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Modern Vintage Gamer: Game Boy games that did the impossible
- Thread starter IbizaPocholo
- Start date
- Retro Trailer Hardware
crackajack
Member
true
Instead of needing a hw upgrade every few years devs were forced to come up with ideas and squeeze the most out of a rather limited system. Same with the NES and to an already lesser extent with SNES both launching years before an international release... so by today's standards almost old when finally hitting America and even more Europe.
Pro consoles are the opposite, just an easy brute force approach that almost prevents that sw progress to be made, by having new hw regularly and not forcing programmers to really dig deep(er).
calistan
Member
They went semi-Pro in 1998 with the Game Boy Color, and eventually there were a lot of games that only ran on the newer hardware. Plus the Game Boy Advance in 2001, of course.
The thing I really miss is games designed specifically for handheld. Not just Game Boy exclusives, but also the way that even those technically impressive ports mentioned in the video were stripped down so they worked perfectly with two buttons and a small screen. Seems to be a lost art.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
And killer instinct
Trunx81
Gold Member
The Game Boy was my first ever console. I still remember the day when a friend of mine brought it to school. We were all over it. Bought the same machine some time later from him, as he scratched his display. Changed it out and this GB lasted nearly forever. The history of it´s development is crazy enough, I really wonder what Sharp offered them to use their display in the end. With the discontinuation of the Z80 after nearly 50 years, I watched a lot of Game Boy related videos lately (and the movie TETRIS).
The jump from Super Mario Land to Super Mario Land 2 is still (at least for me) the most impressive step-up I´ve ever seen on a console.
The jump from Super Mario Land to Super Mario Land 2 is still (at least for me) the most impressive step-up I´ve ever seen on a console.
calistan
Member
The first one was like an evolution of Game & Watch, the second was a monochrome SNES. Definitely some wizardry going on there.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Maybe I've watched too many Game Boy YouTube videos but he just sort of summed up information that's out there.
Also interesting that GB had more flexibility with scanline interrupts than the NES, because of what Nintendo learned as the NES evolved and how they had to work with its limitations.
The SNES was designed in this way too, but the use wasn't as widespread as it was on NES.
Also interesting that GB had more flexibility with scanline interrupts than the NES, because of what Nintendo learned as the NES evolved and how they had to work with its limitations.
The NES did get hardware upgrades though, in the form of memory mappers on the cart, and as they evolved they did a lot more than memory shuffling. The hardware that Kirby's Adventure and Super Mario Bros. 3 and Castlevania III ran on is very different from the hardware that Super Mario Bros. ran on.
The SNES was designed in this way too, but the use wasn't as widespread as it was on NES.
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SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Ah Gameboy.
My best friend’s neighbor was the store manager for a Woolworth’s department store, and he hooked us up with Gameboys for $89. This is during the release period, when they were red hot. Not sure what he did to sell them on the side for under retail, but my teenage self didn’t care.
For me personally the GBA SP will always be my GoaT handheld.
My best friend’s neighbor was the store manager for a Woolworth’s department store, and he hooked us up with Gameboys for $89. This is during the release period, when they were red hot. Not sure what he did to sell them on the side for under retail, but my teenage self didn’t care.
For me personally the GBA SP will always be my GoaT handheld.
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West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief and Nosiest Dildo Archeologist
I love MVG.
nkarafo
Member
I don't think there's anything special about the Dokney Kong Land games, technically. It's a pretty big cart that can hold all those pre-rendered assets and animations.
They did a good job porting those assets from the SNES version though. Otherwise it could end up like the Batman Forever port, possibly the worst looking Game Boy game of all time.
They did a good job porting those assets from the SNES version though. Otherwise it could end up like the Batman Forever port, possibly the worst looking Game Boy game of all time.
Syphon Filter
Member
its a handheld, not console.
ReyBrujo
Member
Back when I was maybe 16 I went to a shop with my father to buy a SNES game. Back then there weren't that many games to choose from so it was kind of a lottery. When we arrived they had Super Metroid for sale and then I saw it, a Game Boy. I asked about the price which was a bit less than the Metroid (I think it was 90-95 bucks for the Game Boy and 135 for Super Metroid). Packing it with Wario Land would be about the same as Super Metroid so I choose the Game Boy. I loved it and still have the original I bought even though it lost the screen protector and the screen already got a couple of dead rows. Later I bought Link's Awakening and it blew my mind, I already owned A Link to the Past so having a game so visually stunning in such a small console was a blast.
Even if being picky he's correct, you can use handheld as noun or as adjective as in handheld console.
Trunx81
Gold Member
Also: Donkey Kong 94 is superior to any DKC game
Gaming related handhelds are also called 'consoles'. 'Console' means its tech/computer specifically build around a singular purpose for ease of use and comfort. In this case 'build for games'.
Game Boy - Wikipedia
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Halo2redvsblue
Member
We will never have the unique feeling and time like we did with the Game boy advance.
MLSabre
Member
How's those 6 AA batteries treating ya?Back when I spent my hard-earned dollars on my first handheld, I went with a Sega Gamegear.
diffusionx
Gold Member
I think the big skill thing is artistic, taking those high quality SGI renders and scaling them down. It was not an easy task on SNES but had to be 10x harder on GB.
Unknown?
Member
You were fine if you had an AC adapter. XDBack when I spent my hard-earned dollars on my first handheld, I went with a Sega Gamegear.
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
This is one thing I've noticed, Switch ports are just the normal games with as much detail sucked out of it as they need to to get it running on it, rather than specific versions designed specifically for it and made to look as good as it can on it, MK1 being one of the worst examples of this.
A lost art indeed and a great example how lazy things have gotten.
Trunx81
Gold Member
Exactly. There have been so many games that were adapted perfectly for the gaming on the go. The first years of the GB were wild. Castlevania, Metroid, R-Type, the first Spider-Man (god did I hate those controls, but it was awesome!), Turtles, Gargoyles Quest, Fortress of Fear ..
Orenji Neko
Member
great machine。many wonderful memory with mine still works today!
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
Even as recently as the PSP they'd make exclusive versions that were worthy, than just pared down straight ports.
MasterDerico
Member
I like gameboy and color way more than the gb advance! (Gba has also great games tho).
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nkarafo
Member
This isn't new though. I already mentioned Batman Forever on the Game Boy but since you mentioned Mortal Kombat, the Switch version is a much better port than the original MK port on the original Game Boy, or the Master System MK2 port, or the Game Gear one. Because these don't only look like shit, they also play like shit. At least the Switch version plays and runs fine.
And let's not even talk about the arcade ports on the 8bit home computers or the Amiga/Atari ST. Games designed for much more powerful hardware, hastily and sloppily downgraded was the order of the day. The visuals and frame rates were always shit but you hoped one game out of ten would at least play fine. You also had a lot of bad arcade ports on both 8bit and 16bitr consoles as well. And like you say, these games didn't only look bad compared to the arcades, they also looked bad compared to any good looking original game designed for those systems.
Even on 16/32bit consoles you had the same issues Again, something like Mortal Kombat on Switch is a much better deal than After Burner, Space Harrier or Outrun on the Genesis/MD (and they were like the best ports compared to other systems). A lot of the Saturn/PS1 arcade ports also suffered the same "MK on Switch" issues. The Mortal Kombat ports on Genesis/SNES were the exact same case as the Switch port. They looked heavily downgraded and not very good looking for the hardware either, but they played fine. Though MK2 and 3 did somewhat look good on those systems as they got a much better downgrade job. And the Street Fighter 2 ports on SNES/MD looked amazing for those systems, despite the downgrade from the CPS hardware.
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cireza
Member
The main reason is because Switch hardware is powerful enough to run decently a 2D fighter, as these are as basic as it gets in terms of gameplay. There is nothing really elaborated here, with a visual downgrade, you could run the core of these games on Dreamcast.
However, the gap between 8 and 16 bits consoles was huge for a lot of reason, and 8 bits consoles were absolutely not suited for fighting games for several reasons, and I can talk in detail for the MS/GG :
- sprites limitation of 64
- sprites limitation of 8 per line
- only one single palette available for sprites on MS/GG
- impossible to dynamically mirror sprites on MS/GG
All of this means that fighting games on these consoles were EXTREMELY challenging. You had to waste a lot of space in the ROM because you had to store characters facing both LEFT and RIGHT. And then you get only a single sprite palette for both, that you have to split between player 1 and player 2. So this means that the first character uses colors 0 to 7 and the second colors 8 to 15 (I am simplifying here). So again, you have to store graphics using the first half of the palette, and then again graphics using the second half of the palette. Dynamically changing the tiles when drawing was maybe a possibility, but this means making your engine slower (on top of decompressing the visuals in real time). I suppose that the RAM is used a lot in these games to prepare the visuals in advance.
Still there were some excellent fighting games on MS and especially GG, I will have to take a look at how they circumvented these limitations. Thinking of Masters of Combat, Ninku I & II, Fatal Fury Special, Sam Sho and both Power Rangers games.
Mortal Kombat is both sprites and background based. This allowed for huge characters. Maybe they stored the characters only facing right, and when a character is facing left, it becomes tile based and uses symmetry (MS and GG are quite fast at drawing BG tiles). This would make the most sense (edit : after checking this is not the case, the latest character to have done a move replaces the one as sprites, very interesting). And the great thing with this is that you get one character using the sprite palette and the other one using the BG palette, so no need to duplicate your characters. Despite these ports not playing "well" by your standards, I find them to be some of the most ingenious I have seen.
But in the end, what I mean is that Switch getting decent 2D fighters is much less challenging than 8 bits consoles getting 2D arcade ports, because the bare minimum hardware to decently run such games was passed more than 30 years ago when we reached 16 bits consoles and larger ROM sizes, and when we reached Dreamcast for 3D fighters.
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nkarafo
Member
cireza
I agree VS fighting games were never going to be that great on 8bit hardware but these weren't the only games that got massively downgraded from arcades or more powerful machines on consoles/handhelds though, i used them as an example because of MK on the Switch. But you had the same botched downgrade jobs in almost all genres. And 16/32 bit machines also had the same issues of downgraded ports from arcades that were barely playable and looked worse than games specifically made for those systems, with a few exceptions (such as VF2 being one of the best looking Saturn games).
Outside arcades, you also had a lot of downgraded stuff from PCs during those times, especially with FPS games. Every single DOOM port was downgraded from the 1993 original, even the venerated PS1 port runs poorer and looks worse than what you could get on a target 486 system. And the less we talk about the previous ports on other systems, the better. Later FPS PC originals got even worse on consoles.
This phenomenon never stopped because there were always weaker devices were they port things that target more powerful stuff. It's only in this last generation where consoles have almost reached parity with above average PCs while also always being the target platforms for big games so no more DOOM/Quake/Halflife/Far Cry/Crysis PC originals to downgrade anymore, powerful arcades don't exist and there's really only the Switch that has to deal with the big downgrades. And nobody cares or takes exclusive handheld games seriously anymore after phones took over and turned the whole industry into a massive garbage dump.
GBA is one of my favourite hand held consoles of all time, next to the VIta for form factor and screen. But the GBA library is fantastic, of course it is because it's really a SNES V2.0, with abit of Genesis tossed in. Some of the best times in gaming the golden era for me. One of the reasons I picked up an Analogue pocket. Handheld gaming is strange, development costs are far less and so are profits. But there were profits on GB/GBA and NDs. The profits were considered safe and small, but not enough for big corporations and share holders who want the big numbers.
GBA V2.0 built for 2D pixel gaming is my dream. Toss in a dock too.
GBA V2.0 built for 2D pixel gaming is my dream. Toss in a dock too.
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Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
Bad ports are nothing new, but one difference is they were usually still uniquely designed, MK1 is nothing but like if you played the PC version on the lowest settings, zero effort, zero character, who in their right mind if you cared about that game would want to play that version? Portability doesn't even remotely make it worth it.
The 16 bit ports of MK may not have been great, but they were trying, they didn't just tinker with some settings and call it a day.
When I talk about handheld ports with character I think of the days like the PSP or GBA where they were unique versions of the game and the hardware was there to make them worthy enough, sometimes the GBA one was the more interesting game (like The Scorpion King), though to be fair, around that same time was a lot of garbage DS ports using the DS's garbage 3D, I'm not saying it was ever perfect, I'm just saying Switch is a particularly lazy time, it's the same game with all the detail sucked out, that's it.
Switch only had a very brief grace period where the Switch ports could be interesting, namely Skyrim, especially as they threw in the Zelda themed items, but very fast the tech out stripped Switch and it becomes a real question why'd you want to bother playing that version, portability or not.