Super B-Daman on Game Boy is one of those weird little gems that somehow turns shooting marbles into a legitimately tense battle game. You start off picking your B-Daman—I always went for the one with the ridiculous horned helmet—and then it’s straight into these grid-based duels where positioning and angles actually matter. Miss your shot, and you’re scrambling to reload while your opponent lines up their next move.

The strategy sneaks up on you. At first, it feels like dumb luck, but after a few matches, you start timing ricochets off walls or baiting the AI into wasting their best marbles. The customization’s simple but satisfying—swapping out parts changes your firing speed or reload time, and some of the late-game B-Daman designs get gloriously over-the-top.

It’s definitely a product of its era (the music alone will drill into your skull), but there’s something weirdly addictive about how it mixes puzzle logic with arcade-y action. Just don’t blame me when you realize you’ve been hunched over your Game Boy for an hour trying to nail that perfect bank shot.