Game Boy Advance

[JarylGaren]

shout-outs to the GBA





sure, a lot of people know it as "the handheld that devs ported a bunch of SNES games to", but there was also plenty of original games made for it, and not just the Pokemon games! Golden Sun, MegaMan Battle Network, Castlevania, Mega Man Zero, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, Fire Emblem, there's plenty of really fun games made for it!

the GBA was pretty much my childhood. I still have a huge soft spot in my heart for this little handheld, and something about the way many of the GBA's games look and sound just feels right to me.

[Moot]

any time the GBA gets brought up anywhere i'm contractually obligated to demand that you find a copy of Astro Boy and play it immediately because it is SO GOOD. its peak Treasure Videogame and is easily one of the best games on the system

[Enbyeon]

The more GBA games I play the more I realize it has a lot of fucked up good licensed games that have no right being as good as they are. I'll play something, and people will go "Oh yeah that's based on a movie/show" and I'm all "WHAT?"

[Galuade]

I had a purple one! I got it innnn 2001 I think?

I loved Golden Sun: The Lost Age! Never played the original at the time, but I got someone's 100% gold password off of either GameFAQs or CCC

The only other games I remember having at the time the GBA was relevant were Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Army Men Advance and Mech Platoon

I have a small collection of GBA games today

[EdenCoven]

Some of my fave titles from streaming a bunch of GBA Lately.

1: Dynasty Warriors Advance. They put Dynasty Warriors on the GBA and it's a little chuffed but somehow works better than it has any right to by virtue of giving it a little dose of strategy game.

2. Monster House: Zelda/Resident Evil for kids. Somehow this thing rules.

3. Sham King - Master of Spirits. They made a perfectly alright Aria of Sorrow clone here. Remember you need to hit start and save on the world map though.

4. Ultimate Muscle. It's Fire Pro and that works out quite well.

5. Urban Yeti!. This thing is just nuts and worth experiencing for yourself.

6: Elf Bowling 1+2. Just kidding this one sucks

[NovaSquirrel]

It's really weird that we got the Game Boy Color, then Game Boy Advance, then Nintendo DS when the GBC hadn't been on the market for long before the GBA, and the GBA hadn't been on the market for long before the DS, but we still got a bunch of GBC and GBA games despite that. Some neat games I really like that haven't been mentioned are the original WarioWare and Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak. I like the experimental new stuff Nintendo tried with the GBA, like multiplayer where only one person needs a cartridge, the e-Reader, and GameCube+GBA communication.

Something a lot of people might not know is that the crunchy audio that's associated with the GBA is largely due to low quality samples and a low quality audio mixer that Nintendo supplied to licensed devs (there is no hardware support for playing multiple samples at different pitches like the SNES had; games did that in software), and homebrew games can sound a lot cleaner with better samples and newer audio drivers like maxmod.

On the topic of homebrew games, Goodboy Galaxy is worth a mention for sure; I haven't gotten around to playing a ton of it yet but it seems very ambitious and polished and I love its aesthetic.

[hellojed]

I liked how people tried to make 3D games on the GBA and they sorta worked but sorta didnt. A golden age for shovelware.

I once played through every single GBA Kart Racer to see how different studios would handle the same game spec on the same hardware. There's a few really good ones (Crash Team Racing is probably the best) and a lot of terrible ones (Crazy Frog Kart Racing is the worst)

[Lolo De Puzlo]

It's really weird that we got the Game Boy Color, then Game Boy Advance, then Nintendo DS when the GBC hadn't been on the market for long before the GBA, and the GBA hadn't been on the market for long before the DS, but we still got a bunch of GBC and GBA games despite that. Some neat games I really like that haven't been mentioned are the original WarioWare and Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak. I like the experimental new stuff Nintendo tried with the GBA, like multiplayer where only one person needs a cartridge, the e-Reader, and GameCube+GBA communication.

Something a lot of people might not know is that the crunchy audio that's associated with the GBA is largely due to low quality samples and a low quality audio mixer that Nintendo supplied to licensed devs (there is no hardware support for playing multiple samples at different pitches like the SNES had; games did that in software), and homebrew games can sound a lot cleaner with better samples and newer audio drivers like maxmod.

On the topic of homebrew games, Goodboy Galaxy is worth a mention for sure; I haven't gotten around to playing a ton of it yet but it seems very ambitious and polished and I love its aesthetic.

Goodboy Galaxy is extremely good.

There's a reason why Maxwell was one of the first guest characters I made for my streams

[Enbyeon]

Just played Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak, and I can confirm it's a very good GBA title. Lovely animated and oozing with charm.