The Smurfs (Game Boy)

The Smurfs is a Game Boy game based on The Smurfs (what else?). It managed to sell over a million copies over in Europe, enough for Nintendo to do a US release years later with the Player's Choice label.

Practice Mode#

By beating the game and pressing Start after the staff roll, you can access a level selection screen. Note that this level select uses Hard difficulty and that the twelfth level is missing. To enable this level select on all versions of the game, edit ROM address 01C3 from 32 to 31. You can also use the Game Genie code 311-C3F-2A2 to achieve this.

Hidden Passwords#

Although the game tells the player only two generic passwords throughout the course of the game which access Acts 5 and 10, respectively, there are actually passwords for every single stage, boss and bonus level.

• BXMC – Act 2
• BXMD – Act 3
• BXMF – Act 4
• BXMG – Boss - Snake
• BXMH – Act 5
• BXMJ – Act 6
• BXMK – Act 7
• BXML – Act 8
• BXMM – Act 9
• BXMN – Boss - Dragon
• BXMP – Act 10
• BXMQ – Act 11
• BXMR – Act 12
• BXMS – Final Boss - Gargamel
• BXMT – Ending
• BXMV – Bonus Stage - The Dam
• BXMW – Bonus Stage - The Mushrooms
• BXMX – Bonus Stage - The Bubbles

Unused Graphics#

Outside of some of them being loaded offscreen as garbage data every now and then, these symbols are unused and cannot be seen in-game.

Unused Music#

The music for Act 9 (Inside the Volcano) lasts for approximately 1 minute and 35 seconds before looping, yet the actual level lasts for around 40 seconds. Additionally, the level's main gimmick involves lava that starts rising a few seconds after starting the level, so it isn't possible to prolong the level long enough to hear the full song. A version of song can be heard in full in the NES version of the game, where it's used for Act 7 (The Old Gold Mine).

Unused Audio#

These IDs are never written to address d942 (which is used for initiating sound effects) and are not used anywhere in the game.

Sound ID: 09 Sound ID: 0C Sound ID: 13

Revisional Differences#

There are two versions: The first version (Rev 0) was released only in Europe. The second version (Rev 1) was released both in Europe and the US.

Super Game Boy#

Rev 1 features very basic Super Game Boy support, which basically amounts to a bare bones border and a more Smurf-like color palette for the game.

Intro Credits#

Rev 0	Rev 1

Rev 1 updated the year from 1993 to 1994. Rev 0 lists the Smurfs in all four languages which was changed in Rev 1 where only the English name is listed in addition to mentioning the Super Game Boy support.

Language Select#

Rev 0	Rev 1

Rev 1 removed the Spanish language for unknown reasons.

Dragon Boss Glitch#

In Rev 0, if you pull out many present boxes at once during the Dragon fight, the object/enemy slots would be filled up for the rest of the battle due to a glitch. The Dragon's head doesn't load anymore and the present box is rendered unusable. This was fixed in Rev 1.

Possibly Cut Italian Language#

There is a string at ROM address 01E0 in Rev 0 which implies that a fifth language setting, Italian, was planned for the game but got scrapped before release.

DB "SCHWER"    
IF ITALIANO=ON

Oddities#

In the second part of Act 6 (The Mountains), when playing on the hardest difficulty, this bee can be seen under the slope at the start of the area. It has no purpose as there is no way to reach it.