You could play multiplayer Tetris that way. I think I saw it once in my life.
Me and my brother did it on road trips in the family van. It was awesome.
There‘s also an excellent Gameboy Color romhack of Dr Mario that supports multiplayer. Recently tried that out with my girlfriend and it was a lot of fun.
Edit: this is it for anyone interested. Looks like even the original version for the Gameboy supports multiplayer.
I played multiplayer bomberman :D
What is multiplayer Tetris?
I played multiplayer Tetris frequently.
When you get lines, your opponent's stack pushes a line with a gap up from below, except when you get a Tetris, which pushes four lines (with the gap aligned, so you could Tetris back and forth).
You had an indicator for the max height of your opponent's stack next to yours.
Great game.
If you haven't experienced multiplayer tetris from the modern remakes you may be in for a treat. It's a lot of fun when you're up against someone of similar skill. At least one switch version includes ranked matchmaking (Puyopuyo Tetris).
In 99 we had a sleepover and we'd all trade our best pokemon to one another and pulled the plug out before completion to clone the pokemon.
I have a real job now and do real business deals. Nothing I've done professionally has ever felt as official and business like as that one sleepover.
back in the late 00's there was (maybe still is, who knows) an online service called "gamefly" where you could rent games. At the time the DS pokemon games would allow you to plug in a pokemon GBA cart and copy the pokemon from the GBA to your DS. So I would constantly rent GBA Pokemon games in hopes of finding something good on them to copy to my DS Pokemon game. I had it all scheduled out and everything. You could also wondertrade hacked pokemon or like really good pokemon online. I don't remember exactly HOW you did it but I do remembering doing it.
Were there other uses? Yes.
Were they common? Well, just look at the GameBoy pocket. At the time it was designed (it released 7 years after the original GameBoy) there were a lot of people at Nintendo who wanted to get rid of the port entirely because it was barely ever used. They ended up compromising by using a different, smaller, cheaper port that needed an adapter to work with the regular ones.
Which was kind of a pain for some people because the GB Pocket and Pokemon both came out in Japan in 1996 lol.
Multiplayer tetris was fun! Whenever you completed a row, you'd send it to your opponent!
We had even one to connect 4 Gameboys and played "super rc pro am", oh the nostalgia
Oooooh rc pro am AND micro machines ought to be remade
RC pro am in the big bathroom with 4 stalls, passing the link cable under the dividers. Best way to skip class ever. Only ever managed 4 players a couple times but it was amazing.
IIRC you only needed like one copy of the game, too??
Each player needed a copy of the game. Game Boy Advance had a bootloader that could receive data to run a multiplayer game with no cartridge.
Found this list: https://www.mygamer.com/gba-single-pak-linking-games/
I got mine at launch back in '98. Never played Pokemon. I'll never forgive it for ending the middle school yoyo trend that I was really good at.
Only if you had friends.
It's true. I had a brother; he refused to trade with me. I still have a brother, and I'm sure he'd trade with me now, but we're in our (late) 30s, and so Pokemon time has certainly declined.
The GBA had a multiplayer Zelda game, and every GBA Mario game came with a multiplayer version of the og Mario Bros. Arcade game.
An even less common connector could be used to connect a GBA to a GameCube. The uses of that one (as far as I’m aware):
- using Pokemon XD to battle two GBA Pokemon games using the GameCube 3D graphics
- a multiplayer Zelda game entirely based around the gimmick of using the GBA as a controller
- using a GBA Metroid to unlock bonus power ups in the GameCube Metroid
I think local multiplayer absolutely peaked with the Nintendo DS. The download games where you could play with one cartridge, multiplayer without wifi, pictochat. Today you have to subscribe to shitty online services or at least play through wifi, which completely annihilates the possibility to play in a car, bus or train without a router.
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, a multiplayer RPG where each player can control their inventory etc. using the GBA.
- Traveling to an island in Animal Crossing, where you could bury random items and get sacks of Bells in return, up to 10k for a single item.
That's how I paid off my house.
Phantasy Star Online and Sonic Adventure 2: Battle used the link cable to GBA for mini games and a portable Chao garden
I remember it for Pokemon, but also for those Zelda games that were a pair - Oracle of Ages/Seasons? But I don't think it let you do much, just continue a game save when you finished one of the two games.
Four Swords came with Link to the Past too. Never played it, but it's exclusively multiplayer, as far as I know
Four Swords is the most competitive co-op game I have ever played. It's brutally fun, but you're going to want to punch your friends in the throat after about 30 minutes.
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/06/11/the-gang#
This comic is an accurate description of the experience.
The Oracle games didn't actually use the link cable, they had a password system.
Wasn’t there a way to link with the IR blasters on the GBCs too? I never tried it but I’ve heard it was possible
I remember trying that over and over, then reverting back to the more reliable link cables.
I’ve only seen that done for the TCG to do trades. Odd how a video game series turned into a franchise with a trading card game got a video game adaption of the trading card game.
Only on games that were designed to use the IR. It was limited to Mystery-Gift-type quick transfers due to the low data speed and the need to keep the systems pointed directly at each other.
I had the green Gameboy, but this makes me wish I had chosen yellow. Yellow looks sharp.
Shout out to all my transparent purple homies.
I was a transparent purple homie. Ended up having to write my name on it because all my friends were too and we didn't wanna accidentally switch them up. One of the group was notorious for not taking care of his shit and I didn't wanna end up swapping with him on accident and getting a janky boi
It was the only two-player game everyone definitely had.
I think there was a Bomberman game on the GBA that used the link cable for multiplayer too that I remember playing
Oh I remember these. It was hard to get to a seat on the school bus because there were cables connected all across the aisles.
Yeah PVP Street Fighter!
TETRIS.
Got one for my birthday once and managed to leave on the steps in the breezeway. It was gone inside of ten minutes :(
the link cable is also pretty nice for midi synching
I'm sure there were other uses.
Choking your little brother when he beats you at Pokemon?
(I have no idea if that's how it worked, I didn't have Pokemon for my Gameboy.)
I used that cable for my Gameboy printer more than anything.
Some newer games only needed one game to play with 4 players.
I believe Mario Kart was one of them, then some other game with a motorcycle looked from the side.
I played those on the Gameboy Advance with the nieces and nephews during family parties.
Ah yes the cable with a hub in the middle for additional branches to be connected on to
