The Smurfs' Nightmare

The little blue elves you might know from Saturday-morning cartoons set off on an adventure full of jumps, traps and enemies. The Smurfs' Nightmare brings the beloved Smurfs to the Game Boy Color in the form of a classic platformer, the kind that appeared in droves on this platform.

Licensed games based on popular animated series were a common sight in the Game Boy era – studios tried to bring familiar characters into an interactive form that would appeal above all to the younger fans of the source material. Smurfs' Nightmare fits right into that tradition: it offers a colorful world in which you make your way through levels, leap over obstacles, dodge enemies and collect items, just as the tried-and-true platforming formula demands.

The charm of the genre lies in its accessibility. Platformers on the Game Boy Color were built on simple controls – move and jump – and gradually ramped up the difficulty by placing more obstacles and enemies. It's the kind of game that plays well in short bursts as well as longer sessions, and the aesthetic of the beloved blue characters lends the setting a warm, fairy-tale atmosphere.

For Smurfs fans it's a chance to dive into a familiar world interactively; for lovers of retro platformers it's another example of a genre that defined a large part of the handheld library at the turn of the millennium. Licensed platformers of this kind carry a nostalgic charm today and remind us of an age when a popular TV brand almost automatically meant its own game.

The Smurfs' Nightmare is thus above all a labor of love for fans of the blue elves and a fond reminder of one of the most typical genres of its platform.

Why play it: For a nostalgic licensed platformer with the Smurfs – accessible fun in a style that defined the Game Boy Color library.