Ball

Ball is the very first game of the Game & Watch series, and an unlockable game from Game & Watch Gallery 2. Depending on the publisher, the game has gone by other names as well, including Juggle and Toss Up.

This Game & Watch was later re-worked into the Mario-themed Mario the Juggler; this remake was the last Game & Watch title produced (not counting Parachute × Octopus released nearly 10 years later).

The goal is to juggle the balls as long as the player can. If one ball breaks, it's Game Over. Game A has two balls, while Game B uses three balls to juggle with. This has, unlike the other Game & Watch games, one chance to play, before a Game Over.

Ball is one of the games in the gallery in the original Game & Watch Gallery and it appeared as a microgame called Game & Watch Toss Up, in WarioWare: Touched! and another called Ball at Game & Wario.

It was once available at Club Nintendo for 1,200 coins.

Game & Watch Gallery 2
In Game & Watch Gallery 2, the player starts out with only the classic version (unlike most Game & Watch games in Game & Watch Gallery series). In order to unlock the modern version, they would first have to either obtain five stars on both modes in the classic version, or possess a star count of 25 or more. Easy mode seems to be like Game A, while Hard is Game B.

Modern Version
The player unlocks this after their star count has reached 25 or more. They start out playing as a Light Blue Yoshi, but as they collect more Stars, they can later play as Mario, then as Wario, and finally as Bowser (who is represented by a K for Koopa, as in King Koopa), each more difficult than the last. The first mode has Yoshi juggling Yoshi eggs. The Mario mode has the player juggling a Star, a Super Mushroom, and a Heart, actually just like Mario the Juggler, but with the Super Mushroom added. These items had varying arcs of flight as opposed to the fixed patterns of the eggs. The heart was also only worth two points as opposed to three. Wario's mode gives the player the same Heart, a Spiked Ball, and a Wanderin' Goom to juggle. The objects had varying arcs of flight and the Goom would occasionally fly off-screen. Bowser's mode features a Koopa Shell, Boo, and Goomba to keep aloft. Like the Goom, the Goomba and shell would sometimes fly off-screen. The Boo would also occasionally stop while traveling across its arc. Like the Heart, the Goomba and shell are only worth two points apiece.

The three modes of the Modern Version of Ball all had Bob-ombs that sometimes fly down from the sky. If a bomb hit one of the paddles, it would cause a Game Over too. At one hundred points for Yoshi, 200 points for Mario, 300 points for Wario, and 400 points for Bowser, Coins will rain down from the sky. Touching the coins with the paddles rewards the player with bonus points. By getting all of the coins, the player receives a 20-point bonus as well.

Trivia

 * This game can also be played in Game & Watch Gallery 2, along with the Game Boy Camera, with the player's face, instead of the juggler's.
 * This game is the only Game & Watch game remade after the Game Boy was released.
 * One of the tips for this game is inaccurate; Toad tells the player they have to catch the characters (the characters being Bob-ombs), and avoid the coins, when it is actually the other way around. This may have been an error in translation; the tip is accurate in the Japanese version.
 * In addition to the four character monogram icons that are actually used in the game, the mode select screen for Ball also has a "P" icon in its tileset, positioned before the "Y" icon. This may imply that during the development of Game & Watch Gallery 2, Princess Peach was planned to be one of the playable characters in Modern Mode, and have a version even easier than Yoshi's. It is also known that Peach's version of Ball was going to have her juggle cookies like those seen in Yoshi's Cookie.