GBA SP impressions, Zelda and Metroid

  

The best thing about the GBA SP is the front light. To enjoy playing anything on the original GBA, I had to play under a lampshade with the shade turned up, and if I wasn’t properly positioned, the light wouldn’t be focused right, and end up causing a glare on parts of the screen. Somehow I managed to get through both Zelda Oracle games, most of Castlevania: CoTM, Zelda: ALttP, and Metroid Fusion on the handheld. When I got the GB Player addon for the Gamecube, it was very enjoyable to play GBA games and see everything on my vibrant TV. The front light can be switched off, though aside from saving the battery while the GBA is on and not in use, there’s no reason to play without the light.

I like how the SP has a compact design, the handheld folds open to show the screen and protect it while not in use, so putting it in your pocket won’t damage the screen. The feel of the buttons is more clicky than the pushy feeling of the original GBA, including the d-pad which I didn’t care for at first, but it works. L and R are positioned on the top of the square design and actually feel easier to use than the original GBA’s layout.
No more worrying about buying new batteries, it uses a rechargable lithium battery thats suppose to provide about 10 hours of play with the light on, and supposedly only takes 3 hours to fully recharge. The AC adapter that plugs directly into the GBA like a rechargeable cell phone is also compact, the electrical plug folds into the plastic unit so you won’t have the two metal prongs sticking out when storing it. With the addition of the recharge port is the loss of the headphone jack, an adapter that plugs into the recharge port has to be bought seperately.

I’ve had a slight interest in getting a SP, but already having a GBA that I hardly use and a GB Player it hadn’t been worth it for me. I originally got my GBA the day it launched to play Zelda: Oracle of Seasons for the GBC, since I had skipped on the GBC’s generation, and the GB Player kinda made my GBA obsolute since I didn’t travel much. But Nintendo’s push of the nostalgic Classic NES design finally enticed me to pick it up, plus Four Swords Adventures needed GBAs. The design on the controller area looks just like an NES controller, and the outside of the unit even has a simple line design to represent the textured top of the NES.
A picture of every angle you could ever want of the Classic NES GBA SP here.

After buying my SP and eyeing the shelf full of NES Classic games, the sales clerk suggested I get a game to go along with my NES themed GBA, and game I did get. Gotta have The Legend of Zelda. The only other NES Classic GBA game I’d really consider getting is Super Mario Bros., if only because the Game Boy Color version of it tends to be frustrating and unenjoyable because of the cropped screen.

I’ve played through the first quest of Zelda so far, and the game looks and feels the same as the NES version. Because of the GBA’s resolution of 240×160 compared to the NES’ of 256×224, NES games have to be squished to fit the screen, but it doesn’t effect Zelda noticably at all. They managed to keep it close to the look of the original by squishing the background graphics, while keeping the sprites the same size, probably possible because of the top-down style of the game. The title screen music theme sounds slightly different than it did on the NES, but its only a minor instrument variation. All of the sound effects sound the same, including Link’s sword beam, where in the Gamecube version, it sounded a bit muffled. The only thing I think they didn’t need to change, as silly as it sounds, is the intro text. Sure its more coherent now and “Ganon” is spelled correctly, but it just feels kinda needless considering it made enough sense and that English text was originally from the Japanese version.

No special gold treatment for the cartridge this time. To go along with the original NES boxart style games like Super Mario Bros. they used for this GBA series, they gave the box art a black background, and made the shield art gold. Although the manual is printed mainly in black and white, it was nice to see it reproduce some bits from the original Legend of Zelda manual such as the tip story with artwork scenes and enemy and item lists.

Its been very enjoyable to play a bit of Zelda on my GBA each night. I know about most everything in the first quest of the game, except for that one heart container that always alludes me, and this game never gets old, even after 18 years or so. I still die about 10 times by the end, but I’ll get 0 on the counter someday!
With the GBA SP’s design and good lighting solution, its a great little system that can just be picked up at anytime, anywhere, to easily playing video games. This is of course what Game Boy has always been about, but for the first time since the original Game Boy, its fun for me.

Nintendo.com is running a survey to get some ideas for possible games for the next series of NES Classic games. Bring on Contra, Adventures of Lolo, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, please!

Most of my intial time on my GBA SP was spent playing Metroid Zero Mission again on hard, this time with a slightly lower item percentage of 14%… and I’m having a bit of trouble in Tourain with getting by the Metroids. I skipped the high jump boots this time, and with that the super missile in Brinstar. Last time I noticed I usually got more regular missile refills than super missiles so I opted for another missile tank. Too bad Metroids take 5 missiles when I’ve only got 4 at a time! There’s like 1/3 more Metroids in each room on hard, and they don’t stay frozen for long. Once they latch onto you, they just don’t want to let go. Compared to playing it on my Gamecube, the LCD screen of the GBA makes the graphics nice and sharp, and the GBA’s digital pad makes Samus’ movement feel more quick, but I feel that I better control using the GC controller. L and R on the SP are easy to press, so much so on the small handheld that my right finger would sometimes unintentionally press R and I’d waste my missiles. I should be able to do OK once I get past the Metroid rooms. Zero Mission’s Metroids, especially on hard, really puts Super Metroid’s to shame. Since I had played the majority of Zero Mission on my bright TV, I was used to seeing the Metroids zoom in as they appeared. Playing it on the SP was a bit darker, so in some cases I wouldn’t see the Metroids until they had come close, and I’d be standing right where they entered. Maybe the game was meant to be played in a darker tone to get this effect?

Metroid.jp has updated with some nice concept art for Kraid, Ridley, Chozos, and Samus Aran.
If you live in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington D.C. and are interested in getting into the game industry, The Game Intiative is having its “How to Break into the Game Industry” conference next Saturday. Sounds like fun.

The Minibosses finally update the music of their site with the addition of a live version of Ninja Gaiden and it is good.

Zelda: Four Swords Adventures – Day 3

3 stages per level and completing 1 level per day in The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures makes for a nice episodic adventure. This is some of the most fun I’ve had playing a video game cooperatively with another person. Yesterday was spent going through the Eastern Temple area consisting of the village of the Blue Maiden, and a remake of the Eastern Palace from A Link to the Past.

The village was lighter on action and more heavy on puzzle solving, and as such, I didn’t enjoy it as much, though the game needs variety with the amount of stages it has. A lot of time was spent searching all over the village and trying to figure out to do. The Dark World was introduced and allowed us to go back and forth to a similar but different version of the village to get around obstacles that were present in the “Light” world. When players are in the Dark World, the action is shown on the GBA, and in the light world, the players are shown as shadows moving around on the TV, and although you can’t interact with anything in the light world, you can actually pick up the other players while in the dark world. The Pegasus shoes were introduced in this stage and act just like they did in ALttP, although now are powerful enough to cause a crowd of people to scatter.

The Eastern Temple (or “Palace” depending on which term the game is using at the time), starts off with the same entrance room design as the original, but is totally different in design thereafter. Familar enemies such as the leaping Stalfos make a return, along with rooms that go wild with the shooting cannon balls. One room in particular involved activating a switch to open up the path ahead, only to have a giant cannon ball release from behind and chase us forward where we fell into a trap door. The cannon ball actually followed down the hole and reappeared on the GBA and started chasing us like a homing missile. The boss of the dungeon was a stone version of Argghus from A Link to the Past’s Level 2 swamp dungeon in the Dark World. No hookshot to use this time, so it was up to the boomerang. The boss required quick feet, with its massive size covering the room and circling minis, it quickily would hone in on us.

A warning to anyone playing with the original GBA: Make sure the batteries you are using have enough energy in them before playing. We were halfway through the Eastern Temple when a message popped up on the screen explaining that the link cable from socket 2 had been “pulled”, and that the game would be resetting automatically. It was only until after we played again and the same thing happend that I looked at my GBA and saw the red light was dim and I realized it was because the batteries were dying. So after a third try and realizing that I had grabbed another pair of dead batteries, we started the Eastern Temple again from the beginning with fresh new batteries. Nintendo must have made the game reset when a link cable plug is pulled to prevent possible cheating or abuse.

Reading the manual, I’ve learned that Tingle’s presence of floating by is not to help you, but for his own personal gain. If you leave Force Gems on the ground, he’ll actually come by and take them! In a comical manner, Tingle will actually utter a sound of frustration if you pick up a Force Gem right before he does.
Tonight Death Mountain was scaled and conquered. There were lot’s of little throwbacks to past Zeldas. The sign in the first stage was a take off of the wanted sign from ALttP, talking about capturing Green, Red, Blue, and Purple Link, each represented with a different color face. One area later in the mountain remakes a screen from The Legend of Zelda, the formation of rocks in the “Lost Hills” you climb to get to level 5. Knowledge of how to find Level 5 was useful 

Green Chu Chus (or Buzz Blobs as they’re called in ALttP?) shockenly return and bring with them new movement from The Wind Waker. Not content to just wobble around, they’ll actually attack if you near by jumping at you. Gotta love all the AI tweaks of old enemies to throw off veteran Zelda players. Hinox, the one-eyed giant bomb throwers from ALttP’s Dark World, make a comeback in large numbers. They don’t seem to use bombs this time though, but dig up the dirt around them and toss large boulders at you. They’re also ferocious and will attack and grab you, shaking you around a bit and dropping your Force Gems on the ground. Gorons are scattered about the mountain not doing much of anything, and massive amounts of those stone turning enemies from ALttP’s Death Mountain take up space in a few areas. One of the descriptions for an area of Death Mountain used the word “Hebra”. In the Japanese version of A Link to the Past, “Hebra Mountain” was apparently another name used to refer to Death Mountain.

A certain mask wearing bird appears for Stage 2′s boss, dropping boulders as it flies by intially, then coming in closer to attack where you can hit it. One player has to toss bombs at the bird to knock it down, while the other goes inside a cave the bird gets stuck in and whack it in the head to weaken it. It took me a while to get bomb throwing from the bomb flowers right, as I’d wait at one end of the screen, and then the bird would fly by the other end, or I’d throw the bomb too late.

Death Mountain wrapped up with a fire dungeon contained in a building similar to the Tower of Hera from ALttP. Nostalgia filled this level with the theme music of The Legend of Zelda’s Level 9 dungeon theme. Fire breathing statues and moving platforms over lava provided obstacles to get around, sometimes requring the use of Roc’s Feather. Any item that gives Link the ability to use the downstab technique from Zelda II is awesome. Some rooms contained spinning lines of fire that had to be avoided while crossing over the narrow pathways, and occassionally hitting a switch to send the fire lines spinning in the other direction to pass. Dodongo’s, reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda originals with their orangish/tan colors provided for the boss fight.

The adventure continues tomorrow to liberate Hyrule Castle (again)!

Zelda: Four Swords Adventures

Picked up my pre-ordered copy of The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures from EB Games today. The Classic NES GBA SP was released just in time to tempt me to buy it to have 2 Game Boys for 2 player connectivity connection craziness gameplay. If there’s one reason for Nintendo to push their GC/GBA connectivity craze, Four Swords seems to be it.

A new 2-D classic style Zelda game, on a home console even. Starting up the game and listening to the title screen play the ending theme to A Link to the Past gives a taste of the nostalgia and throwbacks to older Zelda games to come. After a somewhat unnecessarily long introduction, your greeted by everyone’s favorite head spinning owl, informs you your the hero and have accepted your destiny, etc. etc., and the bush whacking and gameplay begins.

Using the GBA, the controls and movement of Link felt very similar to A Link to the Past, the R button still used for picking up stuff (now including other players!) and B and A to use the Sword and item. Link’s gained some new moves since his SNES adventure though. As with Ocarina of Time and its sequels, spinning the control pad and pushing B will let Link unleash his spin attack without charging, although it can be difficult to pull off due to the limits of the control pad versus an analog control stick. Link can also apparently do some sort of lunge or foward thrusting jump attack, although I haven’t quite gotten that down yet. Collecting enough Force Gems, which you can fight over with the other players to get a higher score, will allow you to upgrade your sword, giving the Four Sword the ability to shoot sword beams or have Link unleash the hurrican spin attack from The Wind Waker.

Each player can pick up and keep 1 item at a time, such as a Boomerang, Bombs, Slingshot, and Fire Rod. With bombs, there are some parts where you must blow up a wall to make a door, so at least one player will have to hang on to the bombs and take care of the obstacles so the other players can proceed. My favorite and most used so far is the Fire Rod. Not only does to shoot a fire projectile as it did in A Link to the Past, but the A button can be held down to use it as a short range flame thrower! Its also great for burning down large fields of grass in one sweep. Becareful where you shoot the flame though. Using the sword or any weapon on the other players will hit them, although not damage them. With the Fire Rod, if the other players are hit, they’ll catch on fire and run around, and if you or anyone else happens to touch them, you’ll also catch on fire.

The GBA requirement of the game comes in when you enter any building or cave. The stage map on the TV stays the same, while Link will disappear into the house, and reappear on the player’s GBA screen. This, along with each map area zooming in and out too accomadate showing all players on the screen at once, means you never have to worry about being tied to a fixed area with the other players. Although all players must be at the end of a map to scroll the screen to the next area to travel through like in A Link to the Past. A Seiken Densetsu game, such as Secret of Mana, could really take advantage of this, checking your inventory, casting spells, and exploring wouldn’t be a problem.The player’s heart life meter is also displayed on the GBA screen, and only shown over the player’s head on the TV when damaged or refill hearts are grabbed. When talking to people, the text will also be shown exclusively on your GBA, unless its an important event all players need to see.

A few puzzles require players to go in different directions to hit a switch so other players can proceed. One puzzle in Hyrule Castle involves having a player stand on a switch outside while the other players go in to pick up the treasure. Standing on the switch removes the wall blocking the window, so the players inside can see. When playing 2 players, each player can have the extra Links tag along, so pushing select, I left my green Link on the switch and came inside to join the fun. Just for kicks, heading back out and nearing the exit, I pushed L to call back the green Link, leaving the switch up, and the window blocked, so the room inside went dark from the lack of light.

The first major boss battle involves a certain phantom but with a twist. Instead of simply playing tennis 1 on 1, you now bounce the projectile to the other player(s) who will bounce it back to the boss. Plenty of enemy soldiers from ALttP to fight, and they’ve adjusted their move pattern to try to avoid getting hit. The land walking Octoroks are back with a vengance, Hyrule must be experiencing an overpopulation and evolution problem, blue octoroks will take a beating and keeping on spitting rocks.

Tingle is back for his… 4th Zelda game appearence and is just as infatuated with fairies as ever. He’ll hover by with his balloons sometimes, and its still fun to pop his balloons and have him fall, sometimes into the deep water, waiting for 2 minutes and then realizing that he’s probably not going to get back up this time…

GBA SP Classic NES Limited Edition

Without access to a digital camera, my scanner is the best I can do, and with the SP’s light, you can just barely scan in the game screen image! No more playing under turned up lampshades for me. GBA SP Classic NES Limited Edition impressions to come.