New on the Shelf: Yakuman, the Game That First Used the Link Cable
At first glance this looks like a minor curiosity: a Japan-only mahjong game, the sort of launch title Western players never heard of. Look closer, though, and Yakuman turns out to be a genuine milestone, the first Game Boy game ever to use the link cable, and therefore the game where connected handheld play truly began.
What It Is
Yakuman is a Japanese Game Boy launch title built around mahjong rather than action or platforming, developed by Intelligent Systems. That focus made it a distinctly Japan-facing release, one that set itself apart from the internationally familiar launch games like Super Mario Land and Alleyway, both of which are also in the collection. But its real significance is technical: it was the first Game Boy cartridge to make use of the link cable, letting two players sit opposite each other and share a game across a wire.
Where Connected Play Began
It is one of gaming's quiet ironies that the feature which would later define the Game Boy, the ability to link two machines together, made its debut not with a famous action game but with mahjong. The link cable would go on to power two-player Tetris, four-player racing and, most consequentially of all, the trading and battling at the heart of Pokemon a few years later. All of that connected magic traces back to a launch-day mahjong cartridge that first proved two Game Boys could hold a conversation.
There is a nice studio side-story, too. Yakuman was made by Intelligent Systems, a Nintendo studio that would later become famous for the deep strategy series Fire Emblem and Advance Wars, giving this humble mahjong game a surprisingly distinguished pedigree. Its Japan-only status also makes it a small window onto how different the Game Boy's earliest identity was at home, where a traditional tile game sat comfortably beside Mario as a system-seller, an emphasis that never quite crossed the ocean.
Why It Joined the Collection
A collection about the original Game Boy wants the games that mattered for reasons beyond their sales, and Yakuman is a perfect case: technically a first, historically a Japan-only launch title, and the unlikely starting point of every connected feature the console became known for. Set beside Super Mario Land and Alleyway, it completes a small picture of the machine's very first day on sale in Japan. Preserving it keeps hold of the exact spot where multiplayer handheld gaming was born.
Yakuman is documented, with photographs, on its own page in the collection.
Comments