Remembering The Game Boy Advance

A Decade To Cherish Of Days-Gone-By

by exterminat

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

Several children walked by the booth, with no attention being paid to the archaic piece of technology in one of the many museum exhibits.

One child diverted from this group, eagerly approaching the glass to look at what was being displayed.

An elderly museum guide approached the child. “I remember this … I was your age when it first came out. It’s the last day it’s going to be displayed; would you like to know more?”

The child eagerly nodded as the old man began his nostalgic tale.

2001: A Game Odyssey

2001 was a year of great advancement in the gaming world. The sixth generation of gaming consoles were just getting their boots wet, and had yet to diversify themselves in software.

Halo wouldn’t rock the world until November.

Online gaming was still a luxury to be had by PC gamers only (not counting the Dreamcast).

The Game Boy Color was a massive success, and Nintendo knew that they had to follow it up with something ten times as good (which had to be one of the most daunting tasks ever undertaken). To say that tensions were high would be an understatement.

On June 11, 2001, the Game Boy Advance was unleashed onto North American shores to massive success. The initial software lineup was meager, with the exception of Super Mario Advance, a port of Super Mario Bros. 2.

This was a time when gamers were used to getting less, versus being entitled to everything like these days. It was a bulky system that was relatively uncomfortable to hold, it had no backlight and ran on AA batteries.

It didn’t sell because of its looks. What would distinguish the GBA in years to come, thought, would be its games.

Having the SNES era of games at your fingertips no matter where you are? It was a ridiculous concept, and especially after a generation less than a decade before it.

Oh, happy days…

While the GBA has a tremendously large library of titles that I can’t even begin to skim the surface of, the best ones were in Nintendo’s own franchises: Mario, Zelda and Pokemon.

I never was much of a Zelda fan, growing up on other series, but Mario and Pokemon dominated my GBA years.

From the ports of Super Mario Bros. 2 as listed above, to Super Mario World‘s port, all the way to that RPG game where you played as Mario and Luigi that I can’t remember at the moment, Mario was the knight in shining armor for the Game Boy Advance…

… but this knight was simply a vassal of the king, Pokemon.

Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire were the third generation of the series, and were the first GBA versions of the acclaimed series. I’ve never been more addicted to a game in my life. I got all 386 Pokemon, did everything there was to offer, maxed at least half of these creatures to level 100, and played through the game dozens of times.

At one point, I would speed race a buddy of mine (with the aid of a Gameshark) to see who could have the fastest playthrough. I emerged victorious at four hours and fifty seven minutes, my best record.

Remember how I mentioned it not having a light? I would stay up late at night playing, and had to huddle next to my bedside lamp in order to see anything that was going on!

There really was just something about this generation of gaming that was spot-on that to this date I still can’t describe.

Oh, and we can’t forget the infamous Game Boy Link Cable! Back before we had your fancy-shmancy wireless interwebs and your inferring-red laser beams, we had to connect things with wires. And oh what a wire it was…

Back on the topic of Pokemon, now. Emerald version, a few years later, had to be my favorite Pokemon experience of all time. It melded what made Ruby and Sapphire so great into one fantastic experience. I recall being quite infuriated with Nintendo at the Japanese version being released so much earlier than the American version, so I imported a Chinese version off of eBay.

Could I read a word of it? No. How did I play through it? I enlisted the aid of my trusty Sapphire guide book, which displayed what moves each Pokemon would learn exactly as they appeared on screen, and since numbers are nearly universal, it worked in my favor. ED.: Back in the day when region locking was literally non-existent…

And of course it didn’t stop there. Remakes of Pokemon Red and Blue in the forms of Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green versions appeared not too long after, and sucked me in yet again.

While I did not enjoy the fourth generation (Diamond and Pearl versions on the DS), I did pick up Heart Gold last year and then Black a few months ago. I’m happily still playing both of these.

The GBA was just a fantastic system that pushed the limits of handheld technology, having support for an entire backlog of old titles and creating a massive amount of new ones. They just don’t make them like that anymore.

2011: A Brown Odyssey

The old man concluded his story, and the child’s eyes were wide with excitement. Video games did not exist in this wild future, eventually collapsing as a result of the lack of original creativity, costs, and the reaching of the technology ceiling.

People simply stopped wanting to play the newest brown and bloom FPS, or the same exact JRPG rereleased, or the newest motion gimmick; they wanted quality experiences in an industry dominated by the desire for money.

“You better go,” said the man, “but I ask one thing: remember a time when things were simpler, and when we could actually tell a story.”

The child smiled and walked away.

The lights in the museum dimmed; the exhibit was removed to be replaced with something else.

©2011 Nicholas Laborde

xxxxxx

Filed under: Console gaming, Editorial, Handhelds, Xbox 360 Tagged: | Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Gameshark, nintendo, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Role Playing Game, Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario World