RETROspective: Gameboy Advance

Ah Gameboy Advance. Out of all the retro goodness out there, GBA is an easy favourite. Today I will try and articulate my feelings and explain what it is about that wonderful machine that lights up all my nostaligia buttons.

I suppose the first obvious factor in its success for me is one of timing. Gameboy Advance first reared its head in 2001. I was 20, had been out of school for two years earning (not much) money. For the first time in my life I was able to spend some on things I wanted. Previously I'd had to wait for a Gameboy until my mum could afford one (no easy task at the time) and I'd also eventually had a SNES. Having the hardware was very nice but, unlike a lot of my friends, I couldn't afford the games. I only every owned Super Mario All Stars, Legend of Zelda, Yoshi's Island and Earthworm Jim on SNES and Super Mario Land 2 and Tetris on Gameboy. Otherwise I had to rely on the generosity of friends to lend me games when I couldn't offer anything in return. Needless to say I played a lot more games around friends houses than at home. Later on I had an Amiga 500+ for which piracy was rampant to say the least, and so I could finally enjoy video games at home. This is likely the most important factor in my spawning as a gamer.

With Gameboy Advance, and it's partner GameCube, I had much less financial restriction. I warned my own money, lived at home paying little rent and being fed. Whilst my pay was minimal, taking home around £600 a month, £480 of that was mine to do as I wished. I don't have that much disposable income today.

Besides that, Gameboy Advance introduced me to the idea of backwards compatibility. I could play all these shiny new SNES-quality games, but still enjoy my Gameboy games. I even had a couple of "DX" editions I could not finally enjoy in full colour for the first time.

At the time it didn't matter that it wasn't backlit. Sure, we'd seen it done years before with Game Gear and Lynx, however I for one was happy to trade the backlight for several times the battery life - on two batteries too! My evenings were spent drinking Bells and Coke with my friends, so my main gaming time was during the day or early evening, when there was usually ample sunlight to sit by the window and enjoy. The GBA screen is very nice indeed in the right conditions. I never felt he need to purchase a wormlight or similar.

Yesterday, as I documented, I installed a backlit screen to my GBA. I'd installed a front light to the original screen and it was disappointing to say the least. I cracked the screen removing the frontlight panel, leaving my GBA without a display. Recently backlit GBA screens have come back to the market. They're not cheap - I ordered mine from the uk for £55 including an adapter cable to fit it to the original GBA. Given the price of the AGS-101 backlit SP models today though, at least locally, it was a good price. The result is brilliant too, the screen is of a really high quality, and the fact that I can use my rechargeable AA batteries is far preferable to me than an installed rechargeable battery, which itself has a limited life of maybe ten years.

I own an SP (frontlit standard version) and I remember at the time of release we were all impressed that we could now play our games anywhere. Today it is a weak compromise on the issue, and the console itself I find hard to use due to cramped buttons. The buttons are also clicky and weird and overall the unit feels cheap. I may, for the sake of it, install a frontlit screen to it in the future, for the sake of improving it really. Then I will be able to use the SP when travelling and keep my non-clamshell GBA safe at home.

The Games

Of course no system can be called great without great games. GBA had plenty. Two decent, if short, Metroid titles, Mario Golf, various Final Fantasy releases (I particularly enjoyed Tactics), Mario Kart... but there were also signs of Nintendo's greed starting to shine through in the GBA library. In particular I want to mention Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and the four Super Mario Advance games.

Yes, all of these titles were great titles in their own right. Yes, we were going to buy them. However, in retrospect it was the start of something that has become prominent in Nintendo's business model. Re-releasing old games at a high price, whilst adding little of value to them. I'll go through these games one by one.

Zelda. A great game. Simply one of the best. Certainly in SNES's top five. This is probably the least cynical re-release. Hours of gameplay in the main game already, but they also bundled it with Four Swords Adventure. I never really got into that, I found it a bit boring. I've always preferred my gaming straight forward and single player for the most part. I feel anything it served to outshine GBA's original Zelda title The Minish Cap, which is weaksauce in comparison. Which is a shame. Instead of milking a decade old game, They could have concentrated on creating better original content.

Super Mario Advance. Or Super Mario Bros 2. This was an odd choice for the first game in this series, being the most derided of the Super Mario Bros NES games. Well, people deride it now as "not a real Mario game" but they're just trying to be clever. No one knew that it was a reskinned Doki Doki Panic back then, and I would wager that many people enjoyed it as much as I did. It still has my favourite of all the NES sound tracks too. Still, this was a NES game being sold at full retail price fifteen years later. Sure it was based on the SNES All Stars remaster of the game, which came out in Europe eight years previous, but that just begs the question - why didn't they release All Stars on GBA and be done with it? I'll tell you why - ¥¥¥.

Super Mario World. The second release was the fantastic Super Mario World. Ok, I can't fault this one. It was a perfect fit for the console and proved what we knew already: GBA was a handheld SNES.

Yoshi's Island. Ok this one can slip by too. My favourite game of all time, easily the best Yoshi game (I don't know why they can't match its quality with its sequels to this day) and so much content. It was by no means an easy game, and that's before you start trying to collect 100% of all items and unlock the insanely difficult bonus levels. Yoshi games of late (Woolly World for example) have become very child-friendly, with simple levels, taking more from the Kirby mould. This first one though was hard as nails and I bet hardly anyone has ever completed it, let alone 100%.

Super Mario Bros 3. Stick this one with Super Mario Advance. This fourth instalment should have been part of an All Stars re-release. Not charging full price again. Everything I said about that first one applies here.

All four Super Mario Advance games came with Mario Bros. The old arcade game that has you bashing enemies from below and kicking their heads in. It's not a game I enjoy, and whilst it adds some value to each package it would have been nice to see a different bundled game with each release to add some true value. It would also have been nice to have seen an actual original Mario release for GBA, it's the one thing it lacked.

So despite these complaints about these specific titles, GBA's line up was quite incredible. Add in a massive library of great Gameboy games - Tetris DX, R-Type DX, Links Awakening DX, Super Mario Land and its sequel, Mystic Quest, Donkey Kong 94, all the Wario Land games.... the list goes on.

The Hardware

Nintendo also struck gold with the hardware design, at least on the original version. As we've mentioned it would have benefited somewhat from a backlit screen, however the resulting 10+ hours of battery life was a worthwhile compromise. Technology has moved on somewhat in the past 16 years, so now a backlit screen consumes far less energy and is available as an after market upgrade for those who really want it.

Which brings me to the main reason to employ such an upgrade to the original GBA version. It's form factor is as close to perfect as I've ever enjoyed. With the screen in the centre, it follows the basic design of Sega's Game Gear with D-Pad and Face Buttons either side of the screen. Two shoulder buttons are brought over from the SNES controller, and are what truly made this feel like Gameboy ADVANCE. It is comfortable to hold, light, and the cartridge slot is in the top where you'd expect it. As Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges are taller than GBA's they poke out by about half their height, so it is good that they are not in the way in use.

The SP model followed, adding in a frontlight. Today it looks washed out and weak, however back then it was quite a big deal. The light is spread relatively smooth across the screen and it certainly works better than any number of external light sources that were available for the GBA. A later revision had a new, backlit screen. This is highly sought after today, and didn't sell too many units back then thanks to DS, so expect to pay far too much. There are fewer and fewer of them out there too, as people tear them apart to repurpose the screen in an original GBA.

The clamshell design was also heralded as a marvel, because apparently most people are incapable of taking care of their belongings (people have made complaints about the 2DS's lack of clamshell too, because they would scratch their screens in their carelessness).

Overall the SP model is my least favourite. The D-Pad and face buttons are too close together, leaving my hands contorted in use. The screen, whilst frontlit, seems to be of a lesser quality than on the original and with the frontlight off the screen is nearly invisible in all but the brightest sunlight. It also marked Nintendo's first move away from trusty AA batteries to an in-built rechargeable. These is some sense to this, in terms of ecological concern and decreasing the size of the console, however it brings with it new frustrations for a retro gamer who wishes to enjoy his games today, so many years later. The first is that the batteries are by now largely at the end of their useful life and need replacing. Nintendo aren't going to be producing these any more, so we're left with cheap eBay knock-offs instead. These invariably don't last as long between charges. And that's the other problem - charging the battery is a requirement, meaning that at times you are either tethered to the wall or unable to play while you wait for the battery to refuel. Using Rechargeable AA batteries I can swap them out when they run low, and charge one set whilst using another. And if I'm out and about, perhaps on holiday, AA batteries are easy to come by in any store.

Later still came the Gameboy Micro. DS was already available at this point and so the Micro didn't sell so well as it's forebears. I got one, of course, and it is a fantastic thing. Very tiny, and hard to use for extended play, I've still been able to enjoy a couple of hours here and there. It was my first ever backlit thing, and it's screen is quite beautiful. Certainly better than the front lit, dim display of the first DS. Better even than the backlit DS Lite, which suffers from motion blur. Just tiny. The battery lasted well, and it was clearly sold as a premium product. The one thing it lacked - Gameboy backwards compatibility. I suppose by this time Gameboy was old news. Nintendo continues now to support previous hardware for a maximum of one generation (GameCube to Wii to Wii U at least) so this pattern in some way started here.

Overall, GBA has enough different models to appeal to anyone. They all have strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately they all grant access to a vast library of fantastic games.

I shouldn't forget one last edition of the Gameboy Advance - The Gameboy Player. This wonderful thing clips under the GameCube, enabling you to play GBA games on your television, much like the Super Gameboy before it. Also supporting Gameboy and Gameboy Color cartridges, it expanded the GameCube library to insane numbers. You can use a GameCube controller with its tiny, kind of rubbish D-Pad, or (such is Nintendo's genius) a GBA connected with a link cable as a controller. Hori even made a Gameboy Player controller with a button layout more suitable for those games. The Gameboy Player is easy, and incredibly cheap, to come by - but the software disc not so much. Somehow the hardware and software in many cases has become separated over the years, and no disc means the GB Player will not function. For comparison, when I found mine recently, I could get the Player for €18, and with a disc it became €55. I've seen discs alone go for upwards of €50. So if you have one, keep it safe.

What else is there to say about the mighty GBA? Now is a good time to get one. The prices are right, it sold millions so there are plenty of consoles still out there. Interest in it is high however, as demonstrated by the fact that you can buy aftermarket displays for it now, so expect availability to slowly decrease and prices to go up.

Boxed games will set you back a small premium - it was the last generation in which Nintendo used cardboard boxes so finding one in good quality is incredibly difficult. Being cartridge based however, there is no harm in purchasing your games unboxed. And don't forget about the Everdrive and its peers, which unlock a world of homebrew.

Look out for fake games too. They are common. Learn how to spot fakes. I once had a fake Mario Golf and I found out if was fake after it blew a fuse in my DS Lite.

That's it I think. Great console. Great games. Should be the highlight of any retro fan's collection.