I wish more had been done with the GBA

[Dom Cruise]

I love the GBA but I feel like there was some wasted potential.

You know what are some things I would have liked to have seen? An all new Mario platformer for starters, very much like the DS New Super Mario Bros but in 2D and on the GBA, it's really lame that every single Mario platformer on the GBA was a port.

Nintendo gave us an all new Metroid and Zelda on the GBA, why not Mario?

I also would have liked to have seen a follow up to Metal Gear Ghost Babel on the GBA, either a direct sequel or something like a remake of the original Metal Gear, considering how great the Castlevanias on the GBA were it would have been cool to see what Konami could have done with Metal Gear on the GBA.

Basically I wish the GBA had more exclusives instead of ports of SNES titles, which was nifty at the time, but there's not much reason to play those today when emulation on your phone is available.

What are your ideas for what could have been done on the GBA?

 

[BlueSpark]

I think that Yoshi's Island on GBA had some all-new levels and Mario Advance 4 (aka Mario Bros 3) had some exclusive levels that used elements from other Mario games (but unfortunately you needed an ereader to access them):

https://youtu.be/QlsVMMey3U4

 

[Dom Cruise]

I think that Yoshi's Island on GBA had some all-new levels and Mario Advance 4 (aka Mario Bros 3) had some exclusive levels that used elements from other Mario games (but unfortunately you needed an ereader to access them):

https://youtu.be/QlsVMMey3U4

I want to say there were a few differences with the GBA port of Super Mario World, wasn't there?

 

[BlueSpark]

I want to say there were a few differences with the GBA port of Super Mario World, wasn't there?

I think they changed some small details of some levels' layouts to accommodate for the lower resolution screen. They also made all of the graphics slightly brighter so they would be more visible:

https://youtu.be/UNuzx9HY3Oo

 

[LullerDerbyRollin]

Go play Boktai!

 

[whatever I feel like]

I want to say there were a few differences with the GBA port of Super Mario World, wasn't there?

Among other things, they had the eReader levels. Anyways, the GBA wasn't quite an SNES but it was close enough to do ports and the concept blew me away back in the day (then, a two or three years later, the PSP did that with PS2 games.) I don't think the GBA had too much potential above what we got but it definitely died an early death in the US due to Nintendo dropping support to focus on the DS. GBA releases continued to sell well til the day that system died, which is way more than I could say for 3DS.

 

[BlueSpark]

Among other things, they had the eReader levels

It was just Mario Advance 4 (Mario Bros 3) that had ereader levels, I think.

> I don't think the GBA had too much potential above what we got

There were actually some very impressive technical achievements on GBA:

https://youtu.be/ZNuS14pIOz0?t=86

 

[Trans Fat 41g]

Asterix on the Game Boy Advanced shown us that 3D games didn't have to be nauseating dreck.

I think the 3D gaming scene on the GBA was very half and half, DooM got nauseating but the Driver series was phenomenal.

Overall I think the GBA had the best aesthetics with the graphics. Sure it was comparable to the SNES but because the picture wasn't bottlenecked by awful video connections they looked outstandingly sharp.

 

[augment]

Still waiting for my custom plates for my micro GBA nintendo.

 

[BananaSplit]

I do remember it was heavily marketed as a Gameboy that could run SNES games, though the sound quality was considerably worse due of the chip used inside. Mario games were fine as far as I remember enough but the Donkey Kong Country looked like chink bootlegs with the massively brighten up graphics and different soundtrack in contrast to the original SNES releases I've played beforehand.

Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Wario Land 4, Sonic Advance and Guru Logic Champ were damn fun games though. Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney technically started on GBA too even if the West experienced them on DS later.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

While you wish more had been done with the GBA (and I second that), I still wish the PS VITA wasn’t discontinued in the U.S.

 

[Cubanodun]

Basically I wish the GBA had more exclusives instead of ports of SNES titles

If you put it on perspective the GBA is a Portable SNES, jokes apart the GBA had TONS of interesting games .... but they were mostly exclusive for Japan, they got all the cool toys, addons and crazy stuff that we the unwashed western never received if you want to check all the crazy stuff the GBA got there check Edge of emulation

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

The GBA was such a good system

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

It had Aria of Sorrow, what else did it need?

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

I don't mean this as a pejorative but that might have been the most autistic title I've ever seen.
This is exactly the kind of thing I could hear one of the kids I used to tutor say while he bites his nails.

 

[Sun Shihong]

Pokémon Clover. Nuff said.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

We had Wario Land 4 and 3 F-Zero titles (one Japan only and had a course creator sadly) tho.

 

[Dom Cruise]

It had Aria of Sorrow, what else did it need?

To be fair, not much, as Aria of Sorrow is one of my all time favorite games.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

It was just Mario Advance 4 (Mario Bros 3) that had ereader levels, I think.

> I don't think the GBA had too much potential above what we got

There were actually some very impressive technical achievements on GBA:

https://youtu.be/ZNuS14pIOz0?t=86

The Gameboy Color had some impressive stuff as well, like Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare

On the GBA I liked how developers sometimes sat down and figured out how they could port popular games to it. Tony Hawk Pro Skater is a famous example but I think Max Payne should be remembered as well. As a GBA game it wasn't as good as THPS but it showed that they tried and that they cared. I'm also a sucker for pixelated isometric games, probably because of the SNES Shadowrun.

Max and the enemies are polygonal, that's hard to see in the screenshots.

There's also some really impressive demos for the GBA, not game demos but technology demos showing impressive 3D, graphics and MUSIC!

 

[The Jumping Dwarf]

The GBA was an interesting little console. Here's a video on Velez & Dubail (now called VD-dev), developers of the aforementioned Asterix XXL. They're probably the people who most successfully pushed the GBA to its limits.