I remember buying the issue of EGM with DS vs. PSP as the cover story. As the bookstore cashier rung me up he asked me which one I thought would win. I didn’t have a horse in the race but I said DS, knowing Nintendo’s long history with portables. Never thought it would become what is probably Nintendo’s greatest handheld!
While my heart will always be with the OG, I’m a big fan of the GBA. I had one re-shelled to look like the DMG. Surprisingly though I didn’t play many GBA titles, I mainly used it to play my OG and color games.
Good sum-up. Never owned a portable after GBA (besides the Switch), so I learned some things about the DS and 3DS here. For me, it was mostly a change in life circumstances: I went away to college. Sitting in the back seat for days during family road trips was over, as were the high school debate tournaments, with their hours of dead time and hours driving around in our school's bus.
I picked up the GBA close to launch and loved the games and the graphics, but the lack of backlight did cause considerable annoyance -- as I had been a Game Gear kid, in this respect the GBA was STILL a step back from my treasured device 10 years earlier. The SP came a little too late for me; would have loved it if this was how the GBA launched.
One thing I'm surprised you didn't say about the GBA, given your opinion of the SNES, is that it WAS in a sense the portable SNES. This means that GBA games have a certain timelessness (especially if played on a small screen, as intended) relative to older 3D games. Maybe it's also my personal taste, but I really think simpler 2D graphics are better for portable gaming. It feels less downgraded, and like there's less detail I'm missing out on, compared to playing 3D games (or even more detailed 2D games) this way.
I was already somewhat nostalgic for the SNES and 2D gaming by the time the GBA launched, and had even already gotten into SNES emulation, so I was truly excited for this console and the return to that era it represented. And as I said, the games didn't disappoint, even if the visibility of the screen did.
The GBA was the closest Nintendo came to a portable SNES, it's true, but the GBA's library doesn't quite measure up to the SNES. Also, if I may nitpick, the GBA's graphics aren't nearly as rich and warm as the SNES'. I love the GBA, and for years considered it SNES part 2, but I think the latter name isn't entirely accurate now.
I do agree though that simpler 2D graphics excel with portable gaming. Unless the screens are larger a la the 3DS XL, it can be hard to make out all the detail in 3D portable titles.
I would say it's sound, more than graphics, that sets the GBA back. But I'll think about the "rich and warm" observation next time I play a GBA game. SNES games look better on a TV, but I attributed this to resolution; on a small screen (e.g., emulation on Switch), SNES isn't obviously better to me.
What do you see as the biggest weakness of the GBA library vs. SNES? 2-player games should probably be left out of the discussion. With that caveat, the SNES edge isn't so obvious to me but maybe I'm missing something.
I'd probably say the glaring hole for GBA is top-tier standard 2D platformers that aren't ports. Is this the only Nintendo console without a new (non-port) mainline Mario game? I guess Wario Land 4 is the closest equivalent, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the SNES Mario and DKC games. The Mario Advance platformers WERE improved on GBA but deserve a penalty for not being nearly as fresh as the first time around.
But in terms of other types of platformers: GBA had a top-tier puzzle platformer in Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I think SNES had nothing in this sub-genre, which is odd when even NES had Solomon's Key and Fire & Ice. And then there's Metroidvanias. GBA has at least 2 that are truly great, vs. 1 on SNES.
For me personally, as a weirdo, I missed Koei on GBA. Not sure if anyone else noticed or cared.
SNES of course had legendary JRPGs, some of which are ported and expanded on GBA (but not Chrono Trigger), while I guess Golden Sun isn't quite as good as the best of SNES. Though GBA DID have both new and remade Pokemon games. Mario & Luigi seems better than Mario RPG though I never finished it. Close to a wash?
When it comes to tactics games (a longtime favorite of mine), both RPGs and not, GBA whips SNES's tail. Only game I can even think of on SNES is the original Ogre Battle, which I never liked.
Lastly there's also the Mario Advance sports games, which SNES has no answer to.
Biggest weakness of the GBA library would definitely have to be the plethora of licensed games and just all-around crap that developers like to shove onto portable systems.
I know the SNES has a ton of licensed stuff too, most every game console does, but for whatever reason, portables tend to receive an amazing glut of the stuff and so little of it is worth playing.
Couple that with a lot of lackluster SNES ports (to me, not necessarily to everyone), and I'd say, pound for pound, the GBA just can't measure up.
Obviously the GBA has a fair amount of great games, the best of which stand up to the SNES library, but the chaff far outweighs the wheat, I think.
I suppose that's an interesting question. Do you judge a console's library based on its average game or how deep a bench it has of good/great games? I'd mostly say the good and great. Of course, modern consoles would all fare very poorly by the "average game" measure -- the expansion of shovelware has been exponential with the growth of downloadable software. Though at least today's shovelware is pretty cheap, while the licensed crap of yesteryear would have you paying full price.
Though in favor of the "average game" idea -- I can say that by the time the GBA arrived, I had long since learned my lesson when it came to crappy licensed games, hence they were invisible to me. For a kid much younger than me who hadn't learned this lesson, that library might have led to some awful choices. And I don't recall GBA games being available for rental, so those would have been much costlier choices than my SNES Home Alone rental.
Sounds like a good question for an article, honestly!
In general, yeah, I'd say a console is judged by its good to great games, but also, how much nostalgia people have with it and if those games have aged well/influenced future generations in a significant way. The NES, regardless of its hundreds of mediocre titles, will always be held in high esteem, due to many of its games inventing genres that hadn't existed before.
Good answer. Nostalgia, influence, and how it holds up. Of course, those aren't always the same thing, and then it comes down to how you weight them.
For games holding up, I think you need to grade them on a curve based on how early they were, maybe to some degree how well-known they were, how well they sold. When we grade the NES library as a whole, I'd say a game like Blaster Master needs to be given much more weight than Little Samson, though Samson holds up much better, because duh, it's practically a SNES game, and no one ever played it or heard of it.
If I say, "The NES was a great console because it had great platformers like Little Samson," something's wrong with that sentence.
I talked before about how the N64 was largely about the multiplayer for me. And when I think about gaming as a hobby, I would say local multiplayer is the best part of it, the source of all my best memories, and these days most of my gaming is with my family. But the thing about old local multiplayer games is they are almost all pure nostalgia. They tend to age worse. And even if they've aged OK, no one wants to play them with you, except maybe to humor you for 5 minutes. So they're really hard to grade in retrospect.
For me, Secret of Mana epitomizes this. Huge part of my childhood. But every criticism of it is valid. Aside from the graphics and music, every aspect of that game ranges from "aged poorly" to "was a bad idea even then." I wouldn't even say it had a positive influence on anything; I think Diablo would have existed regardless. But the FUN was real.
So if I say, "The SNES was a great console because of great 2-player games like Secret of Mana," there's some truth there. But if you never played a real live SNES and it just exists for you as a ROM dump in your private bunker, you would never think that.
I remember buying the issue of EGM with DS vs. PSP as the cover story. As the bookstore cashier rung me up he asked me which one I thought would win. I didn’t have a horse in the race but I said DS, knowing Nintendo’s long history with portables. Never thought it would become what is probably Nintendo’s greatest handheld!
Oh man, I remember that issue! Didn't most of the editors pick PSP as their favorite? I seem to remember that.
Yep, most of them did. The PSP was a pretty good handheld, one of my friends got one when they were new. She seemed pretty happy with it.
The PSP was great, but I especially liked when it became this weird Japanese game niche machine in the late 2000s.
While my heart will always be with the OG, I’m a big fan of the GBA. I had one re-shelled to look like the DMG. Surprisingly though I didn’t play many GBA titles, I mainly used it to play my OG and color games.
The GBA's backwards compatibility is pretty awesome!
Good sum-up. Never owned a portable after GBA (besides the Switch), so I learned some things about the DS and 3DS here. For me, it was mostly a change in life circumstances: I went away to college. Sitting in the back seat for days during family road trips was over, as were the high school debate tournaments, with their hours of dead time and hours driving around in our school's bus.
I picked up the GBA close to launch and loved the games and the graphics, but the lack of backlight did cause considerable annoyance -- as I had been a Game Gear kid, in this respect the GBA was STILL a step back from my treasured device 10 years earlier. The SP came a little too late for me; would have loved it if this was how the GBA launched.
One thing I'm surprised you didn't say about the GBA, given your opinion of the SNES, is that it WAS in a sense the portable SNES. This means that GBA games have a certain timelessness (especially if played on a small screen, as intended) relative to older 3D games. Maybe it's also my personal taste, but I really think simpler 2D graphics are better for portable gaming. It feels less downgraded, and like there's less detail I'm missing out on, compared to playing 3D games (or even more detailed 2D games) this way.
I was already somewhat nostalgic for the SNES and 2D gaming by the time the GBA launched, and had even already gotten into SNES emulation, so I was truly excited for this console and the return to that era it represented. And as I said, the games didn't disappoint, even if the visibility of the screen did.
The GBA was the closest Nintendo came to a portable SNES, it's true, but the GBA's library doesn't quite measure up to the SNES. Also, if I may nitpick, the GBA's graphics aren't nearly as rich and warm as the SNES'. I love the GBA, and for years considered it SNES part 2, but I think the latter name isn't entirely accurate now.
I do agree though that simpler 2D graphics excel with portable gaming. Unless the screens are larger a la the 3DS XL, it can be hard to make out all the detail in 3D portable titles.
Thanks for the comment!
I would say it's sound, more than graphics, that sets the GBA back. But I'll think about the "rich and warm" observation next time I play a GBA game. SNES games look better on a TV, but I attributed this to resolution; on a small screen (e.g., emulation on Switch), SNES isn't obviously better to me.
What do you see as the biggest weakness of the GBA library vs. SNES? 2-player games should probably be left out of the discussion. With that caveat, the SNES edge isn't so obvious to me but maybe I'm missing something.
I'd probably say the glaring hole for GBA is top-tier standard 2D platformers that aren't ports. Is this the only Nintendo console without a new (non-port) mainline Mario game? I guess Wario Land 4 is the closest equivalent, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the SNES Mario and DKC games. The Mario Advance platformers WERE improved on GBA but deserve a penalty for not being nearly as fresh as the first time around.
But in terms of other types of platformers: GBA had a top-tier puzzle platformer in Mario vs. Donkey Kong. I think SNES had nothing in this sub-genre, which is odd when even NES had Solomon's Key and Fire & Ice. And then there's Metroidvanias. GBA has at least 2 that are truly great, vs. 1 on SNES.
For me personally, as a weirdo, I missed Koei on GBA. Not sure if anyone else noticed or cared.
SNES of course had legendary JRPGs, some of which are ported and expanded on GBA (but not Chrono Trigger), while I guess Golden Sun isn't quite as good as the best of SNES. Though GBA DID have both new and remade Pokemon games. Mario & Luigi seems better than Mario RPG though I never finished it. Close to a wash?
When it comes to tactics games (a longtime favorite of mine), both RPGs and not, GBA whips SNES's tail. Only game I can even think of on SNES is the original Ogre Battle, which I never liked.
Lastly there's also the Mario Advance sports games, which SNES has no answer to.
Biggest weakness of the GBA library would definitely have to be the plethora of licensed games and just all-around crap that developers like to shove onto portable systems.
I know the SNES has a ton of licensed stuff too, most every game console does, but for whatever reason, portables tend to receive an amazing glut of the stuff and so little of it is worth playing.
Couple that with a lot of lackluster SNES ports (to me, not necessarily to everyone), and I'd say, pound for pound, the GBA just can't measure up.
Obviously the GBA has a fair amount of great games, the best of which stand up to the SNES library, but the chaff far outweighs the wheat, I think.
I suppose that's an interesting question. Do you judge a console's library based on its average game or how deep a bench it has of good/great games? I'd mostly say the good and great. Of course, modern consoles would all fare very poorly by the "average game" measure -- the expansion of shovelware has been exponential with the growth of downloadable software. Though at least today's shovelware is pretty cheap, while the licensed crap of yesteryear would have you paying full price.
Though in favor of the "average game" idea -- I can say that by the time the GBA arrived, I had long since learned my lesson when it came to crappy licensed games, hence they were invisible to me. For a kid much younger than me who hadn't learned this lesson, that library might have led to some awful choices. And I don't recall GBA games being available for rental, so those would have been much costlier choices than my SNES Home Alone rental.
Sounds like a good question for an article, honestly!
In general, yeah, I'd say a console is judged by its good to great games, but also, how much nostalgia people have with it and if those games have aged well/influenced future generations in a significant way. The NES, regardless of its hundreds of mediocre titles, will always be held in high esteem, due to many of its games inventing genres that hadn't existed before.
I'll have to think more on this one!
Good answer. Nostalgia, influence, and how it holds up. Of course, those aren't always the same thing, and then it comes down to how you weight them.
For games holding up, I think you need to grade them on a curve based on how early they were, maybe to some degree how well-known they were, how well they sold. When we grade the NES library as a whole, I'd say a game like Blaster Master needs to be given much more weight than Little Samson, though Samson holds up much better, because duh, it's practically a SNES game, and no one ever played it or heard of it.
If I say, "The NES was a great console because it had great platformers like Little Samson," something's wrong with that sentence.
I talked before about how the N64 was largely about the multiplayer for me. And when I think about gaming as a hobby, I would say local multiplayer is the best part of it, the source of all my best memories, and these days most of my gaming is with my family. But the thing about old local multiplayer games is they are almost all pure nostalgia. They tend to age worse. And even if they've aged OK, no one wants to play them with you, except maybe to humor you for 5 minutes. So they're really hard to grade in retrospect.
For me, Secret of Mana epitomizes this. Huge part of my childhood. But every criticism of it is valid. Aside from the graphics and music, every aspect of that game ranges from "aged poorly" to "was a bad idea even then." I wouldn't even say it had a positive influence on anything; I think Diablo would have existed regardless. But the FUN was real.
So if I say, "The SNES was a great console because of great 2-player games like Secret of Mana," there's some truth there. But if you never played a real live SNES and it just exists for you as a ROM dump in your private bunker, you would never think that.