The 1994 Game Boy version of Taito‘s classic Space Invaders is legendary for its Super Game Boy enhancements. It not only features a variety of well-designed borders and enhanced colour palettes, but it also includes an exclusive, separate ‘arcade’ port that is only accessible when using a Super Game Boy on a SNES.

When you first boot up the game, you’re presented with a choice of two versions – the Super Game Boy version, or the Arcade version.

The Super Game Boy version features the SGB-coloured OG Game Boy version of the game, with a border showing the famous stand-up arcade cabinet as the surround. This version features three different flavours of Space Invaders to play: 1. The very first black and white version of the game; 2. The faux-coloured ‘cellophane’ version of the game, and 3. The full colour version of the game (that actually used real, coloured pixels). And they’re all pretty good ports of the game, although somewhat reduced in size to fit the Game Boy‘s small screen.

The second version – Space Invaders The Arcade Game – uses the full display area of the SNES, and also its full colour and graphical capabilities. This version features four different flavours of Space Invaders: full-screen versions of the abovementioned three, plus the upright cabinet version, which is an almost perfect replica of the version with the painted, lit planetoid backdrop, onto which the monochrome in-game graphics were reflected.

Game options include: changing the player stock of lives (from three to six); changing the ‘extend’ total (to either 1000 or 1500 points), and switching sound between stereo or mono.

This special version of Space Invaders has some great little touches, like the white parts of the Space Invaders showing through the gaps in the cellophane. There’s also a hidden border of the Space Invaders cocktail cabinet surround (minus the drinks and ashtrays), which can be activated by pausing the game, then holding the ‘A’ button until the border changes.

Space Invaders fans will definitely appreciate the effort that Taito has put into these Super Game Boy enhancements, and it also makes the original Game Boy cartridge very unique, desirable and collectible. In fact, this is arguably the best way to play Space Invaders, outside of owning one of each of the different arcade cabinets (and, considering the space they’d take up, that’s probably not very practical for most people).

More: Space Invaders on Wikipedia