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Game Boy cheat devices

First written November 3, 2024

With the immense popularity of Nintendo's Game Boy a wide range of hardware cheating devices were released by third parties in the long tradition of the Action Replay and Game Genie.

Game Genie (1992)

As they had in the past, Galoob sold a version of Codemaster's popular Game Genie for the Game Boy in North America.

The large unit is molded to fit around an original Game Boy, and the plastic has to be shaved down (or the thing stuck in at an extreme angle) to work in most other Game Boys. I found this one at a used game store many years ago having already been shaved down by a previous owner.

Being fairly early, it only works with original Game Boy (type I or II) games, although by the era of type II Game Boy Color enhanced games I think they probably weren't publishing new codes...

Pelican Monster Brain (2001)

The Pelican Monster Brain, released circa later 2001, was a Game Boy Color cheat device specifically targeted at the first and second generation Pokémon games with the ability to edit Pokémon and items as well as some other stats.

This cartridge was based off of the previous Pelican Brain Boy cheat/save backup device released in 2000 (before Gold and Silver released outside Japan) and carries over pretty much all of its functionality, including the ability to back up Game Boy or Game Boy Color battery saves to the onboard flash memory

The colorizer button can be used to trick a Game Boy Color into thinking a type-II Game Boy cartridge into running like it is a greyscale type-I cartridge, letting the user select their own colors to replace the four shades on the Game Boy instead of the enhanced color palette programmed in. The colorizer button also allows the device to boot up when inserted into a Game Boy Pocket or Super Game Boy, as it normally behaves like a Game Boy Color cartridge. Colorizing a Game Boy Color game will result in it displaying its requirement of running on a Game Boy Color even on a Game Boy Color.