Love the GBA SP, really nice look back here at the GBA lineup. The Micro is such a silly Nintendo thing to do, of course it has the best features!
My only quibble is you saying the GBA has arguably better graphics than the SNES. Perhaps in terms of detail, the GBA has the SNES beat. But one thing I don't like about the GBA is how cold and brittle the graphics look compared to the warmth of the SNES' graphics.
I might be biased, though, the SNES is one of the greatest consoles of all time.
I think a big reason for that 'brittle' look is the LCD screen. It's a topic I've been meaning to write an article on for months now but I think 8/16bit games tend to look like crap when not displayed on a CRT.
I got the OG Advance, in fashionable purple, on day one and took it travelling. It was an amazing companion throughout Europe, on all the bus, train and plane trips. At the time it was seriously impressive to be able to carry around such full experience games.
Even still, the non-backlit screen sucked and was a giant pain. I upgraded to the SP when it came out and it was superior, clamshell for the win, but, again, the screen let it down.
I thankfully missed the original model and wound up getting the SP as a birthday gift, which felt like the most incredible upgrade to the original Gameboy imaginable - more portable, better battery, backlit, games that were about on the level of the SNES, which was a generation of home consoles I'd missed, and most importantly for me, could still play Gameboy and GBC games. The fact that it had two fantastic Metroid titles, plus the Castlevanias that began increasingly taking after SotN, while still allowing me to play Metroid 2 without digging out the brick, meant that it was somewhere on my person from the moment I got it until I finally broke down and bought myself a DS. And it's why I kept it to this day - easier to plug in the SP for a little bit than to dig out some fresh AAs for the brick.
I'm absolutely kicking myself for not mentioning the Castlevania and Metroid titles, you make a good point, those are excellent on the GBA.
Thanks for sharing and it's cool that you got to experience some of those SNES essentials, they are a bit compromised on the GBA but the fact that they run at all is pretty spectacular.
Yusss! You wrote it. Great stuff! Such an underrated gem. I must look through my junk to find mine.
My favourite GBA model too, you should definitely track it down :)
Advance Wars 1 and 2 alone could put the GBA's software library in the top 5 of all time.
Love the GBA SP, really nice look back here at the GBA lineup. The Micro is such a silly Nintendo thing to do, of course it has the best features!
My only quibble is you saying the GBA has arguably better graphics than the SNES. Perhaps in terms of detail, the GBA has the SNES beat. But one thing I don't like about the GBA is how cold and brittle the graphics look compared to the warmth of the SNES' graphics.
I might be biased, though, the SNES is one of the greatest consoles of all time.
I think a big reason for that 'brittle' look is the LCD screen. It's a topic I've been meaning to write an article on for months now but I think 8/16bit games tend to look like crap when not displayed on a CRT.
Thanks for reading!
I got the OG Advance, in fashionable purple, on day one and took it travelling. It was an amazing companion throughout Europe, on all the bus, train and plane trips. At the time it was seriously impressive to be able to carry around such full experience games.
Even still, the non-backlit screen sucked and was a giant pain. I upgraded to the SP when it came out and it was superior, clamshell for the win, but, again, the screen let it down.
Nintendo, eh.
Thsy can never just make something good. It's always an improvement in 2 places and a catastrophic downgrade in 3 ithers.
My GBA also followed me in the car in road trips up and down the UK.
Their strategy in this regard is puzzling, but at least they always offer something to talk about! 😆
They're never boring haha, you can give them that
I thankfully missed the original model and wound up getting the SP as a birthday gift, which felt like the most incredible upgrade to the original Gameboy imaginable - more portable, better battery, backlit, games that were about on the level of the SNES, which was a generation of home consoles I'd missed, and most importantly for me, could still play Gameboy and GBC games. The fact that it had two fantastic Metroid titles, plus the Castlevanias that began increasingly taking after SotN, while still allowing me to play Metroid 2 without digging out the brick, meant that it was somewhere on my person from the moment I got it until I finally broke down and bought myself a DS. And it's why I kept it to this day - easier to plug in the SP for a little bit than to dig out some fresh AAs for the brick.
I'm absolutely kicking myself for not mentioning the Castlevania and Metroid titles, you make a good point, those are excellent on the GBA.
Thanks for sharing and it's cool that you got to experience some of those SNES essentials, they are a bit compromised on the GBA but the fact that they run at all is pretty spectacular.