When Konami released Axelay back in 1992 for the Super Nintendo, I was instantly enamored with it. While I never was able to get a copy back in the day, I have since been able to play it and it was still just as amazing as I thought it was. The graphic style of the overhead levels was just so unique. The side scrolling levels were graphically impressive just like you would expect from prime Konami releases. Now imagine the Game Boy and Game Boy Color doing that overhead scrolling.
Impressive Does Not Do This Justice
It is always amazing to me what independent developers are capable of with older hardware. I know they are free from constraints that developers faced back in the day, which certainly seems to help with creativity.
Things like this just strike differently than commercial releases. While it is just a tech demo, it would be amazing to see this fleshed out more.
This is something I would have never thought the Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Color could pull off. Yet, here it is, running just fine.
So far.
Fleshing this out might expose some limitations of the hardware that are not apparent in this tech demo. Start adding in collision detection and other things we don’t see as gamers, and it might be too much for the hardware.
Lots of Limitations
The tech demo is currently running around 60 frames per second, no music, but runs on actual hardware if you have the means. That is the impressive part here – if you have the flash cart to play it on your Game Boy or Game Boy Color, you can.
Who would have thought that back in the late 80’s, playing Super Mario Land on the Game Boy would one day also be able to run this?
Download link, and a chance to show the creator some support available on itch.io.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.