Tag: gba

Densetsu no Stafi 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, it’s more of more of the same. Same baddies (mostly), same skills (that again need re-learning), same silly characters to interact with. But! Densetsu no Stafi 3 adds something new – a second, female, starfish. If my Japanese is correct, she’s Stafi’s sister Stapi. At various times in the game you swap between the two starfish, sometimes at will, other times it is forced due to Events That Happen. Although similar, they have a couple of different skills. Notably, …

Densetsu no Stafi 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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See, I told you I was going to play them all. Soon after finishing Stafi 1, it was on to Stafi 2, which takes place directly following the events of the first game. Somehow, Stafi has lost all his skills so they have to be re-obtained, so really it’s a re-tread of the first game only with different levels. And more levels – seemingly a lot more levels. And different bosses. And some new gimmicks. OK, so not really a …

Densetsu no Stafi (Switch): COMPLETED!

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When I bought the original Game Boy Advance, imported from Japan, I ended importing a lot of Japanese games too. At the time it was usually cheaper, and there were some really weird looking games that I wanted to play. For a few years, I often saw the three GBA Stafi games for sale on the likes of Lik Sang (RIP) and Play Asia, but never cheap enough to buy. Eventually the DS came out and the 4th game in …

Metroid Zero Mission (Switch): COMPLETED!

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An actual Metroid Metroidvania game! Released on the Switch Game Boy Advance Online Service Thing presumably to tie in with the re-announcement (and gameplay footage) of the upcoming Metroid Prime 4, I thought, why the hell not eh? It’s good. Oh so good. Yes, I’ve played it before, but almost 20 years ago so I remembered very little of it. In fact, I’d even forgotten about the whole “zero suit” bit where Samus loses her armour and you have to …

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Switch): COMPLETED!

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With the original Golden Sun ending on a cliff-hanger, and The Lost Age carrying on directly from it (or rather, from slightly before the end of the first game), I didn’t really have a choice but to start it immediately afterwards. Well, not quite immediately, as you can transfer your saved game from the first game to the follow-up but this required half an hour of password input and correction. Not that you see the benefit of the password for …

Golden Sun (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Many years ago, so long ago that my Gaming Diary didn’t even exist, I played Golden Sun on my Game Boy Advance. It was great. At least, I remember it being great, but I remember very little about the actual events in the game. I recall the catastrophe at the start, and the village you’re in, and that your friend goes missing and it turns out later on he’s working with (under duress) the bad guys. I remember there was …

Metroid Fusion (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Like Minish Cap, Metroid Fusion is a GBA game I haven’t played for a very, very long time. Also like Minish Cap, I have it on my 3DS, also unplayed. But let me not talk of what I haven’t played, for this appeared on Switch Online and I did play it. Metroid Fusion is a more linear than usual Metroid title. That’s not to say there isn’t any backtracking or hidden things, more that it’s very hand-holdy and you’re told …

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Even though I owned this for the duration of my time with a 3DS as my primary form of handheld video gaming entertainment (it was free because I was a 3DS Ambassador), I never actually played it on there. I also have the original, for the GBA, which I did complete at the time (EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO!?) and very much enjoyed it, so no idea why I never played it again. Until now! It’s another one of the GBA games …

WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Nintendo added a load of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games to their online subscription service this week, and although I’m hyped to get to play through The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap I’m leaving that until I’m done with Fire Emblem Warriors. In the meantime, however, I thought I’d play this. It’s… very easy, isn’t it? Have I really remembered how to play every single minigame, accurately and with skill, from 20 years ago? To the point …

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (Switch): COMPLETED!

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And that’s it. The Unholy Trinity of Game Boy Advance Castlevania Games, all completed. Once again, I found this easier than I remembered. Something else I had obviously remembered wrongly was that I’d thought this was the best of the three games, but in fact, this time around I think I enjoyed Harmony of Dissonance more. A combination of the dash moves, the double castle and the lack of the silly “broken up map” of Aria of Sorrow, perhaps. That’s …

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (Switch): COMPLETED!

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No sooner had I completed Circle of the Moon I made a start on Harmony of Dissonance. Two things are immediately apparent: 1) the background and enemy graphics are much, much more impressive than the previous game, and 2) your main character, Juste Belmont, looks incredibly garish with a clashing outline. The reason for the latter is probably because Circle of the Moon got a lot of stick for being too dark to see on the original GBA. Back then, …

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Switch): COMPLETED!

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More than 14 years after last completing this, it was re-released on modern consoles as part of the Castlevania Advance Collection along with some of the other GBA Castlevania games (it’s missing the NES Classic original on there) and Castlevania X for some reason. Since it really needs to be played on a handheld, I bought the Switch version and then played it almost entirely on the TV. Tch. The general consensus is that of the three GBA IGA-vania games, …

Racing Fever (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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My new Evercade cartridges arrived! I have no idea why this is the game I played first, but I did, and because it’s very easy, I’d soon completed it too. I’d never heard of Racing Fever before, but it’s clearly an attempt to bring a game like the Neo Geo titles Over Top and Drift Out to the Game Boy Advance (where this first appeared). I think this also marks the first Game Boy Advance title to appear on the …

Things I’ve been playing recently

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Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (3DS) Have I posted about this yet? I can’t remember. It’s the main game-on-the-go-that-isn’t-called-Animal-Crossing on my 3DS at the moment, having started it soon after finishing off Zelda. So far, it’s a slight deviation from previous Layton games, as there are a lot of locations and travel between them. This makes the game seem a lot bigger, but as you’ve the option of finishing up several of the locations in any order (or at …

Gauntlet (GBA)

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The other half of Gauntlet and Rampart, obviously. And, like Rampart, it’s an excellent conversion even on a very small screen. I did get stuck on Level 14 though – I had a pocket full of keys (© The Rock) but had to pick up another to progress. But I couldn’t. Thankfully, the old hang-around-for-a-few-minutes trick worked and the walls all turned to exits.