Boundish, as most reviewers in the past have stated, is just Pong. That’s it, they made it sound like it was horrific, but that’s not important. What is, is that while this might not be the game in which one will sit down, and play it for hours upon hours, Boundish manages to expand the original formula of Magnavox’s Tennis and proves to be a fun diversion in short five-minute play sessions.

Starting with the title screen, the player will be greeted to a quick animation right before being able to jump right into the action. Whether it be toying with the main menu’s sound effects, playing one of the five “courts” available, or even waiting for the credits to appear after idle input; there aren’t too many things to do and this is where it becomes apparent that Boundish really is meant for quick bursts of fun.

Pool Flower

The first court, “Pool Flower”, is much like the Light Tennis most are used to. It starts out how you would expect it to - hit the ball back and forth - that is until lightly shaded blobs slowly drift into the play area. These blobs upon being hit will change to the color respective of the one who hit it. The purpose? They add a bit of strategy in that wafting through a blob of your opponent’s color will cause you to become sluggish, possibly costing a point in addition to changing the ball’s velocity or even causing ricochets against them. This can be used at a great advantage when you are able to send the ball whirling past the end line without the CPU being able to reach it in time. The controls are fluid when moving around; with dynamics from hitting the ball making quite a splash. The music isn’t anything special with a second-long loop that doesn’t distract and gets the job done.

Box Juggling

“Box Juggling” is a diversion from a game that can already be treated as a diversion itself, not that it’s a bad thing, with a concept that won’t shock and isn’t truly Pong at all. You control a blocky stick figure that duck-walks along the bottom of the screen. An orange box is dropped towards you and you’ve got to keep it from reaching the floor; simple. You realize the box can be thrust into the air with A, not only sending it soaring, but adding a multitude of points to the slowly moving score counter in the blank backdrop. It feels like it’s starting to get boring when pink boxes start raining down from the sky; before you know it you have another box, and later, a heavier red box, and it’s not long before you get tiny boxes. The struggle to keep every box airborne will get to the point that one will not even have the ability to commit large thrusts, and there you have it, "Box Juggling", the only high-score based court in Boundish.

Wait a second, there’s more; that’s right, power-ups. Three are available: the “helmet” provides you with protection from any boxes that may fall on your noggin (which normally stuns you), the “helper” is a copycat who follows your trail and saves missed boxes, and the “warp gate” allows you to walk off screen and return from opposite side once. Similar to “Pool Flower”, the controls aren’t a stickler and the calming xylophone tune really branches out for a decent game time.

Power Slider

“Power Slider” is a relatively expansive court in Boundish from the abundance of physical properties featured in it. On the lemniscate-shaped court, either player can release a charged shot with A or hit the curling stone-like puck from the side causing it to spin. When the spinning puck lands, it bounces in a different direction making a dent in the rink along with a 8-bit squeal. “Power Slider” is simple with a slick modern twist and gameplay that’s bursting with modern flair. Enough said.

Human League

“Human League” is akin to the Light Tennis variations at the time of its popularity where you are tasked with controlling two paddles at once. Or at least they appear to be paddles until one quickly realizes that those paddles are actually people with wiry limbs.

Moving on, most of the player’s control resides in the frontmost person who is freely mobile in their side of the court. The other paddle man acts a final resort for any balls missed by the front; his movement is heavily restricted with the only real use for him being to provide a quick save by pressing A and Up/Down. The paddle men get into the feeling of things pretty well with the backup saying things in text such as “Oh…” or “Wreee!”, and the other actually shouting “HAA!”. The music here is the lengthiest, assuming you can play long enough to even get to the melody as rounds are won or lost fairly quickly. This court is usually met with derision as it has a somewhat difficult to master reflex-based play style.

Wild Go Round

The last court “Wild Go Round”, is often met with multitudinous praise, no one is limited to their own side, and instead the game takes place on a “single-sided” LP.

Because of the lack of multiple sides “Wild Go Round” makes it possible to take the opponent’s turn. The power hits require much more acute timing with a nice loud “EI!” signifying you pulled it off. The ball can be swerved using the L and R triggers (hence the meters on the sides), and this also has effects on the music which can be played normally, backwards or stopped completely.

The visuals and sound are all simple and highly representative of the Atari and other systems of the day, and with adjustable difficulty and time/score settings, Boundish is a game best not spent reading about but actually playing. In the rare chance you and a friend have a wireless adapter (and no, none of the bit Generations games with multiplayer work with the standard link cable) everything but “Box Juggling” is playable.

A two-cartridge multiplayer is supported as normally seen in games, but for two people competing against one another with only a single cartridge, a “DOWNLOAD” mode has been made available, a la DS Download Play. Basically, the person without a copy of Boundish starts the Game Boy Advance without a cartridge, or presses both Start and Select upon bootup (only when a Game Pak is inserted), in order to be taken to the download menu. Just like the GameCube-Game Boy Advance link cable, only one court can be sent at a time; completely taking up the space in the system’s RAM. Fortunately, none of the courts are downgraded in scale or sound as, once again, Boundish is not a very visually or musically detailed game. If the person receiving the download gets tired of the 2P mode, then before they turn of their GBA they can play against a CPU just as they could with the actual game.

It would be challenging to convince anyone to buy a game like this as nowadays it would be on mobile platforms (albeit much lower quality normally), but it’s not a bad game, it’s just not worth paying a whole lot for.