Bitmap Books’ Game Boy: The Box Art Collection is an impressive work that features a large collection of cover art from Game Boy games that were released not only in the western countries but also in Japan. It’s a great book for gamers to have, but it also feels like the book needs more.
A Box Style Tribute to Classics
Like its previous works, Bitmap Books puts in a lot of work and effort into its books. The 372 page hardcover is made with a sewn binding that keeps the pages intact when opening any page flat. Readers can continuously flip through the pages for years without fear of the binding failing. In addition, the lettering on the front and the spine pops out with a metallic blue color. The metallic silver, textured hardcover with its blue lettering pays homage to the Game Boy label on the game packaging. The size of the book, a perfect square of 250 mm, resembles the shape of the Game Boy games.
There’s no ribbon like the other Bitmap Books to help keep a bookmark on your favorite section. If there ever was one, a blue colored ribbon would be a nice touch or a burgundy color like the Game Boy’s two colored buttons.
Going Through History
Before diving into the glossary of games, the book features a brief history of the Game Boy. From a summary of how Tetris came to the Game Boy to peripherals like the Game Boy Camera, it’s a neat little read to go down memory lane. Additionally, the book has interviews with Game Boy collectors and Game Boy fans like Gameboycameraman, who uses the Game Boy Camera to take photos of buildings and objects, posting them on social media.
Gotta Catch ‘Em All!
For the games themselves, the majority of the book shows each game’s official box art with screenshots underneath. A brief history and summary of the game set on the opposite side of the box art is also included. While it’s great to see some of the cover art designs from Japan and other countries, it seems like a loss not having all the distinct covers from various regions. For example, the book showcases the Japanese cover of Tetris but not the well-recognized US one.
The Game Boy book has many instances of titles that were released across the world. Many games in the ‘80s and ‘90s were retitled. For example, Pocket Monsters was renamed to Pokémon. The book should have stuck with one name and had a notation of other recognized names to help keep things in order. Another example is the Final Fantasy Legend series. While named SaGa in Japan, this book showcases two games of the three under different names: Final Fantasy Legend II and SaGa 3. Not only does it make it tougher on the reader to search for a particular game, but the first entry from the series is missing entirely. Looking at Bitmap Books’ A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games, series like Final Fantasy are given a section for each title.
Additionally, the book does not go into Game Boy Color games, leaving popular games such as Pokémon Gold, Pokémon Silver, and Pokémon Crystal out.
The Final Handheld Page
Bitmap Books’ Game Boy: The Box Art Collection is a high quality book featuring a large collection of Game Boy titles released across the globe, but at the same time, it could use more tweaking. Still, it’s an impressive volume to own, either as your first video game book or alongside your other ones.
The book was provided by Bitmap for this article and for photography. Game Boy: The Box Art Collection is available on Bitmap Books’ website.