James Bond 007 for the Game Boy has somewhat of a special place in my game collection: it was one of my first games ever, and also the first game I thought about doing a speedrun on when I discovered SDA back in 2012.
Since I had owned the game since it came out in 1998 and beaten probably 10 times it felt like a good game to start with, but the fact that I dind't have any console to play the game on or anything to record the footage with made me shelve it for a while, although I still had it in mind as a future project.
At first I planned to do a segmented run, mostly because of the horrible card games on the Marrakech level (more on that later), but after I found Softman25's single segment run on Twitch I changed my mind. I already had the general routing done, but Softman25 deserves credit for showcasing that a SS run wouldn't be that much harder to do than a segmented one.

The story revolves around an arms smuggling ring run by a evil general named Golgov, who is looking to take over the whole world by force. To his help, he has several other bad guys working for him, including Bond characters such as Odd Job and Jaws. As I'm not a big Bond fan I can't really tell how much of the story and characters that are borrowed from other movies, but after reading game rewives it seems that the story is a mish mash of several Bond movies. The plot may be a bit silly and weird, but it doesn't matter since the game is so much fun to play anyways.
Rather than a all-out action game, James Bond 007 is more similar to Zelda games such as Alttp and Link's Awakening in terms of gameplay. Most of the time you have to search for specific items and solve puzzles in order to complete the levels, rather than just going around and fighting bad guys all the time, which IMHO is a good thing.

Due to the puzzle and problem sovling aspects, the level comments are probably going to look a bit like a FAQ, but I feel like it will be easier to understand if you're familiar with the plot.
Big block of text incoming, so brace youreself!

China:
In the first level of the game, Bond is set out in China to search for some documents containing information about a large arms ring that is said to be in operation somewhere in the world. The object is to find and retrive the documents and return them to London.
First of you need to collect a hammer and give it to the man on the broken bridge so he can repair it and thereby letting you cross it. From there on you just follow the road until you reach the temple in the north, where you face off against the first of Zhong Mae's guards. At this early stage in the game you only have your fists to attack and defend yourself with, but since none one of the guards are carrying any weapons they are all easy to defeat. All you need to do is to press and hold the block-key (in this case, the B button), and wait until they have attacked, then punch them back. As long as you hold B, they won't do any damage to you.

After entering the temple you have to find the hidden door that leads into an archive, where you find the secret documents. Right after that comes the first boss, Zhong Mae. As opposed to fighting the guards, you can only block a few of Zhong Mae's attacks, therefore the best way to defeat her is to just mash the punch button while moving back and forth. If you are lucky, you can actually hit her 12 times without taking a single hit. It dind't happen this time though.
The rest of the level contains just more face-offs with guards. I take damage intentionally on some places to save time, other than that it's pretty self explanatory.

London:
A really short and a bit unnecessary level. The only thing you do is to drop off the documents to M and retrieve the pistol and a electric key chain from Q, which you need to use in the following level.

Kurdistan:
The documents you gave to M in London turned out to be blueprints of a hidden base. Although the location of the base is not revealed, they mention a contact in the middle east known as Iqbal. Also, another agent (008) has been missing for weeks after going to Kurdistan and investigating another tip. He is being held inside a dark cave by Iqbal, and in order to gain access to the cave you need to find a oil lamp so you can see where you're going.
The oil lamp can be found in a backyard outside a bar, but in order to gain access to the bar you need a fake ID, and the only way to get one is to bribe a prisoner so he can make one for you.

First off you need to get the machete so you can cut down bushes that are blocking some paths in the level (I like the innocent look of the person in the house where you find the machete, he claims that he have no idea how that weapon got there even though his neighbour says it's been stolen. There are lots of small jokes like this one in the entire game).
Then, you need to have a chat with the man in the first house you encounter in which he tells you that "the man to the west has been known to scheme with the prisoner". This is crucial because otherwise you won't be able to get the gold ring from the man in the west, which you need to bribe the prisoner with.
After collecting the gold ring and some blank paper, you go to the jail and give the prisoner the items, distract the guard for a little while, and then obtain the fake ID. Now you can enter the bar in the middle of the level.
Once in the bar, you need to shoot out the light so you can sneak out to the backyard where the oil lamp is located. Now you can enter the cave where 008 is being held.

Just before entering the cave, I take a little detour to the right and collect a jewel egg and refill my health. The jewel egg will come in handy in the next level as you can trade it for a passport which gives you access to some shortcuts.
As I enter the cave, I don't switch to the lamp right away. By keeping everything dark, you can skip a short dialogue with Iqbal and save a couple of seconds (you still need to have the lamp in your possession though, if you try to enter the cave without it, Bond will just say that it's too dark to see anything).
It may be hard to see, but as the boss battle starts, Bond automaticly throws the electric keychain on the ground. You then need to lure Iqbal to step on it and attack him, otherwise you won't able to do any damage to him. After you've defeated Iqbal you get a key to the locked room where 008 is being held hostage. 008 tells you that Iqbal recives his weapons from Odd Job, who is located in Marrakech, and so you're off to visit Morocco.

Marrakech:
This is the biggest and longest level of the entire game. There's quite a lot of things you need to do in this level, I'll try to explain it as shortly as possible.
The goal of the level is to get a hotel key to the room where Odd Job is staying at. Together with a man named Mr. Fez (of course he wears a fez on his head too), he handles weapon deals from his hotel room. Mr. Fez is the only one who has a key to Odd Job's room, but in order to find him you need to gain access to the baccarat room in the casino downtown.

I start off by going to the Casino and play a couple of hands of Black Jack. You can acquire a credit line of 1000 dollars any time you want, but to enter the baccarat room you need to have at least 2500 dollars, therefore you need to gamble a bit. You can also choose to play a game of Red Dog, which is actually a bit closer to the bank deposit area than the Black Jack table, but after a lot of testing I came to the conclusion that you have better odds to win at the Black Jack table.
With that being said, chanses that you win enough money on the first try is almost slim to none. Sometimes it can take 15 minutes or more before you get lucky and win enough hands in a row to get 2500 dollars. The fact that I had so much luck and got it on the first try made me so happy that I almost blew it by betting once again by mistake, but fortunatelly I won that hand too.
Once you've entered the baccarat room, you need to win three hands in order to get Mr. Fez to appear at the table. He won't just give you the key to Odd Job's room so you'll have to find a way to take it from him. That is, to put him asleep by firing a tranquilizer dart at him from a hidden location and then stealing the key.
After exiting the Casino I backtrack a little so I can trade the Jewel Egg for the Underground Passport. The pass gives you access to some hidden corridors that takes you directly to the important places, which saves up to a minute of gameplay. Then it just a quick stop at a local base where you acquire a Laser-shooting watch from Q and you're off to the Black Market for some serious trading. The outcome of all trading is that you acquire nightvision goggles, which you need to have when you enter the catacombs in the north section of the Black Market.

Deep inside the catacombs hides a theif namned Rat Man, who are willing to trade you a tranquilizer rifle for something valuable. The valuble item is a navel diamond (!) that you acquire from a lady named Ms. Bliss who is located in a spa-looking room in the far east of the catacombs. I never really got this part as a kid and I don't know why there's a rusty door that leads into in from the catacombs, but hey, it's just a game.
After you get the rifle you can enter the second rusty door which takes you to a secret room next to the baccarat room. After putting Mr. Fez to sleep, all you need to do is to get the key from him and enter Odd Job's hotell room.

Sahara:
After being badly hurt by Odd Jobb's razor sharp hats, he strips you of almost all items and drops you off in the desert to die. You quickly need to find the man on the camel that gives you a bucket that you can carry water in, otherwise you will die in almost an instant.
Even though this is by far the shortest level of the game, I complete the level in a pretty interesting way. Just at the beginning of the level, M mentions that you are on coordinates 2,7 and that there's an airbase on 6,2. The first time you play the game it's more or less important that you've collected the Sattelite Map in Marrakech, otherwise you will have a hard time figuring out where you are and where to go.
The normal way to complete the level would be to move towards the up-right corner, but since the level loops you can actually go 3 to the left and 3 down and make it to the airbase without having to refill you water bucket. Big thanks goes to DanE for finding this alternative way to complete the level!

Tibet:
The search for Odd Job continues as you go to Tibet, where MI6 has tracked down him and a big stash of weapons. The goal of the level is to get into a temple on top of the mountain and basically all you need is to find a rope and a hook so you can reach certain platforms.
The cave tunnels are filled with enemies, but you can skip most of them by just hitting them once or twice and zig-zagging past them. Once you acquire the rope and the hook, you can reach the temple on top of the mountain where Odd Job is said to be at. As you enter the temple, the guards will strip you of all your weapons, then the "test of courage" begins. That means fist fighting with a bunch of giant sumo-looking guys for a while. They behave just as the enemies on the first level, only that they attack faster. I took some damage and missed a couple of punches, but it wasn't a major timeloss.
After you've completed the test, you find yourself trapped by Odd Job and his fellow guards again. This time he captures Bond and sends him to his secret base for interrogation.

Secret Base:
At first you're stuck inside the cell, but thankfully Zhong Mae lets you out. She has now switched sides, claming that she only worked with the "bad guys" because she wanted to help raise money for her village. While she goes and decipher the base's security system, Bond sets out to find and interrogate Odd Job for more information about who's supplying him with weapons,
This is where the game starts to get a bit more difficult. The biggest problem here is the RNG. The best possible RNG is if you get a lot of ammo for the best weapons such as the rocket launcher and machine gun, but it's also helpful if you get a "vest" and/or medkits. In this particular run I had great RNG, and also a bit luck as I almost died around the 24 min mark, but thanks to the the vest I survived there.
As in most cases, most of the enemies can be skipped. The only one you definitely need to kill is the first one who fires rockets at you. When he dies, you get a shield from that you'll need to use in order to defeat Odd Job later on. The shield can also block pistol and machine gun bullets, which is a really nice feature.

After battling your way through the base, you finally find Odd Job and a battle begins. Your regular weapons won't do any damage to him, so you need to deflect his hats so that they hit him back. As far as I know, Odd Job or his hats doesn't follow any specific pattern which makes the battle more or less of a RNG lottery. This is probably one of the places where I lost a significant amount of time, and you could probably save 30 seconds or more if you're lucky.
After you've kicked his ass, he tells you that Golgov is the man behind all this and that another contact in Kurdistan, Khatar, knows more about him. So after the battle you head back the way you came and then go and seek up Zhong Mae.

Kurdistan pt. 2:
Upon arriving at the same village again, war has broken out and the whole place is a mess. I didn't think of it that much as a kid, but this level is pretty depressing and sad.
The only way out of the village is blocked by a bunch of big blocks of gravel and dust which you need to find a way to get rid of. 008 can't do much for you since he's dead alreday (why didn't Bond take him with him the first time?), but he has an exploding pen on him that can help you get rid of the blocks. He also carries a armor vest which really comes in handy when you're running around and dodging grenades.

There are three camps outside of the village. In one of them you'll find Zhong Mae's friend Mustafa, who knows where Golgov's secret weapon manufacture facility is located, but he won't tell you unless you help him get rid of two enimes: the rebel leaders Khatar and Saddam Hussein (!), who were the ones to start the war and wipe out the village in the first place.
I start by going for Saddam since he's the easier one of them. In fact, it only takes one hit with either weapon to defeat him. Khatar on the other hand is smaller and thougher than Saddam, but still super easy. It takes eight hits with any weapon to defeat him.
Once you have beaten both, Mustafa will tell you that Golgov is in Russia (who could have guess that?), give you a mirror shield that protects you from lasers and send you off to Russia in a plane.

Russia:
Upon arriving in Russia, I had lots of ammo for the rocket launcher and also a lot of medkits, which is really good. What's even better is that I had the RNG gods with me and got several boxes of rocket ammo during the level and could for the most part just blast through the level without having to switch weapons all the time. I did switch to grenades a couple of times though, just to be sure that I would have enough rockets left for the second part of the level.
After you find you way through the maze and enter the base, you fight Jaws. I screwed up a bit by being too slow at the beginning, but at least it didn't cost me more than about 5 seconds or so. With Jaws defeated there's only the main man left: Golgov. He's holding up in the far north of the corridor, but there are several gates blocking the way which you need to deactivate by pressing the buttons so that they match the correct pattern.
Even though I'd written down all the button combinations on paper, I still managed to press the wrong buttons on half of them because I looked at the wrong ones. I guess I was to nervous or something. Thankfully I continued to have good RNG and got a couple of more ammoboxes for the rocket lanucher, so after the last set of switches was pulled, I knew that this run would be a new PB.

The final battle with Golgov is easy, you just need to fire about 10 rockets at him and then he will be gone. But the game doesn't end there. Even though you just defeated the main man of the evil operation there's still some work left to do. Golgov has launched a starting sequence for a bunch of nuclear missiles and you need to disarm them.
This part seems a bit pointless to me, but it's nice to finish off with some easy parts so you can relax a bit before the end. Just before the end I took a medkit because I didn't want to risk dying 5 seconds before the end (which I've done a couple of times).

And so you've saved the world and get the pretty girl with you, classic Bond style. Even though this run is not perfect, I'm pretty satified with it. If you had a really fantastic run, you could maybe cut the 41 min mark but that would require a lot of luck.
If you managed to read through this entire wall of text, congratulations! And even if you didn't, thank you for watching my run!

J.Y