The Grinch (Game Boy Color)

The Grinch (Game Boy Color)
This is what the console versions should have been.
Genre(s): Action Stealth Platform(s): Game Boy Color Release: EU: November 24, 2000 NA: November 2000 Windows NA: December 4, 2000 EU: December 15, 2000 Developer(s): Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya (GBC) Publisher(s): Konami

The Grinch is a 2000 Game Boy Color game. It is more of a stealth game instead of a platformer like the console versions.

Plot

After years of watching the Whos of Who-Ville celebrate Christmas, the Grinch has had enough. The Grinch devises a plan to put a stop to this noisy celebration by stealing the villages Christmas presents.

Why It Rocks

1. Unlike the PS1 version where the controls we're unresponsive, in this port they are tight and responsive, both The Grinch and Max are very responsive to your command and they will never be unresponsive, thank to how well they programmed this port.
2. Fun gameplay that is like Pac-Man but with stealth elements and being a bit less difficult than Pac-Man (only in the later levels of that game).
3. Good graphics that are very gorgeous for a Game Boy Color game, as here the colors are very colorful and vibrant, the sprite work is decent despite some of the sprites being too small like Doraemon Kart, and the backgrounds are good.
4. The game is decently long for a Pac-Man like game, as it's can take up to 2 to 4 hours of gameplay, which is big for a Game Boy Color game.
5. Decent and catchy soundtrack, even for a Grinch game.
6. The difficulty is quite challenging, unlike other Pac-Man clones, as here when the Whos see you, you run very fast and you can rasily get to another Who and losing a life, and most of the levels are well designed to having a challenging but fair difficulty.
7. The cutscenes art style is beautiful, almost comparable to the SpongeBob SquarePants: Legend of the Lost Spatula (despite that game being inferior to this Grinch game).
8. The game is more faithful to both the movie and book than the console versions, especially the cutscenes.
9. The screen when you lose, where you see the Grinch that doesn't have an happy face along with his dog Max and Cindy Lou being with one of his hand, can be very funny to some peoples.
10. Making a stealth game with The Grinch is a great idea, since he steal the presents and he need to infiltrate sometime, and this game got a great execution for what it is, in fact, it's was much better executed than the DS game which was really boring and much more simplified than this game.
11. Great ending that is similar to the movie.
12. There are infinite continues, which is a good thing considering how hard the game can be sometime.
13. You play as Max in some levels, making this game having a bit more variation than the console versions.

Bad Qualities

1. The game can be too hard sometime, even at the very first world it's can be too hard, making the game difficulty unbalanced.
2. Some of the Whos in some levels are badly placed and you can easily get caught by them due to that, like in the scene 1-5.
3. Some of the sprites aren't that great, most notably some of the Whos.
4. The game can be repetitive at times, although not as much as the DS Grinch game.

Reception

While the console versions received mixed to negative reviews by critics, this port, howewer, was positively received by most critics and players, with a score of 67% in Gameranking, a 9/10 by IGN. Most critics also said that the Game Boy Color version is better than the console versions.

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