Topic: If the original GBA had been as good as the SP+...

[Abnormal Freak]

I would have bought more games for it. As it stands, I don't have all that many, so I'm asking for recommendations. Hopefully the carts won't be too expensive to track down.

By the way, I really do wish the original model had a backlight. Maybe I can somehow mod the thing, even though I'm not tech-savvy... I like the wider design more than the cramping SP model. (The fact that the SP doesn't have a headphone jack is also a downer.) Only thing that sucked was getting the screen all full of thumb smudges since the screen is too close to the buttons.

These are the games I own, by the way:

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance
Donkey Kong Country 3 (only bought it to hear the new myoozaks by D. Wise)
Gunstar Super Heroes
Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Metroid Fusion
Metroid: Zero Mission
Sonic Advance

These are all awesome with perhaps the exception of Sonic Advance, which I remember not being all too fond of.

I already know I want Astro Boy: Omega Factor. Played a bit of that and thought it was awesome. Been meaning to check out the Mega Man Zero games... They good? And also, somehow a second Kirby game had passed me by, Kirby & the Amazing Mirror; I like Flagship's Kirby: Squeak Squad, so I imagine I'd like their GBA game.

Also, heck, let's extend this into GB and GBC games as well. I barely have ANY of those. I think the only Color game I own is Bionic Commando: Elite Forces, which is tits. I don't even own the first two GB Castlevania games.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Originally, before the SP came out, they had Mod Kits for the old GBA version which would give you a small backlight.  The premise was that you would buy a GBA from them and they would mod it and ship it to you.  Alternately, you could send them your GBA and pay for the 'operation' and then they would ship it back to you with the light mod.  They were beginning to become quite popular and then Nintendo hit 'em with the bombshell of the GBA ReDesign.

I don't know what happened to those people afterwards.

[Ray]

If you can stand the stress and the wario voiceclips I would recommend warioware and especially Warioware Twisted.
The "A Link to the past/ Four Swords" is a great value for money cartridge as well in my opinion.

I haven't played astroboy for myself yet but the animation looks great.
If the Final Fantasy VI conversion for the gba is half decent that should be good-if you like that sort of game.

[MOSH42393]

the minish cap was a great game. its supposedly the first of the zelda timeline. it explains the reason for the weird hat. . but hey its a great game you should check it out. and the gba sp wasnt too good. it was very uncomfortable in comparrison to the GBA. i suggest u get a DS lite. the gba games seem more vivid in color and the sound quality is better.

[Abnormal Freak]

the minish cap was a great game. its supposedly the first of the zelda timeline. it explains the reason for the weird hat. . but hey its a great game you should check it out. and the gba sp wasnt too good. it was very uncomfortable in comparrison to the GBA. i suggest u get a DS lite. the gba games seem more vivid in color and the sound quality is better.

I own the SP+, which is the one with backlight. The brightness and crispness rivals the DS Lite's screen, and GBA games look even better on it because the image fills the entire screen. The DS has higher resolution so GBA games played on the DS screen are noticeably smaller. As for the sound, it's only better on the DS because it has two speakers and GBA games are in stereo. I just wish the SP had a headphone jack, as this would solve the problem.

All things considering, I wouldn't mind playing GBA games on the DS Lite, but there's one thing preventing me from doing it--the fact that you can't reconfigure the buttons! On an SNES controller I'm fine with playing two-button games using the B and A buttons, but as far as I know the buttons are spaced differently and not as evenly. The DS face buttons form a perfect square diamond, which makes it insanely weird and unnatural for me to play intense action games using the B and A buttons.

[MOSH42393]

In Reply To #5

i had that problem but in an hour i got used to it. but it is different for everyone

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

In Reply To #5

I picked up a real cheap real good Headphone Jack for the GBA-SP from MadCatz.  Basically it'd turn the charger port into a headphone jack.

You might look into it.  It's a cheap solution to your problem.

[Abnormal Freak]

Cooooool. Didn't even know they had those. Still pretty stupid to have to use an adapter, though.

So far not finding any search results for the Mad Catz one, but Nintendo has an official one on their online store for $4.25 (plus whatever shipping is). Looks like I'll probably buy that.

Edit: Oh my! In total with $2.00 shipping as well as sales tax, the adapter came out to $6.66!

[Abnormal Freak]

Ugh, Nintendo's headphone adapter sucks my left nut. There's this slight buzzing sound, which isn't as noticeable when music is playing and such, but it still sucks, especially considering using headphones on the original GBA model doesn't have this problem.

Also, you have to really cram the headphone jack plug into the socket to get it fully in there. Grrargh!

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

In Reply To #9

How odd!  Well I know the one I've got is not a Nintendo one, but I don't remember such a noise...

...then again, Nintendo's is faulty?  That's pretty weird.

Oddly enough, when I run a Google Image Search for the Headphone Adapter that I own, I get NO IMAGES! :O

I'm going to have to take my own picture of it when I get home.  The ones featured online are a jack with a cable, and then the cable goes into the plug for the AC Charger for the GBA-SP.  The one I got was just an attachment for the Charger.  How weird.

[MOSH42393]

In Reply To #10maybe its the headphone jack of hell. or just not that popular. and a nintendo heaphone jack beigg faulty sounds weird to me ill have to look into that one. but i did a google image esearch and i found an odd little too that let u use the gba sp as a tv screen for consoles... that has a headphone jack!!!! i find that pointless but hey who am i to judge. and another really good gba game is metroid fusion. look into it, its just a plain good game

[The Last Belmont]

I would have bought more games for it. As it stands, I don't have all that many, so I'm asking for recommendations. Hopefully the carts won't be too expensive to track down.

I agree, the SP kicks major ass and should have been what nintendo launched instead of the original advance. The backlight is a must have with that type of system. It's why I didn't get one of the original models. With that kind of graphical detail and output it's imperative to have an efficient lightsource that lights up the entire screen at an equal level of intensity. Buying the original advance was like buying a monitor without a built in screenlite to me.

[MOSH42393]

In Reply To #12

well the original advance feels better in your hands the lack of backlight made me furious. but and answer to all of your problems is the micro. ots surprisingly comfortable and has an incredible backlight you should get one... or not its your choice

[Tigersmask]

The GBA has so many good games for it, really just depends on your tastes.

Astro Boy: fantastic fun, it's a pretty difficult little side scrolling shooter with some levels in mega man style, with some nice little custumization options tack onto it.

Mega Man Zero: Really really difficult but fun if you can get past the initial learning curve.  In other mega man games you were encouraged to explore each level fully and find hidden items and such.  Imagine those levels only 2-3 times bigger.  Now add in the idea that to get the robot masters item after you defeat him, each level must be completed in a strict time limit (2-5 minutes).  Thats the Zero games in a nutshell. Very frustrating but once you figure out how they work they are very rewarding.

Beyond those two there's the River City Ransom, and Double Dragon remakes if you like brawlers.  There's two Fire Emblem games, both Advance Wars, the two Super Robot Taison games, and Final Fantasy Tactics if you like tactical/strategy RPGs.  The aforementioned Zelda games (I'd add Oracle of Seasons/Ages on GBColor, and Link's Awakening on GameBoy to that list.)  There's also a GTA game that plays very much like the first two top down computer games with a storyline similar to GTA3 that I'd recommend.  Other than the above you've got most of the other games I'd classify as "must owns" so you should be good for awhile.