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There's no surprise that the Game Boy Advance is generally loved by retro gamer enthusiasts. Indeed it was a platform that saw many great and classic games ported, remade, demade and re-imagined. It also offered many carts that contained multiple old school games that could please us so-called Cheap Ass Gamers. With this in mind -- and keeping up with the recent series of Game Boy Player Land blog posts focusing on arcade-stick friendly titles -- let us investigate the world of GBA Retro Compilations.
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Activision Anthology is by far one of the most impressive retro compilations released for the Game Boy Advance. The cart contains almost fifty Atari 2600 games including classics like Pitfall, Keystone Kapers, and Atlantis. Unsurprisingly, each game is emulated quite well considering the vastly superior GBA hardware.
The real real pleasant surprise is the amount of extra that went into the GBA cartridge, both in presentation as well as extras. The menu screens display a virtual room and allow you to browse through racks of virtual 2600 cartridges. You can even inspect zoomed-in versions of the game labels or read histories of the games. Activision even went as far as to include a nice handful of homebrew 2600 games -- something not present on the home console versions of the anthology! What's even better for Game Boy Player fans is the ability to use a GBA as a 2nd player controller, and play cooperatively using a single screen. This cart is highly recommended.
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Atari Anniversary Advance is a nice collection of six Atari arcade games: Asteroid, Battlezone, Centipede, Missile Command, Super Breakout, and Tempest. The games are faithful emulations of the original arcade titles, so fans of the early days of arcade should be pleased. The cartridge also contains a bonus Atari trivia game and offers up a single-cart, single-GBA 2Player option -- again, rather perfect for the Game Boy Player.
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Capcom Classic Mini Mix is a great little compilation of three Capcom NES games: Bionic Commando, Mighty Final Fight, and Strider. Each game is emulated pretty perfectly from the NES. Bionic Commando is generally the draw-in here, as the NES version is pretty well remembered. On the other hand, the NES version of Strider is extremely different from the arcade or Genesis versions that most of us probably remember. Likewise, Mighty Final Fight is a demake of the arcade version of Final Fight that looks and plays far closer to River City Ransom. I personally recommend this collection for Mighty Final Fight alone. Though sadly Capcom really didn't add much to this cart in the way of extras -- not even a save feature.
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The rather cumbersomely titled Komani Collector's Series Arcade Advanced is a nice collection of six Konami Arcade classics: Frogger, Gyruss, Rush'n Attack, Scramble, Time Pilot, and Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Like most of these sorts of early arcade collections, the GBA has little problem emulating the games. There is a nice single-cart 2Player option available, as well as some optional modernized versions of the games. In keeping up with the nostalgia, Konami was also thoughtful enough to offer up some extras by way of the famous Konami Code.
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Namco Museum is pretty much a necessity for GBA retro enthusiasts. Admittedly, I'm a bit biased as Galaga is one of my personal all-time favorite games. That being said, the other three games included -- Dig Dug, Ms. Pac-Man and Pole Position are all certainly classics in their own right. The games all play great though my biggest complaint is the lack of a high-score save feature like the one found on the other home console releases of Namco Museum. There's apparently also a 50th Anniversary addition GBA cart that adds Rally-X and the original Pac-Man but sacrifices Pole Position.
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The Sega Arcade Gallery is a great collection of four Sega arcade ports: After Burner, Out Run, Space Harrier, and Super Hang On. The games all play quite well, with the possible exception of a so-so After Burner. On the other hand Space Harrier is rather impressive given its original complicated presentation. If I had to come up with any complaint at all, it would be that THQ decided to include two racing games which can come off a bit redundant. Though I certainly can't complain that Out Run is included. Unfortunately extras are non-existent and there is no high-score save feature.
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Sega Smashpack is another bare-bones compilation of three Sega games: Ecco The Dolphin, Golden Axe, and Sonic Spinball. The compilation is definitely a mixed bag. The port of Ecco The Dolphin is quite impressive. However the port of Golden Axe is rather poor in execution and lacks the co-op mode that it is most known for. Sonic Spinball is a fine port, though an actual Sonic The Hedgehog title would have been preferred in its place.
Having said all that, each of these collections is generally worth seeking out for one game or another. As I've said in other recent arcade-related posts, playing a game like Galaga or Ms. Pac-man using an arcade stick is especially awesome. Now what retro collections am I missing out on?
As I recently divulged in the GBA Shmup post, I've been playing through a lot of various arcade-style games in an effort to test out my new Hori Gamecube Fighting Stick. This has led to a continuing onslaught of blog-posts randomly surveying various genres of arcade games released throughout the Game Boy lifetime. Much like last time, I find it important to preemptively point out that these posts are not meant to be comprehensive by any means. Nor are they a list of the Top 10 games or anything like that. They're just a smattering of games that I've played presented in a vaguely organized manner. So come with me, Dear Reader as we investigate GBA Beat-em-ups.
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As many GBA collectors are fully aware, Atlus rules. In 2003, they released Double Dragon Advance, a remake of the original 1987 arcade game Double Dragon which is quite visually different than the NES port that most of us grew up on. Unsurprisingly, Atlus did a fantastic job with this remake. The sprites are large, but not too large for the GBA screen; the colors and graphics are brilliant; and if you've got two carts they made the 2-Player mode fully co-op. This game is definitely recommended to fans of the series.
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Capcom's Final Fight One is basically a port of the SNES version of Final Fight. The game is really quite good. It features large sprites and graphics that rival -- and maybe even trump the SNES version. Capcom also had the good thinking to include co-op 2-Player mode via GBA link cable. Oh and the game is also still pretty damn hard with its constant barrage of dudes anxious to beat the hell out of Mayor Haggar and his friends. I must admit though that I'm not a huge Final Fight fan personally, as I grew up on the Streets Of Rage series and tended to prefer those instead.
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Golden Axe was included as part of the 2002 Sega Smash Pack. This version is pretty much a port of the Genesis version in both graphics and sound. Strangely though, THQ decided to remove the co-op 2-Player mode. Generally this serves as a turn off to most fans of the series. I don't do a whole lot of cooperative video-gaming personally. However, my major complaint is that I feel like the enemies in this version are a whole lot cheaper than I remember them being on back on the Genesis. I feel like they all tend to just run at you from off-screen, giving you pretty much no warning. So either it's the cheapness, or the game just hasn't aged as well as I would have wanted. One or the other.
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Very late in the GBA's lifespan Capcom released the Capcom Classics Mini Mix, a small collection of their NES games. And luckily it included the NES version of Final Fight which was dubbed Mighty Final Fight. Though this game strays very far from the arcade original -- instead opting for tiny super-deformed sprites -- it kicks ass. In fact, I'm not embarrassed to say that I completely prefer this version over the original. The game is fast-paced and crams a ton of the original into a teeny-tiny package. If you want proof of how amazingly awesome an 8-bit demake can be, then check this one out. Highly recommended.
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X-Men: Reign Of Apocalypse may have gotten lost in the shuffle of a million other Marvel-related games. That's too bad however, as it's actually one of the closest games to the classic Konami X-Men arcade game. It's very similar both graphically and in game-play. The game allows you to choose from four X-men and the controls are excellent. The game also features 2-Player co-op, though it's certainly a blast in single player mode. As far as GBA originals go, this one is definitely a must-have for Beat-em-up fans.
I was intending to include some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games in this post as well, but ultimately decided that I would eventually devote an entire post to their Game Boy and GBA lineage. So besides any of those, what Beat-em-ups have I missed out on? And which are so terrible they should be avoided at all cost?
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The original Game Boy found its way under my Christmas tree in 1989. And with it came what would be known as perhaps the greatest puzzle game of all time: Tetris. There's certainly no arguing with how great Tetris really is. And in all honesty, there's been a lot of thoughtful and insightful analysis written on the game. But the reason I bring all this up is to make it known that I in no way knock Tetris nor its importance to Nintendo, the Game Boy and the rise of so-called Casual Gaming. There's no denying that Tetris was meant for the pea-green-gray brick. And up until last year Tetris would have been my favorite puzzle game of all time, because that's when I discovered Super Puzzle Fighter II.
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Super Puzzle Fighter II is the sort of game that is made for fans; in this case fans of Capcom. There's lots of in-jokes and references. And let it be no secret that I am a fan of Capcom. Here they've taken the tried and true formula of dropping multi-colored shapes from the ceiling and having the player organize them until things get too chaotic, and somehow managed to make it entirely fresh. How the did this was by mixing the puzzle genre with the Player-vs.-Player intensity of their 2D Fighting games. As ridiculous as that may sound, it actually works amazingly well.
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What immediately draws in geeks fans like myself is the art style. Whereas most puzzle games are very simple -- and generally speaking, that's often the point of many puzzlers -- Super Puzzle Fighter II has amazingly rendered 2D sprites. Characters from both the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers series are reimagined in a cutesy super-deformed style. The two fighters occupy the middle of the screen and slug it out Capcom Vs. style in a representation of the puzzle-solving skills of their respective player.
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Luckily for puzzle fans the actual puzzling element of the game is just as great as the art. The game seems simple enough: gems fall of different colors; you put like-colors together until a glowing gem of that color appears. By pressing say a red glowing gem to a bunch of red gems you've piled up, you cause a bunch of crap to fall on your opponent. However, the real strategy comes in choosing which colors you'll try to build up, and how you'll arrange them -- the bigger the squares or rectangles you create, the more crap that you'll send over to the enemy. Meanwhile, in true Street Fighter fashion, it's just important to keep an eye on the other guy and think defensively. Indeed Puzzle Fighter II is one of the most addictive puzzlers I've ever played. It's easy enough for a beginner to enjoy, but then requires an incredible amount of strategy to fully exceed at.
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I also wanted to point out a very unique aspect to this game. Capcom came up with an incredibly original (and perhaps strange) way for two players to enjoy the game using only one cart. The idea was that in Vs. Mode two players would hover of the same GBA unit and each use half of the buttons. So Player One would use left and right to control the gems and the L-Button to flip them. Meanwhile Player Two would use the A and B to move their gems and R to flip theirs. I've never actually tried this single-GBA approach to playing, as it certainly sounds awkward in theory. However this means that a single Puzzle Fighter II cart can be inserted into the Gamecube Game Boy Player, and can be played totally co-op with each player using his own controller since the Game Boy Player recognizes any controllers plugged in at the same time. Certainly this wasn't Capcom's original intention, but it's definitely a bonus for current enthusiasts of the Game Boy Player.
Jamie Woodhouse may not be a household name, but he's certainly an interesting fellow: a game designer who dropped out of college (his major was designing games) so that he could just get on with designing games. His major claim to fame is a puzzle-platformer called Qwak; a title in the vein of Bubble Bobble, Parasol Stars, or other similar deceivingly cutesy games from a simpler time in gaming history. Though it was initially released on the BBC Micro in 1989, Qwak would eventually be ported to Acorn Electron, Amiga, Amiga CD32, and in 2006 Game Boy Advance. But what's special about the Game Boy Advance release is that Jamie decided to release the damn thing himself. By this time he had had enough experience designing GBA games to just make this his own pet project and sell the homebrew carts, xeroxed instructions and downloadable printable boxes right on his website. However, here's a bit of a breakdown of all the GBA titles that Jamie has had a hand in creating.
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Simon is a port of the old handheld electronics game. Y'know, there's four buttons -- each a different color. They light up and play a note in random order and you have to play it back. Sort of a precursor to the rhythm games we have today. The GBA version is exactly that. Although it may trigger some nostalgia and perhaps even boost your memory (I have no scientific data to back that up), it's not incredibly engrossing either.
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A port of the board game Scrabble Junior was a similar upgrade of a childhood favorite. This conversion bodes much better than Simon as it's far easier to get sucked into. It's also a perfect match for a handheld, as it's the kind of game that you can easily kill some spare time with.
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Next was a port of the 1979 arcade classic, Lunar Lander. The GBA version is an extremely faithful recreation. And trust me, it's just as hard as ever. Retro-fans of the original will certainly be thrilled with the attention to detail, though newcomers may find the vector graphics to sort of sell the GBA's video output a bit short.
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Lego Racers 2 is possibly the most ambitious GBA release that Jamie developed. On the surface it's an average 2D racer reminiscent of Super Mario Kart. But what's interesting is the story mode, which adds Grand Theft Auto-ish missions and even statistical elements of an RPG. It's certainly an interesting mix of high- and low-action genres.
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In 2006 Jamie decided to independently port his masterpiece, Qwak to the GBA. This version is fantastic. It seems almost like it was meant to live on the portable console with it's bright colors bursting out of its dark backgrounds and the condensed Donkey Kong-like levels. And much like the 1994 Game Boy release of DK, the levels just keep on coming, delivering hours of challenging game time. This cart is a must-have for GBA puzzle fans. And although the Game Boy officially "died" sometime in 2007, perhaps there's hope that independent developers could continue to breath new life into the fan favorite console.
Check out the rest of Jamie Woodhouse's portfolio, and beg him to port his other games to GBA here: http://www.jamiewoodhouse.co.uk
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If you've been following this blog at all then you're probably aware of the Together Retro game club that I follow that's curated by the folks over at http://www.racketboy.com. The game for March was the original Phantasy Star, a game that I never got the chance to play prior. Thankfully a cart containing the first three games of the series was released for the GBA in 2002. Though I did have a Sega Master System years ago, I didn't adopt it until around the time that the Genesis was released and toy stores threw Master Systems into a bargain bin. Unfortunately, Phantasy Star was never one of the games that found its way into the same bins. I do remember trying Phantasy Star II on the Genesis for a short time, but the entire series was one that I was always aware of -- and mildly interested in -- but just never found myself curious enough to give it a go. And I had no idea just what I was missing out on.
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What immediately became apparent to me was that Phantasy Star was a game that was far ahead of its time, bearing in mind that its contemporaries were Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior on the NES. Of course those two titles tend to epitomize what we think of as 8-bit RPG classics -- and they're the first two RPG's I ever played myself -- they actually come off as quite shallow in comparison to Phantasy Star.
The game begins with our main character, Alis as she slowly ventures out from one little town and grinds (for at least an hour!) until she can venture to the next. Pretty basic stuff. But over time you will pick up three more varied characters to add to your party and explore not only the planet that you started out on -- but two others as well!
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Indeed the world of Phantasy Star soon becomes amazingly large and complex. There are deserts and tundras; robots and slimes; hovercrafts and landrovers! There's elements of Star Wars, Dune, and Greek Mythology. It was truly a game that was ambitious in its scope in every department -- be it the story, visuals, or music.
Unfortunately, one such ambition also leads to the games one true detriment -- its absolutely brutal-to-navigate 3D dungeons. My understanding is that upon its initial release in 1988, the Master System cartridge of Phantasy Star sold for $80. To put that it into perspective, it cost nearly as much as the Master System itself. I suppose that perhaps the 3D dungeons were a way to force the player to stretch a lot more gameplay out of the already enormous game, forcing you to eventually resort to making your own maps (or if you're playing it today instead of 1988 simply finding some online, which is exactly what I resorted to midway through my own playthrough). Of course as frustrating as the dungeons may be, they are certainly interesting and well... ballsy for a game of its time.
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After spending the month grinding, and exploring and cussing my way through Phantasy Star, I can firmly say that the series has gained a new fan.
From time to time I've encountered some pretty awesome ads from the history of the Game Boy line of handhelds. I was 8 years old when the first Game Boy was released, and I've followed the line rather closely. So in a way it's endearing to see this time line grow up with my generation. For your review I've assembled a bit of a retrospective of the Game Boy line and how each new iteration has been presented to the world.
Continue reading How To Get Ahead In Handheld Advertising
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