Any Gray Port in a Storm #4: 16-bit = armPIT, but 4-gray = payday?

Super Nintendo, NES & GameBoy tomfoolery;

So, to catch up anyone who missed the earlier "Any Gray Port in a Storm" posts: they're about graphic-centric games that had a SIMPLIFY-COLORS effect slapped on 'em, and were then crammed as-is onto a dinky Original Gameboy black-n-white cartridge.

While it's a goofy concept, sometimes it yielded surprising results; for example, the subject of this week's post:

Gameboy Pit Fighter!

First let's look at some side-by-side graphics:

Buzz!

~~Woody~~ Ty!

Kato!

Fight!

Congratulations and/or You Made It

But what about the gameplay?

I actually had a lot of mindless, button-mashing fun playing this game, and would whole-heartedly say it's better than the SNES version of Pit Fighter. Of course, that statement must be taken with two huge grains, nay, BOULDERS of salt:

the SNES version is abysmal.
I have been known to be amused by NES proto-fighting games like Karate Champ and Urban Champion.

Punch! Kick! It's all in the eye of the beholder*

*: not this

I think the biggest difference between the SNES port and the Gameboy port is, for whatever reason, the Gameboy version has a less all-powerful AI.

SNES version; or, "we now resume your regularly-scheduled M.BISON-level beating."

When playing the SNES version, I got my clock cleaned consistently by the first opponent...not regular "learning" losses, but "last boss, cheap, constantly being put down before you land more than a few punches" losses. Furthermore, the only time I made progress with the SNES verison was by spamming power-attacks, and hoping my 'proto-combo' never got interrupted by the normal beating.

Gameboy version: like a human game of chess!

However, with the Gameboy version, I was able to regularly get to the 2nd or 3rd fight. Heck, I even eventually got far enough to learn that, hey, when your score gets high enough, YOU GET ALL YOUR HITPOINTS BACK!

(Yes, it's still a fighting game where you have ONE HEALTH BAR for the whole game...but it's also like an arcade game, in that at certain point plateaus, you get an "Extra Life," in the form of a refreshed health bar. Fighting games still had a lot of growing up to do!)

But if all that isn't enough to win you over to the Gameboy port's charms...