Ever used the "Boycott Advance" emulator?

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

The year was 2005 (I'm fairly sure) and I had just finished Pokemon Crystal on the lovely BGB Gameboy emulator. At the time I had decided that I wanted to experience the games in order, and so I didn't look into GBA emulation until the time came to tackle Ruby and Sapphire, the next steps on my journey to becoming a Pokemon Master.

The first thing I remember was just how hard it was to find either ROM on the net... Blue, Red, Yellow, Gold, Silver and Crystal had all been readily available as soon as I had typed their names on Terra's search engine, but these ones I had to dig for.

Then it was the fact that these were gargantuan files to download on a 56K connection (so much so that I actually had to wait until past midnight just so I wouldn't have to hold the phone line hostage during the day).

And, of course, there was the matter of running the damn thing.

At the time, the one true option was VBA -- VisualBoy Advance, highly touted as the best emulator of its generation, with a lot of mind-blowing features (even Link Cable!)... But, of course, my humble Pentium II had been completely outdone there. It simply couldn't run this one. Couldn't even really start it, quoting some missing DLLs as the problem. It may as well have told me that I was missing a Flux Capacitor, because I just didn't know what any of that meant.

But then I noticed the download link for Boycott Advance thrown almost shyly under VBA's, as if an afterthought. It was smaller, didn't look as complex and seemed to still be in development -- all pluses for me.

So, I downloaded it and gave it a go...

... IT WORKED!...

... Until I reached a store or Pokemon Center, then my whole rig would freeze.

It was unreal how reliably that would happen. The emulator was basically offering a hardcore Nuzlocke experience by refusing to ever letting me see the interior of either building... But I didn't want that. I just wanted to play the game.

I never understood why that was (or why it would also crash my friend's computer by opening the Pokedex), but I always remember that.

I have since learned that development was either abandoned shortly thereafter or continued under a different name, but nothing came out of it.

Whatever the case, it's fun to look back at something from the dawn of the emulation era, a proof of concept rather than a full thing that let you see just enough into the future, like Bleem! or those DOS-based Genesis attempts.

Did you ever get to play with this emulator yourself? What was your experience with it (or one similar to it)?. Tell us!

 

[Varyag]

Wow what a blast from the past, lots of memories there as my first forays into emulating stuff for my own was with Visual Boy Advance and Pokemon Sapphire. Even down to having to wait a long time to download the game ROMs! But the emulator ran just fine on my PC of that time, so I never found out about this Boycott Advance emulator. Lol, what a name.

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

I haven't used that emulator because it's exclusive to Mac and I use Windows.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I haven't used that emulator because it's exclusive to Mac and I use Windows.

No, it was on Windows as well. I just couldn't find a relevant screenshot.

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

No, it was on Windows as well. I just couldn't find a relevant screenshot.

OK, I understand, friend.

 

[RageBurner]

I know the thing by name, but never really use it (great pun though).

 

[secreto7]

I think I played a bit of the Game Boy Color version of one of the 2nd generation of Pokemon on an old emulator on the PC of a guy, but I don't know what emu was.

The first time I used emulation was on my first computer with Windows 95. A friend of my father made me a copy of his CD full of Sega Genesis games and the Genecyst and KGen emulators.

Genecyst GUI was so cool with the tool bar made entirely of blood dropping, and had savestates, debugger, and so much things!

 

[fake-kun]

No.

In general, thanks to my experiences with the Playstation and N64 emulation scenes during their plugin hell days, I hold no nostalgia towards old inaccurate emulators.

 

[secreto7]

No.

In general, thanks to my experiences with the Playstation and N64 emulation scenes during their plugin hell days, I hold no nostalgia towards old inaccurate emulators.

Oh yes, the hunting for plugins, and the tweaking of options haha.

Luckily that didn't take me aback and I enjoyed playing on ePSXe and PCSX-R.
And also there was "psxfin" I think it's called which had no plugins and was very polished.

 

[fake-kun]

Oh yes, the hunting for plugins, and the tweaking of options haha.

Luckily that didn't take me aback and I enjoyed playing on ePSXe and PCSX-R.
And also there was "psxfin" I think it's called which had no plugins and was very polished.

Thankfully, we have Mednafen and Ares now, which are more accurate and far easier to use.

 

[secreto7]

Thankfully, we have Mednafen and Ares now, which are more accurate and far easier to use.

I was trying Mednafen with the Mednaffe GUI and is not bad.
Retroarch I was trying to and learning it but is a bit of a labyrinth to me.
Ares sadly is heavy on performance for my low 3200g at least from v142.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Too bad us, folk without a PC are still getting screwed there :r

 

[VampireLord1024VampireLord1024's icon]

Never heard of it before.

 

[Cuestionador]

I don't remember this emulator, but i remember SMYGB.

 

[NotReallyHere]

As a Mac user during that era... I absolutely used Boycott Advance!

True Story: I was a Metroid diehard and curious about trying Metroid Zero Mission, though I was a little wary as I wasn't sure if I would like the direction they had taken with the remake. But I remembered seeing Boycott Advance on a Mac software site, tracked down a ROM of Zero Mission, and gave it a go...

An hour later, I was on my way to the store to buy a copy of Zero Mission for my actual GBA. Yes, folks, this was a case where being able to try a game on an emulator actually led me to buying it legitimately

Boycott Advance was created by Richard Bannister, who also made MANY more emulators for classic gaming machines. If you were a Mac user during the OS 9 / early OS X days, his software lineup was the way to go. And his site is still active, too:

https://www.bannister.org/software/index_emulators.htm

My personal favorite? KiGB

 

[thecrow2313]

Wow, I remember that emulator, so many memories.
BoycottAdvance 0.2.8

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2025

Take a trip down memory lane

Wayback Machine

 

[Yousef]

Back then, and even now, I generally tend to avoid any emulation for Pokémon particularly that didn’t allow for trading. I also had no fun emulating Rockman World on those outdated GB/GBC/GBA emus. I’ve zero love for these.

 

[sothfr]

Sheesh idk why that name rings a bell, but it does. Maybe one of my friends was using it.

 

[Morgana Veil]

Wow, I had all but forgotten this emulator. I used it way back when it came out, around the time I was getting into GBA emulation. As I remember, it was a fairly competent emulator but didn't have a lot of options. It's been years, so correct me if I'm wrong about that.
I think it had controller support, but I really couldn't tell you now.

 

[iplaygames42069]

Yeah I used it. Never even owned a GBA. DS yes, GBA no. So that was my emulator for Circle of the Moon, Pokemon, Astro Boy Omega Factor, and some pretty mediocre game called Car Battler Joe (a girl I liked on gamefaqs forums said it was the best ever - she was wrong)

It didn't take -that- long to download on a 56K. Pokemon Emerald in a standard .zip file was like 8-9 MB, or you could put ALL THREE roms (RSE) in a zip file and it's basically the same size.

PS1 games were another story. .bin/cue or Nero format or CloneCD format or WHO KNOWS. Mysterious 400MB zip file. Some were small like Vagrant Story 100MB zip, lucky. But basically you'd need a download manager like GoZilla or get it from a P2P network which supported resuming. And you would hope the .cue file or whatever actually matched the .bin/.iso/.nrg or whatever.

GBA roms weren't a big deal at all in comparison. :P

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Yeah I used it. Never even owned a GBA. DS yes, GBA no.

It didn't take -that- long to download on a 56K. Pokemon Emerald in a standard .zip file was like 8-9 MB, or you could put ALL THREE roms (RSE) in a zip file and it's basically the same size.

PS1 games were another story. .bin/cue or Nero format or CloneCD format or WHO KNOWS. Mysterious 400MB zip file. Some were small like Vagrant Story 100MB zip, lucky. But basically you'd need a download manager like GoZilla or get it from a P2P network which supposed resuming.

GBA roms weren't a big deal at all in comparison. :P

You are talking to someone whose dial-up provider was so incomprehensibly trashy that they would mail you a comic just so you wouldn't ditch them lol.

 

[thecrow2313]

You are talking to someone whose dial-up provider was so incomprehensibly trashy that they would mail you a comic just so you wouldn't ditch them lol.

They would send CD install media in the mail, then I would trash them. Anyone remember CompuServe?

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

They would send CD install media in the mail, then I would trash them. Anyone remember CompuServe?

That rings a bell, actually.

All I know is that I have made coasters out of AOL discs XD

 

[thecrow2313]

That rings a bell, actually.

All I know is that I have made coasters out of AOL discs XD

 

[KaiserMk7]

I might be partial to emulators that cut corners for performance with anything newer than gamecube.