Posts Tagged ‘gba’
Podcast: GBA Forever
This week the boys are talking all about the Gameboy Advance. Nintendo’s successor to the extremely popular Gameboy was touted by many as the SNES in your hands. Well it was a lot more than that and we’re talking all about the crazy library of games that reminded us how fond we were of the 16 bit era.
Review: Final Fight CD (Sega CD)
Console: Sega-CD/Mega-CD
Released: 1993
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Sega (Sega/Mega-CD, 32X CD)
Instruction Manual: Not necessary
Difficulty: Hard
Played it as a child? Yes
Value: $21.50 (used) $76.00 (new) (pricecharting.com) – Price for Sega CD version only
Price: $23-$60 (used) N/A on US Version (new) on eBay
Other Releases: Arcade, SNES, Gameboy Advance
Digital Release? Yes – SNES version on Virtual Console ($8), Arcade version on XBLA/PSN as Double Impact ($10)
Final Fight is a pivotal late 80s arcade release for Capcom for two reasons: it established the norms that would make up the concept of the “beat-em-up” genre for its short-lived life (although it oddly enough didn’t introduce any of them) and it created the aesthetic and building blocks of Street Fighter II. Anyone who has played this game or SFII will immediately be familiar with that semi-realistic semi-animated graphical style of Final Fight that remained exclusive to these two titles moving forward for a few sequels (I’m considering the numerous re-hashes of SFII to be sequels). In full disclosure this is my favorite brawler of all time and definitely ranks highly in my overall top games I’ve ever played despite the fact that Final Fight doesn’t translate well to home consoles because it’s intended to take your money and prompt more quarters rather than be completed in a finite number of lives/credits. In order to complete the game in the allotted five credits requires you to memorize the cheaper boss battles and exploit the collision detection. For me it was just repetitive stupid fun.
Day 11
On the eleventh day of Christmas my memories gave to me…
11 Different Gameboy Advance Colors!
Gameboy Advance (GBA) was not the first console to offer multiple colors. In fact, it wasn’t even the first Nintendo or even Gameboy console to do so, but it definitely was the first to push variety. Releasing with seven initial colors, the GBA created the first Christmas where it wasn’t just about getting the right portable for your child, but also the right color. Of course the really popular ones, fuchsia and arctic come to mind, were the first to sell out and the most common, indigo, was the only color left in every retail outlet. Not only did they feature various normal colors, but limited edition colors were offered worldwide, creating a high demand to grab all the various rare (and expensive) GBAs for collectors.
I’d love to say that I’m not guilty of this, but back in 2001 when I went out to purchase a GBA with my Christmas money I hunted at a bunch of stores and didn’t buy the portable for 2 weeks because I didn’t like any of the colors I found. My heart was set on the midnight blue color, which I later discovered was only available at Toys R Us and had its horrendous logo above the screen. I quickly settled for one in glacier, but not before finally finding a midnight blue – in hindsight I probably could have made some money re-selling that thing.
I still think fondly on those times, despite the fact that the GBA would start the trend of console iterations – the GBA SP being such an improvement over the original I couldn’t help but pick it up as well. Anytime I go to a used game store I always browse the GBA consoles for that random shot I could get my hands on the limited Japanese clear orange or spice colors. I think it was the only console cycle where I never had to hunt for a specific game but I always had to hunt for a specific colored console.
Strength in Numbers
Anniversaries. As time progresses everything ages at the same pace and with each passing year a ton of video games hit new milestones. Popular titles from the past can be revisited in short periods of time for the sake of nostalgia or the chance to finally complete a difficult game for the first time¹. Since no one day can go by without something in the video game industry reaching a notable age, it’s no surprise that retro articles are riddled with regular anniversary celebrations. This site will be no exception.
Gaming companies have now begun to celebrate series anniversaries themselves on a more consistent basis. In some cases I feel these creations are warranted, but I find myself frowning a bit when it’s a last-ditch effort to revitalize an intellectual property that should have died off long ago. I think the better anniversary is the for titles that stand on their own and you rarely think about until they are brought up. A perfect example of this is Chrono Trigger. Despite a few remakes and Square’s occasional interest in bringing attention to the title, it’s mostly one for the nostalgia vault. Thankfully, unlike so many other titles, Chrono Trigger holds up today and stands as an individual game even though it technically has two other entries in the series². Oddly enough, even though the game celebrated 15 years in 2010, it received a GBA port on its 13th birthday and didn’t come to virtual console and PSN until this year (its 16th anniversary). This only further proves that incremental numbers aren’t always on a publisher’s top priority list.
Gaming History 101 