Questions About GBA/GBC/SGB Colorization

[Ze_ro]

I've been on a bit of a (B&W) Gameboy binge lately, and I noticed something somewhat unusual. I played Metroid II on my GBA and noticed that it got a very appropriate set of colors... most noticably, Samus was actually orange! I went back and tried some more first-party Nintendo games that were released in the black & white era, and found that many of them got appropriate colors as well (some better than others)... Solar Striker gets a decent color palette, Super Mario Land 1 and 2 get rather awful colors with a lot of blue (I guess they wanted to get the sky), Wave Race gets some blues which work well for the water, and Donkey Kong gets a sepia-tone palette. Even Tetris seems to get a very slightly different set of colors than third-party titles seem to get.

So am I correct in assuming that these color palettes are programmed into the Gameboy Color (and GBA) hardware, such that it specifically recognizes these games?

I had also considered that perhaps Nintendo had programmed some color choices into the cartridge itself just in hopes that there might eventually be a use for them... but putting Metroid II into a Super Gameboy actually results in a completely DIFFERENT colorization! Super Mario Land and Solar Striker also get different colors than my GBA gives them. From what I can tell, the SGB chooses a palette for these games from it's built-in palettes rather than having it hard-coded for each game (although it's possible that the built-in palettes it's using were specifically intended for these games). This SGB colorization is inferior to the GBC colorization, as the GBC actually uses a seperate color palette for sprites than it does for background graphics, giving it twice as many colors to use (though with limitations... any sprites trying to "hide" in the background of a game are immediately noticable!)

I haven't seen much information on this capability on the internet, and any actual information is probably confused with Super Gameboy and (true) Gameboy Color abilities (Trust me, this is a very different thing!). Does anyone know of any other games that happen to get nice colorization on a GBC/GBA? Or other games that the SGB colorizes despite not having the SGB logo on the label? Did the GBA get any extra color information for games that the GBC did not have (ie, for B&W games released after the GBC)?

--Zero

[MarioMania]

Metroid II was made years before the Super GB or even the GBC...it was programmed as a b/w game end of story

[Kid Ice]

Metroid II was made years before the Super GB or even the GBC...it was programmed as a b/w game end of story

Don't you think it's *possible* that Nintendo knew they were eventually going to make a color unit? It seems more plausible to me that the games themselves contained some kind of code for their native color schemes rather than say, a GBC recognizing hundreds of different games so it can apply the correct color scheme.

[joshnickerson]

...rather than say, a GBC recognizing hundreds of different games so it can apply the correct color scheme.

Actually, from what I've read, that's exactly how the GBC worked. In an article about the making of the Gameboy Color, they cited Metroid II as one of the games they programmed the GBC to have a specialized color pallete. I can imagine that the more popular games at the time got a specialized color set, while others got the standard color scheme at boot up.

[Jorpho]

It seems more plausible to me that the games themselves contained some kind of code for their native color schemes rather than say, a GBC recognizing hundreds of different games so it can apply the correct color scheme.

The later seems quite plausible to me, actually.


Does anyone know of any other games that happen to get nice colorization on a GBC/GBA?

There are many such games. I have previously mused that the only way to get a complete list would be to hack the BIOS or something.


B&W games released after the GBC

I do not believe there were any such games that did not have GBC color data of some sort.

[Ze_ro]

I do not believe there were any such games that did not have GBC color data of some sort.
You're right. According to Wikipedia, the last B&W Gameboy game was Pokemon Yellow, released Sept 12/98 in Japan... the GBC was Oct 21/98 in Japan, so I guess that was the end of the grey cartridges.


I can imagine that the more popular games at the time got a specialized color set, while others got the standard color scheme at boot up.
I tested out a few other games, including Mega Man 2, Castlevania 2, Mortal Kombat, and Operation C. All of them get the standard "green & tan" color palette, so I think that only first-party releases got this special treatment. F1 Race does NOT get any special colors though, so I guess just being a Nintendo release wasn't enough.

--Zero

[exit]

I remember reading about a GBC re-release of Metroid 2, apparently it was in the works, but never saw the light of day.

[PentiumMMX]

Kirby's Dream Land 2 has this. Kirby is actually pink!

[NE146]

So am I correct in assuming that these color palettes are programmed into the Gameboy Color (and GBA) hardware, such that it specifically recognizes these games?

Yes Ze_ro, It's pretty known Nintendo obviously and specifically hard coded custom color pallettes for many of their titles when played on a GBC.. which naturally carried over to the GBA.

You can of course override it however with any of the 12 built in GBC pallettes as well.. which I guess gives those 1st party titles 13 pallettes in total :p

The Super Gameboy on the other hand, as you noticed has completely different colorization. I actually never liked the SGB colors, but at least you can tweak and customize them yourself.

[Bratwurst]

I've read from a few sources that the GBC CPU recognizes the games that have special color schemes by their rom checksum. The GBA has this GBC CPU as well for the backwards compatibility, natch.

[bangtango]

I remember reading about a GBC re-release of Metroid 2, apparently it was in the works, but never saw the light of day.

Considering darn near everything else was rereleased on GBC somewhere along the line, that surprises me. One or two new areas, a slightly harder game and a few extra Metroid would have been perfect.

[CosmicMonkey]

I've read from a few sources that the GBC CPU recognizes the games that have special color schemes by their rom checksum. The GBA has this GBC CPU as well for the backwards compatibility, natch.

So if this is the case (which I reckon it is), you could get up to some flash cart fun. Would it be possible with a hex editor to take the ROM for a game with no added colour, and replace it's checksum with one from a game that does have added colour (like Kirby for instance). Just to see if that game now gets takes on the added color scheme for Kirby.

Or will the SGB detect that the ROM has a wrong checksum, and won't boot?

[rbudrick]

I remember I wrote the perfect color scheme for the Super Mario Land when using SGB. It made it look very close to an SMB game, often by shit luck of the colors matching objects. I'll try to find it soon and post it.

Oh, and when is an SNES emu gonna emulate the SGB?

-Rob

[Jorpho]

Oh, and when is an SNES emu gonna emulate the SGB?

My understanding is that such emulation would be a difficult proposition, since the SGB already contains most of the hardware found within a Game Boy. I suppose it would be nice to have access to some of the little extra features the SGB had, like the border animations.

[mills]

Metroid II was made years before the Super GB or even the GBC...it was programmed as a b/w game end of story

actually it wasn't programmed in black OR white. Nor were ANY gameboy games.

[Cryomancer]

Visual Boy Advance can do SGB mode, with borders. It also has a SGB2 mode.

I played through Metroid II on either my SGB or my gameboy player, can't recall which now, but the colors were nice. Maybe I tried both, I can't remember.

[NE146]

Visual Boy Advance can do SGB mode, with borders. It also has a SGB2 mode.

But, it cant play the SNES mode of SGB Space Invaders :)