanced in it's favour. It would have become such an under-rated gem.

[@LeftyPem]

Heavy Machine Pengo!

[@massivepileup]

I guess it'll be a while until GB Works reaches the games I grew up with, stuff like the hellish Mega Man 1 on GB with its sprites that are far too large and jumps that are far too small.

[@Poever]

Sounds like this Battle Bull is a bunch of bull

[@Technosphile]

You mean you don’t want to have to talk about War Gods, Jeremy?

[@jamesmoss3424]

I should get battle bull. 😀👍🎮

[@jordankelsey4501]

They misspelled my name.