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The Official Game Boy Thread


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2 hours ago, adamchevy said:

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, 

Did they implement rumble in the Wii U emulation of Drill Dozer? Just curious. That was always a drawback of playing that game on a Flashcart/Everdrive or even the MisTer for example, you miss out on that hardware aspect. But I imagine the Wii U VC does it.. or at least they should have. :)

 

47 minutes ago, adamchevy said:

 I find that they aren’t as accurate as the originals on the Virtual console. 

Although to be fair, Nintendo's Virtual Console has some minor issues of its own (not counting input lag) when it comes to accuracy. Like I think on almost all the Nintendo VC emulators (SNES Classic, Switch, Wii U) if you do the Ether spell in Zelda Link to the Past, it doesn't reveal hidden platforms.

 

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12 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

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?).

Circles of the Moon - Launch game, wasn't very easy without GOOD lighting on the system since they colorized it darker but with a SP or better it's great.  Hardest of the lot, one of the hardest of the SOTN style games, and is for that system.  The castle has a really good design, nice set of places and monsters, and a neat ability system around cards which have monster souls.  Has a decent little story to drive the play along too.  While looks nice, being launch, a few corners cut with lower animation frames and unbalanced difficulty spikes in spots.

 

Harmony - Very beautiful, overdid it a bit on the brightness in some places more than not to compensate for the whining over the first.  Also has a good story, good locations and stuff, change to the soul style system but it works.  This one though traded improved graphics at the cost of audio, while Circle has more rich audio, this one went for a more 16bit chiptune music which is really beautiful but a bit jarring after playing Circle or SOTN as it's like jumping back to the Genesis/PC Engine/80s arcade style audio scoring...it's great, but it could suck, mileage varies.  Also this was the most confusing entry, you'll find they get back into a mirror style thing with castles but it's not marked well so you can go in circles with the WTF thoughts in your mind where to go next.

 

Aria - Beautiful.  Great graphics, great audio balance higher than the previous two combined.  The story is quite nice, keeps popping up as you go to drive it further (like later DS or even Bloodstained does.)  A very well designed castle, balance of monsters and terrain and bosses.  The story really is worth it with the play, so much so it got a direct like a 'second half' style sequel in the first outing on the DS as Dawn of Sorrow which to many is the best on DS, that or the third ...portrait on there is kind of the shit release of all 6 of them between GBA and DS.

 

They may not have a SOTN budget, but maybe they actually did?  Not so much the first couple, but Aria is so on the level with SOTN as was Dawn, portrait felt dialed in, but the last 6th one on DS it's SOTN budget looking as well.  Sorry to say in a way you've played the worst of the GBA trilogy, seems the 'even number' release on GBA and DS were the turds of the lot even if turd is being harsh.

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Although to be fair, Nintendo's Virtual Console has some minor issues of its own (not counting input lag) when it comes to accuracy. Like I think on almost all the Nintendo VC emulators (SNES Classic, Switch, Wii U) if you do the Ether spell in Zelda Link to the Past, it doesn't reveal hidden platforms.

 

 

I can confirm that the Wii U pro controller and gamepad both have rumble when playing Drill Dozer. The pro controller felt like it had about twice as much rumble.

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4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Circles of the Moon - Launch game, wasn't very easy without GOOD lighting on the system since they colorized it darker but with a SP or better it's great.  Hardest of the lot, one of the hardest of the SOTN style games, and is for that system.  The castle has a really good design, nice set of places and monsters, and a neat ability system around cards which have monster souls.  Has a decent little story to drive the play along too.  While looks nice, being launch, a few corners cut with lower animation frames and unbalanced difficulty spikes in spots.

 

Harmony - Very beautiful, overdid it a bit on the brightness in some places more than not to compensate for the whining over the first.  Also has a good story, good locations and stuff, change to the soul style system but it works.  This one though traded improved graphics at the cost of audio, while Circle has more rich audio, this one went for a more 16bit chiptune music which is really beautiful but a bit jarring after playing Circle or SOTN as it's like jumping back to the Genesis/PC Engine/80s arcade style audio scoring...it's great, but it could suck, mileage varies.  Also this was the most confusing entry, you'll find they get back into a mirror style thing with castles but it's not marked well so you can go in circles with the WTF thoughts in your mind where to go next.

 

Aria - Beautiful.  Great graphics, great audio balance higher than the previous two combined.  The story is quite nice, keeps popping up as you go to drive it further (like later DS or even Bloodstained does.)  A very well designed castle, balance of monsters and terrain and bosses.  The story really is worth it with the play, so much so it got a direct like a 'second half' style sequel in the first outing on the DS as Dawn of Sorrow which to many is the best on DS, that or the third ...portrait on there is kind of the shit release of all 6 of them between GBA and DS.

 

They may not have a SOTN budget, but maybe they actually did?  Not so much the first couple, but Aria is so on the level with SOTN as was Dawn, portrait felt dialed in, but the last 6th one on DS it's SOTN budget looking as well.  Sorry to say in a way you've played the worst of the GBA trilogy, seems the 'even number' release on GBA and DS were the turds of the lot even if turd is being harsh.

Well SOtN had all those cool effects even with that intro boss along with smooth animation I figured wasn't replicated in other 2D games due to budget.

 

Unless you're saying Aria does have similar effort put in. Like I said never played any newer 2D ones post sotn outside dissonance 

Edited by Leeroy ST
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2 hours ago, electricmastro said:

Always feels like a throwback when racing games choose to take a top-down view.

I was looking at Demon Driver, and… nah, it seems really terrible.

 

I loved Portrait of Ruin! The character art was awful but as a sequel to Bloodlines I thought it was a ton of fun and a good course correction after the insane collectathon that was Dawn of Sorrow. (Which I found every single soul in and gave up half my sanity in the process.)

 

Seriously, I find no fault in it except the lame character art in cutscenes:

 


(Also maybe the best soundtrack)

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I got in late with the GBA Castlevanias and then made the mistake of playing them backwards: i.e. Aria, Dissonance, then Circle. So of course it really felt like a downgrade each time I jumped to the next game.  It was offputting to listen to the poorer music in Dissonance after playing Aria.. and then everything was jarring when I hit Circle :lol: Still though.. all are good games. I just should have gone in the proper order.

8 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Well SOtN had all those cool effects even with that intro boss along with smooth animation I figured wasn't replicated in other 2D games due to budget.

 

Unless you're saying Aria does have similar effort put in. Like I said never played any newer 2D ones post sotn outside dissonance 

If you liked SOTN and haven't played Aria yet, you're gonna love it. :) I think pretty much everyone agrees that Aria is the best Castlevania on the GBA, if not one of the best games on the system. My only criticism about it is that it's pretty short. 

 

However if you're just talking effects.. the DS Castlevanias are obviously better in that department. But I think for overall package, I'd rank Aria slightly above them still.

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My ranking of 2D Igavanias as games:

 

Order of Ecclesia

Aria of Sorrow

Symphony of the Night

Dawn of Sorrow

Circle of the Moon (not actually IGA)

Ritual of the Night

Portrait of Ruin

<nothing>
Harmony of Dissonance

 

I don’t hate Harmony of Dissonance but not only is it really unpolished but it copies SotN’s style so closely that it really makes itself look bad. I would only play it if you run out of other Igavanias to play.

 

Now, as far as story goes, there are only two Igavanias with decent stories and they are Aria and Symphony respectively.

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I skipped both Harmony of Dissonance and Portrait of Ruin since the reviews were not that good... I'm not sure if Aria of Sorrow is "objectively" better than Dawn of Sorrow, but the latter probably suffered from being released after the former, so it kinda felt like playing the same game, especially since Igavanias were getting quite formulaic by then. It featured more content of course, but like jgkspx said above, it also made it more tedious. But I wonder if someone who has never played either of them would not prefer Dawn of Sorrow, for instance. Which means they would have to play the sequel one first.

 

My favorite is Order of Ecclesia too, and I wish I could create my own game with its beautiful assets (I know they're probably available somewhere). ?

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Portrait of Ruin is low on my list, but it’s still in my top 5% of favorite games ever. This is my favorite “comfort food” genre and Iga’s work still hasn’t really been matched by his imitators. I loved Iconoclasts and Timespinner, for instance, but while both had better plots than most Igavanias they were much less rich and immersive in terms of environment and enemy diversity. Areas all had the same tilesets and the same enemies, more like Metroid. Iga is never afraid to put a pool room with a floating rubber ducky with actual physics in an area just because, or to have a one-shot joke enemy that appears in one place in the entire game, or to make snarky comments about an enemy or a spell or whatever in the bestiary writeup. It’s the joy in the process that really sets his work apart.

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18 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Well SOtN had all those cool effects even with that intro boss along with smooth animation I figured wasn't replicated in other 2D games due to budget.

 

Unless you're saying Aria does have similar effort put in. Like I said never played any newer 2D ones post sotn outside dissonance 

There are some stuff like that, I know what you mean where it kind of freezes frame and then spins a bit out on the demon dracula.  That actual effect isn't there, admittedly it's dated, but there are some very large sprites, multiparted sprites that'll rotate and pivot around in action, not a few sliding frames into a dramatic freeze.  Harmony has a nice mode7 style like fast moving parallax scrolling sky/could effect you can see outside in places too.  Just depends what you're looking for, maybe get bored and run a long play and skim it fast and see.

 

@jgkspsx I found the game pretty clunky and grating with the swapping mechanic between the two characters.  Some places just got borderline annoying/infuriating at times, one I recall was like this long space with like a speeder bike/cart or something that was pretty testy and twitchy.  There was just a lot of unnecessary forces nuisance issues with that game thrown together.  I do agree on the rest with IGA, he went all out with Bloodstained not having to put up with Konami incessant bullshit any further.

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I'd like to play Bloodstained if it had a budget and wasn't another pixel art game. It could have been another SOtN with better sprites. Considering the money raised it seemed like another MN9 situation to me where there are red flags and questions marks. Difference is MN9 was a bad game.

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2 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

Bloodstained is all polygonal. Pixel art? Do you mean the spinoffs?

 

26 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

I wish Bloodstained had been in pixelart like Order of Ecclesia!

Huh?

 

Dont forget there are two bloodstained games. Curse of Moon is what I was talking about.

 

Honestly I wasn't fond of the art style and slow movement of the polygon game either.

 

I'd like more colorful cleaner sotn sprites personally, or just any late 90's early 2000's style console or arcade sprites.

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9 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

I'd like to play Bloodstained if it had a budget and wasn't another pixel art game. It could have been another SOtN with better sprites. Considering the money raised it seemed like another MN9 situation to me where there are red flags and questions marks. Difference is MN9 was a bad game.

Well two things

1) There's actually 3 of them, Curse of the Moon had a sequel to itself.  I wouldn't dog the game for having 3D art assets, it plays fine.

2) Infune was a loud mouthed fuckup who caused that situation, Bloodstained delivered, then kept adding more at either no or minimal cost.  Often it all goes on sale these days for 1/2 off ($20, can be had less if lucky around $15.)

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Curse of the Moon is a classic Castlevania type game, not an Igavania. It was made for almost nothing as a free bonus to the main game’s Kickstarter and regularly goes on sale for almost nothing. All three Bloodstained games are worth playing.

 

As somebody who backed the Kickstarter at one of the higher non-insane tiers (well, pretty insane) I was perfectly satisfied with how it went, and the continued flow of additional content has been awesome.

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11 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 

2) Infune was a loud mouthed fuckup who caused that situation, Bloodstained delivered, then kept adding more at either no or minimal cost.  Often it all goes on sale these days for 1/2 off ($20, can be had less if lucky around $15.)

 

Well Inafune was a scam. People are still waiting for those extended funded 3DS and Vita versions 6-7 years later.

 

Recore his other project was better, but not by much and originally launched with little content.

 

Also spent years allowing the lie he was the creator of Mega Man to spread.

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Can't argue that, I know he's full of shit, much like that assclown piece of garbage Yuji Naka taking credit for Sonic the Hedgehog all these years, then taking over effectively stealing the mascot to back that false credit and ultimately ruining the mascot pounding poor sonic into the dirt one with crappier game after the next.

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2 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

What's the story with Naka?

Not much really, he just likes to take credit for being Sonic's creator, when he wasn't.  Naoto Oshima did.  Naka just coded him into the game to work using a fast moving sprite routine he baked up sometime earlier, Oshima created and designed the character and art for it in/out of game but gets overlooked.

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2 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Not much really, he just likes to take credit for being Sonic's creator, when he wasn't.  Naoto Oshima did.  Naka just coded him into the game to work using a fast moving sprite routine he baked up sometime earlier, Oshima created and designed the character and art for it in/out of game but gets overlooked.

I meant the stealing the franchise and taking over part 

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