The legacy of Nintendo’s Game Boy as a handheld cannot be highlighted enough. The portable console essentially set the pace for the handheld gaming market as we know it today. The Game Boy launched with a killer app, packed a minimalist hardware design that works and followed up with a strong lineup of first and third party games to appeal to kids and adults alike. It’s no exaggeration to compare its impact on the handheld gaming industry to that of the iPhone in the smartphone industry.

Bitmap Books’ Game Boy: The Box Art Collection is a visual celebration of the console's legacy. Before treating your eyes with a colorful set of box arts, the book begins with a foreword from Jean-Jacques Calbayrac  (aka Gameboycameraman) who shares how taking shots with the low-res, yet unique and iconic Game Boy Camera turned into a hobby for him. This is followed by a  feature on the history of the Game Boy and an interview with two of Europe’s leading Game Boy collectors (Vincent Haucourt and Michael Lynch). Each of these sections share the influence of the handheld on those individuals and on the gaming landscape as a whole that further highlights its cultural impact.

By reading those anecdotes, anyone who gamed on the system will recall fond memories of the times spent with it. Reading those lines took myself back to the time I used to take turns playing Super Mario Land and Tetris when my brother got his Game Boy Pocket. The games played so fluidly and had a console-like appeal to them that we depleted batteries after batteries as we got hooked to those titles and more that we borrowed and traded with our cousins and friends. 

  

I particularly enjoyed the 10-page long segment about the history of the handheld. It shares some interesting tidbits like how Gunpei Yokoi, the designer of the Game Boy and its predecessor, the Game & Watch, was inspired to create the latter by observing bored salarymen absent-mindedly tapping on a pocket LCD calculator while riding a train. I also learnt for the first time that while Western packaging for Game Boy games were rather standardized, Japanese publishers were more keen to experiment with the box artwork and design; resulting in colorful packages and of varied dimensions.

It’s not just in these initial pages that you will find such curious facts but across the whole collection. Following the history and interview section are 347 illustrated pages where each includes a high resolution image of the game’s front box art, an overview of the game, some commentary on the box art and a couple of in-game screenshots. The overview is where you’ll find more of such interesting background like how The Real Ghostbusters was attached to different franchises in different regions (Mickey Mouse in Japan, Garfield in Europe and Real Ghostbusters in North America; same game, different protagonist!). I also really appreciated that Bitmap Books included screenshots on every page to give readers an idea as to how the game in question looks like on the console. 

It should be noted that Game Boy: The Box Art Collection does not cover the best Game Boy games but focuses on some of the console’s best box art. So you might not find your favorite game here but find some mediocre games instead. However, I found it interesting to learn what makes the box art standout. And the included commentary on each box art enabled me to view those that I’ve come across or owned with a new perspective. The titles included are North America, European and Japanese cover artwork releases, listed in a chronological order, with Japanese games’ titles having been professionally translated into Romaji.

   

Also professional is the usual premium Bitmap Books craftsmanship. Each page is printed lithographically on high quality paper that maintains the fidelity of each art work’s details. The pages are also thread sewn bound together for enhanced durability. The hardcover also adds to the enduring quality of the book and it features a metallic silver textured cover with metallic blue foil blocked logo. I wondered why they went with this color scheme and thought at first that it might refer to the Game Boy’s hardware. But I think it looks closer to the cartridges’ color than anything else; making the book somewhat akin to a giant cartridge. And giant it is at a dimension of  250mm × 250mm. That’s not really your typical book size, so it might not perfectly fit your bookshelf, but the extra real estate helps accommodate the colorful contents. And if you’d prefer to carry it around, you can do so with the PDF version that comes with each purchase.

However, as with the The Unofficial SNES Pixel Book, Bitmap Books did not include a bookmark ribbon in Game Boy: The Box Art Collection. While not a deal breaker, including one would make getting back to where you reached easier as bookmarks for traditional books can get lost in this collection’s dimension. 

 

Another omission is a sleeve/ card box to house the book in. Bitmap Books’ other collections do come in one but the standard version of Game Boy: The Box Art Collection does not. Even with all the precaution they took to package my copy (and they do cushion it well), I found a little dent on the right side of the cover. It’s no biggie and I could manually fix it so that it’s barely noticeable but a sleeve would have avoided this issue altogether. There is a ‘Silver version’ of this collection that comes housed in a card box but it’s a pricier, limited run version (£50, but it comes with some additional goodies).

Nevertheless, at £30 on the official Bitmap Books store, Game Boy: The Box Art Collection is a great addition to your bookshelf to learn more about the beloved handheld and (re)discover titles from an artistic point of view.