#mars revisits his gamer roots

[dracotheocracy]

oh ok thanks edgeworth

[aion-rsa]

15 Underrated Game Boy Advance Games

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When the Game Boy Advance hit shelves in Japan on March 21, 2001, Nintendo was still riding the incredible success of the original Game Boy. After more than a decade of the Game Boy’s handheld dominance, though, gamers eagerly awaited the next evolution in portable gaming. The GBA delivered that evolution.

In fact, many features we now take for granted in portables like the Switch can be traced back to the GBA. The addition of shoulder buttons, full 32-bit color graphics, and eventually even built-in backlighting with the 2003 release of the Game Boy Advance SP were all lauded as welcome innovations and improvements. Sadly, the GBA’s time in the sun was remarkably short. Pressured by the upcoming release of the Sony PSP, Nintendo released the GBA’s successor, the Nintendo DS, less than four years after the launch of the GBA.

Yet, GBA games continued to be released all the way into 2008. The GBA is still fondly remembered for its excellent ports of games like Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and for helping launch new franchises like Mega Man Zero and Golden Sun, but its library was much more than just those major titles. Dig a little deeper into it and you’ll find that the GBA was also home to some truly excellent hidden gems that are still worth checking out 20 years later.

15. Urban Yeti!

2002 | Cave Barn Studios

Keep in mind that in the early 2000s, developing games for the GBA was much cheaper than making a console game. Steam wasn’t a thing yet, and cell phones could barely run Snake. So, if you were an ambitious young developer with a goofy idea and a dream, your best bet for making it happen was to put it on Nintendo’s handheld. 

Urban Yeti! is the type of weird, charming experience that typically only finds a cult audience on PCs nowadays. You play from a top-down perspective as the titular Yeti who is looking for his mate in a small city. Most of the time, the game plays like the first two Grand Theft Auto games with even more chances to punch random pedestrians. More importantly, finding a boombox starts a dancing freak out that clears the screen of enemies, and “missions” take the form of minigames inspired by titles like Toobin’ and Root Beer Tapper.

It’s weird and short, but always hilarious, and it’s unfortunately become increasingly obscure since its release.

14. Lady Sia 

2001 | RFX Interactive

Most of the platformers on the GBA were either fantastic SNES ports or dreadful licensed fare, but a few original titles do stand out. The first thing you’ll probably notice about Lady Sia is that it looks great. Its big, bright graphics were a perfect fit for the GBA’s small screen. The gameplay is also surprisingly deep and utilizes combos, magic attacks, and even the ability to shape shift into a sasquatch during boss fights. Yes, this is the second game on the list to feature a playable Bigfoot, but we promise it’s the last.

Lady Sia was fairly well received at the time of its release, and a sequel was even planned in 2003. Sadly, it was canceled due to a lack of funding. 

13. V-Rally 3

2002 | Velez & Dubail

The GBA was released at a time when the vast majority of console games were going full 3D. The GBA, however, was obviously built with 2D pixel games in mind. Those perceived limitations didn’t stop some developers from pushing the limits of what the handheld was capable of, though, as evidenced by the V-Rally 3 team managing to cram fully polygonal cars into the GBA.

Graphically, V-Rally 3 is undoubtedly the best-looking game on the system. Its surprisingly detailed outdoor tracks could easily be mistaken for an N64 game. You can even play the entire career mode in first-person. Thanks to some surprisingly smooth handling, though, V-Rally 3 proves to be much more than just great visuals. It may not look like much compared to modern racers, but it’s still the undisputed pinnacle of racing on the GBA.

12. Car Battler Joe

2002 | Ancient

Car Battler Joe is a decent RPG mixed with awesome car battling sections that elevate it above most of the GBA’s library. The story isn’t great (your father is missing and you have to find him), but the hook is that in this world, cars are a rarity. As such, you have to build your own Mad Max-style vehicle from spare parts found around the world and eventually battle other vehicles as you work to finish your quest.

That concept alone is begging for a sequel or spiritual successor. Sadly, most people have long forgotten about Joe, and even its re-release on the Wii U eShop in 2015 didn’t garner much attention.

11. Kuru Kuru Kururin

2001 | Eighting

Kuru Kuru Kururin is one of those puzzle games that sounds so simple in theory but ends up being surprisingly complex and a lot of fun. You play as a rotating stick (or “helicopter” in the North American version) that must make it to the goal at the end of a series of mazes. You control how quickly the stick rotates, and you’ll need to master that mechanic as the difficulty ramps up significantly in the later levels. This game remains a remarkably addictive experience until the end.

Though Kuru Kuru Kururin‘s core concept boasts nearly universal appeal, the game was only released on the GBA in Japan and Europe. A localized version finally made its way to North America in 2016 through the Wii U eShop, but Nintendo of America seems oddly stubborn about acknowledging the series. Neither of its two sequels ever made it out of Japan. 

10. Sabre Wulf

2004 | Rare

Most gamers say that Rare peaked during the N64 era with a string of successful platformers and shooters, but old-school Rare still managed to squeeze out a handful of classic games for the GBA after the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. Everything gamers love about classic Rare games is on full display in Sabre Wulf: the cutting-edge graphics, tight controls, and the trademark offbeat British sense of humor.

Unfortunately, Sabre Wulf didn’t find much of an audience. Prior to the release of this title, the Sabreman character hadn’t starred in a game in almost 20 years. The updated gameplay apparently didn’t appeal to older fans, and wasn’t innovative enough to attract younger gamers. It’s aged better than many other GBA games, though, and it’s certainly well worth a playthrough now.

9. Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

2002 | Konami

While it was never as successful as Hideo Kojima’s other games, the Zone of the Enders series is still fondly remembered for some of the better action games of the PS2 era. Their unique mecha combat and Kojima’s flair for cinematic storytelling helped those games stand out from a competitive pack.

Unlike its console brethren, The Fist of Mars is a turn-based strategy game. That means it’s not nearly as fast-paced as the other Zone of the Enders games, but there is an aiming reticle for targeting enemies, so this is more action-oriented than the typical strategy game.

While Kojima wasn’t directly involved in the development of The Fist of Mars, the writing is surprisingly strong, hitting all the right dramatic and philosophical notes that mecha fans have come to expect from the genre.

8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2003 | Griptonite Games

EA released a couple of solid beat ‘em ups for consoles to coincide with the release of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the GBA versions are actually even better than those largely beloved adaptations. Like The Two Towers tie-in released a year prior, The Return of the King is basically Diablo in Middle Earth.

There are a whopping eight different playable characters pulled from the movie. Despite the technical constraints of the GBA, each of those characters plays completely differently. Aragorn is the classic warrior, Legolas is the able-bodied archer, and Gandalf uses magic to fell waves of orcs. They’re even all completely customizable with their own weapons and equipment.

Read more

Games

25 Best Game Boy Advance Games

By Chris Freiberg

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Castlevania: Why the Game Boy Advance Games Are Worth Revisiting

By Chris Freiberg

The GBA version of Return of the King still stands out as one of the best Lord of the Rings games ever made, and future games inspired by Tolkien’s books would do well take a few cues from it. 

7. Summon Night: Swordcraft Story

2006 | Flight-Plan

Thanks to lower development costs, the GBA featured many experiments that led to unusual combinations of genres. For instance, whereas many dungeon crawlers are typically slow, plodding affairs, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story sped things up through fast-paced, real-time battles inspired by the Tales of series. Battles in Swordcraft Story story are an absolute joy since you’re doing more than just scrolling through menus.

The sequel, released just a few months later on the GBA, is also worth checking out. Sadly, while the Summon Night main series is still chugging along, the Swordcraft Story subseries looks to be abandoned at this point. 

6. Klonoa: Empire of Dreams

2001 | Namco

For a brief period in the early 2000s, the Klonoa series felt like it was on the verge of becoming a household name. All of the games were praised for their tight, diverse platforming, and the series’ word of mouth was generally strong, but the games just never seemed to reach a large audience.

Empire of Dreams is a side-story set between the events of the two console Klonoa games. It features the same use of the “wind bullet” to capture enemies and the same creative level design as its console big brothers. While it can’t pull off the 3D effects featured in those games, impressive multiplane backgrounds and advanced rotation effects do help it stand out among the GBA’s crowded library of platformers. 

5. Rebelstar: Tactical Command

2005 | Codo Technologies

Don’t be fooled by the Rebelstar name: this is actually an X-Com game through and through. While there’s no base building or resource management in this GBA title, that classic tactical combat against an alien threat that defines the X-Com series can be found here in all its glory. Then again, what else would you expect? Rebelstar was created by the same guy behind X-Com, Julian Gollop.

Of course, this being a GBA game, Rebelstar’s visuals aren’t quite up to par with an X-Com title. In fact, some may find its more cartoony style jarring when paired with this style of gameplay, but Rebelstar certainly makes for a unique experience compared to the other tactics games out there.

4. Yggdra Union

2006 | Sting Entertainment

The final days of any gaming platform are a dark time typically defined by sporadic releases and shovelware. Yet, every now and then, a bright spot appears for those gamers who haven’t yet moved on to the next generation. As a deep mix of tactical RPG mechanics and card battles bolstered by some of the best 2D graphics on the portable, Yggdra Union is one of the better games released in the GBA’s post-DS era.

While the game’s story isn’t great, the regular banter between party members is charming, and there is a lot of content to keep you busy if the gameplay manages to hook you. A Switch port was even released in Japan last year, so keep your fingers crossed that it makes its way stateside. 

3. Drill Dozer

2006 | Game Freak

Game Freak will always be known for the massively successful Pokemon franchise, but the developer has occasionally dabbled in other genres. The best of those experiments has to be Drill Dozer: a game about drilling. Need to go forward? Try drilling. Backward? Also drilling. What about jumping? Yeah, that actually involves drilling, too. It sounds repetitive, but there are so many different ways use to Jill’s Drill Dozer that the mechanic actually never wears out its welcome.

It might be tempting to check out Drill Dozer via emulation, but it’s actually worth tracking down the original cartridge for this one since it’s one of only two GBA games to feature a rumble back in the cart. It adds quite a lot to the experience.

2. Astro Boy: Omega Factor

2004 | Treasure

A handheld game based on an anime that hasn’t been popular in the United States since the ‘60s sounds like a recipe for disaster, but legendary Japanese developer Treasure could do no wrong in the ‘90s and early 2000s. Like most of the games in the Treasure catalog, Astro Boy: Omega Factor features fast arcade gameplay, massive screen-filling special attacks, and some of the most beautiful sprites the GBA could produce.

Though Treasure was once a prolific developer, responsible for classics like Ikaruga and Sin & Punishment, the company has gone quiet in recent years. The studio hasn’t even released a game stateside in the last decade. However, a re-release of this gem could mark a great comeback for the legendary developer if the licensing could be worked out.

1. Ninja Five-O

2003 | Hudson Soft

Ninja Five-O should have been a system seller for the GBA. The game feels like a lost classic from the 16-bit era. It’s a beautiful combination of Ninja Gaiden and Bionic Commando bolstered by tight controls and an over-the-top story about a magic-wielding ninja who is also a cop. Anyone who has managed to track down a copy swears up and down that it’s one of the very best experiences on the handheld.

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Yet, Ninja Five-O was set up to fail from the start. It’s unknown how many copies were made, but it was nearly impossible to find one at the time of its release. Even though the game was developed in Japan, it was never even released there. Media outlets also barely covered it. Yet, the legend of Joe Osugi has only grown over the years, with complete copies of this game regularly selling on eBay for around $1,000. Even an authentic standalone cartridge will set you back several hundred dollars. You know what, though? It’s actually one of the few rare games that may be worth the price. It really is as good as you’ve heard.

The post 15 Underrated Game Boy Advance Games appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[daleisgreat]

Nintendo Quest

Somehow I went five years without hearing about the documentary that hit in 2015, Nintendo Quest (trailer). Upon hearing its premise, I immediately ordered a copy online and the DVD only sat in my backlog box for two days before I popped it in. The premise is simple, video game fanatic Jay Bartlett sets himself a goal to collect all 678 officially licensed NES games for North America within 30 days. All purchases must be done grass roots style on the road and in person, with no online ordering and all with his own personal funds and no fundraising assistance whatsoever. He maps out a journey from his home in Toronto all the way down to Florida to hit up hotspot retro game shops and personal collectors in hopes of achieving and documenting his journey. As a longtime fan and collector of video games going back to the Atari VCS/2600 and NES days I can relate to the experience of perusing never-ending racks of NES games at retro game shops, and buying lots of games from fellow collectors. I have never set out to collect the complete library of a major platform before, and then with the ambitious goal to do it within 30 days with no online ordering on top of that lofty destination. For what it is worth I do have all five Sega 32X CD games and all North American Power Pad games for the NES (that is if you count World Class Track Meet in place of Stadium Events, do not be silly now). As a fan of retro games, and retro game collecting, Nintendo Quest’s subject material is 1000% up my alley, and I have no idea why I did not hear of it for five years since its release.

Watching Bartlett start his quest off day one by buying games from local friends and retro shops did a good job establishing what I was in for with a running graphical tracker of key games purchased at each stop, and an especially useful top 20 chart of the rarest NES games that is updated throughout his travels. Shop owners, friends and even rivals that get in his way of purchases are interviewed throughout elaborating on their passion, and occasionally haggle back and forth with Jay on negotiations. I do appreciate that for most major purchases Jay makes he respects the dealer’s privacy and does not divulge how much he paid for games off his top 20 rare games list. The hour and a half documentary has welcomed breaks from Jay’s journey with scenes dedicated to NES culture, fandom and history. An early scene is a condensed two minute animated history of Nintendo leading up to the NES launch that is well done and hits all the appropriate bullet points in that duration. Another brief scene is interviewing a variety of veteran developers on the 101 of NES game design, and another interviews game composers about the perpetual love for 8-bit chiptune music. Two of my favorite scenes of this nature involve the early days of pro videogame competition with an interview with the self-proclaimed “first pro gamer,” Todd Rodgers and an interview NES box cover artist Marc Ericksen, who explains how he came up with the much talked about box art for Mega Man 2.

Any NES enthusiast can vouch for Stadium Events being the crowned jewel of officially released NES games to collect. Nintendo Quest does its research on justifying why that game is so sought after, and one of the primary over-arching themes of the documentary is Jay consistently exchanging calls with a collector in order to procure a copy. It is where Jay’s adventure undoubtedly gets the most dicey, and the movie had me reeled in for the ride as Jay tried to hammer out the fine details to get the coveted Stadium Events. Bartlett’s frequent revisiting to acquire the rarest of NES games and seeing how he succeeds or fails at it is easily the highlight of the film (no spoilers here). I was surprised at the complete lack of bonuses for the DVD. Almost all past documentaries I have covered here are usually loaded with unused interviews and cut footage, and that is a missed opportunity here. For what it is worth there are some nicely animated pixel-art menus, and for an indie film I always appreciate the implementation of subtitles. Regardless of that, if you are a retro game collector or just a fan of the NES itself, then Nintendo Quest is the perfect dose of 8-bit nostalgia that presents a feature unlike any other videogame documentary yet. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Payback (Director’s Cut) Pulp Fiction The Punisher (1989) The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Pilgrim vs the World The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[dracotheocracy]

i bet godot smells like coffee in the same way smokers smell like cigarettes

[dracotheocracy]

what the fuck is he talking about

[dracotheocracy]

if i had a nickel samurai costume for every time the judge said "hmm i think i've come to a verdict. whats your final thoughts wright?" and wright's final thoughts extended the trial for at least 10 more minutes i'd have enough nickel samurai costumes to commit 2 murders as opposed to just one

[dracotheocracy]

finally started playing ace attorney after 5+ years of seeing those gay lawyers on my dash. i could have liveblogged it to tumblr but i didn't because i streamed most of it for a friend who'd already played the games but here are some screenshots of my live discord reactions for when i wasn't doing that:

[dracotheocracy]

phoenix wright with his head in his hands sprite will never be the same to me now that i know the first time in the whole series it showed up was during farewell my turnabout. the aura of despair it radiates is no longer comical i get fucked up about it now when i see it

[dracotheocracy]

pokemon mystery dungeon hit like if you agree

[dracotheocracy]

if my childhood best friend and the guy i went to law school for left for what is all intents and purposes a suicide note at his workplace and then vanished off the face of the earth before reappearing after a year as if he didn't lead me to believe he was dead for a whole fucking calendar year i would beat him to death and upon getting arrested and put on trial for his murder i would say "it was me. i did it i killed him i don't regret it and given the opportunity i would do so again"

[dracotheocracy]

finished turnabout memories.

[dracotheocracy]

i'm a wendy oldbag fujoshi truther

[dracotheocracy]

phoenix wright being a bit of a fucking liar hasn't gotten very much attention in the meta posting i've seen over the years. which is interesting because i keep watching him lie to his co-counsels (kinda) and i a) wasn't expecting that and b) fucking love it when protagonists eat hot chip and lie. like when he didn't tell ema skye her fingerprints were on neil marshall's vest. or when he asked pearl fey to channel mia for the second day of 2-2's trial because morgan fey was testifying against maya and not for. like you go mr lawyer man keep lying to your friends i love it when fictional characters do that

[dracotheocracy]

the original localization of the first ace attorney trilogy is not very good... in fact i think the quality of AA2's localization is worse than AA1's

i'm going to take this opportunity to ramble about localization :)

i get the impression ace attorney was probably a challenge to localize and none of the mistakes are so egregious that they detract from my understanding of what's going on but there's a lot of grammatical mistakes and a few misused words/sayings like here's just the stuff i noticed in like. 2-3

von karma says "silver" when the proper word to use given the rest of her sentence was "sliver". i don't remember precisely her dialogue but it was something like silver of sense or silver of doubt which is not how that saying works

they also use rouse instead of ruse at one point when phoenix is trying to calculate von karma's next move. "see through her rouse" or whatever. rouse is a verb, first of all

they use the wrong form of it's/its twice

actually they just overuse the apostrophe a lot in general there's also a time where they use an apostrophe on a plural noun. "acrobat's put their life on the line" as opposed to "acrobats put their life on the life"

probably the most hilarious mistake: at one point the judge tells phoenix he's done a great job thus far of "fingering the witness". they definitely meant "pointing a finger at" and probably just verbed finger as a way to save space on dialogue. but like. brother there is a world of difference between phoenix wright pointing a finger at a witness and phoenix wright fingering a witness. those two sentences do not mean the same thing

i'm not pressed about it, like i'm sure the remasters correct a lot of this anyway, i'm only playing the original original trilogy because uhhhh well i think the remasters were made for the 3DS and i don't have citra

in any case in my limited experience i think this level of quality is typical for localizations of this era. if memory serves (<- guy who did a lot of research into the history and functions of localization like 4 years ago and only retained about half of it) localization for video games was a nascent industry in the 90s and it wasn't often being carried out by people who knew what they were doing- generally there weren't a lot of people working on it and there weren't many third party localizers game companies could hire to do their work for them yet. so a decent amount of localizations in the 90s were carried out by like 2 or 3 people on the dev team relying on a japanese to english dictionary, which is how we got some of those famous mistranslations like "all of your base are belong to me". things were getting more sophisticated by the early 2000s so like, they got a lot better. but i remember the official localization of FE7 also suffered a little- i don't remember it being as noticeably shaky as AA's but i mean. dialogue is a much more central part of a visual novel's gameplay in comparison to an SRPG. like yeah FE7 had story cutscenes but the gameplay is still largely dialogue-less

anyway. ace attorney good. sorry for being an english major (lapsed)

[dracotheocracy]

new year new pinned post

mars, he/him, over 18 etc etc etc

i have an art blog @dracomonarchy

#but maaarrrsss! is literally any post i made myself #oc posting is exactly what it says on the tin #trashfire media containment breach is for when i post about stories i really hated or thought could be better or loved despite various flaws #mars revisits his gamer roots sometimes i play video games. only sometimes though

send me asks i don't bite :) send me asks about my ocs even... i'll love you forever... i'm trying to make it a little easier and everything too

[dracotheocracy]

struck by the sudden urge to make an unnecessarily long pinned post

hi! name’s mars like marth fire emblem but not, or alternatively a misspelling of maes hughes from fullmetal alchemist (fullmetal alchemist)

he/him, over 18

art blog: @dracomonarchy

#but maaarrrsss! is my original/personal posts tag for when i think i’m funny. sometimes i’m right. #trashfire media containment breach is for original posts and asks that involve me talking at length about an existing property i’ve been mentally ill about at least once #mars revisits his gamer roots sometimes i play games i don’t finish

big fan of - fire emblem - hollow knight - pokemon mystery dungeon - danny phantom - TTRPGs in general i guess - spy fiction - police procedural dramas that aired from 2010-2014 starring matt bomer and tim dekay (there’s only one of these) - procedural dramas in general, actually - trace amounts of other games and tv shows

big hater of - james bond - the irregular at magic high school - police procedural dramas that aired from 2010-2014 starring matt bomer and tim dekay (there’s only one of these)

INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

“why did you include a list of things you hate” so nobody is surprised if they encounter a 3k word post about ian fleming being homophobic on their dash in a few months. i greatly enjoyed all of the above media not because they were a good experience but because they were either completely out of touch with reality or like watching a 60 car pileup on the highway which is why i feel the need to share

“will you talk about your OCs” only if prompted in which case i will do so with great gusto and minimal coherence. i promise if i ever make an OC sideblog i’ll make a directory the problem is that i have 39 OCs that do actually cross my mind with some level of frequency and the number only keeps growing. and also i’m not going to make an OC sideblog

“why won’t you make an OC sideblog” eh

“what is lancer TTRPG” golly i am so glad you asked. it’s a tabletop rpg with BIG ROBOT and it’s extremely cool. all player facing content is free. i would never miss an opportunity to proselytize about lancer go download the pdf right now

“do you frequently post about the fandoms you’re in” i only participate in fandom on april 3rd- the extent of my participation otherwise is reblogging pretty art amid waves upon waves of random funny posts

“what happens on april 3rd” mystery meat aired for the first time in 2004 on april 3rd

“do you actually post about white collar or did you just put it on your list of things you like and hate for no reason” white collar posting used to go against my principles (something about me very heavily disagreeing with its politics and not wanting to give off the impression that this isn’t the case) but then i started writing essays on it for shits, so. ask me what i know about lie detector tests and police procedurals sometime