Can you remember the first time you picked up a Game Boy Advance? How about where you were when you bought it? I was 11 years old, and I had taken a trip to my local GAME store to pick one up along with a copy of F-Zero X: Maximum Velocity, both of which released 24 years ago today in Japan. Admittedly I had to wait a couple more months to June 22 to pick them up in the UK and I only travelled to Keighley and not Japan, but my obsessive reading of Nintendo Official Magazine had begun on this exact day four-and-twenty years ago as was my standard practice when I couldn't get hold of something straight away (take a look at my piece on the 64DD if you don't believe me!)
Brandon and I grew up on the Game Boy; it's one of the main reasons we decided to start Retro Dodo in the first place and the reason behind our love of handheld game consoles. We are children of the 8-bit era and the vertical handheld was all that we had ever known. So, when Nintendo announced that they were bringing out a horizontal 32-bit handheld that would change the future of gaming forever, I for one was both excited and sceptical in equal measure.
Console quality gaming in the palm of your hands; that was Nintendo's tagline, but in a horizontal form factor? I'm a pretty open-minded guy, I even tried Ribena Toothkind as a kid to see what the fuss was all about, but changing up the shape of the Game Boy - it all felt a little too much. Surely it wouldn't work...
Well, it turns out that not only was it portable, easy to hold, comfortable, and more powerful than anything we had used before, but it also became my favourite handheld. I never went anywhere without this thing in my back pocket, playing Tony Hawks on the bus or Super Mario in the garden. No matter what you think of Nintendo, they're never afraid to shake things up. Change is sometimes scary, but in the case of the GBA, it was a stroke of genius.
The Birth Of A Horizontal Hero
If you're a fan of your handhelds then you'll know all about the early days of the Game Boy. Gunpei Yokoi created the Game Boy DMG and released it back in 1989, possibly the most iconic handheld of all time in terms of its design and the device that shaped the future of the handheld gaming market. While my friends with Game Gears were constantly crying that they had run out of battery, my grey brick with its dot matrix green screen kept me occupied for hours on end.
Even though the Game Boy Color didn't arrive till 1998, Nintendo were already working on a 32-bit handheld console back in 1997. They called it Project Atlantis (which could be the coolest name for a project ever). Now, I don't want to bang on about the 64DD all the time because you're sick of hearing about it, but Project Atlantis is another example of Nintendo working on something way ahead of its time.
To jump from 8-bit to 32-bit in one fell swoop was a massive undertaking, and rather than biting off more than they could chew like with my favourite Nintendo 64 peripheral, they bided their time for a few more years, releasing the Game Boy Color to appease fans until they could get the technology for Project Atlantis, soon to be called the Advanced Game Boy and then the Game Boy Advance perfect the first time.
Growing up in an Italian family, there has always been a preference to despise the French people. I find French people to be great, friendly folk (sorry Uncle, but you were wrong on this one!), and I have French designer Gwénaël Nicolas to thank for the new design of the GBA. Like I said earlier, moving the buttons to the side of the screen rather than underneath it was a bold move. But like the GameCube controller, the design of the GBA has become a firm favourite with fans, and both its shape and games have led to people flocking to tribute handhelds like the RG34XX with a wad of cash in their hands and a need to play Pokémon FireRed and Kao the Kangaroo burning in their hearts.
A New Era Of Games
We can't go any further without talking about the games for the GBA because, while the design of the handheld was revolutionary, they were the reason that it was so special. For those of you who had one, you will undoubtedly remember the first time that we got to play a handheld version of Mario Kart. And while the 64-bit Mario Kart 64 was visually better, those of us who had grown up wishing that we could play Super Mario Kart away from the house finally got our wish in a way that we had never dreamed would be possible.
Without the GBA, we might never have had the Capcom-led Zelda game 'The Minish Cap', one of the most exciting adventures in the Legend of Zelda canon. Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire & Emerald were absolute powerhouses, not to mention Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, two of the most sought after games of all time. The GBA was a home for epic RPGs and action titles, From Golden Sun to Metroid Fusion, all in glorious colour with clear and exciting sprites that, just like a well-described book, dragged us into the action and allowed us to immerse ourselves in incredible worlds.
I can't tell you how much fun I had playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga as a kid either - the writing in that game is phenomenally funny and twinned with a type of character camaraderie we had never seen in a portable game.
Of course, all of these memories I've been describing have one thing in common - they were made in the daylight. They were made while playing my GBA in a chair next to the window or outside on the grass. As night drew in, I would gradually be attracted to the nearest light like a moth to a flame until gradually I gave up and put my Game Boy down. The Game Boy Advance was great, but it had one flaw - it wasn't back-lit. And well, we all know my thoughts on how they tried to combat it, but if you're unfamiliar with my hate for the wormlight, take a look at the video below.
The Curse Of The Worm Light
I hate the worm light with a passion, and I'll never sway from that decision. Playing in the dark with a front-lit screen was impossible, and rather than immediately adding a back-lit screen into the equation, Nintendo decided to bring a miniature springy street light into our lives in the hope of illuminating our games. All it actually did was cast a weak light on a small part of the screen, and when you were playing dark games, you ended up having to move the wormlight almost as much as your character!
To be fair, Nintendo have been combatting this problem ever since the DMG, what with extra peripherals to illuminate and enlarge your screen. We've been experimenting with pimping our Game Boys for years now in order to find the ultimate combination of comfort and the ability to play in all environments. Still, thankfully a few years later in 2005, Nintendo finally righted this wrong (and the wrong of the GBA SP AGS-001) with a back-lit screen that changed everything.
Let There Be (Back)Light!
In a surprise move, Nintendo moved back to the vertical form factor back in 2003 with the clamshell GBA SP. It felt futuristic as hell, folding my Game Boy and not actually needing a case to protect the screen anymore. If we had known that it would be the beginning of the end of the glory days of the GBA, then I might have cherished it a little bit more. Still, the main problem of the front-lit screen remained. New cool device, same old annoying problem.
As a side note, I can remember selling my old GBA SP to GAME to get money for the new one and getting more than it was worth because I had a Mario 'M' logo plastic shell case on the top and bottom of it that I had got free with Nintendo Official Magazine. The guy behind the counter thought it was a rare special edition and gave me more money than I should have received for it, but hey, I was 15 and on a terrible wage (pocket money) so I took what I could get back in those days!
The AGS-101 (I can't stress how important it is that you look for that code on the back of a GBA SP if you're thinking about getting one) finally did away with the need for a worm light and meant that, at the ripe old age of 15, I could finally game at night without having to have a lamp glaring away in my face. While I loved the original Purple GBA, it was this console where my love for the vast back catalogue of games came into play. It was this console that I finally completed Super Star Saga on, the one I would take to school to play Super Circuit with friends in between lessons, the handheld where I developed the mind of a military tactician on Advance Wars.
The Game Boy Micro & Paving The Way For The DS
Sadly, all good things have to come to an end, and by the time the Game Boy Micro came out in 2005, gamers around the world were already sucked into Nintendo DS fever. And to be honest, while I love this little Game Boy and the simplistic nature of its design, I can understand why. I've always felt like Nintendo did the GB Micro dirty bringing it out at the same time as a global marketing campaign for the Nintendo DS was running - the poor thing never stood a chance!
After the clamshell nature of the GBA SP, the DS with its dual-screens and touchscreen gameplay was another step in the right direction, while the Game Boy Micro was just more of the same. How can you possibly compete with games that require a touchscreen and microphone to play, especially when the early DS handhelds could also play GBA games too?
If you think about the transition from a horizontal handheld to the clamshell GBA SP and back to a horizontal DS, it almost felt like Nintendo were slowly prepping us for the future, gently conditioning us for what was to come. 'Hey, you love vertical handhelds, right? Well in a few years time, everything's going to change, so you better get used to horizontal handhelds now. Then just so we don't shock you too much, we'll make something that looks like the DS but smaller so your mind isn't blown too much when it finally arrives. Sound good?'
I don't know whether to feel angry that they played me like that or grateful that my head is still firmly on my shoulders!
The Legend Lives On
I touched on it above, but the ANBERNIC RG34XX is making waves in the handheld community because of its clear likeness to the Game Boy Advance. The main difference apart from the fact that you don't need to put batteries inside it anymore is that it has two extra face buttons and shoulder buttons. Oh, and the front-lit screen is a thing of the past, with a 3.4-inch IPS display and a resolution of 720 x 480 compared to the original 2.9-inch 240 x 160 display. Granted, you can't play your original cartridges on this handheld, but ROMs look amazing on it, and it provides all of the nostalgia invoked with the original GBA without the stress of that blasted worm light (I will never stop my tirade against it).
It's amazing that, even 24 years later, the GBA is still held in high regard in the handheld community. Whether you're still rocking your original handheld, bought a modded version with a back-lit screen, regularly play the GBA SP AGS-101, or fancy picking up an RG34XX with all the games included, the spirit of the Game Boy Advance is still living on in a world of Teraflops and next-gen gaming. Playing God of War and Hogwarts Legacy is all well and good, but if you really want to test your skills, Mario Kart: Super Circuit will always be where it's at!
