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The Game Boy Advance Was A Monster System

H

Haganeren

Member
The GBA vs DS debate is always delicious, it reminds me of so many great games from those two library. Do i prefer Metroid Fusion and Wario Land 4 or Phoenix Wright and The Worlds Ends With You ? I surely don't know... But both handlet were great.

I actually have bought recently a game boy micro i always have in my pocket. I nearly finished Drill Drozer on it and i don't really know what to play next... If possible, something really quick (so not a RPG... I love them but they are for longer sessions and i have my PS Vita for that) which is not Wario/Mario since i already played those.
 
A

Auxiliary Bro

Member
The amount of trips I took my GBA SP on, man. So easy to fit into my inside pocket for school, though I treasured it too much to bring it in frequently. I had the golden Minish Cap SP which is still my favourite looking handheld that I own, and I still remember the Christmas I got it in.

I think I'd have to say I prefer the DS and its library overall, but I got on-board with a lot of new franchises over the GBA days and hell, Minish Cap itself is probably my favourite 2D/top down Zelda.
 
P

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
HotHamBoy said:
Sfondo-Game-Boy-Advance.png


gbacomplete-1.jpg


And it only reigned from 2001-2004!

Of course, it had legs after the DS was released, but it only had 3 years in the spotlight.

Released globally between March-June of 2001, it was a SNES in your pocket. Better, even. 32-bits and capable of true 3D, polygonal (albeit crued) renderings. The SP hardware revision was a landmark one. It introduced the first portable with a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery, a backlight (okay, frontlight until the AGS-101 model. But a first for Nintendo!) and the clamshell design that would dominate their handheld hardware for the next 15 years.

That SP was damn portable. Then the Micro, GBA's last breathe, showed us True Portable Power. Adorable, unnecessary and awesome. It could easily pass as a novelty keychain. No one bought one, now everybody wants one. It fixes the SP's one glaring flaw by bringing back a native headphones jack. The screen is shockingly good, even today. Good luck getting replacement faceplates!

tumblr_n7nab0ui9q1r5chmeo8_500.gif


The highlights:

A straight port of Super Mario Bros, enhanced ports of Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island.

The return of quality 2D Sonic games in the Sonic Advance trilogy.

3 solid Castlevania games, of which Aria of Sorrow is among the best in the franchise.

Advance Wars 1 and 2 bring the series to the West for the first time

Fire Emblem comes west with two of the three GBA games, too!

Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga begins a whole new Mario RPG series full of wit and charm (and I still think this is the best one)

Another new RPG series from Nintendo, Golden Sun, brings two games delivering bold graphics and light adventures

Amazingly fun and robust versions of Super Mario Kart, Mario Golf and Mario Tennis.

Wario Land 4!

Warioware Inc becomes a great new IP and Warioware Twisted remains the pinnacle of the series.

Enhanced port of The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (bundled with the utterly compelling Four Swords Adventure) AND the excellent, original Minish Cap.

Metroid Fusion, the first 2D Metroid since Super and a worthy sequel. Metroid Zero Mission is a fantastic remake of the original and also THE LAST 2D Metroid :(

Two excellent F-Zero games

Tactics Ogre: Knights of Lodis!

Improved localizations for ports of Final Fantasy IV, V and VI. Improved version of FF 1 and 2.

A spiritual and beautiful (if not quite as good) sequel to Final Fantasy Tactics, FF Advance.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater surprises everyone by actually being really good on GBA.

Pokemon continues its death grip on the world's youth

In Japan, the Phoenix Wright series is born, as is Rhythm Tengoku, the expiramental and wonderful ArtStyle series and Mother 3 is one of the greatest sequels ever made.

In addition to these stellar games, there was strong support from the following ports, spin offs and new series:

DKC Trilogy, Super Monkey Ball Jr., Mario vs Donkey Konh, DK Jungle Climber, Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland, Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Ninja Five-O, Harvest Moon: FoMT, Astro Boy: Omega Factor, Pokemon Pinball, Boktai, Doom 1 & 2, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Street Fighter Alpha 3 (miraculous port!), King of Fighters EX Neo Blood, Tekken Advance, Summin Night, Riviera: The Promised Land, Knights In The Nightmare, Yggdra Union, Mega Man Zero, Mega Man Battle Network, Gunstar Super Heroes, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Tales of Phantasia, Drill Dozer, TMNT, Gradius Galaxies, Kururin Paradise, Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, Final Fight One, River City Ransom, Contra Advance, Rayman Advance, Mr. Driller, Zone of Enders: Fist of Mars, Super Robot Taisen, Demi Kids, Klonoa... so much more

The only glaring, notable omission is no completely original Mario game. I think it's the only Nintendo system (outside the Virtual Boy) that doesn't have one.

Remember when Nintendo used to make stupid/cool shit like the e-Reader?

8716706.jpg


Or the awesome Game Boy Advance Player?

gbp-blacksilver.jpg


Did you know there was one for the N64!?

Nintendo-Intelligent-Systems-WideBoy64-AGB-04x.jpg


Beautiful

latest


The spirit of the e-Reader lives on!

what-are.jpg


intro_welcome.jpg


And how could I forget Game Boy Advance Video!? Who wouldn't want to pay $20 a pop for an hour of highly-compressed MPEG video running at a stunning 240x160 resolution? All that Sponge Bob and Johnny Bravo, yours to watch endlessly! Eat your heart out, UMD.

2676.jpg


Never leave home without Yugi vs Joey again!

I love the GBA. First console I bought on launch day, first console I paid for with my own money. Got me through high school.
Click to expand...

Even better... it had most of the SNES bells and whistles from its HW sprites and background layers processing engines and a very high clock rate and a strong CPU taking one of the best features of the Genesis/Mega Drive console from SEGA. Minor downside is that it did not support all the fancy effects the FX chip brought and maybe lacked the grunts to easily replace them... which could explain why Yoshi's Island special FX in "Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy" or the magic trail left during the boss battles (nice transparency effect with some distortion) have been changed/downgraded.

The big downside was its audio processing which taxed the CPU (no dedicated sound processor :/) and the quality of its sound output through speakers or headphones (low quality DAC if I remember correctly).

Still for most intents and purposes this really was SNES + Genesis in a box... some of the best software titles for any handheld ever were released for it.
 
F

FataIChoice

Member
Funny to see this thread, I am in Japan and just bought a GB micro, Warioland, Wario Ware, the four Mario ports and Metroid Fusion. I wanted games I know I could play without knowing Japanese and still have a few GBA games somewhere back home.

I really wanted Zero Mission too, but I wasn't prepared to pay >4000 Yen for a CIB copy when nothing else I was buying was CIB and none of the shops I have been to had loose copies.
 
E

E-phonk

Banned
After the SNES classic in 2017, they should bring back the GBAClassic in a GBA-micro like form with 30+ games built in.

They must include wario ware, minish cap, a pokemon game, castlevania, kirby, golden sun, metroid, advance wars 2 and fire emblem.
 
P

Polioliolio

Member
Do you know why it's better than DS and especially 3DS?

2D graphics. No ugly struggling to be n64 quality visuals, no shitty menus and updates and sorry ass battery life, and DLC.

Games will neve be like that again :(
 
Aizo

Aizo

Banned
Mega Man Zero and Mega Man Battle Network took up lots of my childhood gaming time. I love Mega Man Zero so much.
 
N

Nottle

Member
Whenever I think about the GBA I always feel like people overhyped it.

Though that could be because I only owned a couple of the great games: KHCOM, Metroid Fusion, Wario Ware, the FF remakes, Link to the past.

Now I'm kicking myself that I never owned Zero mission, any of the castlevanias, Advanced Wars, Minish Cap, FFTA. Having those games would have been dope, hope the switch makes all the games worth game img back to available.

Also I only owned the original GBA with no backlight. To me that is nearly unplayable.
 
K

kamikazekoala

Member
Man, I bought it when it released.

Castlevania and Final Fight One.

Damn, they put nice work in Final Fight One. Extra characters, a story mode for each character.

Shame they never did the same treatment for the second and third one.

Castlevania was dark, but the game itself was nice :eek:

One of my favorite portables.

I have 92 cib games for it and still missing some classics :(
 
B

Buzzi

Member
My first videogame device (played a bit on PC before) and the one I have the best memories of! It just gave me so many games I loved and still love today.
The only downside was the absence of backlight on the original model, the one I had. But the SP was truly the perfect piece of portable hardware for its time, way better than original DS.

Kind of lack those disruptive new models from Nintendo, the 3DS ones are not even remotely as good imho.
 
A

Augemitbutter

Member
i bought it for the last true 2D pixel love, when everyone was going ugly 3d. played most games on the micro. still looking to complete my collection and find the perfect way to play my library. i dslike playing action on handhelds most of the time.
 
P

Pancakes R Us

Member
I think I have more than 50 GBA games and still want more. This thread has given me the itch to pick up stuff like Astroboy.

I have a few GBA systems too:

- OG GBA with a 101 backlight, courtesy of Peagles
- GBA SP black (101)
- GBA SP green (101)
- GBA Micro black

The SP is probably my favourite handheld ever. 10+ hour battery life...my word will we ever get a battery life like this again?
 
U

UCBooties

Member
I loved my GBA so much, and I desperately wish Nintendo would get it together for the Virtual Console. Now that the carts are starting to die, we need these game available digitally.
 
S

SporeCrawler

Member
FataIChoice said:
Funny to see this thread, I am in Japan and just bought a GB micro, Warioland, Wario Ware, the four Mario ports and Metroid Fusion. I wanted games I know I could play without knowing Japanese and still have a few GBA games somewhere back home.

I really wanted Zero Mission too, but I wasn't prepared to pay >4000 Yen for a CIB copy when nothing else I was buying was CIB and none of the shops I have been to had loose copies.
Click to expand...

Shit those GB micros cost like 15000 yen in bookoff. Glad that I bought mine for 30€ when nobody wanted them

Cant seem to find any GBASPs in Japan though
 
C

ClosingADoor

Member
They need to release the GBA Micro like they did the NES Mini. Just put a few games on it and sell for $50-100. That stuff will go like crazy.
 
F

friskykillface

Banned
Why is "a straight port of super Mario brothers" a highlight? It's an 8 bit game on a 32 bit system , surely it can't be that hard to have port those NES games?
I say this with no background in programming

I'd say porting the snes games were harder to port but God I loved portable link to the past X Yoshi's island 😍

I still intend to get a micro but not at those prices, some day my thrift store will have one :p
 
Silent Chief

Silent Chief

Member
The original GBA was a monster indeed. It devoured batteries. It was almost impossible to stare at, given the lack of back lighting. It had a huge Achilles heel, it's battery cover. Those used to drop like flies. A bought 3 of these and one of them still works. One of my daughters never took to hers. Maybe I should buy a used battery cover...

I've never seen a mini. Never. Do those things really exist?

The SP is amazing. My son stole mine to replace his original device and he somehow managed to short something. It still powers on 3 times out of 5.
 
P

Patrick Bateman

Member
I still remember that day when my father found a GBA with Super Mario in one of the company's rental cars. He couldn't find out who drove the car and thus gave the GBA to me.
Such an amazing little machine. I still think about buying a GBA micro.
 
K

Kaze Kyou

Member
Ah yes, the GBA. My brother and I bought all variations of it - OG GBA, GBA SP, and my ex-GF got me a GB Micro as a Christmas present too.

We ended up having multiple ones especially for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Zelda Four Swords:
- 2x See-through Blue GBA (one which ended up being stolen at school)
- 1x Gold GBA
- 1x Purple GBA (ex-girlfriend's)
- 1x Red GBA SP
- 1x Blue GB Micro

Looking back, the GBA was indeed a beast.
 
H

HotHamBoy

Member
Nottle said:
Also I only owned the original GBA with no backlight. To me that is nearly unplayable.
Click to expand...

You fucked up.

Duxxy3 said:
Back when Nintendo did portables right.

Cheap and portable.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. That was the damn point, IMO. It's why the Game Boys always sold gangbusters.

And the DS didn't do well until it hit that golden price point with the DS Lite revision.

It astonishes me that the 3DS ever did as well as it did. $200 is too damn expensive for a handheld with those specs, especially one that is largely aimed at kids. WTF were they thinking with that $250 launch price??
 
R

ReBirFh

Member
Let's be honest, Nintendo portables are beasts. I hope the Switch is seem by the community more as a portable than a console so it can attain the same sucess as it's predecessors.
 
A

arigato

Member
silkysmooth said:
The only downfall with the GBA is the propensity for fake carts. I know there are fake DS carts out there too but it seems like the GBA is just so rampant. Wanting to play both GBA FE games on original hardware is basically like dodging around a minefield. Amazon Warehouse Deals is generally reliable but sometimes they price things way too high for what you are getting.

But just thinking about my GBA collection I think I've played and beaten just about every game I own and I loved most of them all the way through.
Click to expand...
Yeah, unfortunately this truly is the biggest downfall especially for new collectors who never bought the GBA games during official release. Despite that I will always remember Golden Sun for having one of the best video game soundtrack. Kolima Forest and The Elemental Stars are amazing.
 
H

HotHamBoy

Member
ReBirFh said:
Let's be honest, Nintendo portables are beasts. I hope the Switch is seem by the community more as a portable than a console so it can attain the same sucess as it's predecessors.
Click to expand...

I think, as discussed just above, price is a hurdle.

Launch Prices:
Game Boy $89
Game Boy Color $69
Game Boy Advance $99
Nintendo DS $149
DS Lite $129
DSi $169
3DS $249 <- disaster!

And there is no way Switch launches for less than $249

I doubt Nintendo will be in a position for another drastic price cut just months after Switch's launch.
 
A

Apoleptica

Banned
Hydrus said:
I'm sorry man, but no. Just a few DS games off the top of my head:

Pokemn DPPt
Pokemon HGSS
Pokemon BW
Pokemon BW2
World ends with you
999
Elite Beat Agents
Dragon Quest 5: Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Chrono Trigger
List goes on and on...

Not to take away from the GBA, which I love, but the DS library is insane. The top ten Gba don't come close to the top 10 DS titles.
Click to expand...
There wasn't a single game on the DS better than Golden Sun / The lost age, Metroid Zero mission / fusion, Megaman Battle Network Series, Megaman Zero Series, etc. And if you're going to count remakes like Pokémon HG, SS, and chrono trigger then the GBA beats it with super Mario world, all three donkey kong country games, final fantasy 4, 5, 6, and A link to the past.

The DS didn't have a single good Zelda game nor a single good metroid game, and most of the jrpgs on it were trash. New super Mario Bros was a joke. Hugely overrated system.
 
H

HotHamBoy

Member
Apoleptica said:
There wasn't a single game on the DS better than Golden Sun / The lost age, Metroid Zero mission / fusion, Megaman Battle Network Series, Megaman Zero Series, etc. And if you're going to count remakes like Pokémon HG, SS, and chrono trigger then the GBA beats it with super Mario world, all three donkey king country games, final fantasy 4, 5, 6, and A link to the past.

The DS didn't have a single good Zelda game nor a single good metroid game, and most of the jrpgs on it were trash. New super Mario Bros was a joke. Hugely overrated system.
Click to expand...


When discussing the libraries of both systems one needs to keep in mind that the GBA only had 3 years to itself before the DS launched. The DS had 6-7 before the 3DS launched.
 
A

Apoleptica

Banned
HotHamBoy said:
When discussing the libraries of both systems one needs to keep in mind that the GBA only had 3 years to itself before the DS launched. The DS had 6-7 before the 3DS launched.
Click to expand...
You make a good point, with only 3 years of life the GBA library is significantly better which makes the DS even more of a joke.
 
TheShocker

TheShocker

Member
I actually found my SP the other day. I could only fine A Link to the Last and Metroid. Advanced Wars, FF Tactics, all the Mario's....such good memories.
 
K

KojiKnight

Member
Every time I see these threads, I want to get a gb micro... then I remember they are literally unplayably small for anyone with an adult sized hands and I get sad. Also they are expensive.
 
P

Peltz

Member
As far as GBA vs. DS is concerned, I think Nintendo's first party output on the GBA was a bit better. To me, that tips the scale in its favor.

Plus the fact that I can play all GBA games via Gameboy Player + GBI ULL at 240p on my Sony PVM just makes it a better system for my personal tastes. I always prefer outputting to a CRT for handheld games when given the option, and DS doesn't really have that option.

I'd love for a way to flip a PVM on its side to take DSiXL output someday.
 
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