Gameboy Advance

[Stupot]

I've just picked up my old Gameboy Advance, which has been in a box in the attic for about 5 years.
I can't believe how much handheld games have come along in the past decade.  When GBA was first released I was AMAZED at the quality. Now look.

Who here owned/owns a GBA and what were your favourite games?  I loved Golden Sun.  Gorgeous game (until I got stuck and couldnt progress :/)

[Cuiki]

I played Pokemon Ruby on Gameboy advance. It blew up my tiny mind.

[Jaffles]

Ohhh boy did I love my GBA. Though the DS managed to top it, the GBA was a serious handheld powerhouse.

Particular Favorites:

Pokemon R/S/E (Also my first Pokemon games. Is there anything more magical than a childhood Pokemon game? When everyone in your school is playing, battling, and collecting. I'd never go to anyone's house without a link cable in hand. Man, those were the days...)

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Another great RPG. Man this game was hilarious. Poor Luigi, always getting strung along!)

Sonic Advance 2 (Probably my favorite of the Sonic handheld titles. Though it didn't really recapture what made Sonic 1-3&K great, it was still a really fun breakneck platformer)

Super Mario Advance: Super Mario Bros. 2 (A Mario game where you can play as Luigi, Toad, and the Princess? Sign me up! I particularly loved playing this one with a friend of mine on my GameBoy player so we could switch off every life.)

Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island (I know some of these aren't technically original GBA games, but I was too young to ever get a SNES so this was my first exposure to many of these classic platformers. Yoshi's Island remains my favorite of the bunch to this day)

Mario Golf: Advance Tour (A really neat golf/RPG hybrid, that actually gave me much more playing time than I expected. Still one of my favorite Mario sports titles)

Well, those are the ones off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more though, I've got quite a large collection of cartridges somewhere or another.

[Anian]

I had to beg for a year to just get the original Gameboy (actually it's not an original, it's the colored edition, so it's green with grey buttons), but yes, I am f***ing old I guess.

Best games though -
Tetris (actually found a cartridge on a parking lot it was in 3 pieces and my dad glued it back together and still works like a charm for years (played it even in multiplayer with a cable during a class in college few years ago)
Batman TAS - brilliant game my cousin had, great action and style for a sprite game and a great Batman game, me and my cousin used to play in turns as Robin/Batman, brilliant
Super Mario Land 2 - while I don't get people's fascination with Nintendo and Zelda etc., this game was super addictive and fun.

[CaptainD]

Still got one (somewhere!) - Super Mario Kart was probably the game that ate most of my time.  Hot Potato was an insane little game.  Lady Sia was quite good.

Might see if I can actually find my GBA... I think there are two of them lurking round the house somewhere!

[DoorKnobHandle]

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Actually my favorite Castlevania title, I even preferred it to Symphony of the Night on PS1, even though most people wouldn't agree. Excellent platformer/action RPG mix.

[embed=640,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha12-KAYxZM[/embed]

[MurrayL]

I've actually got my (semi-transparent, 'ice blue') GBA sat in a box next to me. It gets as much play as any other handheld I own, which is something of a testament to its longevity!

Mario Kart Super Circuit and the previously mentioned Golden Sun are probably the best titles I own. It also has the brilliant Ecks Vs. Sever and a decent port of Doom!

[Radiant]

Zelda: the Oracle series!

[Stupot]

I only had a handful of GBA games, Golden Sun, Mario Kart, Castlevania and Breath of Fires I & II (but BoF I was lent to a friend, never to be returned).
I've been looking on ebay for some new games and I'm surprised how much some of them are still fetching.

GB/GBA don't seem to have much in the way of Adventure games.  I guess pointing and clicking is hard, though there does seem to be a GBA version of Broken Sword 2.  Are there any other good adventures I might be able to find?

[Armageddon]

I own a Gameboy Micro. I went back to play with it recently too, I have come to the conclusion that absolutely no good games were made for the GBA. Not even a decent Mario platformer.

Anyways, I got myself a Ez-Flash IV cartrige and put a ton of .gba games on it as well as a NES Emulator with some really nice homebrew NES games. It's really cool to have one cartridge for all games.

[LimpingFish]

After owning a Gameboy Color, I got in on the ground floor with the GBA. I only ever owned (and still own) the original model.

I have come to the conclusion that absolutely no good games were made for the GBA.

Well, that's a little hyperbolic!

Castlevania(s), Street Fighter Alpha 3, two F-Zero titles, Konami Krazy Racers, Ninja Cop, two Advance Wars, Boktai, Metal Slug, Astro Boy, the Golden Sun games, Kirby, The Minish Cap, some excellent ports...and WarioWare!

Sure, there was also an endless steaming pile of licensed shovelware released, but the same is true of most handhelds.

[Stupot]

Yeah there is an awful lot of drivel... Looking through ebay, and on the Wikipedia list of GBA games, there really wasn't all that much was there? I might try to get my hands on the second Golden Sun game, a couple of racers... and maybe one or two of the Final Fantasies. I like Pokemon, but once you've played one Pokemon game, you've played 'em all, so I won't bother.

I only ever owned (and still own) the original model.

Same.  Bought it the day it came out, if memory serves.  Curse the lack of backlight :/

[Ubel]

Well this brings me back. Me and my friend both bought the original GBA pretty much at the same time and we both went nuts over it. I think I was 11 or 12. My first game was Rayman Advance which was a very fun game. My friend got Warioland 4 which was also pretty great but unfortunately I didn't get to play it much.

Golden Sun seems to be a popular mind blower and for me it was also the greatest GBA experience ever. Oh the neck pain I suffered from playing it for hours. One of the rare games I actually had the patience to finish. Oh and then there was Advance Wars which we played at school on breaks like the geeks we were. There were also a bunch of other games I don't quite remember anymore.

GBA was one of the most exciting consoles ever for me, along with the first PlayStation and a Famicom Clone I had when I was little. Definitely the only mobile console I ever really cared about.

[Ghost]

Starting with the original GameBoy, I eventually upgraded to a GB Color, then GBA, and later DS Lite (the lime-green one to boot!). Currently saving up for the 3DS XL because I never owned a "large" model.

While there were some really cool games for the GBA it was my least favourite iteration of the console; the lack of backlight was really noticeable. And while it had some horsepower I always thought that there were far too many remakes... But hell yeah, Iridion and Golden Sun sold me, and Pokemon Sapphire and LeafGreen were pretty nice too.

I also liked their decision to stick with batteries. Call me oldfashioned but I have a dislike for rechargable battery packs where you can't, on a trip, just swap in some new ones.

CaptainD:
Thanks for bringing up Lady Sia! That was quite an oddball game but pretty and entertaining all the same!

[blueskirt]

My flatmates got some sort of hub for RCA cables and plugged all of our consoles on it so we can switch from one console to another with just a button press. A couple months ago, one of them said "Hey, come play Zelda" I asked which one and they said "Link's Awakening" which I bought last year to play on the Super Gameboy but never got around to. Three days full of laughter and tears later (that game was so awesome), I fell in love with my SNES again.

In the last weeks I've bought a Gameboy Player to plug underneath our Gamecube to play them GB, GBC and GBA games on a TV screen and played Pokemon Red, Return Of Samus, Super Metroid, Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island and Link's Awakening DX. And I've ordered a ginormous batch of GB, GBC and GBA games to complement my SNES library: Zelda's Oracle series, Minish Cap, Four Swords, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, all Mario Advance, Mario Kart Super Circuit, Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga and both Mario Land, Final Fantasy IV Advance, Advance Wars (thanks, Technocrat!) Kirby Dream Land... With the GOG and Steam sale and that Gameboy shopping spree, I believe I spend more money on games this month than I did on my rent and food and electricity bills.

I'm still wondering which game to play next week.

Funny thing is, I still don't think of it as picking up a new console. Due to the graphical similarities, the lack of stylus or analog sticks, the games' gameplay similarities, and the abundance of SNES games ports, I'm thinking of it as completing my SNES collection. Looking forward to see what are your favorite games on that system.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Looking forward to see what are your favorite games on that system.

On the SNES? I'd have to say Final Fantasy 3. I bought it off eBay many years ago and still haven't gotten around to playing it on the console. I've only played it with an emulator.

[AGA]

I had to beg for a year to just get the original Gameboy (actually it's not an original, it's the colored edition, so it's green with grey buttons), but yes, I am f***ing old I guess.

My first thought when I read the opening post was "what are you, twelve?".  I'm not that old, but I still remember when the original Game Boy was pretty cool to have, let alone a fancy newfangled Game Boy Color.

[Camden]

Favorite games on GBA?

> Kuru Kuru Kururin
> Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
> J.League Winning Eleven Advance 2002
> Denki Blocks!
> Klonoa: Empire of Dreams

You should play them

[miguel]

Looking forward to see what are your favorite games on that system.

On the SNES? I'd have to say Final Fantasy 3. I bought it off eBay many years ago and still haven't gotten around to playing it on the console. I've only played it with an emulator.

Final Fantasy 3! Fantastic game. There's a GBA version with updated graphics as well. This game and Chrono are 2 of the best RPG ever made.
For the GBA I'm playing Shining Force using emulator.
It's a shame Shinning The Holy Ark was only released on the Saturn. Does anybody tried Saturn Emulators? I was once told that it doesn't emulate that well and some crashing occurs frequently.

[R4L]

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Actually my favorite Castlevania title, I even preferred it to Symphony of the Night on PS1, even though most people wouldn't agree. Excellent platformer/action RPG mix.

Yes!!! Finally! SotN is overrated. Both are incredibly easy games but I find AoS to be higher in difficulty which for me makes it more enjoyable.

I would actually recommend all the Castlevania games on GBA, except for maybe Harmony of Dissonance. My favorites on GBA were Wario Ware Inc., Doom, the previous games I mentioned, and Gradius Galaxies.

Does anybody tried Saturn Emulators? I was once told that it doesn't emulate that well and some crashing occurs frequently.

I'm sure Saturn emus have come much further now.