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The Official Game Boy Thread


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18 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Shame excluding the JP stuff, there's another Magical Quest and FF5 too.

 

You did leave off Super Mario Advance 1 and 4 though...they're basically built using the Super Mario Allstars assets.  Maybe a little bit gray area logic, but I think they should count.  I don't know why but I wonder if anything was missed, maybe that is it.


Pocky & Rocky I don't see that, and yes it's a little changed on GBA adding Becky, but it's really the original game with that character added as a bonus.

I find it curious Star Fox wasn't ported to the GBA. Surely GBA can handle it?

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On 9/12/2021 at 6:34 PM, Leeroy ST said:

I find it curious Star Fox wasn't ported to the GBA. Surely GBA can handle it?

Oh it could handle anything the SNES ever legitimately pulled off on whatever chip they tossed into the carts.  The reply you got, Star-X renders a similar field of polygons and 2D art combination of the old game.  But maybe it would better to point you elsewhere.

Blue Roses Engine: WIng Commander Prophecy, Smashing Drive

V3D Engine: V-Rally 3, Driver3, and Asterix & Obelix XXL

 

Those engines well exceed anything the SNES+FX1/2 chip could do, it's more on the par level of the Sega Saturn as far as visual output of polygons go, right down to the weird warping effect too.  GBA was no slouch, these were done with stock hardware with genius level software engine coding.

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14 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Oh it could handle anything the SNES ever legitimately pulled off on whatever chip they tossed into the carts.  The reply you got, Star-X renders a similar field of polygons and 2D art combination of the old game.  But maybe it would better to point you elsewhere.

Blue Roses Engine: WIng Commander Prophecy, Smashing Drive

V3D Engine: V-Rally 3, Driver3, and Asterix & Obelix XXL

 

Those engines well exceed anything the SNES+FX1/2 chip could do, it's more on the par level of the Sega Saturn as far as visual output of polygons go, right down to the weird warping effect too.  GBA was no slouch, these were done with stock hardware with genius level software engine coding.

Well I played Driver 3, or rather Driv3r, and it's the base of why I asked the question.

 

Always found it strange Nintendo never brought any if the FX games over to GBA 

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1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

Well I played Driver 3, or rather Driv3r, and it's the base of why I asked the question.

 

Always found it strange Nintendo never brought any if the FX games over to GBA 

That's Nintendo for you, they get a good idea once, then don't expand on it.  GBA NES Classics were awesome, minimalist with that nice sleep/save state feature, but it happened, and that was after already doing/having future done dozens of SNES ports.  Why they didn't do more complex stuff like the FX/SA1 games is just stupid.  But hey, they blew it time and again after.  N64 on DS was Mario64+Ridge Racer basically which could have been more.  And then a nearly 10 year opportunity on 3DS where why the hell didn't they shovel out VIRTUAL BOY games for like $5-10 a pop digitally??  That would have been fantastic.  Instead the half baked not well done NES Remix which got grating pretty quickly.

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4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

That's Nintendo for you, they get a good idea once, then don't expand on it.  GBA NES Classics were awesome, minimalist with that nice sleep/save state feature, but it happened, and that was after already doing/having future done dozens of SNES ports.  Why they didn't do more complex stuff like the FX/SA1 games is just stupid.  But hey, they blew it time and again after.  N64 on DS was Mario64+Ridge Racer basically which could have been more.  And then a nearly 10 year opportunity on 3DS where why the hell didn't they shovel out VIRTUAL BOY games for like $5-10 a pop digitally??  That would have been fantastic.  Instead the half baked not well done NES Remix which got grating pretty quickly.

Yeah, unless you excluded GBC from GB, GBA was their worst performer in game sales of Nintendos real portable systems, and I feel that's because of the missed opportunities.

 

Nintendo could have led a wave of ports from third parties if they actually pushed the GBA 3D more. From exclusives to popular games like Ridge Racer.

 

Honestly the GBA can do some great 2D as well, but most games didn't seem to make much effort on that front. Then you got series like Battle Network that started out with good sprites, but 4 onward made the graphics intentionally worse.

 

The GBA Video/Movie cartridge idea didn't go too far either. Demographically, that looked promising for the kids, but it was barely pushed enough to be successful 

 

Funny they never brought that back. You could put whole seasons of shows on 3DS or Switch cards. Several episodes even on original DS cards. Movies? Easily without much effort.

 

 

 

 

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Oh yeah definitely.  Minor compromise (CD audio aside obviously, and large storage for textures too but that can be worked around) for 3D stuff, but PS1 was very in the realm on that system as far as output quality goes, more so than the more hungry N64.  Mario 64 and RR64 on there looked worse since it lacked the AA and some other N64 visual tricks, yet those visuals would have been at home well into the life of the PS1.

 

GBA video was doomed the moment those cowards refused to allow it to work broadcasting to a television because of crybaby VHS copier concerns or other capture devices.  I think that medium could have had a lot more of those CGI/cartoon movies than 2 Shrek's and Shark Tale, and the cartoon episodes worked great.  Had they upped that to the DS with the larger storage and compression they could have been pumping out ghetto equals to what PSP did on UMD in lower quality resolution, but it would have worked.

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1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Oh yeah definitely.  Minor compromise (CD audio aside obviously, and large storage for textures too but that can be worked around) for 3D stuff, but PS1 was very in the realm on that system as far as output quality goes, more so than the more hungry N64.  Mario 64 and RR64 on there looked worse since it lacked the AA and some other N64 visual tricks, yet those visuals would have been at home well into the life of the PS1.

 

GBA video was doomed the moment those cowards refused to allow it to work broadcasting to a television because of crybaby VHS copier concerns or other capture devices.  I think that medium could have had a lot more of those CGI/cartoon movies than 2 Shrek's and Shark Tale, and the cartoon episodes worked great.  Had they upped that to the DS with the larger storage and compression they could have been pumping out ghetto equals to what PSP did on UMD in lower quality resolution, but it would have worked.

Well, Majesco, Nintendo, and others went as far as putting the Game Boy Advance Video releases out for a good three years before moving on and not bothering to continue it on DS and beyond, presumably because of portable DVD players.

 

Screen-Shot-2021-09-14-at-10-30-43-PM.pn

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Yeah and the sad thing is, that's a fairly good list of stuff with a specific audience that worked which is a real shame as the video quality was pretty solid on the small screen at least.  I've seen them blown up on hacked copies run to a GB Player on TV and they're still ok, not bad, just not DVD quality by any stretch.  I for a time had the first shrek movie, all the spongebob and nick that have spongebob on them carts, and the set of pokemon ones too.  They're nice distractions, and all they ever were intended to be.

 

I wonder if portable DVD players really did it in though, maybe it hurt some given a lot of mommy wagons come with drop down TV options so all you need to sling is a stack of discs, which would take a decent amount to eat up a bit more inconvenient space than a GBA and a bundle of little carts.

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I will hack the heck out of my 3DSes once a good Virtual Boy emulator is released. I’ve always wanted a Virtual Boy, but they are so unreliable and fragile and the games (which I have a small pile of) are all stratospheric. It seemed so tragic for preservation purposes that Jack Bros, Wario Land 3D, and even Waterworld were not preserved on Virtual Console.

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1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

Yeah and the sad thing is, that's a fairly good list of stuff with a specific audience that worked which is a real shame as the video quality was pretty solid on the small screen at least.  I've seen them blown up on hacked copies run to a GB Player on TV and they're still ok, not bad, just not DVD quality by any stretch.  I for a time had the first shrek movie, all the spongebob and nick that have spongebob on them carts, and the set of pokemon ones too.  They're nice distractions, and all they ever were intended to be.

 

I wonder if portable DVD players really did it in though, maybe it hurt some given a lot of mommy wagons come with drop down TV options so all you need to sling is a stack of discs, which would take a decent amount to eat up a bit more inconvenient space than a GBA and a bundle of little carts.

I doubt it was portable dvd players, likely Nintendo missing another opportunity by not having DS video compete with UMD. At a cheaper price.

 

They wouldn't have to spend too much pushing it either. Unlike Sony and UMD movies. With Nintendo you're slapping video on an SD, not trying to push a somewhat costly media format.

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@Leeroy ST Not going to get an argument out of me.  GBA Video weren't expensive high end GBA prices either at $35-40, they were cheap $20 videos, some less after a brief time or so as I recall seeing them at retail for like $15 too for an hours worth of cartoon time (or 90+min for the movies.)  The DS cards could hold dramatically more data into the GB worth of size as they ranged 1-64GB though I think more or less they topped them out at 32.  32 would have been back then even too expensive to justify movies, but a 1 2 or 4 GB card would have been really cheap as often those $20 budget releases came out on that format.  UMD held just under 2GB of data, there was no reason Nintendo could not have put out far more media on a tiny card than some bigger obnoxious UMD disc.  Imagine the possibilities had they put out like side by side with DVD releases of the era entire seasons of the Pokemon cartoon on 1 DS card for like $40-50.  Parents would have been all over that.  Theater level movies may have been a bit trickier, but more 'season' worthy stuff of what existed as samplings on the GBA video would have easily been licensed out.  Imagine... Spongebob Season X, Pokemon Season X, TMNT season, Sonic X, Cartoon Network made shows, etc.  That would have been fantastic for anyone on the go.

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I will hack the heck out of my 3DSes once a good Virtual Boy emulator is released. I’ve always wanted a Virtual Boy, but they are so unreliable and fragile and the games (which I have a small pile of) are all stratospheric. It seemed so tragic for preservation purposes that Jack Bros, Wario Land 3D, and even Waterworld were not preserved on Virtual Console.

I’m surprised Nintendo is willing to just let these games disappear into obscurity. But at the same time they are in business to make money. It will probably be a fan project one day involving the PSVR somehow.
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7 hours ago, Tanooki said:

@Leeroy ST Not going to get an argument out of me.  GBA Video weren't expensive high end GBA prices either at $35-40, they were cheap $20 videos, some less after a brief time or so as I recall seeing them at retail for like $15 too for an hours worth of cartoon time (or 90+min for the movies.)  The DS cards could hold dramatically more data into the GB worth of size as they ranged 1-64GB though I think more or less they topped them out at 32.  32 would have been back then even too expensive to justify movies, but a 1 2 or 4 GB card would have been really cheap as often those $20 budget releases came out on that format.  UMD held just under 2GB of data, there was no reason Nintendo could not have put out far more media on a tiny card than some bigger obnoxious UMD disc.  Imagine the possibilities had they put out like side by side with DVD releases of the era entire seasons of the Pokemon cartoon on 1 DS card for like $40-50.  Parents would have been all over that.  Theater level movies may have been a bit trickier, but more 'season' worthy stuff of what existed as samplings on the GBA video would have easily been licensed out.  Imagine... Spongebob Season X, Pokemon Season X, TMNT season, Sonic X, Cartoon Network made shows, etc.  That would have been fantastic for anyone on the go.

Very unreliable UMD discs that wouldn't play if the casing was even marginally loose. While also being fragile, and with the original two PSP models, could shoot out of the device. Compared to a sturdy SD card, it's a no brainier.

 

 

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Btw how are the gameboy advance Castlevania games? I know the 2D games would never get SOTN budget again, but I'm curious if the GBA games took advantage of the GBA graphical hardware, and somehow managed to get some nice music out of the chip.

 

I played only a few minutes of Harmony of dissonance years ago, so I barely remember it and never played the other two(three?).

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Harmony of Dissonance is meh, but Aria of Sorrow was my favorite Igavania. I think I like the mechanics of Order of Ecclesia DS better by a hair, but Aria is better than Dawn of Sorrow for sure.

 

I really love Circle of the Moon - I’ve beaten it with every character class and they’re all worth trying. It’s not as collectible-heavy as Igavanias, and the tiny sprites make it feel like Belmont’s Revenge, but it’s a refreshing change.

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Harmony of Dissonance is meh, but Aria of Sorrow was my favorite Igavania. I think I like the mechanics of Order of Ecclesia DS better by a hair, but Aria is better than Dawn of Sorrow for sure.

 

I really love Circle of the Moon - I’ve beaten it with every character class and they’re all worth trying. It’s not as collectible-heavy as Igavanias, and the tiny sprites make it feel like Belmont’s Revenge, but it’s a refreshing change.

I’m currently playing Aria of Sorrow for the first time on the Wii U and it’s been great so far. I enjoy the futuristic storyline and the Rpg elements. I haven’t played Castlevania since the original on the nes so this feels like a completely different game in many ways. The sprites look great to me and I have enjoyed the overall aesthetic of the game. I’ve really been spoiled by all of the great GBA games available on the Wii U. I’m also playing Mario Vs Donkey Kong, Minish cap, fire emblem, Metroid Fusion, Advance War 1&2, Drill Dozer, Golden Sun, and the Super Mario Advance games.

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13 minutes ago, adamchevy said:

I’m currently playing Aria of Sorrow for the first time on the Wii U and it’s been great so far. I enjoy the futuristic storyline and the Rpg elements. I haven’t played Castlevania since the original on the nes so this feels like a completely different game in many ways. The sprites look great to me and I have enjoyed the overall aesthetic of the game. I’ve really been spoiled by all of the great GBA games available on the Wii U. I’m also playing Mario Vs Donkey Kong, Minish cap, fire emblem, Metroid Fusion, Advance War 1&2, Drill Dozer, Golden Sun, and the Super Mario Advance games.

Wouldn't it make more sense to play the All Star SNES Mario games than the Mario Advance titles?

 

Or are those not on Wii U?

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Wouldn't it make more sense to play the All Star SNES Mario games than the Mario Advance titles?
 
Or are those not on Wii U?

You could use the Wii All stars disc. Or the original versions on the Virtual console, which I also have installed. I have the All stars disc and I find that they aren’t as accurate as the originals on the Virtual console. When I say accurate they feel laggy to me in comparison. The Advance versions just look so nice! Like upgraded Snes versions of the game.
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