Fetching Over $500 in Box With Two Wildly Different Covers: Cult Game Boy Hit Avenging Spirit Joins Mole Mania on Nintendo Switch Online on October 27
Starting Tuesday, October 27, 2026, the Game Boy - Nintendo Classics app is expanding with three standout retro cartridges included directly in the standard Nintendo Switch Online membership on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2: Avenging Spirit, Mole Mania, and Pinball: Revenge of the 'Gator.
While the inclusion of Shigeru Miyamoto's underrated puzzle adventure is already a major highlight for handheld fans, Avenging Spirit is stealing the spotlight among retro collectors. Beyond its sky-high secondhand market value, Jaleco's 1992 portable platformer remains famous for its ahead-of-its-time body-possession mechanic and one of the most dramatic regional box art makeovers of the 8-bit era.
From Whimsical Manga Ghost to Tommy Gun Mobster: A Tale of Two Covers
Originally released in Japanese arcades in 1991 under the title Phantasm before arriving on the Game Boy in 1992, Avenging Spirit underwent a complete identity shift when crossing the Pacific. On both the Japanese and European boxes, the cover artwork faithfully captures the game's playful, supernatural tone with a round, mischievous blue ghost smiling at the center.
Surrounding the spectral protagonist are six of the colorful characters players can inhabit across the stages: a red ninja tossing a shuriken, a baseball batter, a turbaned mystic, a shrine maiden holding a glowing orb, a green-suited mobster chomping on a cigar, and a young mage in a purple hooded cloak. Every detail of the illustration signals a lighthearted, arcade-style fantasy platformer.
For the 1992 North American release, Jaleco's western marketing team took the exact opposite route by commissioning a gritty, live-action crime cover straight out of a Prohibition-era gangster movie. Posed against a red brick wall, a snarling mobster in a fedora and tan trench coat fires a drum-magazine Thompson submachine gun, leaving North American shoppers with zero clue that the cartridge inside was actually a quirky ghost adventure.
According to live market data tracked on the Avenging Spirit Game Boy price guide on Retrocharting, an authentic NTSC cartridge currently commands $149.99 loose and $569.96 Complete in Box (CIB), climbing to $1,311.00 sealed and up to $6,000.00 graded (while the ultra-scarce European PAL box reaches €1,664.64 CIB). Meanwhile, Shigeru Miyamoto's Mole Mania on Retrocharting's Game Boy price guide trades at an average of $59.48 loose, $183.33 CIB, and $422.00 factory sealed.
20 Enemies to Possess, 3 Hidden Keys, and a $570 Collector's Price Tag
Once you start playing, Jaleco's platformer delivers a possession mechanic that anticipated Cappy in Super Mario Odyssey by a quarter of a century. Gunned down in an ambush by a crime syndicate that kidnaps his girlfriend Gennifer to force her scientist father into handing over his research on ghost energy, the protagonist returns from the afterlife as a wandering spirit.
Because your ghostly form cannot attack on its own and your spiritual energy meter (E) steadily ticks down whenever you float outside a body, survival depends on diving into enemy hosts. Across six stages, over 20 distinct enemy archetypes can be possessed, each bringing its own jump physics, health bar, and weapon set: submachine-gun gangsters, agile commandos, armored robots, werewolves, vampires, and fire-breathing miniature dragons.
Unlocking the true ending of Avenging Spirit requires tracking down three hidden keys scattered across the stages before reaching Gennifer's holding cell: once freed, she joins the fight and can even be possessed to wield a handgun against the syndicate's final boss.
Due to a modest initial print run in 1992, original Game Boy copies now command steep prices on the collector's market. North American cartridges regularly trade around $150 loose and nearly $570 complete in box (CIB), while rare complete European PAL copies frequently exceed €1,500 at auction.
Mole Mania and Revenge of the 'Gator Round Out the October 27 Lineup
Joining Jaleco's cult rarity on October 27 is Mole Mania (Mogurānya), the 1996 action-puzzle gem produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, which itself fetches around $180 boxed on the retro market. Stepping into the claws of Muddy Mole across seven worlds to rescue his wife and seven children from the farmer Jinbe, players dig underground tunnels to bypass surface hazards while pushing, pulling, and throwing black iron balls, barrels, and bombs.
Rounding out the trio is Pinball: Revenge of the 'Gator, the 1989 handheld pinball classic crafted by HAL Laboratory three years before Kirby's Pinball Land. Featuring four vertically stacked main boards, three bonus stages, and two-player competitive modes, its crisp ball physics hold up remarkably well on modern portable screens.
All three titles wrap up a busy month on our October 2026 video game release calendar and require only a base Nintendo Switch Online membership without the Expansion Pack. Players looking to compare membership deals or retro collections can also check our video game price comparison hub.
My Perspective
Seeing what original boxed copies of Avenging Spirit and Mole Mania go for in retro game shops today makes their arrival in the standard Nintendo Switch Online tier a genuine win for game preservation. Overshadowed in North America back in 1992 by a mobster cover that hid its playful personality, Jaleco's platformer is an absolute blast the moment you possess your first enemy.
Leaping from a gangster's body into a fire-breathing dragon or a fast-moving ninja to keep your spirit meter alive gives every stage an arcade urgency that still feels fresh on a 1992 monochrome cartridge. Paired with the multi-layered underground puzzles of Miyamoto's Mole Mania, this October 27 drop proves the original Game Boy library still has plenty of inventive surprises left to share.
Based on the outskirts of New York City, Chaya 'Chayane' spent five years studying software engineering in Montreal before returning to her home state. A Full-Stack developer and Deep Learning AI architecture researcher, she explores neural networks and algorithmic optimization while engineering data pipelines for Retrocharting and Gamescharting alongside Grimtag. A gamer for over 20 years and an avid collector of Nintendo history and The Legend of Zelda, she explored World of Warcraft's Azeroth before bringing her deep technical background to video game analysis.
