GAME CLEAR No. 84 -- James Bond 007

James Bond 007 (1998, Game Boy)

Developer: Saffire
Publisher: Nintendo
Clear Platform: Analogue Pocket
Clear Date: 3/7/22

Inspired by my continued James Bond deep dive and the return of my Analogue Pocket from warranty repair, I picked this game up on eBay a few weeks ago. I’d heard that it was a good, overlooked game, so I went in with somewhat high expectations. I was not disappointed.

Although this game was released within a few months of GoldenEye 007, there doesn’t seem to be anything meaningful to tie them together. James Bond 007 features its own unique story and doesn’t feature Brosnan’s likeness even on its box art. Oddjob from the Connery era and Jaws from the Moore era are among its bosses and villains, and it has a bespoke main antagonist and Bond girl. In this way, it exists as sort of a tribute to the series as a whole and an entry that brings some new things to the table.

And that’s especially true when it comes to the Bond games as a series. This entry is unique among the ones that I’ve played in nearly every sense, and a lot of that makes it more of a “true” Bond experience than any other I’m aware of. The game takes place from a top down, Zelda-like perspective over a series of several stages. Although some stages are strictly combat-oriented, most of them require at least some milling about the various cities Bond visits in his jetsetting adventure. Bond can talk to local residents to glean information about how to find people he needs to meet with, find items he needs to unblock his way, etc. There are amusing visits to Q Branch and MI6, plenty of different gadgets and weapons, and even a sequence in which James must show his gambling chops. It may not have a skiing level, but it does a better job of hitting the usual Bond beats than some of the more popular Bond games.

I can’t help but think this is largely because of its platform. Saffire smartly chose to make a game that accepted the Game Boy’s limitations rather than trying to squeeze some kind of shooting-first experience out of it. Having said that, if the game has a weakness, it’s definitely that — the combat is a little janky. I often felt better off using melee weapons than shooting, and I almost always felt like I was cheesing the enemies. This is far from a dealbreaker, but I do wish this aspect of the game had been tweaked a bit. Later in the game, Bond gets a literal shield, so the combat becomes even more Zelda-like. Shield enemy projectiles and return fire with your best gun (at least it’s not a bow). It’s silly, but again, the issues presented by the mediocre combat are mitigated by the fact that combat only constitutes maybe half of the game.

And while I’m on the subject of negatives, it probably also bears mentioning that the non-European countries Bond visits in this game are perhaps a bit caricatured and/or questionably represented. It’s not egregious (the Game Boy is probably too low-fidelity for it to be anyway), but I found it noticeable. It probably wouldn’t be to Ian Fleming, though, so maybe the game is just faithful to a fault.

Audiovisually, the game is very charming. With so little screen and pixel real estate to work with, the character sprites are all just cute little dudes. There’s surprising musical variety, and Nintendo smartly licensed the James Bond theme, which is used somewhat liberally but never inappropriately. And speaking of the music, I can’t fucking believe I’m saying this again, but just like in Everything or Nothing, the only movie explicitly referenced in this game (aside from the appearances of Oddjob and Jaws) is A View to a fucking Kill. The title theme by Duran Duran is used as the credits theme of this game. At least in this case, that was the very best thing to come out of that movie, so I’m cool with it.

Overall, this is a surprisingly strong Game Boy game that isn’t generally listed among the classics of the platform but perhaps should be. It’s not flawless, but I struggle to imagine packing a better experience onto a 160×144, monochrome, two-button 1989 handheld. Q would be proud.