#gba adapter

[nostalgiahime]

Gameboy Advance Link Cable & Adapter Flyer (2001) [✩]

[grim-has-issues]

jess prodman was such a cunty old man

[starlitangels]

Hand-to-Hand

Have some Albus and Faithful! Shoutout to @vampirelladarkness for the idea! Let’s say this takes place between Recovering and Unveiling True Honor, yeah? Cool? Sure? Great. 2.5k words (on the button!)

Disclaimer: I’ve done some training. It’s been a while since I did any sort of training. Some of the following information might be a little or a lot, I don’t know inaccurate.

—

Bang-bang-bang!

“Up and at ‘em, faithful!” Albus barked through the closed door. I jolted awake and practically fell out of my bunk from the motion. I groaned in protest and sat up properly.

“What do you want? I just went to sleep!” I complained, sliding out of my covers and pulling my long overcoat on over my nightdress. Rubbing sleep out of my eyes, I yanked the door open.

“Whoa. The bedhead!” Albus exclaimed sarcastically. But he was smiling like he’d just discovered the most delicious secret to hold over my head.

I scowled. “Shut up. What do you want?”

“Which one do you want?”

“Huh?”

“Do you want me to shut up or tell you what I want?”

I scoffed so hard I hurt my throat and rolled my eyes. “I’m going back to bed,” I grumbled, moving to lean back and slam my door shut.

Albus planted a hand on the door, holding it open before I could swing it shut. “No. No-no. You’re not going back to bed, princess,” he snapped. It had been a while since he called me that, and I glowered accordingly. “We have lapsed on your training. It’s time to fix that.” He gave me a smirk. That condescending one that pissed me off.

“I didn’t agree to training in the first place.”

“Too bad. Mission like this? You’re gonna need it. Come on. Get dressed and let’s go.” He took his hand off my door and folded his arms. His eyes swept me up and down, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Come on.”

“I’m not changing while you watch, moron,” I snapped before slamming the door in his face and locking it.

“Oh, come on!” he joked through it while I pulled my coat off and looked through the bag I brought to get off-world for a new set of clothes. “Might be fun!”

“Decidedly not,” I retorted as I changed from my nightdress to a new set of clothes. I fixed my bedhead and pulled the door open again. “Better?”

Albus narrowed his eyes, but I saw playful teasing in the way they twinkled. “Dunno. Training might be more effective if you just don’t wear anything—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” I snapped, storming out of my room and stalking past him. I had no idea where he intended to “train,” so I took the familiar path to the bridge. Where, no doubt, Devlin would be tinkering away at something. I didn’t bother to check if Albus was following me or not.

“Oh come on, faithful, it was just a joke—” Albus complained before falling out of earshot as I turned a corner.

I went to the bridge and waved a greeting. “Morning, Devlin.”

“Good morning, sister. I trust you slept well?”

“As well as can be expected. If we survive this whole thing I’m gonna be so exhausted that I’ll pass out and sleep for like a full day straight,” I said.

“Mm. Perhaps,” Devlin said.

Albus stomped onto the bridge behind me. “Come on, faithful. Training time. Now,” he said.

Devlin raised a brow and looked between his brother and me. “Training?”

Albus beamed—sort of. It was more of a self-important smile. “Yeah. I’m teaching her to defend herself. This is a dangerous mission. At the very least the basics are useful.”

Devlin continued to look skeptical as his eyes held mine. “And... you’re alright with this, sister?”

I blinked a few times, trying to decide how to answer that. If I outright stated that Albus wasn’t giving me much choice, Devlin would pick a fight with Albus and they’d get into another argument. Which I didn’t want. I also didn’t particularly want to train with Albus this early after not sleeping much, but had to admit he was right that knowing a little more could be useful.

“I’m alright with it,” I decided.

“See? She’s fine,” Albus said. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Ask nicely,” I snapped.

“Seriously?” he complained.

I raised my eyebrows, arms folded. Waiting.

He sighed. “Please?”

“There. Yes. Lead the way.”

Albus made a show of rolling his eyes before tromping off the bridge. I gave a brief wave to Devlin. “Good luck,” he said. “And, Albus!”

“What?”

“Mind your manners!”

A loud scoff was the only reply Albus gave. I followed him off the bridge.

He led me to a large, open area. What I imagined was probably a mess hall or otherwise common area when a ship like this was adequately staffed and furnished. He dropped his sword belt, blade included, to the ground and stretched. I eyed where he left his weapon skeptically. He’d given me a stick and used his sword the last time we did this. Why was he disregarding his weapon now?

I copied his stretches as best I could. “Why did you put your sword down?” I asked carefully.

“Because I’m not going to use it,” he said.

“Why? What are we training with, then?”

“Our hands.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Albus scoffed. “The day you beg is the day Hell freezes over,” he muttered. Louder, he continued, “It’s called hand-to-hand combat. Not my favorite way to fight but when you don’t have any weapons on you or easily in reach, it’s good to know.” His eyes swept me up and down. “Balance of probability is that you’re going to be smaller and lighter than anyone you go up against. I don’t know how to teach you to leverage that, but the more you can throw your opponent off balance or off his footing, the better off you’ll be.”

He finished stretching and took a step back, twisting so we were facing each other head-on. He spread his arms.

“Go on. Try to hit me. I’ll give you one freebie.”

I glared and balled my fists.

“No. No. Bad,” Albus said.

“What?” I demanded.

“You leave your thumb on the side of your hand like that and you’ll shatter the bone on impact.” He stepped closer and held both hands out toward one of mine. Reluctantly, I placed my fist in his hands. His hands were ridiculously warm—callused and rough. But gentler than I expected. He took my thumb and guided it in front of all my fingers. “Keep your fist like that. But don’t wrap your fingers around it or you’ll break it. Make sure your thumb stays on the outside and in front of your fingers, not to the side, got it?”

I nodded. “Got it.”

“Okay. Now. When you hit, make sure to strike with these two knuckles.” He tapped my forefinger and middle finger knuckles. “Because if you hit with these two—” His tapped my ring finger and pinky knuckles. “You will break them. Following so far?”

“Yup.”

“Good.” He cleared his throat and let go of my hands. “One thing to know, a punch is still going to hurt like hell. But if you do it right, you won’t break anything. A broken hand is no good to you in a fight.” He stepped back to square up opposite me again. “Try to hit me.” He inspected my fists again. “Go on. Give me your best shot.”

I swung.

He ducked out of the way, laughing. “Well, apart from the fact that you telegraphed your intentions about two weeks in advance for me to dodge, you had the power behind the swing. That’s something,” he remarked. “What you just did is called a haymaker. It has its uses but it’s too easy to dodge. Try this.”

He pivoted and stood beside me so we were facing the same direction. “Bring your elbows in more. Keep your fists up close to shoulder-level. And hit like this.” His fist lashed out and he brought it back quickly. “Let me show you that slow, yeah?” He made the same motions. “Now, see how I’m rotating my fist so my palm is facing downward as I punch outward? That’s to pack more strength behind the strike. If you keep your fist facing the wall like this—” He repeated the motion but didn’t twist his arm as he pushed out. “—you can’t equip the power of your shoulder, chest, and back muscles into the hit as easily. Give it a try.”

I did. Slow at first, and then another attempt moving much faster.

“Not bad. Bring your arm back faster, if you can. Don’t underestimate how much extra damage you can do with a decent recoil. It’s all force and energy transfer.” 

I nodded and tried again.

“Thatta girl! That was good!”

I blinked. Praise from Albus was... beyond rare. Practically nonexistent, actually.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“Next thing. Your elbow is the hardest, strongest striking point on your body. If you’re close enough to someone to hit them with your elbow: do it. If someone grabs you from behind, hit backwards with your elbow into their torso as hard as you can.” He demonstrated the movement as he talked about it.

“Okay.”

“And when you aim—punch or elbow—you want to aim beyond the person’s body. You’ll hit harder. But you still want that recoil. Driving your elbow too deep and too slow won’t do as much damage.”

“Right.” I supposed that made sense in some way.

Albus rotated so we were standing opposite each other again. “Try to hit me, faithful.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and went back to the stance he’d showed me. I glanced at my fist to make sure it looked right, the way he’d showed me. Then met his eyes. His expression was expectant but otherwise unreadable.

“Bend your knees,” he said. “Standing lock-kneed makes it easier to give you one shove and topple you right over.”

I bent my knees and lashed out immediately after.

Albus caught my fist. “Not bad. I did forget to mention that you need to rotate your hips as you make the punch to keep the movement flowing. That one is on me. Let me show you and then try again.” He showed me the movement, this time pointing out the way his legs twisted to rotate his hips before letting me have another go at it. I tried it. “Better. Now try and hit me again.”

I hurled the punch.

And hit Albus right in the chest. The breath knocked out of him with an, “Oof!” and he stumbled a few steps back.

For a moment, he coughed and wheezed to get his breath back. “Helluva punch, faithful. That was good.” His voice was raspy. “I should have mentioned the chest was a decent target if you hit hard enough.” He coughed. “And damn I think you did.”

I smirked. “Well, like you said the first time you tried training me, I’ve thought about hitting you more than once. Might as well siphon off some of that energy.”

He chuckled—and coughed again.

“So... apart from the chest, where do I hit? Jaw?”

“No. No, no. Bone’s too thick. More likely to break your hand than their face.” He tapped his head. “Temple. Right here. Softer point. Also the eyes. They’re very much a weak, soft point. If you gauge with your fingers at the eyes you will do serious damage. Or you can use the heel of your hand—” He rubbed his thumb over the base of his opposite palm. “—to strike the nose from beneath and shatter it. We’re not going to try that one though. I quite like my nose. But we can practice the movement.”

I snorted. “Fine with me.”

He showed me and I copied a few times. “Make sure you keep your fingers curled back as far as you can so you—”

“Don’t break them on impact.”

“Exactly.”

He kept teaching me, showing me how to combine strikes from both sides and drilling in my head not to kick if I could help it. In certain circumstances it was fine, but normally it would make me lose my balance and fall over.

Then we moved on to dodging for a while.

And then we started trying to spar. But it was a slow, soft practice fight that Albus basically walked and talked me through.

Slowly, we sped up.

Then I started trying to hit him for real again. He was still going softer on me, but wasn’t holding back on his speed.

He got in close—informing me that it was a mistake because my reach was shorter than his and he didn’t have the room to pack as much power behind his swing—and let me jab him with the elbow. Once. To get a feel for it.

After giving him a bit to recover, we went again.

This time when he got in close, his leg lashed around mine and he yanked. Knocking my foot out from under me.

I hit the floor with an, “Oof!”

Albus landed on top of me, nearly bashing our heads together.

For a moment, we stared at each other, breathing hard. Albus’ eyes were darker than I’d ever noticed, and the scars over his nose and at the corner of his right eyebrow glimmered slightly in the artificial light. Both of us were open-mouthed as we panted. I tried my best, but couldn’t stop the brief impulse to let my eyes flicker to his lips—then quickly back to his eyes.

Graciously, I ignored the way his did the same to me.

A door whirred open. “Am I... interrupting?” Devlin sounded horrified.

I shoved at Albus. “Not at all,” I said. “Get. Off!”

“If you insist.” He gave me a flirtatious, suggestive smirk.

“Oh, by the gods—you know what I mean!” I snapped, still shoving.

He snorted and climbed off of me, offering me a hand to help me up. I thought about taking it, then remembered what he’d said the first time. That he’d use it to throw me back down. I swatted his hand away and pushed to my feet on my own.

“What’s going on, Devlin?” I asked.

“You two have been gone a while. I was getting worried,” he said, holding my gaze.

“We’re fine. Just training,” Albus said. Devlin shot him a look.

“Well, if you’re quite done, we still have work to do if we want to make it to Brother Koria on time. We’re coming up on an area that’s going to be hard to navigate. I’m going to need help.”

“Fine.” Albus stooped and snatched up his sword and its belt. “Let’s go.”

I followed Devlin out of the room back toward the bridge with Albus bringing up the rear.

I fell into step beside him. “That was... informational,” I said.

“Not fun?”

“Don’t push your luck.”

He snorted again. “There she is,” he said. “Never without that sharp tongue, are you?”

“Nope.” We kept walking. I chewed the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Thank you.”

He cleared his throat, buckling his sword belt back on. “Uh... sure,” he said. Then he cleared his throat again, louder. “Hey Vinny, what’s this about a place that’s hard to navigate?”

—

Tagging my GB fan peeps who might enjoy: @palilious @gwenifred @ryn-halo26 @dollscircus @halscafe @miloeveryday38 @zozo-01 if anyone else wants to be tagged in GBA fics, let me know. Tag list is always open

[thisurlwasnttakenbutnowitis]

It's so bizarre that across every handheld system that Nintendo has ever produced from the original gray brick Game Boy all the way up to the present day with the Switch OLED, literally the only one that didn't have a headphone jack was the GBA SP. Why did they leave it out of that one and only that one specifically.

It's doubly annoying because the SP is otherwise the definitive Game Boy - it's the only device that can play original GB and GBC carts that also has a rechargeable battery and a backlit screen (aside from third-party hardware like the Analogue Pocket), so the omission of such a basic feature that literally everything else has is mind-boggling lmao

[dragon--n93]

GBA Wireless Adaptor was included with FireRed and LeafGreen video game

[kingdomoftyto]

I'm crying laughing, the DVDs are even worse than I remember... Season 1's menus are silent with a single static jpg of the same key character art they use for everything else, and the episodes on the Season 2 discs don't even match what's listed on the box! Absolutely stunning lack of shits given. Truly unparalleled. But I really shouldn't be surprised given... well... everything about how this series has been treated since the very beginning.

Time for a quick ~✨PHANDOM HISTORY LESSON✨~ to give newer/less hyperfixated folks more context for why the graphic novel being as great as it is is such a HUGE deal:

Danny Phantom was one of Nickelodeon's MAIN cartoons, in its time. It was a central pillar. One of the top three or four of their lineup, which is saying something when the competition includes the cultural juggernaut that is Spongebob.

Despite this, and despite its superhero theming making it perfectly marketable, it got basically ZERO official merch.

What little we did get was often ugly and very, very cheap. The dedication at the start of the graphic novel that jokes about collecting the Burger King toys? That's because it was some of the most notable merch the franchise EVER had. (I sadly do not have any of it. There was no BK in my hometown. Here's a pic from the internet, though, to give you an idea.)

If you think I'm exaggerating about that being the most significant physical merch to come out of the series, consider that the first video game had an entire menu option specifically for the Burger King promotional tie-in:

That video game, by the way, was one of only two ever based on the show. The first was an adaptation of "The Ultimate Enemy" in the style of a short sidescrolling beat-em-up, and the second was themed around "Urban Jungle" and (as far as I can tell--I've only played the first couple levels) was an arcade-style scrolling shooter. Both were for the Gameboy Advance, and both are...... fine, as far as cash-grabby video game tie-ins to kids' shows go. This was pretty normal for the time, so I suppose we did okay in that department, actually. They're not GOOD, but they're playable and have at least a bit of effort put into them.

But besides those two video games (plus a handful of simple, long-defunct Flash games on nick.com)? In the decade and a half since the show ended?

Nothing.

No books, no games, no comics, no web shorts--unless you count mega-crossovers with every other Nicktoon (a la Nicktoons Unite), or soulless promotional material like "Fairly Odd Phantom" (which, trust me, despite being the first new DP animation in over 10 years was not even worth the effort of watching).

...I think there was a limited edition FunkoPop once?

So yeah.

A Glitch in Time is not just the first cool, well-made thing we've seen from the franchise in a while. It's the first THING we've seen since the show. PERIOD. And arguably the first worthwhile supplementary material to EVER come out of the show, depending on how you feel about those GBA games and the Nicktoons crossovers.

This franchise is widely beloved even now, almost 20 years after it first aired, and it feels like that fact is now, finally, FINALLY getting some official recognition.

PLEASE read A Glitch in Time. Tell other people about it. The series--no, the fans--deserve this (and more of this, if the folks in charge see enough of a response and decide to grace us with any followup). It's LONG overdue, but better late than never.

[f1shart]

i am Hearing you Out on Tankbalt. me and bro when we're traumatized teens forced to carry the curse of being too much like our parents and not enough at the same time. please go on

EVERYTHING TANKBALT HAS IN COMMON

rambling under the cut. aha

both the oldest brother with two younger siblings and are the strongest out of them (IGNORING TANK'S 0 BODY POINTS) - you could say they take on the protector role

The Anger

both cover their faces

neurodivergent coded. one camouflages and the other masks come the fuck ON

they have one signature color (which are complementary fyi 💚❤️)

both involved in family feuds though the grunt-smith one is much smaller in scale. also they both have a really gay obsession with a boy from their opposing clan

dead moms that are a key factor in their unbridled Rage

on the topic of family, they both also have a male parental figure that has both a heavy overall influence on them and encourages them to partake in the feud (in consort's case you could argue he doesnt actually encourage tybalt to beat the shit out of the monty brothers every day, but he also doesn't effectively stop him or even make an effort to. i say "effectively" as a reference to the scene in r&j where capulet calls him a saucy boy for wanting to deal with romeoSORRY IM SO OBSESSED WITH THAT)

going back to the color thing can i also say how both their colors relate heavily to their family/expectations... tank's green is obviously representative of how buzz expects him to pursue a career in the military and center his whole life around it; meanwhile tybalt's red, often the "Capulet color" in many r&j adaptations, represents his very strong allegiance to his clan and how he's like. the only teen in that town to actually give a fuck about the feud

both are fanonically associated with an animal aka angry pussy and perrito encerrado <3 not to mention that the kitty x puppy type ship dynamic is very popular

both technically come from wealthy families? i'm just being logical here - i KNOW the grunts dont have a super mega amount of cash in their bank like the capps (and those guys are a whole different breed of rich..) but generals make a fuckton of money irl so just imagine the accumulated wealth of wholeass generations of them!! plus, buzz often gets this one chance card that, if you choose correctly, he brings home §50,000. if u get that one make sure to choose to launch a missile at the thingy (asteroid?) btw

what if we dove into fanon real quick..you could sayyy they both have physical signs of their trauma ^_^ for tybalt, it's his burn scars from escaping the fire that killed his parents when he was young and additionally having to save his even younger sisters. for tankernaut there's a couple of things you could argue: 1. his ptosis. i typically depict it as a congenital thing mysef but perhaps it's stress-induced? from my 5-second google search i've concluded that this isn't possible as a permanent affliction but first of all Fuck Realism, secondly it could be a thing that just appears every once in a while when he's reeeally going through it. and 2. his funny bone injury mentioned in gba/ds, presumably obtained on the battlefield. i've also seen tank depicted with more intense scarring (shoutout to my boy mash) but yap yap NEXT POINT?!??

hmmmmm ah. i think my brain juice's all fixzled oit.... hm. both are whi..te...???

both reeeaalllyy gay like fag asf. quite possibly the gayest boys of the sim franchise

TANKBALT GALLERY

[dqb2-secrets-and-trivia]

DQB2 Moonbrooke Map Trivia:

The Moonbrooke castle found in-game matches the layout of the Moonbrooke castle of Dragon Quest II. Below are 3 different versions of the castle in different DQII releases, alongside a recreation of the Builder's 2 castle from a top down view.

Here is a reconstructed blueprint for comparison:

And here are the rooms highlighted for a more visual comparison:

Things to note:

The basement in DQII is simply a square, which is why I omitted it from the blueprints.

In the NES version, the top left room with grass on it seems to be a cell room. In DQB2 the cell room was moved to the basement. [Which is why the basements differ between games.]

DQB2 lowers and raises the floor in various rooms. DQII has the floor be on the same level in all rooms.

The DQB2 castle seems to be missing the bottom part of the layout. For this comparison I added the chapel to the blueprint, but if removed the castle would instead look like a truncated version of the DQII castle. [This is also why I added the floor pattern at the bottom of the castle. Since the castle is in ruins, the castle foundation is a good way to tell where the walls were originally. You can choose to read the block pattern there as the wall layout of completely destroyed rooms, or you can read it as just the outside flooring pattern.]

The top left rooms [light blue] match better with the NES version, while the courtyard and the throne room [cyan, green] match better with the SNES/GBA versions.

The additional wall in the throne room was added for story reasons. Later on Gerome tells you to build a large throne room. If the door was placed on the new wall, the room would be too small, which means the intended throne room matches with the one found in DQII.

If you use a scale of 1 tile=1 block the DQB2 castle is around 2 times bigger than the DQII castle.

Other changes like the addition of doors, rooms and items were done in order to better adapt the castle to a proper base for the game.

Examples include the bell, potato patch, all of the building equipment, the toilet, the medicinal shrubs, and even the debris like the broken armour or the fallen columns that give iron and stone respectively.

(Source: @octo-l95)

[beevean]

https://fandomwire.com/i-wouldnt-even-know-how-warren-ellis-had-the-most-realistic-reason-for-not-consulting-the-castlevania-video-games-and-it-wasnt-because-of-wikipedia/

I have no words

I can genuinely believe that a 50 something person may be shit with technology, my mother can barely use her iphone, but an accomplished writer who most definitely should know how to write using writing programs in pretty advanced ways? Who even used to run his own online blog and website?

Are you seriously telling me that he wouldn't know to look on Youtube on how to use a fucking NES and GBA emulator?

The writer and co-showrunner of Castlevania, Warren Ellis, is the man responsible for bringing the dark vampire-filled world of Castlevania to the anime universe and making one of the best video game adaptations of all time. However, the shocking fact is that Ellis has never played the Castlevania video game in his life.

I'm gonna be blunt: it's impossible to write a good adaptation, let alone "one of the best adaptations of all time", without experiencing the source material.

If you like NFCV for its story and characters, as its own thing, it's a different conversation. But it is not, in any way, shape or form, a good adaptation. It's the equivalent of AI mashing together information it randomly finds on the Internet. Ellis and his crew took elements from the wiki and then smushed them without understanding their significance: things like Trevor's scar, Lisa's last words and her relationship with Alucard, Hector and Isaac's entire backgrounds and outfits, the Belmont legacy and the importance of the Vampire Killer. It superficially resembles the games in some details, but the core of the lore and the messages was twisted beyond recognition.

And clearly, the Deats' creed as fans hardly mattered, since the show's idea of being faithful to the games is random easter eggs like the wall meat or Gergoth or the Glyphs in Lenore's book or what have you, but they allowed the story to derail so much, Nocturne can't even be considered an adaptation anymore.

I also can't pity Ellis much, when the writers of Captain N, in the '80s, resorted to describing to each other on the phone what they could see on their discolored TV. Nowadays we have Youtube. It's the absolute bare minimum one can do to understand a game. Even my grandma knows how to use Youtube by now. We're not even talking about behemoths like The Last Of Us: an average playthrough of Dracula's Curse is 1:40 hours long, like a movie, and Curse of Darkness' cutscenes make for a 40 minute video. Fucking hell you might as well read the scripts on the wiki if you're that lazy.

Imagine doing this for books. Imagine refusing to read a book because it's too hard and just skimming the wikis for information before turning it into a movie. Book fans would riot and reject such a shallow adaptation. But it's okay when it's videogames, right? They're just a bunch of pixels anyway :^) good enough to use as a springboard for your edgy Berserk/GoT ripoff, not good enough to be understood, right? :^)

[soapdispensersalesman]

If Nickelodeon had made a ChalkZone GBA game (or videogame adaption in general) I would be posting different memes now I can tell ya that much!

[psi-hate]

i know this looks like nothing to those who don't know but for me this is the culmination of my slaving away for 3 days lmao the homebrew i'm running, gbarunner3, is a virtual machine that uses the GBA hardware in DS Mode to run GBA games with a higher layer of customization and access to traditional DS hardware. an example of something similar that comes to mind is Nintendont, the gamecube loader for Wii. Technically speaking, the vWii on the Wii U is also this concept, albeit underutilized.

anyway, it's intended to run ROMs off the SD card exclusively. Meaning that it cannot run actual cartridges. I wanted to use my pokemon carts alongside gbarunner3's wireless emulation to facilitate wireless adapter features without having the more expensive GBA hardware and peripherals, for an example.

i spent the last few days learning a bit of how the DS hardware and the codebase works, and trying to implement the option of using actual hardware than only ROMs off the SD card.

the DS only has 4mb of memory! and most GBA ROMs are between 8mb-32mb. how gbarunner3 gets the ROM loaded, is that it has 1mb worth of cached ROM loaded at a time and dynamically loads a ROM region based on when the game's code needs to access it. learning how to deal with memory in the context of the SLOT2 data bus in a codebase designed around SD card caching...

It was very annoying! I had no way to debug anything other than forcing a crash to tell when I got a certain result. it effectively was trial and error for hours and hours of blind crash debugging. the dev of gbarunner3 uses an IS-Nitro development kit to do his debugging. I didn't have that lmao

this is me oversimplifying everything incredibly because it's very hard to describe but i'm very proud of it. i'm sure it looks like nothing from an outsider's perspective though but i think it opens the gateway for some cool features that you'd otherwise have to use digital-only ROMs for.

I have a lot more to do but the fact i got this far on a whim is really neat!

[transgirl-gaming-thoughts]

Something odd that Nintendo didn't utilize with the GBA-compatible DS models was multiplayer. I know the DS basically use the stock GBA software to play those games, BUT I still think it would have been cool to run it via an emulator of sorts, and allow the DS wireless to emulate the GBA link cable, or at the very least the GBA wireless adapter. If this was the case, the DS/DS Lite would be one of the best ways to play GBA games today! This was also something underutilized in Virtual Consoles, both GBA and others. Kinda wish Nintendo had done more with this, but I suppose hindsight is 20/20 in a lot of ways.

[sorenblr]

I've been going through my 4kids nostalgia phase and recently rediscovered Shaman King and its FMA brotherhood remake. I know its probably way after your time, but do you have a history with it and/or do you have any thoughts on it from either a personal or a mythological standpoint?

Way after your time? How old do you people think I am? Anyway, I've read the manga, watched the 4Kids dub etc., even played the completely serviceable Aria of Sorrow clones that were released on the GBA. I have a lot of fondness for the original series, especially the early chapters, which are rendered in this lovely style that was dominant from about 1998 to 2003. You know, early One Piece, Ravemaster, Law of Ueki etc. The high foreheads and chunky hands and almost squarish eyes. It quickly went out of fashion and is now only an artifact of that generation's juvenalia, but I really adore it. And Takei's linework in that period is phenomenal. I have very fond memories of reading the short-lived English Jump serials and opening up to the Faust arc and thinking to myself, wow. It's badass how that guy looks.

On the other hand, it operates on the Kinnikuman principle of world tournament racial dynamics, so it's understanding of myth is filtered through this parade of cultural and ethnic stereotypes, and a lot of it is 'playful' or at least deliberately unserious. And then there are characters like Chocolove who are so racist that both the localization and subsequent anime adaptations have been running damage control ever since. I assume that would be a hurdle to modern audiences, this not neccesarily ill-intentioned but very clueless replication of stereotypical imagery from imported media. On the flipside, there's an Italian guy who compels the Archangel Michael to transform into a 1992 Ferrari Testarossa.

Anyway, it's cool. I like that everyone gets stronger by going to hell. They fucked up by introducing numerical values as assessments of individual strength. You should only be able to defeat your opponent by deftly reading the flow of their 'ki' or some bullshit, not by leveraging the basic principles of arithmetic... like how a fucking nerd would do.

[puffballcat]

Ranking Vexen’s boss fights because why not. Meant to do this after finishing GBA CoM but forgot.

Re:CoM Sora’s Story- I like how it conveys him as a smart and adaptable fighter by having him use a mixture of physical and magical attacks, instead of purely magical ones. Dude is getting a lot of mileage out of Frozen Pride, through both conventional and unconventional uses of a shield. I also love how flashy a lot of the moves are. For all the problems Re:CoM’s boss fights have gameplay-wise, they absolutely deliver in the move animation department. I just really appreciate how it gives him a fighting style you wouldn’t expect for a character like him.

CoM and Re:CoM Reverse/Rebirth-Pretty similar to the Sora’s story fights, but I don’t find this one as interesting. Diamond Dust is a really sick-looking sleight though.

CoM Sora’s story-The fight just works a lot better in Re:CoM to me. His sleights seem to have overall lower values, so he doesn’t really do much. Also Slide Break > the sleight where he creates ice patches on the floor.

2FM Absent Silhouette- This fight is so uninteresting, like this is such a bland way of conceptualizing a fight for him. It plays way too much to expectation for my taste. The only kind of out there thing in this iterations is the data-meter/Anti-Sora clone, but I would not call that a good addition in the slightest. This all just comes together to make a really unfun fight in every aspect. The Com and Re:Com ones aren’t that fun from a gameplay perspective, but at least they have some neat attack animations; the best this one has are the snowflakes and those still aren’t much.

2FM Data-Literally take everything from the AS version and just make it more annoying. Also want to note that if I recall correctly his fights in 2FM have (had? I’m not sure if it was fixed) a bug where the data-meter goes up faster than it should, which isn’t helping. The Re:CoM version of ice needles is also bugged, but I find that a lot easier to manage than the Anti-Sora clone.

Not sure if anyone will actually read this lol, just wanted to put my thoughts down. So uh have a good day/night and remember ice swords are cool, both figuratively and literally.

[mahounomanga]

Kurumi-tic Miracle

In the early days of the genre, it was relatively common for magical girls to have more open-ended power sets. Rather than having one or a few set applications, their magic could do just about anything. Since the turn of the millennium, most magical girls have powers designed for a specific task, such as fighting evil, but today I want to take a look at a character from the early 2000s whose powers can do anything she puts her mind to.

Kurumi-tic Miracle is a 2003 manga by Chitose Yagami. It stars a run-of-the-mill schoolgirl named Kurumi Nanami, who lives with her grandfather in the oddities shop he owns, together with her pet hamster, Momo. One day, while helping clean the shop, Kurumi discovers a mysterious magic stone that affixes itself to her wrist in the form of a bracelet. With this magic bracelet, any wish she makes will instantaneously come true. Initially she uses this power to pursue her crush, Naoki, but as the two gets closer, it becomes clear the magic stone has a bit of a history, and the potential to cause problems.

Kurumi-tic Miracle was serialized in Ciao magazine from the February 2003 issue to the April 2003 issue: a three chapter run. These chapters were compiled into a single tankobon volume on June 21, 2003 by Shogakukan under their Flower Comics imprint, along with a couple of Yagami's older one-shots. A digital re-release, also by Shogakukan, was made available on July 10, 2015. Official translations were released in Indonesian and Chinese, but not English. However, a fan translation by the group Da Gurlz Translationz is available for all five chapters, including both one-shots, and can be found on various unofficial manga sites.

The series was created by Chitose Yagami, a shoujo manga author who debuted in 2001 with Magical Project, a one-shot which was later included in volume 1 of Manga Mitaina Koi Shitai! a.k.a. Fall in Love Like a Comic, one of her more popular works which was even officially printed in English by Viz under their Shojo Beat imprint. Much of Yagami's work contains elements of romantic comedy, middle/high school slice of life, magic and the paranormal, and working in the entertainment industry, be it modeling, music, or manga. She is still active to this day, both professionally and on social media. Her most recent manga, a BL series titled Shoujo Manga no Hero ni naritai no ni Heroine Atsukaisareru Ore., began serialization in 2021 and is still ongoing. None of her works would get career-definingly popular, but Kurumi-tic Miracle was successful enough to land her her first autograph session, so that's cool. It seems she didn't do much adapting of existing work, save for contributing to a shoujo Inazuma Eleven anthology in 2011. That same year, her manga Oresama Kingdom (Kings of My Love) got picked up for a direct to video anime adaptation, running for 14 episodes of 11 minutes apiece until 2013. This was the only manga of hers to get an anime adaptation, and it got a Nintendo DS game too, also in 2011. This was the second video game based on a Chitose Yagami manga, the first being Kiss x Kiss for the GBA in 2004.

Speaking of video games, this came up a lot in my research so I just want to point out that this series is unrelated to the 1997 Playstation game Kurumi Miracle, in which a young witch whose name is also Kurumi goes to an island to hone her magic by helping the local townsfolk.

Because Kurumi-tic Miracle is so short, it's difficult to recap the plot without giving spoilers, so if you'd like to go into the series blind, I advise you to do so before reading the rest of this post.

The manga starts off as a pretty straight forward slice-of-life romcom with magical hijinks, but the more we learn about the love interest Naoki, the clearer it becomes that something is amiss. He has a rather distinctive ring, and he seems very interested in Kurumi's bracelet. It turns out there is another magic stone, and the person who controls it wants them both to himself. The plot reveal is that this person is not Naoki, but his little brother, Satoru, who found the other stone by chance and became corrupted by its' power. He has bequeathed unto Naoki a fraction of that power for the purposes of collecting the other stone.

The magic systems in Kurumi-tic Miracle are really interesting to me. Because the scope of what they can do is so broad, the characters are limited only by their imagination, which gives us a stark contrast in how Kurumi and Satoru use their powers, despite those powers deriving from the same source. Kurumi's magic tends to be cuter, more harmless, and at times downright childish. Satoru's magic is scarier, emblematic of his ruthless attitude, and representative of a genuinely serious threat.

To pad out the tankobon release, two of Chitose Yagami's one-shots were included. The first, 2003's Dokitto Boys X Love (just Boys X Love in the fanslation), is sort of a comedy-of-errors in which a teenage girl accidentally switches bodies with her favorite male idol, and the two have to stick together as she learns his routine. It's not especially groundbreaking, but it's cute. The second is titled Otokomae!? Jajauma Musume, which I thiiink roughly translates to Boyish Selfish Girl. The fanslation uses the title I Love Tomboy. It was originally published in 2001 and according to Weblio was Yagami's second ever manga after Magical Project. It's a romantic comedy in which a tomboy attempts to become more feminine to win over her bully... which sucks. It sucks so bad. This one-shot is infuriatingly gender essentialist and sexist. A lot of effort goes into categorizing what separates girls from boys, all of it very stereotypical, and even though the resolution is that the protagonist is more comfortable being herself, the message is lost in all the steps it takes to get there. She does have some personal struggles with wondering if she's really a boy after all, and there's a plot twist that the elder sister figures who helped her throughout were actually crossdressers the whole time, so I'm sure you could read some queer subtext into this if you wanted to, but that is VERY clearly not what was intended. I hate it.

Taken on its' own, Kurumi-tic Miracle strikes me as a diamond in the rough. Most of the flaws I can point to in the main story could easily be alleviated if it were given more room to breathe. Three chapters just wasn't enough for me to get fully invested in these characters or their world. Despite this, the core concept shines through. This manga had some genuinely intriguing ideas about its' magic systems and how they can be applied for creative problem solving at a time when that modality of magic was becoming increasingly rare, despite the magical girl genre as a whole reaching market saturation at around this time. It's short and cute, even if it's not particularly substantial. It's very of a type, but if this is a type you tend to enjoy, I highly recommend checking it out.

[firestorm09890]

“it’s been two years since any kh4 news” don’t care. what do you think zexion’s re:com fight would’ve been like in gba chain of memories? his is the only one intentionally built around the remake’s circular arena so a lot of his big moves are circular (cyclone snatch, catastrophe), could those be adapted to the rectangle arenas of the gba? what about the rest of it? the books you have to chase down to destroy wouldn’t be nearly as hard to reach. not a lot of space for his several clones either. would it be like all his other appearances where his entire moveset would have to change because what he was doing was too specific to the mechanics of the game he was in, except this time it has to change because they were to specific to the setting? would he do shit like flip the screen? i’d attempt making this myself if i had any skill in that department but I have naught but my own imagination