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Sharopolis: The Game Boy Advance Is Insanely Powerful Compared to the SNES
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
- Opinion Trailer Hardware
RainblowDash
Gold Member
The tiny screen resolution didn’t do any favors either.
Rykan
Member
Pretty much every single SNES conversion is worse on GBA, so I seriously doubt the statement that the GBA "Smashes" the SNES.
Not in terms of games library though, GBA has an incredible lineup of games that, as far as I'm concerned, can match the SNES easily. It's a crime that the GBA hasn't been added to Switch Online yet.
Not in terms of games library though, GBA has an incredible lineup of games that, as far as I'm concerned, can match the SNES easily. It's a crime that the GBA hasn't been added to Switch Online yet.
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SeasonedInTheAbyss
Member
A 32bit processor was much stronger than the SNES 16bit processor? Who'da'thunk'it
64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
wow a console made in 2001 is more powerful than a console made in 1990? shocker
SeasonedInTheAbyss
Member
I Still do dig my GBA SP.. it was the first handheld I bought since the Game Gear. And as a bonus it had a Shining Force port too.
Rykan
Member
What are you talking about? Nintendo has been producing hit after hit on Switch. The GBA didn't even have it's own unique Mario game. The GBA had the minish cap. Switch has BOTW. It's beyond compare.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
The sound chip did hold things back, but you are also comparing a system without any chip in the cart to games like Yoshi’s Island which did rely on additional chips.
HW wise, sound chip aside, the GBA was a dream Genesis strengths + SNES visual strengths (with some of the capabilities enabled by the FX chips in a mix of HW and SW).
nkarafo
Member
The processing power of the GBA is a lot higher. It has a lot of 3D games that the SNES would never be able to come close, even when using a FX2 chip. GBA's 3D capabilities are even better than the SVP chip in the Genesis Virtua Racing. I'd say it's only a bit behind the 32X. Just do a comparison of DOOM GBA vs DOOM SNES.
The problem with the GBA though is the screen. The original GBA and even the later one with the light had terrible screens. In order to make the games more visible, they had to completely mangle the colors. The lower resolution also doesn't help when you do ports of 2D games from big TV consoles. And the sound hardware isn't as good either.
Using Donkey Kong Country as an example, it would be impossible to be as good on the GBA because the pre-rendered assets were made for the SNES resolution in mind (porting pre-rendered graphics on lower resolutions always makes them worse and because they are pre-rendered it's harder to modify them VS pixel art), and the lush but also dark/natural colors had no chance being ported on the GBA screen, where only bright, saturated colors make sense.
Basically, the GBA was a fine hardware for original games but a terrible one for console ports.
nush
Member
GBA is amazing on the Wii U Gamepad, I hope they do bring those titles to Switch as well.
01011001
Banned
that's because of resolution differences... SNES games needed to be squished to work on the GBA screen basically.
the GBA can literally run Quake and Tomb Raider... it's way better hardware
theclaw135
Banned
No idea what was up with SNES ports. Link to the Past reduced the quality of the lantern's transparency effect
Disney's Magical Quest has worse music on GBA.
Disney's Magical Quest has worse music on GBA.
Dream-Knife
Banned
While it was technically more powerful, the resolution hit was pretty bad.
I don't know man, the characters in Donkey Kong Land on GB looked quite good.
Duchess
Member
Came to say this. Besides the sound which was 100x better, the fact that they didn't do the 4 face buttons crippled the system from day 1.
It's all in the wrist
Member
The GBA was an awesome system. The SP will always be my favorite handheld. The nostalgia is so strong with that one.
skit_data
Member
Found my old GBA the other day when going through my storage. It still looks absolutely pristine, probably because I kept it in a proper case since day 1.
It’s a fine piece of hardware but starting up Metroid Fusion only to realize I had totally forgot how hard it was to find a good lightsource without having reflections all over the screen.
It’s a fine piece of hardware but starting up Metroid Fusion only to realize I had totally forgot how hard it was to find a good lightsource without having reflections all over the screen.
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Game boy handhelds were nicely done the “ds” got Nintendo out of the game boy cycle.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
Exactly. What is this “incredible amount of quality output” for the GBA? The hardware itself made it very hard to make games that didn’t have to compromise one way or the other, making almost every game basically gimped, and the system’s library lacks a true identity because of this.
Nintendo basically made NES/SNES ports - the system launched with goddamn SMB2, a 1988 game - plus some iterations of some of their IPs like F-Zero and Zelda, all of which would have been better with a couple more buttons, not to mention a better screen and a dedicated music chip. Then you had some quality games like Golden Sun, which would have been worthy of a home system just a few years earlier, but were severely kept back by the hardware, way too ambitious for it.
The best games on the GBA are those that acknowledge what the system truly is and play to its strengths, while skirting around its limitations. Kuru Kuru Kururin and Wario Ware were such games. But most of the library feels like devs wanted to make PlayStation games on a NES. So many games on the GBA feel like forced demakes.
cireza
Member
This a million times. It is not too late to buy a few of these.
Yeah. Minish Cap was actually very fun.
I find that this is largely exaggerated. GBA does have its own identity and a ton of games made specifically for it, either by Nintendo or third parties. I don't find that having more buttons would have changed anything. This was a handheld console, and Metroid Fusion is actually simpler to play than Super Metroid. Especially with this useless Run button gone.
The SNES ports were actually very well made, and included some new features. Sure the console did not have an exclusive Mario game, but the ports are all very good, and Nintendo made many other new games, that were perfectly optimized for the console : Fire Emblem, Golden Sun, Minish Cap, Kirby games, Pokemon games etc...
Then you have a ton of third parties that are fantastic (Racing Gears, Riviera, Yggdra, Hajime no Ippo, Sonic Advance, Final Fantasy Tactics, Gunstar Heroes, Castlevania games, Dragon Ball Supersonic, Megaman Zero games, Sword of Mana etc...), and also a lot of shitty games but that's really the standard situation for any console that had a bit of success.
Sound chip (or its absence, again another utterly stupid hardware decision from Nintendo, to keep on the legacy of always cutting costs in the dumbest way possible) is definitely the big weakness of the console, and the fact that it was not backlit had developers wonder how contrast had to be managed in their games. So you do get a difference between early and late titles. But most of them are fine, and emulators mitigate this. On the Wii U Gamepad for example, it looks very good.
Overall I find that this is a very good console and it does have a strong identity, and this begins with this gorgeous low resolution of 240x160. I love low resolution handhelds and pixel-art
It was also compatible with the entirety of the GBA library, that was pretty cool.
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nush
Member
Same when people say the Neo Geo only had vs fighting games on it. I had a big game collection for GBA and I don't think I had any SNES ports and definitely no NES ports, wasnt paying to double dip on games I already owned and completed when there was loads of original titles to buy.
6502
Member
Hard to believe it was only mainstream for 3 years. I bought about 50 games, the og console, 3 variations of sp and the micro. It was great fun. Technology just moved on and I think we saw most of what it had to offer by then.
It should really have been released a few years earlier. The DS was an obvious reaction to psp.
It should really have been released a few years earlier. The DS was an obvious reaction to psp.
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German Hops
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
Penny Arcade was never funny.I miss when Penny Arcade was funny
gimmmick
Member
When was this?I miss when Penny Arcade was funny
More colors, background layers,sprites, more special effects way more processing speed vs sound and resolution
Gba basically a half gen jump over the snes
One has a decent port of doom 2, the other has trash port of doom that required a substantial on cart
NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
More buttons would have definitely changed things. For one thing, they'd have made those SNES ports a better proposition. More buttons is why you could play Street Fighter II on the SNES without having to buy additional controllers, so Nintendo should understand the importance of buttons better than anyone. (Then again, given their history, it appears that they somehow don't).
More buttons allow for more control and more options. In 2001, this shouldn't even have been a question, especially when the machine didn't rely on special gimmicks like the Wii would a few years later.
Speaking about SNES ports, the new features were mostly pretty subpar, almost always of the collectathon type, and a poor makeup for all that was lost (resolution, sound quality, controls). Adding voice samples that play every time a character jumps or throws something wasn't a very good idea too, not in games where all your character does is jumping and throwing stuff.
Those third party games you quoted just confirm what I wrote here. It's mostly stuff the people who actually played remember fondly, but the majority of those games were largely unknown and still are. Pokémon and the Mario Advance games made the biggest US numbers for the GBA, and those numbers weren't even that big. I'd say your 2001 hardware has a big identity problem if its best-selling game is a port of a 1990 game with lower res, worse controls, and bad audio. Good thing Nintendo didn't make the same mistake twice and that highly questionable SM64 port for the DS wasn't followed by more N64 ports, but by games actually tailored to the hardware.
Look, I'm not saying the GBA was a failure (number say otherwise, after all), but it's one piece of hardware I was never satisfied with, and I think its games are better played on pretty much everything else. Every iteration of the GBA lacked something, too, so we never got a definitive version of the machine. The original had no backlight, the SP dropped the headphone jack and the original model's screen was dim and blurry, while the Mini was barely playable, if you could even see what was going on on that screen. It's like Nintendo couldn't make up their mind on the hardware, imagine how clear their ideas could be about what software they wanted to make for it.
cireza
Member
You could, I personally don't really care about this. I find that discussing success/failure of 20 years consoles is pointless, my eyes are turned towards the library.
Playing on original hardware is the last thing you want to do with the GBA. It aged super poorly, all versions.
Overall I find that you depict a very negative picture of the library, a bit unfair, but I guess we all have different experience.
