All I remember about that GBA is the lack of a built in backlight.
TLDR; It is the GBA.
Really? I thought it objectively clear it’s the DS.
The gba is a little too much a remade snes and features many games of the like, nevertheless still a very good device.
However, the DS is spectacular in comparison imo. A far better library (over its lifetime - the first year was bad). Classic games, touch games and a huge slew of RPG and starts of great series.
But the ds is a fairly new console, surely it wouldn’t even be an option in a retro cont- oh…
Hehe 😁
it was not a remade SNES. that’s what people assume but the GBA was a powerful little guy. and had some decent 3d capabilities that were solid for the time.
and it was backwards compatible with the original gameboy carts that pushed it to being extremely popular. and the library for it was massive as well.
I think the number of games ported over from the 16 bit era gives that impression. GBA didn’t even get it’s own Mario game, they just released the All-Stars versions of classic games, which I get was super cool at the time but still.
But yes, GBA was a very capable machine. GBA could run Doom with a smooth framerate, SNES couldn’t. Not to mention the stuff like Driv3r, Asterix or even GTA Advance.
If we’re considering backwards compatibility, then the DS should have won. Because it could do everything the GBA could, and more.
I don’t think the DS could play original game boy carts, could it? if I am misremembering I’m gonna be mad for the me that didn’t know that when I got a DS. lol
Nah it couldn’t, the DS only supported its own and GBA cartridges.
I’m well aware that it’s an arm7 device and hence different. However what it was directed at and done with it resulted in being as I said.
Vrally some other games do impressive things, I agree.
It’s a nostalgia contest.
I have a lot of nostalgia for it and it’s 2 (3 if we count switch 2) generations gone, so yeah 😁
Plus, if you have a DS Lite, you get both a GBA and a DS.
Phat DS can play them too, don’t forget about my thicc boi
I personally liked the GBA SP better than any other handheld and I was not a fan of the DS at all. The only positive of the DS for me was that it was relatively easy to write homebrew games for (though not as easy as the GBA).
There’s a lot I love about the DS but it suffered immensely from the gimmick problem. Games that had no business being touch focused were forced into it. Zelda was probably the worst example, but the metroid game that used it for an fps was also up there.
I love the DS for my nostalgia of it, but any replaying of it is as uncomfortable as the wii
I thought Metroid did it pretty well. Hunters at least, not sure if there was another you might be talking about.
Both are good examples, but the one that probably bothered me the most was Dawn of Sorrow. The castlevania game that would force crappy stylus patterns to finish off a boss, but otherwise had no touch usage. I swear I had to kill some of the later bosses 4-5 times because of the touch not working right.
I mean, at the time it was not a competition at first. I loved the gba, then the gba sp even more.
And when the DS (grey first model) came out, imo the games were a dry spell for at least a year!
Anyhow, given the opportunity I would love to bring you closer to the DS games catalogue and I am very convinced I could bring you to change your mind.
Most times I’ve seen the DS being massively underestimated is because of not being aware of the massive amounts of gems of games there are, just a few popular ones and lots and lots of shovelware (akin to Wii) which e.g. we in Germany had in the stores. That selection sucked mostly!
I am EXTREMELY familiar with the DS, you cannot “bring me close to the DS games” lmao. If anything, I am pissed that so many excellent games are trapped on it and will never get ported.
Hm, I don’t like getting laughed at but still apologies for the misunderstanding. Would love to show you my collection 🤷
Sorry, I wasn’t meaning to laugh at you as a person, more that I literally wrote games for it and played many, many DS games and thus showing me games would definitely not change my mind on the system. I am more than a little salty about the DS and it’s evil gimmicks. It is one of the only systems that I ended up selling (the Wii is also in this short list).
Thanks for explaining!
I felt the same way about the Wii. Several games that would be great are almost unplayable for be because of this and at the least unenjoyable which defeats the purpose.
So Wii… Yeah. At that time I always feared Nintendos next gimmick.
But why the DS? I thought there are enough games that are not gimmicky annoying.
Without going into too much detail I would be interested in examples (and possibly go ‘hey yeah that was bad!’).
Soo many fire games for it - Currently playing FF:Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a banger. I might have been just the right age for it when I played it, but I have such fondness for it.
When I was younger someone deleted a save file of FFTA I had clocked over 400 hrs on (it was a genuine accident), and I was devastated.
I then proceeded to play again with over 1k hours. Might be one of my favorite games ever made.
It must have been a major influence on Expedition 33 as well - at least that’s what I felt when I played E33. Very similar themes.
The E33 devs were very clearly huge Final Fantasy fans. The game has direct parallels to several FF games.
For instance, the plot parallels to FFX are so brazen that I was able to start predicting what would generally happen next.
Homebrew on the PSP was actually insane though. You could play everything up to the Nintendo 64 on it and even some PC games like quake. I played so many super Mario world ROM hacks on it
Modded psp was the shit too!
“Hey can I borrow your game cartridge for a few minutes? I wanna copy it to my memory card.” 😎Could you rip UMDs to MS Duos? I was big into PSP CFW (like, modified the firmware of an a battery to boot into recovery menu on the 2000s before they were easily moddable) and was unaware of that functionality. That would also take ages!
Yeah p similar, my buddy already had a modded battery (I think he took it apart and cut one of the wires inside) probably around 2005-ish, idr how long it took to copy, but probably took like 20 mins, but also it was easier/faster to just download the iso file online.
Neat! I forgot how I did mine, but I remember it being called a Pandora Battery. I still have it!
People slept on the Vita but it’s like a PSP ultimate. Plays all PSP games and emulates an insane plethora of consoles on a beautiful OLED screen.
PSP is clearly the uncrowned king
man it was amazingly versatile. iirc I had vnc working on it in 2010, was able to use it to prototype psp games w/o a devkit.
Pata-pata-pata-pon!
Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon!
I think DS should take the final round - plays the DS and GBA library + relatively easy to emulate GBC if you really want to.
And still the only way to play some games - Contra 4, Sonic Rush for example, are horrible to play on emulator but still really fun games.
Hacking a vita is so easy you do it straight from the console browser. I still can’t manage to get my DS properly hacked no matter how many guides I try.
To “hack” a ds you simply buy a 5€ flash cart and you’re done.
Love my R4DS!
GBA is a worthy winner.
Man they did they Wonderswan dirty. I always felt that was a fantastic handheld. IMHO way better than the Lynx.
