10 Essential Game Boy Games #2: Donkey Kong

Continuing our look at 10 Essential Game Boy games, today I decided to look at a bit of a curve ball for Nintendo: the Super Game Boy's flagship title and a firm classic in its own right - Donkey Kong.

#9 - Donkey Kong

By 1994, Donkey Kong - the game in which Mario made his debut - was 13 years old. Mario was himself much better known by this time for the Super Mario Bros series, and his arcade origins were growing increasingly obscure. DK himself was also little but a distant memory: he had been usurped by Bowser in the Super series and only DK Jr. had managed to make an appearance in Super Mario Kart.

1994 changed that in a big way: by the end of the year, Donkey Kong would be the name on everyone's lips. Today, everyone remembers the classic Donkey Kong Country that saw Rare bring computer-rendered graphics onto the humble Super Nintendo with spectacular results, but the other big DK title that came out that year is not quite so well remembered. And that's a crying shame.

Donkey Kong GB (or Donkey Kong '94 as it's also known) initially seems to be a port of the original arcade game: all four levels are present and accounted for (which is more than the NES port can claim) but the game has an obvious problem: it's quite broken. Mario has developed a new move - the handstand and backflip - which makes the platforming elements of the game incredibly easy, and you'll rescue Pauline with nary a worry.

But then...

DK springs back to life, snatches Pauline, and heads on the run, opening up the real game - 97 levels of platforming challenge and the true sequel that Donkey Kong and DK Jr. truly deserved all those years ago.

The game starts off as a fairly simple continuation of the pre-existing Donkey Kong level mechanics, with the introduced element of picking up and throwing objects as well as being able to 'ride' certain enemies (a la Super Mario Bros 2). The levels are short - the game has a certain 'time trial' element that emphasises its arcade roots - and it's as much puzzle as it is platform: each level has a solution that you've got to find. New mechanics are introduced as the game goes on, such as blocks that extend into platforms or ladders that Mario has to place correctly to open up new parts of the levels. These mechanics are shown to the player via between-level cut-scenes which, with no words, still manage to effortlessly explain everything you need to know.

Aside from the gameplay, which is excellent, the presentation is also superb. On the handheld itself, this game looks and sounds perfectly nice - everything is clear and sharp, and the soundtrack is simple and catchy. But this game was truly designed to show off the Super Game Boy - a Super Nintendo based adapter that allowed you to play GB games on your TV - and show it off it does. From its border - based, obviously, on the original arcade machine - to the enhanced graphics and sound, Donkey Kong was the peripheral's showcase, and while many excellent games followed it that made use of the SGB's powers, none did it quite so well.

For a game that took many by surprise and initially appears to be a remake, Donkey Kong is a classic in its own right. While not uncommon, it can be a little hard to come by at times, so keep your eyes peeled, or pick up a copy on the 3DS Virtual Console. If you enjoy platformers in their purest form, there are few greater examples on the Game Boy.

10 Essential Game Boy Games pt.1

The original and chunkiest.

This is the one I actually owned. Not this actual one, of course. One just like it, though.

 The Game Boy Pocket was my very first console. Before I owned a Mega Drive, or a Master System or a Super NES or an N64 or even a humble original Game Boy, I owned a green Game Boy Pocket - a Christmas present in 1998. It came in a pack with a pouch and a copy of Super Mario Land and I loved it to bits. I had never really felt like I was missing out on anything in particular by not being part of the console race, being the dedicated PC gamer that I was, but the allure of Mario and chums proved too strong to resist, and I was very happy with my newest piece of gaming hardware.

Over the years, I have often come back to the humble, monochrome Game Boy. It is a marvel of technological wizardry: a compact, 8-bit Zilog Z80 powered handheld that might have seemed simple of the surface, but as the years went by we were shown exactly what it was capable of: by the time the last wave of monochrome titles were coming around in 1998/99 - a whopping nine years after the machine's initial release - the classics were coming thick and fast and the machine was doing things that those who had been around for the launch would have hardly thought possible.

So, if you're coming to the good old Game Boy now, what games should you get? What are the essential games that need to be in anyone's collection? Well, with this series, I hope to answer that question. A few ground rules: first, only "grey" carts count, so no GBC titles here: they'll be for another list. Secondly, I'm trying to focus on games that I would - and indeed do - still play today. Poke'mon Red may be the Game Boy game on which I racked up the most hours back in the day, but today I would struggle to recommend it to anyone: not through any fault of its own, but rather because it's been so thoroughly superseded by not only its sequels but also a definitive remake on the GBA. This is not a list of historical curios, its a list of games that still hold up more than 25 years after the machine's launch. So, let's kick it off with a classic from none other than Konami.

#10 - Nemesis

Konami were very early supporters of the Game Boy, with their first game for the system being The Castlevania Adventure. A little while later, however, through their Ultra/Palcom subsidiary (the name varied depending on where you lived) they brought Gradius to the machine, in the guise of its sometimes-name in the west, Nemesis.

The horizontal shooter is a genre I have a checkered history with, and indeed there were several versions of Gradius itself that I tried and failed to get on with in the past. Nemesis, however, I never had any problem with. Perhaps the difficulty is toned down, but whatever the reason, I always simply got on better with this version than any of the series conversions of sequels on other formats.

For those unfamiliar with Gradius, the concept is relatively simple. It's a direct descendant of Scramble, and maintains three elements from that game: fly to the right and shoot is the core gameplay mechanic; there are missiles that bomb the ground as well as a straight shot for flying enemies; and the levels evolve from open air combat to tight, twisty caverns as you go along. So far so standard, you might be thinking, but then Gradius/Nemesis hits you with its unique element: the power-up system.

Where in most games you will simply power up your weapons by picking up one item, and your shields with another one, and your speed with yet another one, in the Gradius series there's simply one generic power-up orb, and a bar along the bottom, with each slot on the bar representing a power-up. Each orb progresses the bar along one space, and you stop it when you get to the power-up you want.

It's not complicated, but it does take a lot of getting used to. It also means that powering up can take some time: your fully equipped ship uses three speed, three missile, two satellites and a force field, not to mention your choice of either double shot or laser cannon. There's certainly few other games quite like it (excluding, of course, the sequels and spin-offs of Gradius itself) and when you are fully equipped and powered up, it's a really rewarding feeling.

But this unique strength of the game is also its Achilles' heel. Die once, and you lose all your power-ups, dragging you back to your plodding, single-shot standard ship (named, incidentally, the Vic Viper). A single satellite (known as "options", for reasons that escape logic) takes five power-up orbs, and not every enemy drops them. When you die, you're probably in a fairly intense area, and being suddenly underpowered and un-shielded means you'll probably die again quite quickly (even moreso because you're also too slow to dodge a lot of stuff any more). This means that the loss of a single life in this game is an incredibly harsh punishment.

This is a broad complaint about the series in general, and one that I know puts a lot of people off the games. All that said, however, the strengths of this game more than make up for it. I found it a bit easier to recover in this one than in most of the other games in the series, for a kick off. Secondly, the game is excellent to look at, especially for an early GB title. The pace is a little slow, but this is actually a good thing for two reasons: one, it makes up for the small playfield, and second, it means the game doesn't have too harsh a difficulty curve.

The music is excellent and the sounds are all listenable. You can choose to start on any of levels 1-5, with two difficulty options as well (this was Konami's way of getting around a lack of a save function in several of their early GB titles: both Castlevania and Probotector/Contra have this feature as well). The real benefit of this feature is that it plays so well into the handheld nature of the titles: where console games are designed to be played for hours at a time, handhelds can be pulled out on the bus, and played for five minutes. Being able to pick your starting level means that this game is perfect as a pick-up-and-play title, able to be played for five minutes or an hour and be just as enjoyable either way.

This is, for me, the Game Boy shooter. An absolute classic of its system and a perfect introduction to the Gradius series, not to mention a great way to start your Game Boy collection.

The horror. The horror! And the cliches. The cliches!

Before they were attached permanently and seemingly irreversibly to the Star Wars franchise - and nothing else - Lucasfilm/LucasArts were one of the greatest game developers of all time. Let's just go back over a few greatest hits here, for example: The Dig - a breathtakingly well written and fascinating piece of science fiction; the Monkey Island games (particularly the first two, less so the later ones, but they're still better than most); Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle - all of which are amazingly funny and clever adventures; Outlaws, a great FPS set in the wild west (a surprisingly underused setting for such games); and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe among other excellent flight sims.


LucasArts continued to make wonderful Star Wars games after they got the license (the X-Wing series, Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, and - for me, at least, Rebellion) but eventually it became almost a weight around their necks, and the creativity, the humour and the storytelling that the company was so well known for got drowned out by the almost-guaranteed money that Star Wars games generated.


While LucasArts were perhaps best known for their work on PC compatibles and the Amiga, when they were at the height of their powers in 1994, they issued a relatively low-key console release: published by Konami on Super NES and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, came Zombies Ate My Neighbours. While the official title in this country and many others is simply Zombies!, I much prefer the original name, as it captures such a vital part of what the game is about: B-movie cliches.


Zombies is not a deep game. It's a Gauntlet-esque overhead title, best played with a friend, in which you run around suburban America killing zombies, werewolves, possessed dolls, vampires and everything else you possibly ever saw in a horror film. Meanwhile, you're trying to rescue all the neighbours, an assortment of people from cheerleaders to teachers to safari hunters. The environment is interactive: you can swim, jump on trampolines,unlock doors or - if sufficiently armed, blow up walls instead using a bazooka. Speaking of being armed, your weaponry ranges from your default water-gun weapon up through soda-can grenades, ice-creams that go off like catherine wheels and even a potion that turns your avatar into a b-movie monster themselves.

Everything in this game, from your avatars to the neighbours to the monsters, is filled with character. The male character, Zeke, wears 3d-glasses while Julie prefers a baseball cap, something that renders them still identifiable when they're in their monster forms. The sprites are huge (especially compared to games that preceded Zombies in this genre) and packed with detail. The whole thing is so lovingly made and, indeed, such a love-letter to the genre it's lampooning. Just when you think they've trotted out all the cliches, they find another one, and it's fantastic.

There is little between the MD and SNES versions, but I would plump for the Sega version - I prefer the music and the radar is always on screen. The SNES version is full screen but you have to pull up the radar and it bothered me a little. That said, the extra screen space is nice when you're in two player mode, so...really, I don't know which I prefer. Both are excellent, and the SNES version is available now on Wii VC, so definitely give it a go. If your idea of a good time is blowing away Zombies with friends, then I don't think this game has ever really been bettered.

A tale of nerds in love....

Those of you old enough to remember the Atari Lynx may remember one of its better titles - the launch game, Chip's Challenge. Developed by Chuck Sommerville while he was at Epyx (the people who originally created the Lynx), the game was designed to be a challenging, pick-it-up-and-never-put-it-down puzzler. Rather than being about falling blocks or shuffling tiles, Chip is an evolution of the maze game - and overhead run around, dodging and manipulating monsters, switches and tools to ensure victory, allowing Chip to make it through Melinda the Marvel's science clubhouse and win her heart (as far as stories about self-proclaimed nerds go, it's still more believable than The Big Bang Theory).

The game was launched on the Lynx and, despite not being the most technically impressive release on that console (which was capable of great things: several superb arcade conversions can be found on it) it remained one of the system's pillars. Epyx went on to convert it to several 8-bit computers (the Commodore 64 version is quite good) and Microsoft licensed it themselves for conversion to DOS and, most famously, Microsoft Windows, where it became a part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack.

This is where I first encountered it, when our 286 was upgraded to Windows 3.0 and boy did I love it. I was about 6 and not very good at it, it's got to be said, but as I grew older the game revealed more and more of its secrets to me (and the internet came along and then I could find out all the passwords). The Microsoft conversion is not well liked by Somerville himself, as the enemies move solidly from tile-to-tile, whereas previously they were somewhat more smoothly animated. This, occasionally, made it hard to tell which way they were going. I couldn't have cared less at the time, I thought the game was absolutely fantastic.

Sommerville set about creating a sequel in the early 1990s, but it was knocked on the head by copyright disputes (especially after Epyx went bankrupt, a piece of business trickery by Atari that makes one wonder at the decency of human beings - well, at least human beings in multi-million dollar businesses). It languished, finished but unreleasable. Sommerville released Chuck's Challenge 3d, a lovely little spiritual sequel, and fundamentally similar games like The Land of Um made appearances, but nothing really scratched that Chip's Challenge itch, especially as the original has been out of print since the Windows 95 era.

Until now, as Chip's Challenge has not only been released on Steam, but also the long awaited sequel, and a level editor. The sequel is fundamentally more of the same, but with new assets and stacks of new levels. The level editor supplants a long unofficial one based on the Microsoft version. The new version is closer, aesthetically, to the Lynx original than the Windows port, which may or may not thrill you (I personally preferred the Windows version's look, but I suspect that's largely because it's what I grew up with). The game certainly isn't ugly, at any rate, and is now accompanied by jaunty piano music which never quite grates - or it hasn't yet. I've only just started playing.

The glory of Chip's Challenge is that, as much as you can sink hours into solving its puzzles, it's also something you can have a quick blast on on a coffee break, flicking to and from it as a nice little diversion. A GOG release wouldn't go astray (Steam is nice on my home PC but I would like a DRM-free version for my laptop), but all up, Chip's Challenge is a blast from the past that still feels as fun, refreshing, and simultaneously familiar-but-unique as ever it did.

If the Victorians played games, they'd play...

 I was really struggling to find something to review this week, as evidenced by the fact that this review is three days late. I started playing a whole bunch of different games, but none of them really spoke to me. So I said to myself, "Braeden, you've got to get back to basics." And games don't come much more basic than Solar Striker.

A home-grown Nintendo title that came out around the Game Boy's launch, Solar Striker was a reminder that the Big N made arcade games once upon a time, and it's one of the few genuine vertical shooters in Nintendo's first-party library. There is really not a lot to this one. You fly upwards, you shoot things, and you fight a boss. That's really all there is, and therefore there's not a lot to talk about. Even the power-ups are underwhelming: you go from having one shot, to two shots, to three shots. With each life you lose, you drop one level of power-up, and each P icon is only half an upgrade, for some strange reason.

So, while this game is very, very simple, it's also deeply compelling. Much like Tetris or Alleyway, it's fellow GB launch titles, Solar Striker's main appeal is in the almost hypnotic state you get yourself in while playing it. Another favourite of mine is 1942 by Capcom, and it shares a certain something with Solar Striker - there's not a lot going on in either game, they're both terribly simple, but you eventually end up in a trance where you're not even thinking about the game and you're just pressing ever-onward, determined to do it better each time you die. Other shooters add glitz and glamour and bigger and better weapons and bad guys but if anything, I like these kind s of games better because all there is to it is me and the game, and the knowledge that when I die it's because I did something stupid or because I let the enemy pattern trick me.

Solar Striker isn't on the 3DS Virtual Console yet (a criminal oversight) but can typically by grabbed pretty cheap on Ebay. If you ever feel like reminding yourself that it's not graphics that make the game, then be sure to pick it up and give it a go.

Retro or Rose-tinted: Jill of the Jungle

One of the very first games I have any memory of playing, Jill of the Jungle was a shareware title made by Tim Sweeney of Epic MegaGames. It was, indeed, Epic's first really big hit title, building from the success of ZZT and paving the way for classics such as One Must Fall, Jazz Jackrabbit, Traffic Department 2192 and, eventually, Unreal and Gears of War.

As a kid, I'd have called this game a classic. But does it hold up today? I thought I'd play it and check it out.

The first game in the trilogy is Jill of the Jungle and it's the one I most associate with childhood. I had the shareware version from the time I was six to about the time I was sixteen, at which point I stumbled across a copy of the full version at a Cash Converters somewhere. There is no real story to Jill of the Jungle, other than it's a day for Jill and she's adventuring in the jungle. The game opens with Jill on a map screen which plays, functionally, the same as the levels - it's a platformer, with the levels represented by numbered bricks which you can jump down into. The map level is great - well designed, offering you a choice of what level to tackle next and hiding several secrets and bonuses. You don't need to finish all the levels, but it's much better if you do.

The levels are amazingly well designed - highly creative and varied. Some, like The Castle, test your platforming prowess and host no enemies, while others, like The Boulders or The Hut, require you to also take an active role in combat, armed with knives (which are more functionally boomerangs) or spinning blades (a much better, if somewhat less precise, weapon).

The first game starts off as a fairly regulation, if somewhat pretty, post-Keen platformer. The point that turns it around, however, is level 7, The Forest. This level is one of my favourites to this day. It seems relatively straightforward at first - but then you get the extra jumping power. This level introduces you to the game's love of opening up new areas as you access new abilities/weapons/items in the level - and, most importantly, to Jill's ability to transform. Toward the end of the level, Jill transforms into one of the phoenix enemies, granting her the power of flight as well as a flamethrower projectile (that the real phoenixes mercifully have to do without). Suddenly, the game changes, and you can explore the level freely, opening up new areas - including a treasure trove that you could see, but not access, in level 1. Many of the levels are linked in this way - hinting at things that you might find later.

The second episode, Jill Goes Underground, largely offers more of the same, albeit with something of a change of format: the map level is gone, and instead the game plays out in a linear fashion, albeit one that still encourages exploration to a degree. The level design here is excellent once again, opening with a challenging trek up the mushrooms seen in the first game's epilogue, before plunging you into the underground and working your way through devilish mazes, gauntlets of enemies and some outright strange areas, peaking with the eye-hurting Land of Eternal Weirdness. The game reaches an incredibly satisfying conclusion as, after your exhausting trek through the underground, you finally break through to the surface again.

The third episode - Jill Saves the Prince - suffers from a stunning sense of disconnection against the fist two. For a start, the map is back, but this time it's overhead. Where the first two games were connected - the second started at the end of the first - there seems to be no link between two and three. Also, the plot of a kidnapped prince comes out of absolutely nowhere - this isn't what we've been working toward for the last two games or anything, just suddenly - Jill is going to save a prince, the same way she might go down the shops, or do her taxes. The levels are well enough designed - and very challenging - but not quite as memorable as the first two. Nothing on the level of The Forest or Montezuma's Castle here, or even the Depths of Heck (I will never get over the fact that Americans seem to find the world hell so illicit). The level design will push you to your limits, however - culminating in levels 12 and 13, the former being on the border of impossible due to an overabundance of instant-kill spikes while the latter contains countless traps, including a false exit that leaves the game unbeatable. Odds are, however, that you'll never see it, as level 12 will sap your will to live. If you see the screenshot above, then it's already too late for you.

 
As the three episodes are all technically parts of the same game, they share a lot of assets, although each episode introduces some new stuff. Most of the graphics are exceptional for their time, and still look nice today, however, in episode 3 you will find the Ship of the Giant Lizard Men (which comes out of absolutely freaking nowhere), with the titular lizard men serving as enemies. Their sprites are the absolutely pits, the worst looking thing in all three games. I initially thought this level must be a joke, but as it turns out they're the ones who kidnapped the prince to start with. The sound is good, and the music was always bearable but not really memorable - there is nothing here that you'll be humming afterwards.

The gameplay is solid - run and jump, basically, with the knife being the only game mechanic that requires any mastery (the in-game help refers to using the knife as an art). The platforming is a bit dated - Jill is as stiff as a board and locks to grid quite nastily - you can actually have her frozen mid-running animation, if you time it right. This can make some tricky jumps even more ridiculous (seriously, level 12 of episode three can go suck it) but it's nothing that you can't get past with some practice.

I would have said I'd gotten worse at video games as I've gotten older, but I knocked over all three episodes in a little over 3 hours. Given that they're meant to be taken as one game, I think that's not an unreasonable length for the type of game in question. After Episode 1, you've pretty much seen everything - gameplay wise - that the games have to offer, but the subsequent episodes find new ways of using those mechanics and to get through episode 3 you will need to draw on everything you've learned thus far.

All in all, I think Jill holds up. Commander Keen it ain't, and many console fans of the time may turn their noses up at it, but it's a fun adventure that constantly challenges you to try new things and rarely throws up the same challenge twice. Not perfect, but still fun, and a
title I would happily recommend to anyone after a 2d platformer with which to kill an afternoon.

Life. Advanced.

It was freezing, and raining, and just generally one of those grey, dreary Melbourne days that just make me miss the old place so much. It was June 2001, and we were on a school trip of some kind that had taken us from Shepparton all the way into Melbourne City. What were we doing there? Couldn't tell you. National Gallery of Victoria? Italian Poetry Reading Competition? Whatever it was, we were Year 9 students, and once the event we were brought there for was over with, we were turned loose on the city. And when I say turned loose - well...

I remember a lot from that day. Riding elevators up and down with some friends of mine, because the elevators in Melbourne Central had a power-point and one of them needed to charge his phone. Traipsing the city high and low and marveling at all the crap we didn't have in Shepparton (which probably included power-point equipped elevators). We had no money, so we occupied ourselves with window shopping, racing from the top of Daimaru to the basement of the Little Collins St. David Jones (getting stopped by security was immediate disqualification), and, if I remember correctly, scouring several shops in which we'd wasted time for my backpack, which I had absentmindedly left somewhere.

And standing in front of Myer Bourke Street, hiding away from the freezing rain, staring at the TVs in the windows and watching this.

Anyone who read my first post will know how I feel about game commercials, and this one immediately spoke to me. It said: Doesn't this just look so cool? Aren't there people you'd like to throw vegetables at? Don't you want a Game Boy Advance? And by god, I did.

It was the week the GBA came out - actually, it was a Friday, so I'm willing to wager it was the day the GBA game out - and Myer had dedicated a good chunk of their AV department to the new handheld. There were interactive displays playing F-Zero, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Konami Krazy Racers and, of course, Super Mario Advance.

I had owned a Game Boy Pocket for about two and a half years at that point, and loved it to death, but the Game Boy Advance was one of those moments when you could sense the whole game was going to change. And I realised that the instant I picked up and played Super Mario Advance on that rainy, dismal day.

Mario Advance was a conversion of Super Mario Bros 2, the Western version anyway. (The Japanese version, known in the west as The Lost Levels, was ported to the Game Boy Color in 1999 as a pack with the original Super Mario Bros, the excellent Super Mario Bros DX). I knew the game - I had played Super Mario All Stars at friends' houses, I had even played the NES original once or twice, and it just rammed home the fact that here, on the GBA, we weren't in Kansas any more. The game was beautiful, in that way truly great 16-bit 2d games always will be, because they're timeless. But what this added - giant sprites, bright and bold colour graphics that were so superior to anything on the old Game Boys, both mono and colour. And the sound.

Oh, the sound.

The Game Boy's sound chip has its fans, and in the right hands, some great soundtracks have been produced (Link's Awakening is a particular favourite of mine). But, suddenly, from this pocket sized device, we had real, actual sound. Voices. Music - SNES quality music. Great sound effects. It was a revelation and it was what immediately hit me about the system. The step from Game Boy Pocket to Color was big, but the step from Game Boy Color to Advance was worthy of Neil Armstrong. I got a Game Boy Advance that Christmas, along with Mario Kart Super Circuit, and never looked back. Except, obviously, to play old games on it. Because, y'know, retro gaming and all that.

The GBA's launch line-up had some familiar games amongst the originals and it would become a hallmark of the system to feature ports of classic SNES and Mega Drive games, as well as a bevvy of Nintendo-published ports of NES and (more desirably) Famicom classics. Even when it was new, the Game Boy Advance was a retro gamer's dream, hosting enhanced conversions of all six of Mario's 8 and 16 bit adventures (alright, so SMB1 and The Lost Levels weren't so much 'enhanced' but they were good ports nonetheless); remakes of Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts; the entire Mickey's Magical Quest and Donkey Kong Country trilogies; R-Type III; the best ever portable versions of Doom, Doom 2 and Wolfenstein 3d; the first Rayman; a 4-in-1 cart featuring Afterburner, Space Harrier, Outrun and Super Hang-On - and countless others - far too many to list here. They weren't all perfect (and some, like Sonic Genesis in particular, were god-damn awful) but there is so much great stuff that any retro gamer will be in heaven with a GBA.

Of course, there are also many, many great originals for the system. As well as the system-launching Konami Krazy Racers, Konami also brought a trilogy of Castlevania games to the system - all of which are A+ caliber games - and Hideo Kojima's Boktai series that included a solar panel in the cartridge to encourage kids to get outside into the daylight (it's about vampire hunting, so hoarding sunlight is good). Elsewhere, Nintendo were willing to get creative with the system themselves and while they never made an original Mario game for the system, we did get Mario vs. Donkey Kong; the brilliantly written and downright hilarious Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga; Wario Ware Inc. and the incredibly fun and innovative Wario Ware Twisted. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror took the Kirby series in a bold new direction. The Minish Cap offered up a great new adventure in the Zelda saga that tried new and different things. Poke'mon's advanced generation - Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald - stumbled a little but should be applauded for trying to innovate within the formula, and LeafGreen and FireRed are both all-time classics, remakes the way remakes should be done. And though Sonic didn't get the same remake love that Mario did, it's made up for with a superb trilogy of brand-new Sonic games that always seem to get glossed over when people complain that Sonic lost his way in the mid-2000s.

Along with all of the above, more game studios than the mind can comfortably comprehend released more triple-A titles for this system than you would believe. There's a lot of shovelware, sure, but there's also so much good stuff that building up a library of quality titles is dead easy, especially now, with the games all played and tested by the community so thoroughly. GBA games - even really good ones - can still be found quite cheap. For playing them on, I would recommend either a GBA SP or DS Lite (the GBA SP has the added benefit of playing classic Game Boy games, though the DS Lite, of course, also plays DS games). Both can be found at reasonable prices online. GBA games are also available on the Wii U virtual console (although not, for some reason, the 3DS).

The GBA is a console anyone with an interest in retro games should own. Just remember to play it loud.