GBA The GBA is so impressive!

[baylasan]

Out of all the 2d handheld that Nintendo has made over the years, I'd confidently say that the GBA is the best in my opinion. The colours and renders of the games are so damn vibrant and beautiful. The GBA was like a testing ground for game developers to tinker with and push its limits. There are games like 'Asterix and Obelix XXL' that I genuinely cannot believe were on that tiny handheld. The game literally looks like a PS1 game if it were a little bit more polished. Obviously, not every single 3d game on the GBA looks good, but there were some gems here and there.

 

[Rakoniomm]

For me the thing that blows my mind when it comes to the GBA is the ability to play voices evidenced by the Nickelodeon cartridges of various cartoons such as SpongeBob, but what really amuses and shock me is how really good are the vocal songs sound playing from it. I only know the Wario series making it sound really good to the point it sounds weird without the bit-crushed sound

 

[JG5009]

And the fact that it really only lived for 3 years before being phased out by the monster that is the DS, yet it still got such a massive and polished catalogue and the best pixel art styles that still look so vibrant and unique.

The sound chip, even if crappy, I like it and the style of compressed sounds it makes, many titles managed to use it in impressive ways (I can name both last F-Zero's, all 4 MMZero, all Battle Network's, all 3 Sonic Advance + Battle, and the masterpiece that is Wario Land 4).

It's just a very condensed and focused small machine, got good games and no forced gimmicks.

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Its 2D games are on par with the ones that are on the PS1 and the Saturn.

 

[baylasan]

For me the thing that blows my mind when it comes to the GBA is the ability to play voices evidenced by the Nickelodeon cartridges of various cartoons such as SpongeBob, but what really amuses and shock me is how really good are the vocal songs sound playing from it. I only know the Wario series making it sound really good to the point it sounds weird without the bit-crushed sound

Oooh you are right. I played Mario vs. Donkey Kong and the voice acting was decent!

 

[Scotty Scotty]

Its library of RPGs and 2D games are among some of my all-time favorites. From "Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga" or its Japan only precursor, "Tomato Adventure", to "Metroid Fusion" and "Wario Land 4".

 

[PSVitaForever]

I never owned the console, but years ago I've been able to play "FFTactics Advance" on the pc and I've loved it so much that I bought the real cartridge when I got a DS (retrocompatibility), and same I bought "Riviera The Promised Land" after playing it on emu.
In my backlog there's "Sword of Mana".
Not really played a great number of titles, but I've liked them!

 

[Netra]

I love my GBA SP, It had games you couldn't even imagine seeing on such a small, underpowered device.

Personally, I loved all the SNES game ports I played back then, and later a few on an emulator.

 

[Wesmess]

For me the thing that blows my mind when it comes to the GBA is the ability to play voices evidenced by the Nickelodeon cartridges of various cartoons such as SpongeBob, but what really amuses and shock me is how really good are the vocal songs sound playing from it. I only know the Wario series making it sound really good to the point it sounds weird without the bit-crushed sound

Riveria and Tales of Phantsia also have full voice acting for crucial story beats. That's really impressive.

 

[saturnsh2x2]

A GBA SP was my first handheld, so I definitely have a soft spot for the console. That said, most of my favorite GBA games (Mother 3, Fire Emblem 7, the Megaman Zero games, Gunstar Super Heroes) I've played either through rereleases or emulation instead of on original hardware.

On one hand, a lot of GBA games have gorgeous pixel art (shoutout to the Sonic Advance games and Battle for how they translate Yuji Uekawa's artwork to such a limited resolution), but I also feel a lot of GBA games kinda fall back on downscaling pre-existing hi-res assets instead of spriting from scratch more often than I'd like.

Riveria and Tales of Phantsia also have full voice acting for crucial story beats. That's really impressive.

Tales of Phantasia was doing that all the way back on the Super Famicom, complete with a vocal intro track. The fact that it was cut from the GBA port's US release is honestly a shame, if not expected.

 

[bliss_freak]

I recently finally found a charger for my old SP. I'm not gonna pretend it's nearly the "I cannot fucking see anything, how do I ever play on this" reaction I had to firing up my GameBoy Color again but I was disappointed at the ghosting. You have like one pixel's worth of ghosting for basically anything moving on the screen.

 

[JG5009]

but I also feel a lot of GBA games kinda fall back on downscaling pre-existing hi-res assets instead of spriting from scratch more often than I'd like.

Yeah that sucks, but it makes it easier to tell shovelware from something with actual care put into it.
The ones that have quality pixel art still look amazing.

Post automatically merged: Sunday at 11:10 PM

And yeah, shoutouts to the Sonic Advance and Battle sprites for fueling two decades worth of fan animation, this is THE style for anything 2000s Sonic.

 

[Zerohour2k12]

The GBA can do 3D too with Tekken Advance and Max Payne being a few examples, but 2D is where it really shines.

 

[gastd]

Yes, it's a good handheld console, but I wouldn't say it's anything special. Things got really interesting when the Nintendo DS came out.

 

[Ikagura]

Its biggest issues were the lack of backlight and the use of batteries.