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The Game Boy Advance Was A Monster System

3D in general looked sooooo much better on GBA than DS...I still don't understand that

Uhh okay
GBA_Mario_Kart.png

 

Opa-Pa

Member
I tend to forget the Mega Man Zero series is for GBA due to most of my playthroughs being on my DS thanks to the collection, but holy hell what fine games. GOAT MM series.

3D in general looked sooooo much better on GBA than DS...I still don't understand that

Huh?
 

Impotaku

Member
Had a GBA since i imported a glacier white one from Japan close to launch & had a blast over the years with it, my games collection has grown slowly one by one but i have to admit the library is pretty weak for 3rd party releases wish there was a bigger selection of weird & wonderful games. Even with what i already have, i have maybe 20 more game to add to my collection to call it done as there's not that much else i want for the GBA although nowdays it's going to be way harder as not only are there a ton of fakes about but the boxes are fragile as hell. Finding mint examples is a long & expensive exercise.

The gba did come with something pretty amazing though when Nintendo made the e-reader, having additional content that could be unlocked by cards i found addictive as hell to collect for. Just a shame they made the cards so hard to get hold of, even back in the day i never managed to find enough doubutsu no mori cards to complete my collection let alone the rockman exe e-cards. Did manage to complete quite a lot of sets though, still need to pick up fzero falcon densetsu so i can use the cards on that,

To the DS shitting in this thread, let's not kid ourselves in pretending the GBA library was nothing but quality when it clearly wasn't at all, it can easily compete with the DS for huge amounts of eastern & western licensed shovelware garbage that were released for it.

Anyway this is most of the stuff i have gba wise, there's a few other items like the club nintendo famicom pad II gba micro but that's in the cupboard & i couldn't be bothered digging it out for a pic. This is a mix of old & new pics.

Games
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Hardware
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E-reader stuff
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Used to keep them unprotected in a animal forest e-card binder but due to their rarity & value nowdays i upgraded the protection they are all now single sleeved and kept in a far better binder.
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It put the port in portable.
Sadly the screen was atrocious, even for its time.

I'm just finally getting into its library now, as I didn't see much reason to buy back then when I already owned all of those ports on SNES that other kids were trying for the first time.

Metroid Fusion is the Super Metroid sequel I always wanted.
I need a Metroid 5.
 

Unicorn

Member
It put the port in portable.
Sadly the screen was atrocious, even for its time.

I'm just finally getting into its library now, as I didn't see much reason to buy back then when I already owned all of those ports on SNES that other kids were trying for the first time.

Metroid Fusion is the Super Metroid sequel I always wanted.
I need a Metroid 5.
A side scrolling Metroid on 3ds would have been so amazing with diorama esque depth with foreground and background stereoscopic 3d elements with particles floating in the air.

Whyyyy whyyyy do they think the federation force would sell more than what I just proposed?!
 

VariantX

Member
GBA was the right machine at the right time. It was relatively cheap, just powerful enough, and had damn near unconditional support from both the hardware manufacturer and third party developers. I mean it gave us two damn 2D metroids and 3 castlevanias. No other system can boast that. It evolved into its perfect form when the GBA SP came out, backlit screen fixed the problems the old version had needing a backlight.
 

chespace

It's not actually trolling if you don't admit it
Thank you for making this thread. GBA remains very close to my heart. Reminds me of a very special period in my life. Its sheer portability and battery life meant I took it everywhere and it physically was a part of many of my favorite memories.

Pulled out one of my old Treasure faves Hajime no Ippo today because of this thread. Check it out if you haven't before. Still one of the best and most intense boxing games ever made.

Long live GBA.
 

bman94

Member
Gameboy was fucking great. I remember how much it blew my mind that the SP had a rechargeable battery and backlit screens. Like I legitimately couldn't wrap my tiny little brain around it.

So many great games. Had so much great times with the Sonic Advance series and spin-offs, Super Mario Advance, Pokemon Ruby, Emerald & FireRed, Mario Kart, WarioWare.
 
Thank you for making this thread. GBA remains very close to my heart. Reminds me of a very special period in my life. Its sheer portability and battery life meant I took it everywhere and it physically was a part of many of my favorite memories.

Pulled out one of my old Treasure faves Hajime no Ippo today because of this thread. Check it out if you haven't before. Still one of the best and most intense boxing games ever made.

Long live GBA.

I need to check it out. I have played all the other treasure games on GBA, but this one eluded me, lol.
 
I hate myself for getting rid of aria of sorrow. It was the first csstlevania I played properly all the way through and even got all the endings

I loved it. After finishing it a few times I traded it in because well, I wanted more games.

Now I just miss owning the damn thing.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
I hate myself for getting rid of aria of sorrow. It was the first csstlevania I played properly all the way through and even got all the endings

I loved it. After finishing it a few times I traded it in because well, I wanted more games.

Now I just miss owning the damn thing.

Man, I've been looking for a legit Aria cartridge for years now, and I've gotten two bootlegs in the process...
 
Man, I've been looking for a legit Aria cartridge for years now, and I've gotten two bootlegs in the process...

Was difficult to find even when new. I found my copy in an old department store toy section where they still kept the games in a glass cabinet and had to ask staff to open it just to look at a game while they stood over you in case you tried to steal it. The game was 2 years old at that time and was still full price. Worth it though.
 
Was difficult to find even when new. I found my copy in an old department store toy section where they still kept the games in a glass cabinet and had to ask staff to open it just to look at a game while they stood over you in case you tried to steal it. The game was 2 years old at that time and was still full price. Worth it though.

Now it's even worse than I thought! I bought it new from hmv when it first came out arggh.
 

bodine1231

Member
I imported one before the US release,so worth it. At the time I worked overnight shifts at a mom and pop hotel so I played the GBA for 9 hours straight for almost 3 years. LOVED IT!
 

delume

Member
I was doing my OE when the GBA was released. I spent the last of my cash on one with Chu-Chu Rocket and F-Zero MV. I spent my last three nights in Japan sleeping in parks before my return flight but Jesus it was worth it. At the time it felt like holding a delicious piece of childhood nostalgia wrapped up in the future. In hindsight I can't believe how excited I was at the image quality on what was Satan's monitor set to midnight mode.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
Whoa, really? I had heard mixed things. I'm on it, then. :D

Oh no.... you got taken in by the irrational Golden Sun fanbase...

Those games are the definition of generic. I remember being so disappointed playing the first one back when it came out.

Man, I've been looking for a legit Aria cartridge for years now, and I've gotten two bootlegs in the process...

Is it really so hard? I had that and many other games that I bought new back in the day. I got rid of all of them to buy other games. Never thought this would be an issue in the future.

To be fair, though, the batteries are dieing...


This collection is beautiful!

Man, Japan got WAY better boxes than we did. Shit looks like art.
 

Skunkers

Member
Oh no.... you got taken in by the irrational Golden Sun fanbase...

Those games are the definition of generic. I remember being so disappointed playing the first one back when it came out.

Pretty much. They aren't bad games, but they aren't great either. The way I remember it, Golden Sun one was kinda well regarded because A) it was one of the first RPGs on the system and B) because the GBA was generally thought of as a pocket SNES graphically speaking early on, and Golden Sun was one of the first games that had some really awesome graphics effects that would have been tough to pull off on SNES
 
Golden Sun: The Lost Age is significantly better than the first game. But the first still has things going for it, like the top tier level/dungeon design.
 

TheMoon

Member
Y'all better recognize.

Golden Sun's djinn-based battle system is incredible. The mix of this battle system with lots and lots of actual puzzle solving is uniquely cool in RPGland.
 
Y'all better recognize.

Golden Sun's djinn-based battle system is incredible. The mix of this battle system with lots and lots of actual puzzle solving is uniquely cool in RPGland.

Yup, the battle system, godtier music and level design hold it up today. Though the easy difficulty of the first game negates that first point. Lost Age is much more challenging, while also having a significantly better story and a lot more variety and more complex dungeons.
 

Firemind

Member
Pretty much. They aren't bad games, but they aren't great either. The way I remember it, Golden Sun one was kinda well regarded because A) it was one of the first RPGs on the system and B) because the GBA was generally thought of as a pocket SNES graphically speaking early on, and Golden Sun was one of the first games that had some really awesome graphics effects that would have been tough to pull off on SNES
Name one JRPG series that has Zelda-like dungeons that isn't Grandia, Wild Arms, Lufia or Soul Blazer.
 

Opa-Pa

Member
Man, I remember loving Golden Sun back in the day but never finished any. I want to revisit the series but... Camelot's pseudo 3D graphics are awful, enduring those will be tough. They had their novelty back then but after some years I realized how damn ugly they were.

Is it really so hard? I had that and many other games that I bought new back in the day. I got rid of all of them to buy other games. Never thought this would be an issue in the future.

To be fair, though, the batteries are dieing...

Actually I have a pretty cool, if modest collection of games I love, but Aria is pretty tough to find in particular for whatever reason, I swear I only ever find bootlegs. Astro Boy is even harder because it's not even popular enough to get those haha.
 
I played The Lost Age first, in 2003, and the first game later in 2006. I remember being surprised at how much more stripped back the first game felt coming from the followup, and I've been replaying it on Wii U (well, last year) and yeah, it's not really that interesting. Shows promise but only The Lost Age delivers on what the series is trying to do. Played some of that last year on my Game Boy Micro and it's so much better and more fleshed out/ambitious in every way.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
My fave Nintendo handheld Gameboy Advance SP. Sold my DS Lite and 3DS but kept this one

Why would you sell those other systems? I'd rather sell a GBA SP and lose acess to GB/C games than sell a DS Lite or 3DS and lose access to DS games. You crazy!

N3DS is definitely a big improvement over all the others, though.

------

Question for you GBA cart collectors...

How bad is the proliferation of fake carts in second hand stores and how hard is it to tell the difference? I mean, does it even matter?

There's a local chain called Disc Replay that has a shitload of gba games at every location, for good prices, and they don't have a problem with you trying the games before you buy them. I might start needlessly collecting game again. Kind of burns my ass that I sold my collction, though...

I keep selling my games because I want the new stuff and then I regret it a few years later. Dumb.

I used to have a lot of the best GBA and DS games. I even sold my copy of Ouendan on ebay (but I got $50 for it at the time).

O_O just saw the price for Aria of Sorrow. I had that game!
 

Opa-Pa

Member
It varies a lot, some store actually have a policy to not accept any fake carts, but yeah they can be pretty common, especially for popular/rare games.

For Pokemon games for example is hard not to find fake carts instead of legit ones, but thanks to the colored carts it's easier to identify fakes... Some are pretty well done tho.

As for rare stuff, all 6 Castlevania carts I've bought were fakes... It was impossible to tell until I noticed they didn't save, I think one way to tell it's when the game seemingly saves without problem but when you restart it the progress is gone.
 
Nintendo's most 'comfortable' system... not sure how I could phrase that any better, but that's what comes to mind. Solid, lots of support, consistent.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
If the store you want to buy from doesn't let you open the cart up with a tri wing screwdriver then they suck.

https://youtu.be/TqwDN-njSls?t=725

Uh. That seems like a reasonable thing for a store to not want you to do...

As for rare stuff, all 6 Castlevania carts I've bought were fakes... It was impossible to tell until I noticed they didn't save, I think one way to tell it's when the game seemingly saves without problem but when you restart it the progress is gone.

That's fucking crazy. Man. I never would have sold the games if I had known this was going to be a problem some day.
 

HotHamBoy

Member
Good retro stores let you do it. Support good stores and let shitty ones die.

Good stores are stores with a decent return policy.

So what carts are the most commonly faked? The lower print, high demand ones?

Do all of the fake carts not save?

I have to imagine that a lot of stores don't wipe the saves so you can just see if pre-existing files are on the cart.
 

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
Good stores are stores with a decent return policy.
To tell the truth, good stores should've opened up every cart before even buying them in the first place and placing them for sale. But you wouldn't know if they're a good store before doing some research first.
 

Velcro Fly

Member
I've almost made it a hobby the last week or so to go on ebay and try to spot the fake GBA carts and try to spot the imprinted numbers on the real ones. This lead to me getting both FE GBA carts legit from the same person.
 
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