Best Arcade Games on the Game Boy

The arcade games worth playing on the Nintendo Game Boy start with Tetris, Super Mario Land 2, Mega Man V.

The Game Boy and Arcade Games

Four shades of grey and ten years of battery life. The Game Boy's constraints produced a library built around short sessions and pure ideas, and one of them ate the world.

Arcade Games are a solid rather than a defining part of this library — worth knowing, but not the reason anybody owns the machine.

Filtering to arcade means you want short runs and a score, not a campaign. It is the right filter when what you liked was the one-more-go feeling.

The Arcade Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Tetris

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. Super Mario Land 2

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. Mega Man V

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Pokemon Pinball

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. Game and Watch Gallery

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Mario Golf

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Arcade Game

A complete experience in twenty minutes, and a skill you keep. Arcade design is measured in the moment after you lose.

Story and progression. Arcade games repeat on purpose, and if you want to be pulled somewhere they will not do it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best arcade game on the Game Boy?

Tetris is the usual first answer, and there are 6 in the library we cover.

Was the Game Boy good at arcade games?

It is a solid rather than a defining part of the library.

Why are arcade games so hard?

They were designed to end. A machine that let you play for an hour on one coin did not earn its floor space, so difficulty was the business model.

Do arcade games still get made?

Constantly, mostly by small teams. Several of the best beat-em-ups and run-and-guns of the last decade are new games built on forty-year-old design rules.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the Nintendo Game Boy, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Arcade Games on Other Consoles

More From the Game Boy

Or browse the whole Nintendo Game Boy library.