Thoughts on the Game Boy Advance?
>>11480316It had a decent number of good original games, but they always get lost in discussion among the endless slop piles of awful ports.
I never understand how these screenshots look so good.
>>11480316the first good handled console and so far it's the only good rertro handled console
>>11480327It helps that they're presented pretty close to native resolution in that collage.
I don’t mind the different music or colors but why did they have to add annoying voices to every port
Good console, has some of the best video games of all time
>>11480316I commented on this the last time I saw this image posted but I wish collages like this focused on the GBA only titles. Half the stuff here I wouldnt even consider playing on GBA in 2024.
>>11480316Often had the best versions of great games, marred by the lower resolution and simpler colours than SNES (sometimes also made bright to counteract low light off of the GBA). The sound also not quite as good as on SNES.
>>11480316>inferior ports, sequels and licensed games
>>11480316Always feels like it was worse than it was due to the shitty sound, crappy ports, and shovelwareBut its library is so surprisingly extensive, I’m always finding new things on it to play. Games with just a mild positive reception end up being underrated
>>11480316> Game Boy Advance?Same as general mobile phone. There are games, yes, but all fake incomparable to proper TV connected console or PC games. Mobile is mobile after all, such trinket cant be real.
>>11480316soulful
Best Nintendo system
>>11480316Is a Game Boy but it is advance because was the newer and latest Game Boy generation. Is cool... it has L, R, B and A. It is a Nintendo handheld that has 3 2D main 2D Sonic exclusive games but has 0 2D main 2D Mario games, which is weird. It sounds like shit because has no DSP.
>>11480327They're tiny so you can't see the flaws in the graphics>>11480365But they're not?
>>11481469>flawszoom zoom
>>11481482>you're underage if you don't think old vidya had flawsRetard
>>11480506so they werent the best versions
>>11480316I love the little shit but, oh my God, the sound is so bad it makes me sad inside
Does this system have great “hidden gems” untranslated?
>>11480316I despised it as a kid, because the library looked amazing, it had everything, every IP, even Crash and Spyro, it felt like a portable PS1 and I wanted one so much, I asked for it and got it... the OG model, with the darkest screen ever. I know many didn't mind it, but to me it was uncomfortable to play, so I barely did. Years later I got into emulation and it's now among my favorite libraries by far, it's excellent, feels like an in-between for the 4th generation and the 5th generation, with great elements from both. It has it's flaws, and I can't forgive that screen, but now that I can play on emulation handhelds with backlit screens, I can't get enough of it, a stellar handheld.
>>11480316more soulful than the DS
>>11481469>But they're not?Pic related is cropped directly out of OP's image. It's 240x160, which is exactly the resolution of the GBA's screen. Every screenshot in OP's collage is at the native GBA resolution.
Was never a fan of the GBA’s sound. Always felt muffled and super filtered.
Decent library but awful sound and colours. Even as a kid I always felt a bit let down by GBA games because they had a cheap and nasty feeling to them. The DS felt much more premium and like real games to me.
let me be with you
>>11480316I dislike it. I only like a few of the games, like Metroid Fusion and Aria. The audio chip just kills it for me. It's better than the DS though. Fuck Nintendo and their stupid gimmicks they've been doing for the past 25 years.
>>11484661Gimmicks are the reason Nintendo is still a thing, I mean, look at their most successful consoles ever, we have the Switch, the DS and the Wii, all of them are "gimmicks" in a sense, while their more traditional stuff, N64, Game Cube, GBA... all did well, but not as good, the main exception to that was the Wii U, but they turned it around with the Switch and made their biggest success ever.
I always thought the Game Boy was cool as a kid, so the Game Boy Advance really blew me the fuck away.I was used to have to get good lighting to play Game Boy games, so I could cope with that for the initial GBA, but then when the SP came out, my mind got doubleblown.
>>11482881they didnt actually open the full image just enlarged the thumbnail and then shot off a snarky commentITS A ZOOMER AAAAAAAAA
>>11480316it really needed a backlightor a frontlight, any kind of light at all, I didn't wanna wait for no successor model so I got the afterburner
>>11480316dunno why but i kinda chuckle at the screenshots that take place during a really late part of the game (FFV for example), when the majority of screenshots were just taken sometime within the first hour of the game
Racing gears advance is filtering me hard to be honest.
>>11480316So close to being worth a damn, but Ninty cut too many corners to lower the price. The DS replacing the GBA only 3 years after the GBA's launch is well deserved
Had some good exclusives and the mario advance games were good, but a lot of the library is shovelware and inderior versions of snes games.Also the og model had the worst screen ever
I love the GBA to bits. When I was a tot the only consoles I had were the NES and Game Boy (DMG) I inherited from my dad. So when I got an SP for Christmas it was absolutely incredible to me. I don't think any other upgrade I've done has ever wowed me as much.I actually don't play it as much nowadays just because I've already beaten so much of its library already. But I still like revisiting old favorites and searching for hidden gems.My most recent love is the excellent Super Robot Taisen OG! (Although I'm playing the PS2 version, which has extra stages.)
>>11488604Scandalous
>>11488604What the hell, that looks like the YuYu Hakusho FFT game I've played on the GBA
>>11480316Garbage product that cut too many corners and was released at a bad time (the GBA was a 2D focused handheld released in a time when developers only cared about 3D games):• Too few buttons - needed 2 more face buttons• Shitty library - inferior SNES ports and licensed garbage• Shitty hardware - no dedicated sound hardware (except for chips intended for Game Boy compatibility that, thankfully, the GBA can use in its games), no lit screen (the goddamn screen was DIMMER than the GBC ffs), and mushy buttonsThe DS could not come fast enough.
>>11488670both libraries were incredible it isnt a zero sum thing
It had huge potential as one of the very few 32 bit dedicated 2d systems but I think it unfortunately fell short of that>genuinely bad screen >mixed third party support trending towards cashgrab shovelware>over abundance of barely playable 3d gimmicks and lazy digitized sprites>often subpar 16 bit ports that became obsolete with emulationjust wasn't in the cards for it be as good as it could be.
>>11480316always found it underwhelming. Sure it had games that people liked but I liked the GB, GBC, and DS much better.
nintendo's output was pretty disappointing even as stellar as rnd1 and intelligent systems ended up being. typical second party entries and ports, zelda farmed out to capcom. I guess gamefreak deserves credit for drill dozer.
A lot of games made specifically for it were amazing, and a lot of its ports were surprisingly good. That said, most of those ports are still better on other systems, but their portability at the time made the quality of said ports pretty notable for the time. Its not exactly the most elaborate game, but even being able to play stuff like chuchu rocket on the go was a blast.The biggest thing for me though is the unique art style that a lot of the games had, where it almost felt like a crushed down version of Rare's animation style with DKC. The resolution was lower of course, but a lot of games felt like they animated in a similarly smooth fashion, its kind of hard to explain. There was weirdness with games regarding the backlight expectation's impact on the color palette (and some games having weird "color mode" options to try to adjust for said backlight type/presence) but overall it felt like a great upgrade from the GB(C.) For all of its flaws, both parts of Golden Sun blew me the fuck away when they came out as a Shining series fan. In that vein, it did also have that divisive-yet-interesting remake of Shining Force 1 as well, which was the first portable SF I really had since Sword of Hajya at that point.Metric fuckton of shovelware though.
>>11480316I'm torn on it, I hated it as a kid because of how dark the screen was in the OG GBA alone, also it only has a couple of face buttons when it really would've benefited from a diamond layout. Anyways, the library's superb, so many great titles and, similar to the NES and PS1, pretty much every popular IP got a title or more on it to play, it was also a 32-Bit system with a focus on 2D, and a lot of isometric titles instead of pure 3D, which I'm fond of and find to be quite charming. I like it for what it is, especially nowadays with emulation making it so I don't have to deal with that awful screen, but the lack of buttons, and the low resolution, hold it back from being truly a masterpiece of a console, as it is the GBA is simply a good console to me, with a lot of my favorite titles on it.
These days the only GBA games I play are the Castlevania and Megaman Zero games. I can't remember the last game I played besides those, maybe Sword of Mana, played through that a dozen times though, kinda made the other remake of the first game completely redundant to me.
>>1148031632 bit sprite work, epic
>>11481320real schizo hours
>>11488604they censored her in the english release didnt they
>>11480316>Thoughts on the Game Boy Advance?Some retarded accountants decided to cut X and Y buttons and fucked over all SNES ports.
>>11480506Anon…
>>11480316Shit screen, ports that were worse than the original, shovelware kids games, all games felt like quick cash grabs and worst d-pad Nintendo have put out until the switch pro controller
>>11481320Incomprehensible.
>>11481320(You)
>>11480316I counted about 24 that are worth playingThat's a good amount. Probably somewhere in the snes rating or a bit lower then
>>11489864What are you talking about. Most ports were equal good.
>>11492330Every port of fighting game for GBA was strictly worse due to having less buttons.
>>11480316Pretty advanced for a game boy.
>>11481669A few still yes, like the second and third Starfy games. Most everything else worth playing on it either had an official release or has been translated by fans.
>>11492334Thats why i wrote most. I put the fighting games in the smaller group of bad ports. Like most of the PC ports. But which were better than the PC to SNES ports
How come so many GBA games didn't utilize the full capacity of the cartridge? The Pokemon games could have been twice as large, and while LTTP was a port, if they did a Zelda game similar or a sequel with the same graphic assets it could have been FOUR TIMES the size.
>>11488604What shader?
>>11480316Really fucking good library.
>>11480316>abysmal screen size>no backlight on the launch model; especially embarrassing when it was a major issue with its predecessor>lack of a backlight meant games needed to have brighter colour palettes to make them visible under more enviromnents, with the side effect of making said games look incredibly jarring when emulated>lack of an x or y button making certain ports and games revolting to playThe hardware itself sucked ass. At least emulation lets you work around the second and third points. The console itself was frustrating, but I still adore a substantial portion of its library; most of the Battle Network mainline games, most of the CV releases, ALL of the FE titles (not too big on 8 though) just to name a portion of them. Shovelware was always a big issue with it, but I lucked out of getting the worst of them Those fucking cartridges with cartoon episodes preloaded onto them still crack me up, even if it was a somewhat innovative idea at the time.
>>11480316Bought one with birthday money as a kid, loved it at the time but also found it disappointing, especially the non back lit screen as just a year and a half later Nintendo would release a back lit version in the GBA SP which made my console seem obsolete and outdated.Why Nintendo? Just why? Why did you release the original GBA with no back light? The Sega Nomad had a backlight screen in 1996
>>11494007Bigger games are more expensive and portable games at the time were expected to be shorter than console games.
>>11494605I actually really like the pastel look GBA games have when emulated with color correction. Has a very unique vibe.
>>11494627>Why did you release the original GBA with no back light?For better battery life. You could get 15 hours of play time on two AA batteries.>The Sega Nomad had a backlight screen in 1996And it got 2-3 hours of play time on SIX AA batteries. Can you even fathom how expensive that would be to maintain? My parents got annoyed at me for taking 2 AAs every week or so for my GBA, they would have killed me if I was asking for 6 AAs every day.
warioland 4 and the three FEs on that are my jam
why do people think calling a port inferior is at all insightful or meaningful?castlevania and final fight are objectively inferior ports compared to the original game but that doesn't make them any less fun af to play on gba
>>11495068It's meaningful because, with the hardware, GBA ports should've been on par, if not superior, but the lack of buttons and the low resolution, also the awful screen on the OG model, forcing developers to butcher the colors, make them inferior, which sucked then, but could be forgiven... but now? With emulation of the OG versions being so easy? There's no reason to go bak to it, making the GBA's library feel weaker and more dated retrospectively because of it, that's why this does matter, anon.P.S. Just to clarify, I love the GBA and it's library, it's excellent, I just find the ports issue to be a fair criticism.
>>11495068>castlevania and final fight are objectively inferior ports compared to the original game but that doesn't make them any less fun af to play on gbaThis line of thinking worked when the GBA ports offered portability you would otherwise never get, or you didn't own the original systems but you did have a GBA. But it falls flat when you can flawlessly emulate the originals on a smartphone or a dedicated GBA-sized portable device. "[Game], but on the go!" isn't really a useful feature outside of the GBA's contemporary timeframe.
>>11495068People shouldn't play inferior versions of games. Playing Donkey Kong Country on a handheld was cool but it was a concession. If you're somehow still forced into playing the GBA version over the SNES version, then go for it, but I can't imagine any scenario where that would happen. Nowadays you have dozens of ways to play home console games portably, so the portability factor is becoming meaningless. This is why it's unfair to say "it can play Donkey Kong Country!!!" as a selling point for the GBA.Also, people generally have a right to know the differences between game versions before deciding which version to play, it's only morally right to guide them through that. This applies retroactively too, why the fuck would I recommend the GBA version of Mega Man Zero when the following ports are better? And I don't even think all GBA ports are inferior. The GBA port of FF5 is still the best version of that game to this day. Retroactively as well, the GBA version is still the best way to play Advance Wars, compared to whatever the fuck those new remakes were.
>>11495134>>11495298>>11495313>responding to anyone who says "af", ever
>>11495298This entire board is about a contemporary timeframe.
>>11495356It's not. /vr/ is for retro games. For a game to be retro, it must be non-contemporaneous. To discuss retro games, you must necessarily be discussing them outside of their contemporary timeframes. To play retro games, you must necessarily be playing them outside their contemporary timeframes. If you were discussing and playing them within their contemporary timeframes, they would just be games.
>>11489821Yes.>>11494021"LCD" by Dominus Iniquitatis.Comes packaged with mGBA. The filename is "lcd.shader".
What if it had 4 face buttons instead of L & R triggers.
>>11495623That would be worse unless you're a troglodyte with bad motor controls but the DS had 4 face buttons and the triggers, so it was actually better.
>>11495623Wouldn't change a thing
>>11495347I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.
>>11480316If it didn't have such terrible audio it would be perfect. So many good games on there. The last few years I've been really digging in to the GBA and I have loved every one of these games that I missed out on.Aria of Sorrow, Fire Emblem, Mega Man Zero series, the Pokemon games, Tactics Ogre, Mr Driller: these have been my favorites.
>>11495623that would just be worse.
>>11480316Is Rayman 3 an actual full original 2D Rayman game for GBA?
>>11495068I just view those ports as being great for the time but completely obsolete nowadays. I just don't see why you would bother aside from novelty purposes. I played through the SMB3, SMW, Yoshis Island, and LttP GBA ports as a kid.
No one is going to bring up Lilo and Stitch? Really? You guys just want to talk about Golden Sun and Mega man Zero for the millionth time?
GBA sucks. The number of games that aren't SNES ports, extremely downgraded and compromised versions of 6th gen games, or just licensed garbage is so minuscule it's unbelievable. Hell, even a lot of the original games just aren't very good. I think the only games I like for it are WarioWare and Wario Land 4. Mario Kart Super Circuit is pretty alright too I guess. There was a novelty to having crap like Super Mario World and Final Fantasy 6 on the go but not so much anymore. Overall I think the original Gameboy has a far stronger library, if not the best handheld library of all time.
>>11480316>the original Gameboy has a far stronger library, if not the best handheld library of all time.Nah, DS is loads better (never touched the 3DS so no idea there)
>>11480397>>11498035The Game Boy Advance? Oh, buddy, it's one of the greatest handhelds of all time, no question. Some might even say it’s the best console of all time for its time of all times, if you catch my drift. I mean, how many consoles can boast a library of all time classics like Pokémon Emerald, Metroid Fusion, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance? Literally none, that’s how many.And let’s not forget its unmatched ability to play two generations worth of games. It's the king of backwards compatibility of all time, letting you revisit your Link’s Awakening DX of all times past while diving into modern classics like Advance Wars. Who even needs other consoles when you've got the GBA of all time in your pocket?Sure, people whine about the original model’s screen being dimmer than the darkest cave of all time, but that’s why the SP exists, which, I might add, is [tab crashed here]but that’s why the SP exists, which, I might add, is the most glorious hardware revision of all time. With its backlit screen, rechargeable battery, and clamshell design of all designs, it became the definitive way to experience this legendary library of all time.And don’t even get me started on the soundtracks—8-bit nostalgia meets 32-bit brilliance of all time. From Golden Sun’s orchestral bangers to Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow’s gothic vibes, the GBA had some of the most earworm-worthy tunes of all time—fight me on this, you can’t win.Sure, some might complain about the sound compression or how it lacked a proper analog stick, but that doesn’t take away from its legacy of all time as one of the most beloved handhelds of all eras. If you don’t agree, well, maybe your taste in gaming isn’t quite as timeless of all times as the GBA itself.
>>11480316It has my favorite sprite work of any console
>>11498063>Sure, people whine about the original model’s screen being dimmer than the darkest cave of all time, but that’s why the SP existsIf you got the OG GBA early on, or were unlucky enough to get it instead of the SP for Christmas or your birthday, the revision being so much better just made the OG GBA's flaws even more of a pain. I don't care much now, and the GBA is one of my favorite libraries, but I never managed to get into it back in the day and I blame it on this, thank God for emulation.
