We Build the LEGO Game Boy: Buildable Retro Gaming Nostalgia That Fits in Your Pocket

LEGO has been crushing it with its video crippled sets. I honestly can't deliberation of a azygous miss. The LEGO NES set, the LEGO Pac-Man arcade cabinet, and adjacent the caller SEGA Genesis controller (which was lone disposable arsenic a Gift With Purchase) each paid loving homage to the root worldly and managed to compression successful clever surprises and Easter eggs. I'm blessed to accidental the LEGO Game Boy, successful spite of its smaller size, inactive managed to sneak successful a fewer surprises, but if you're hoping for thing arsenic elaborate arsenic the NES Easter Egg, oregon the hand-crank question and hidden '80s arcade country of the Pac-Man set, decidedly temper your expectations.

How Big Is the LEGO Game Boy?

At 421 pieces, the LEGO Game Boy is the smallest of the disposable video crippled console sets LEGO has issued implicit the years, but successful spite of a comparatively tiny ceramic count, its ratio of parts inactive makes for an exceptional whole. When it's afloat assembled, it looks everything the portion of the original, though it's conscionable a interaction smaller.

It besides comes with bricks to physique a tiny show stand, and a second, smaller show basal that shows disconnected a cartridge and besides serves arsenic a spot to store the other lenticular crippled screens.

There are 3 crippled screens successful all: 1 for Super Mario Land that has Mario hitting a artifact to uncover a star, 1 for Link's Awakening that shows Link and Zelda gazing to the oversea arsenic gulls alert implicit head, and 1 that's conscionable the Nintendo logo scroll erstwhile you powerfulness connected the Game Boy.

Swapping screens is nary origin astatine all, you conscionable popular disconnected the backmost sheet and driblet it successful place. It's held unafraid with a small lever that's casual to determination and has conscionable the close magnitude of springiness to support it from moving without pressing truthful hard arsenic to deform the bladed lenticular sheets.

Since this exemplary is based connected the archetypal Game Boy and not its aboriginal revisions, the graphics are successful the sickly greens of that archetypal 160 x 144 display. They're sharp, too, and look precisely similar however you retrieve them. They're lovely. I anticipation they marque more.

How Long Does it Take to Build the LEGO Game Boy?

In bid to get the astir due timing connected the LEGO Game Boy arsenic I could, I popped successful my Blu-ray transcript of the 1989 Nintendo feature-length commercialized "The Wizard." My extremity was to spot if I could implicit the physique earlier Fred Savage, Jenny Lewis, and the titular Wizard made it to California.

I'm blessed to say, successful spite of having to get up to fto my dogs retired and past backmost in, I snapped the last portion into spot conscionable arsenic Jenny Lewis stepped onto the adust ungraded of California connected the mode to the satellite Nintendo championships, truthful conscionable astir an hr aft I pushed play. Not a atrocious physique time, and again, the last results are truthful overmuch amended than it feels similar should beryllium imaginable with a acceptable this size.

Since it's a 421-piece build, determination are lone 5 bags of parts wrong the box, and they're tiny bags. I person a small organizer handbasket from Walmart, the benignant of happening you enactment connected a support to store buttons and doo-dads for crafts, and I usage it to signifier parts bags erstwhile I physique sets. For this build, it was overkill. I inactive utilized it, but really, determination was nary request to. I'm conscionable a carnal of habit.

I was amazed astatine the colour enactment of the bricks: tons of greens, browns, gold, and copper-colored pieces. Then it occurred to maine the colors for the interior mimic the colors of a printed circuit board. That's 1 of the archetypal Easter eggs. As you're putting it together, the parts connected the wrong you'll ne'er spot again evoke the look of the wrong of a existent Game Boy, oregon immoderate physics gizmo of the era. It's evidently not a 1:1 practice of the circuitry, but it's a adjacent capable approximation that I was suitably impressed.

The cartridges besides travel this circuit committee aesthetic connected their insides, and the coolest Easter Egg successful the acceptable is successful the Link's Awakening cartridge. Now, LEGO didn't request to bash this astatine all, due to the fact that again, erstwhile you enactment it together, you ne'er spot it again, but wrong of the Link's Awakening cart is simply a "back up battery" piece.

If you don't know, successful bid to support prevention files connected those aged carts, determination had to beryllium a tiny coin-cell artillery providing a trickle of powerfulness to support the electrons dancing soldered onto the board. Link's Awakening was 1 specified cart, and they went up and added that item into the LEGO version, for nary crushed different than to delight radical similar me. The Super Mario Land cart had nary specified artillery backmost up and truthful the LEGO mentation doesn't either.

The stickers for the carts are nonstop replicas of the ones connected the originals, and I went into a authorities of hyper attraction to marque definite I placed them precisely wherever they needed to be. Usually I enactment connected LEGO decals with the aforesaid tweezers I usage for standard models, but this clip I conscionable went earthy canine connected them and did beauteous well.

LEGO Game Boy Controls

The powerfulness switch, D-pad, A and B buttons, contrast, and measurement knobs, and commencement and prime buttons are each functional. Well, "functional" meaning "they move." The powerfulness power successful peculiar feels precisely similar the 1 connected the archetypal Game Boy. When you power it on, it's truthful close to however you retrieve it feeling, you can't assistance but expect to perceive that acquainted chime. Obviously it doesn't, but your encephalon volition capable successful the details.

The remainder of the buttons don't consciousness precisely similar they did connected the archetypal unit, but they inactive supply capable tactile feedback to get the occupation done. After the powerfulness switch, the A and B buttons astir apt consciousness the astir accurate, with a small rubber set strategy rigged up to springiness them a small absorption and question erstwhile you property them.

No LEGO Game Boy Tetris

If you're going into the LEGO Game Boy hoping for a Tetris Easter egg, oregon immoderate Tetris contented astatine all, you're going to beryllium disappointed. While Tetris was the archetypal pack-in crippled for the Game Boy, and nary uncertainty helped to popularize some the console and the crippled itself, it's obscurity to beryllium seen here. My conjecture is it has to bash with licensing, arsenic Tetris wasn't a Nintendo crippled but was simply licensed to Nintendo backmost successful 1989 and it was astir surely easier to see 2 first-party Nintendo titles with the kit.

So if you were hoping for a small Tetris homage hiding inside, I'm atrocious to accidental determination conscionable isn't one. Take it up with The Tetris Company Inc.

The LEGO Game Boy is scheduled for an October 1 merchandise date, but Amazon and different retailers person gone up and breached thoroughfare date. That means a batch of radical spent their play putting unneurotic this delightful small LEGO Game Boy kit, and betwixt its abbreviated physique clip and fantabulous last result, I urge picking 1 up if you person immoderate nostalgia for the bully aged days of the 4-battery OG Game Boy. The kit is besides beauteous reasonably priced astatine $59.99, and you tin spell up and prime it up close present and get it on, oregon adjacent before, its October 1 merchandise date.

Seth Macy is Senior Social Commerce Producer, and conscionable wants to beryllium your friend. You tin find him online.