Sometime in 1996 I was in a Target with my grandmother and I saw an endcap with Virtual Boy systems clearance-priced at $19.99. As a Nintendo Power subscriber, I definitely knew about the system and was intrigued, but my attention and hype was solely focused on the upcoming Nintendo 64. The Virtual Boy didn’t really feel like a console I could actually own, until that $20 price point. My grandma saw me looking at the box, took a look at the price and asked me if I wanted one. I mean, if you’re offering!
It was an incredibly kind and generous gift; one that I didn’t fully appreciate at the time, but definitely do now. Pretty much all I remember about the Virtual Boy is Mario’s Tennis, the pack-in title. That was the only game I ever played on the console because I literally never saw another game for sale after acquiring it (not that I would have been able to afford one, at any price). A few months later I would trade the Virtual Boy in (alongside my SNES and Genesis) to Toys R Us, towards an N64.
Fast forward nearly 30 years later, and I am, once again, trading in video games. This time to a local shop, and not towards an N64 (I already have one of those with a decent software library). No, these days I’m trying to curate my video game collection into 1) games that are special to me and 2) stuff that I’ll realistically play in my lifetime. So that means facing some hard truths about those 50-hour PS2 RPGs that I’ve owned for 20 years.
While trading in a bin of stuff today, something behind the counter caught my eye: a Virtual Boy. Certainly not a system I see often (ever?) at my local shops, I asked about it and the clerk excitedly explained that they just got it in last week, and it was the nicest one he had ever seen. The previous owner had replaced the eyeshade and capacitors, and the system worked flawlessly.
I was compelled in that moment by curiosity, distant nostalgia, and the nearly $1000 of store credit I was sitting on to take the plunge. So I came home from the store with the system and three games for it (and a copy of Monster Party for the NES, but that’s neither here nor there).
After getting it set up, I jumped into Mario’s Tennis (Nintendo R&D1, TOSE / 1995), the one Virtual Boy game I had played. The game has that early Mario sports feel: very accessible and charming. It took me a few matches to really adjust to the stereoscopic 3D, but once I did, it felt great.
So adjusting to the Virtual Boy hardware itself is… a bit awkward. For one, I couldn’t quite get comfortable in regards to where to put my nose. In the eyeshade or under? I ended up awkwardly settling for somewhere in the middle. Also difficult to wrap my head around was the controller. It’s a surprisingly comfortable and forward-thinking design: the dual d-pads predated the dual analog setup that would become ubiquitous about five years later.
Not quite having a feel for the system and controller definitely made Vertical Force (Hudson Soft / 1995) a bit challenging initially. This is a pretty intense vertical shmup where you need to move your ship to hit enemies on different planes (think Xevious with the plane swapping of early Fatal Fury games). It’s *a lot* and I’m looking forward to spending more time with it in the future.
The last game I got with my system was honestly the highlight of the lot: Galactic Pinball (Intelligent Systems / 1995). Video pinball is a familiar genre of the era, but this offers a wholly unique experience. The stereoscopic 3D creates an otherworldly vibe, beyond the obvious space theme. It plays how you’d expect, but the surreal visuals and incredible soundtrack by Kenji Yamamoto and Masaru Tajima elevate the experience.
This console, which I expected to be just a curio for my collection, ended up leading to a surprising afternoon of unique experiences. I’m excited to dig deeper into the games I have and explore the library more in the future.
All hail the Virtual Boy.
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