Gameboy Advance going south

[pokobocket]

What's with all this BS being released for the Gameboy Advance lately? x_x Ultimate Muscle, LEGO DROME RACERS? Daredevil, a game based on the worst B- movie ever made? Argh!

Even the games with some validity to them, such as Castlevania, still don't do it for me. I loved Castlevania on the NES when I was little, but what have they done on the GBA? O_O Two Castlevania titles, which are both IMHO way off track of the Castlevania name, almost no different from each other, and additionally, they suck! :o

RPGs - My personal favorite category. We have Zelda, which deserves a big w00t. Then, Golden Sun 1+2, again, same games practically. This goes on and on with Mega Man Battle Network, etc! Series with a bunch of games that mirror each other. Grr.

My thesis is that after Pokemon (which btw, is a good game - really) took the market by storm a few years ago, the majority of handheld games since then have been completely child-proofed. Sure, earlier GB games like Kirby and Mario were targeted at children, but they were a lot of fun, and still are! Why does the market suck so much?

What has happened? x_x

Ps. Don't flame me too much if you like some of these games, it's just my opinion ;))

[Gamereviewgod]

Ultimate Muscle ROCKS!!! It's better on the bigger consoles, sure, but it's really great on the GBA. As for the GBA going down, it's my fave system right now. So many great games (yes, lots of ports, I agree), great graphics, and now a backlit screen?!?!?! I'm in love..... :lovin:

[pokobocket]

Well, OK. It has it's share of sweet games, like Advance Wars, but they seem very far and few in between compared to all the other crap. :/ I couldn't agree that it has 'so many great games'...

[pokobocket]

In addition to this, it seems like every title that is successful is merely a rehash of something. Advance Wars = Super Famicom Wars, Zelda = Zelda, duh, the Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire games, Castlevania, Lufia.

None of them are original! Golden Sun was, yes, but it was so cliché'd it felt like every other mediocre RPG. I would really like to see something brand-new and excting on GBA!

[Bratwurst]

It's because developing for the GBA is dirt cheap and an easy way to make a quick buck to some publishers. Hence the flood of dreck. The classic gameboy endured a similar phenomena.

[Daltone]

I'm just twisted and bitter about the GB. How could it 'survive' and the NGPC not? Bah, ok, well I know the answer..but still.....annoyance.

[pokobocket]

Because it didn't have hordes of preschoolers racing to buy its low budget movie games. LOL

[TRM]

Gameboy Advance started losing my respect, but it all came back with such remakes as Super Ghouls N Ghosts and Phantasy Star. Throw in the Super Mario Bros. 3: Super Mario Advance 4 and Nintendo has my respect.

[Daltone]

Nintendo shall never have my respect! Never I tells ya! ....untill Advance Wars II or a loverly new Shining Force game rears its head. They're the only reason I'm keeping my GBA (damned if I'm getting an SP)

[calthaer]

This may sound radical, but I believe the GBA is just beginning to realize its potential. I believe the GBA may perhaps be about to enter its golden age!

The fact that, as someone mentioned, the GBA is so cheap to develop for is in fact a blessing and not a curse (because of all the dreck). As of 4/02 the HAM development library was released, essentially allowing hobby programmers to code in C for the GBA. There is a burgeoning home-brew market for the GBA, with some people doing some outrageous stuff like running FULL 3D programs and FPSes on it!

What it all boils down to is the fact that what one used to have to pay $30k for (a development kit from Nintendo) is now free. A small team of 5 people could feasibly create a really awesome game in their spare time. Furthermore, some of the powerful software tools that were used in the SNES / Genesis era have been essentially THROWN AWAY by the developers to encourage this homebrew market - I'm referring in particular to the tUME map editor, which is VERY powerful even though it's a DOS-based program...and someone from Two-Headed Software has written and distributed a tUMPak converter that will allow the maps to be used with the GBA. This is all completely FREE. It's a lot more accessible than the GB and SNES ever were.

The only real barrier then comes with the publisher - but this again may turn out to be a good thing. We may have a lot of crappy games being made with this homebrew stuff, but there may be some real gems, too - and soon publishers may be able to start being really selective about their games (as long as they ever had a clue to begin with) instead of having to shovel out crap to fill out their roster...perhaps picking up some good ones from the home-brew market. When anybody can make games, there's a chance that the real artists can have a shot instead of the many corporate bigwigs who have proven to us gamers time and again that nary a creative bone sits in their bodies (to a large extent - that's a huge blanket statement of course and I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect. Feel the drama!). The fact that anybody can make a game for the PC has made the PC, IMO the most innovative of all of the platforms. Sure, there are great games for the other ones, but where's the really original ideas? Myst, The Sims, Thief: The Dark Project, the awesome storytelling in Planescape: Torment, or the whole real-time strategy genre...would it have happened if they had to fork over a $30k license first? Maybe, but I'd argue probably not.

This is all speculation, of course, but the point I'm trying to make is that the potential is there with the accessibility, and frankly it's a strength that I think Nintendo would be wise to cater to if they're going to beat out the new Sony handheld. Nintendo's GBAdvance isn't really so advanced in comparison, but if more people are making (not necessarily publishing, but making) games for it, there's a chance that a greater percentage of good ones will come out for it.

Maybe.

[RetroYoungen]

Personally, I'd say it's a better idea to have a system to be cheap and easy to program for than one like the PS2, with specialty processors that developers are forced to work with and have little experience making games for. And with that, you're going to get a lot of crap games, but you'll also get your favs, like great Zelda ports (as someone mentioned earlier) and Pokemon games (like someone else mentioned as well).

But after I read how easy it was to program for and therefore easy (well at least somewhat) for hobbyists, that got me thinking: Is the original Game Boy or the GBC as easy to program for, and has anyone made any homebrews for them? To tell you the truth, I'd buy homebrews for those systems more so than for the 2600 or other consoles; my GBC gets a lot of use.

[bargora]

Nintendo shall never have my respect! Never I tells ya! ....untill Advance Wars II or a loverly new Shining Force game rears its head. They're the only reason I'm keeping my GBA (damned if I'm getting an SP)
Advance Wars II: Black Hole Rising -- U.S. Release Date: June 23, 2003

Booyah! ENHANCED VISION!!!

[calthaer]

Is the original Game Boy or the GBC as easy to program for, and has anyone made any homebrews for them? To tell you the truth, I'd buy homebrews for those systems more so than for the 2600 or other consoles; my GBC gets a lot of use.

One of the big problems with homebrew stuff on the GB / GBA is the need for a Flashlinker cartridge (or another brand that performs the same function). They're essentially "blank" game cartridges that come with a USB --> GBA cable that allows you to upload games from the PC into the Flashlinker. They also tend to be fairly pricey - a decent-sized GBA development cartridge can run you upwards of $100 (for one that's 16 megs). Others can be around $50-100 and I'm not sure how much the ones for the GB / GBC are - haven't priced them, but I'm sure they're cheaper if you can find them. Most of the companies making Flashlinkers have stopped making the old GBC ones and instead sell GBA ones with the option of buying an extra GBC bridge that allows you to use the cart on a GBC (with GBC roms, not GBA, of course).

It's an entry fee that limits the potential distribution of any homebrew game creators. Furthermore there aren't a whole lot of places that sell the Flashlinkers, as they can be used for the very illegitimate purpose of downloading and playing commercial games on the GBC / GBA. You have to order them from Hong Kong, and some places like LikSang have stopped carrying them.

The GB / GBC is also not as easy to program for as the GBA is...one is because of the hardware limitations (not a lot of memory, etc.). The other is (and I may be wrong on this one, but I think) that the GB / GBC processors aren't quite as well-documented as the GBA one is. The GBA uses a fairly common processor (from UK-based ARM corporation) that's used in a variety of other products (like cell phones). This means that the information concerning the processor on the GBA is not kept super-secret by Nintendo and is fairly accessible for people to write libraries for (e.g., the HAM development library). If you want a C programming library / compiler for the GBC to tool around with, someone has to write one and distribute it (other than Nintendo, who probably won't give that out any time soon). There's also the very real possibility that high-level languages like C won't work on the GB because of the severe hardware restrictions - I can't say for sure, though.