PixlBit

So with BaD underway, I decided to focus on a few oddities that came with my emulators. Today I proudly present the strangest handheld of all and a very obscure one at that. Today I'm going to blog about the Watara Supervision!

 

The Supervision was an ill-fated competetitor to Nintendo's Gameboy. Introduced in 1992 at the price of $49.95, the Supervision came packaged with a game called Crystball. Crystball is very similar to the game Breakout which has been ported and copied in many different avenues and to many different consoles.

So why did the Supervision fail? Well unfortunately many issues with the games screen display was a common theme among those who bought the system. Also, due to being developed exclusively in China, big name developers didn't jump on board, leaving many customers underwhelmed.

The Supervision had a total of 66 games released for it, of which I am able to play 42. Now while I can't get to all of them. I figured I'd highlight some of the unique games on the system.

First up is a game called Alien. Alien is a game that is kind of like a portable Gradius of sorts. It's a side scrolling shoot em up game. Balloon Fight is on here, but it's not Nintendo's version. This particular Balloon fight was developed by the company Sachen and well...it's not very good. Next up I have Cave Wonders. Cave Wonders is an adventure style game of sorts. You go around caves as some sort of egg shaped thing and collect treasures I guess. Not sure...there isn't a story that explains anything. Galatic Crusader is up next and it's a vertical shoot em up similar to games like 1942, Ikaruga, etc. I also have Hero Kid, which is very similar to Adventure Island. You run along as Hero Kid to save I guess Hero Girl. Grab fruit for energy, skate, and jump to avoid pitfalls and enemies! 

  

Up next is John Adventure. Now that sound's like a game for me! If only it weren't for that pesky H! Anyways John Adventure isn't an adventure game at all!  Why you gotta lie to me John!? Anyways, it's a Dr. Mario rip-off, so nuff' said there. Up next is Kabi Island- Gold in Island and this is just a portable Bomberman clone. And finally I'll end it off with Pyramid which even though it's not the last title, it's the one I had the most fun with. Essentially it's Tetris, but the pieces are pyramid-esque. You've got triangles. blocks with cornered edges, etc. and to be honest it was really, really fun, to just go about fitting in pieces together to make a pyramid myself and to enjoy the aspect of carefully considered Geometry.

In all the Supervison really was a poor mans Gameboy, with many of it's titles copying from other better games. Still it's always fun to appreciate going back to the past and seeing what sort of oddities and games you can come up with. Anyways I hope you enjoy reading the blog today! As always I'm glad to bring you my mindless musings. Join me next time where I'll discuss another Emulator oddity hanheld! I'll give you a hint... it involves Pokemon!