Topic: GC Game Boy Advance Player

[Boochi]

I don't really have the ultimate want to buy a GBA/SP. There's a few GBA games however that I really want (Like 3... possibly 4)... but I'm not a hardcore handheld gamer either.
Do you think it;s a good idea to buy the player?

[Bill Aurion]

3 or 4 games is quite a lot, but ulitimately it banks on how much travel you do...And if you want a DS it'd be wiser to wait for that(if you travel)...If you don't see yourself using your system out of the home then it's more wise to purchase the GBPlayer...

[KDR_11k]

Can't hurt much, the player costs like 50 bucks and makes playing GBA games at home much more comfortable. Though if you look around a bit you'll find much more than four games you'll want.

[Boochi]

It makes more sense to me tho, since I it'll be like getting a cheaper gameboy after buying a cube. And I don't bring a gameboy everywhere either, so I think it's a good idea...

I wanted it for the RPGs ^__^

[MaleficentOgre]

megaman zero is much much better on big screen.  actually most of the gba's action games are better on the big screen.  

[mjbd]

I love my GBP.  I bought it when I found out River City Ransom was coming out on GBA.  Its great for anyone who wants to play GBA games, but doesnt want to play them on a small screen.  I have Super Mario 3, River City Ransom, Double Dragon, and Donkey Kong Country.  All of them look nice, and play very well on the GBP.  

[Mario]

I can't stand the wierd slowdown while playing on GBP, and GBA games generally aren't designed for unportable play, and the fact that the screen is stretched bothers me. GBA > GBP, however both GBA and GBA SP have problems playing GBA games too (GBA = shit screen, GBA SP = washed out colours), so I suggest you get a DS.

[KDR_11k]

Mario: Might I suggest the slowdown to be PAL related?

[Mario]

Oh yeah, I never thought of that, that might explain why I don't hear many other people complaining about it...

[thepoga]

the screen doesn't have to be stretched all the way. it can have a border so it's not screwed up.

[KDR_11k]

Erm, but PAL runs on a lower frequency and I'd assume the GBA is line buffered (the DS definitely is), which makes its clock speed dependant on the screen refresh rate. A coder would expect a certain number of clock cycles for each line of the screen and you cannot screw with that number without screwing up the code. Since there are less lines per second but still the same number of cycles per line and beam reset you'd end up with less cycles per second, i.e. slower games.

[kirby_killer_dedede]

For RPGs, you've got Golden Sun 1, Golden Sun 2, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Final Fantasy 1 & 2 (they come on the same cart), Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga, Breath of Fire, Breath of Fire II,  Lunar Legends, Pokémon Red/Blue/Silver/Gold/Crystal/Ruby/Sapphire/Fire Red/Leaf Green (Emerald's coming soon), MegaMan Battle Network 1/2/3 Blue/3 White/4 Blue/4 Red Sun (5 is coming soon too), Lufia, Sword of Mana, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Classic NES Series: Zelda II, Zoids: Legacy, Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku 2, Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku, Dragon Ball: The Red Ribbon, Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury, Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Bomberman Jetters, Car Battler Joe, CIMA: The Enemy, DemiKids: Dark/Light, Demon Hunter, Dokapon, Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan, Dungeons and Dragons, Fire Emblem 2, Gyakuten Saiban 3, Hamaro: Rainbow Rescue, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Monster Guardians, Monster Rancher Advance, Monster Rancher Advance 2, Mother 1+2...I could go on, but I think you can find more than four games somewhere in there.

[Hostile Creation]

I have one, and no GBA.  I play all my Gameboy Advance games (five of them, so far, soon to be seven) on my Gameboy Player.  It's about forty or fifty dollars, and I'd definitely say it's worth it, if you don't want a handheld.

[Caillan]

Yeah, I just picked up a GBP cheap. I'm borrowing my mate's stock of games, he's been buy at a slow rate for about a decade so there are few actual GBA games in there, but I'd say the original GB games look quite good. I'd buy a few games for myself, but considering they're about 70USD here, I'm not sure if I should boycott or not.

I'm PAL'd but I don't experience any noticable slowdown; though I don't have a GBA to compare anything to.  

[KDR_11k]

Do original GB games look better on the GBP or the SGB?

[mjcatl2]

I got my Cube this Fall and soonafter got the GBP as my initial interest in getting a system after so long were GBA titles not available on home systems.  While I enjoy the few titles I have made for Gamecube.... and maybe I'm getting old, I really like the style of games from the old Nintendo games, classic Mario, Zelda, Castlevania and other 2d games.  I got the Medal of Honor GBA recently and enjoy on the Player more than the "better" Gamecube version.  As cool as the graphics are, I don't prefer shooter games.

[UncleBob]

Anyone with a GameBoy Player, the Hori Digital Controller is a *must* with it...

[ruby_onix]

Quote
Do original GB games look better on the GBP or the SGB?

Both the GBP (in "normal" screen size) and SGB display older games using 2/3 of an NTSC TV. If you change both borders to "black", they look virtually identical, except for the colors.

The original GameBoy was four shades of grey (more like green). The SGB has 32 different preset color palattes you can apply to those four colors, and a "custom" palatte on top of those 32 choices, for massively-vast color options. Classic GameBoy games that were optimized for the SGB have custom color schemes chosen by the makers of the games, which can even change on-the-fly.

The GameBoy Color (and thus, the GBA, and the GBP) has one single color palatte that was chosen by Intelligent Systems to be "reasonably good for all games", and intentionally fits Metroid II perfectly.

So the oldest GameBoy games have more color options with the SGB. Except for Metroid II, which gets it's "creator approved" colors on the GBP.

Older GameBoy games with SGB optimizations (indicated by a small logo on the back of the game's often-discarded box) were color before the GameBoy Color existed, and are best on the SGB.

Older GameBoy games that came in black cartriges were really GameBoy Color games that could be played in an old GameBoy. They usually had SGB optimizations, but were best in the GBC, thus the GBP.

GBC-only games can fit into the cart slot of the SGB, but they don't function.

The SGB totally wins in terms of borders, because "black" is your only real choice for a border on the GBP (because the GBA already gives older games one black border, so it would look funny with anything other than black for your other border), and the unique borders made for SGB-optimized games simply cannot be matched on any other hardware.

[KDR_11k]

So the oldest GameBoy games have more color options with the SGB. Except for Metroid II, which gets it's "creator approved" colors on the GBP.

Correction: The GBC had 12 palettes for GB games. While most get the same default palette some games get their own palettes. I've noticed that Super Mario Land has its own palette. Some other games also select a different than the default palette.

[Caillan]

I've just been playing Mario Land 2 and I did encounter considerable slowdown. Whenever I kill a flying goomba everthing just halts, then takes its time to get back up to speed. It's the same with two moving sprites on screen at once. As far as I can tell, it's movement that seems to be the problem (this was an original GB game.) I found Golden Sun, Sonic Advance and Pokemon all to fine.