Demakes are my latest obsession. The retro gaming community has taken to imagining what popular games would look like if they had been released years earlier on consoles that could only dream of hosting them. We’ve seen some amazing ideas recently, such as an 8-bit version of Tears of the Kingdom and Elden Ring jumping backwards onto the SNES. That said, it’s not often that you can actually play these demakes, as many clips just show what they might look like. Even rarer is that you can just click on them and play them in the browser, which is why Halo: Combat Devolved is so special!
90’s kids like me still long for the days of the Game Boy Color. There’s just something about those little character sprites that takes me back to the good old days when we would play in the backyard and stay up all night playing Oracle Of Seasons. Seeing Master Chief running around like he’s in a Pokemon game (albeit with a lot of blood) is incredible, and while it might not look as great as the original on Xbox, it’s incredibly fun to play!
I clicked on the link in the description of the YouTube video and was able to play immediately on my Macbook, using Z as the A key and the arrow keys as the D-pad, exploring the world from a top-down perspective like all the best GBC games. So far, Crusader Games has provided two levels to play: “Pillar of Autumn” and “Halo,” but the fact that you can actually play them, as shown in The Duncan Donuts’ video above, is incredible!
Since it’s basically a GBC game, there are no graphically demanding elements that could cause broken controls or glitches. Master Chief moves smoothly and the graphics are great. Even if you appear to be shooting from the chest without having a physical weapon, it doesn’t matter, it’s still super cool!
The game allows you to save your progress and return to your browser to continue from the last checkpoint, which is great. It’s the perfect game to have open on your computer at work and play while you wait for emails to come in. Just don’t let your boss catch you or he’ll unleash the full force of The Covenant on you! So sit back and enjoy the intergalactic Game Boy Color quality, you deserve it!
