Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare... for the Gameboy Color?

I got a year of Nintendo Online with my Switch 2, which obviously means I'm playing old games on the emulators more than the handful of Switch 2 games. 

I hadn't looked at the library in a few years. It's still mostly Nintendo first party games from various regions. Maybe a few of the big bangers from Capcom and Konami. 

And then there was a record scratch moment. Alone in the Dark the New Nightmare for the Gameboy Color.

I know Alone in the Dark The New Nightmare as a Resident Evil clone (which was an Alone in the Dark clone, snake eating tail) on the PlayStation 1. It had you exploring a sprawling mansion, searching for key items, and solving puzzles. So how did they pull it off on the Gameboy?

Well, better than you would think. I wouldn't call it a good game. But they got the feel of traversing a large 3D mansion on this little screen.

The transitions between screens can be a little difficult. You don't always know where the boundary is and which room you're being sent to. 

At first, you find yourself squinting trying to make out if you're in the forest or in the mansion. But soon, your imagination fills in the gaps. You start seeing columns in front of a busted door. You recognize the shape of a tree. You see a desk that may have a sparkle on it.

In one of the best decisions, they keep combat to a minimum. You're taken into a different screen than the exploration screens whenever you have to fight. It's sort of isometric, where you hold your gun in front of you and can face four different directions, needing to move your character to line up the shot. They give you a lot of ammo because you aren't going to be super accurate. It works OK, but if it was constant, would get tedious. 

I'm also impressed that they were able to add some creepy effects. The PlayStation 1 version had situations where a ghost might flash in the room really quick, or lightning would crash at the right moment. They can't exactly do that on the little GameBoy color, but they do still include some creeps like a face passing by a window in the background. 

The worst part was the sound though. Just absolutely ear burning tones. The music overly loud compared to the sound effects.

I really don't know who this was for. Survival horror was hot, and Resident Evil attempted Gaiden, so Alone in the Dark wasn't the only franchise that was attempted on the handheld. I guess the assumption from Infogrames was there was money there? I just think the person that wanted survival horror and the person that had a handheld gaming device were two separate audiences.