SNES library vs. GBA library

[AmandaCathedral | 148]

I've asked myself this a lot, and I feel like both systems are very good for different reasons.

For every perfect SNES classic like Kirby Super Star, there are four really fun games you've never heard of on GBA like Gadget Racers, Iridion 3D, Lady Sia, and Turbo Turtle Adventures.

The SNES has a good selection of really awesome games, but its selection of modest quality games is lacking.

I think you can play better games on the SNES, but there are more games worth playing on GBA.

Edited August 8, 2021 by AmandaCathedral

[Tanooki | 4,958]

I think the problem here to be fair, the GBA lacks the resolution, that's it.  Game carried between the two, no matter what anyone thinks, to a degree that is passable to damning, suffers, due to the loss of room.

A game like (for me) Megaman & Bass on GBA is utterly unplayable trash compared to the SFC/SNES release.  The dips at Capcom did nothing to scale the visuals down on the various stages/sprites for the most part.  You end up with strange problems in some stages, but it's not too annoying other than a few points of unavoidable hits, yet one part makes the game toss into the wall worthy -- robot masters.  Since MM/B are not scaled, and the robot masters aren't either, on SFC you have them eat up a fairly decent but still small size of the area.  On the GBA they eat up like 1/6 of the screen you basically just get the crap beat out of you with no room to maneuver around incoming shots or robots running their pattern into you.  It's utterly infuriating.

DKCs port has this issue, not so much bosses, but stages.  Many of them have disgusting leaps of faith, better memorize those stages or you'll be dying a LOT into holes or moving enemies with spikes(bees) or stuff that'll just wreck you.  The list goes on, that's where GBA fails... ports.  They're cramped.

But outside that GBA often wins, across the board, or in most aspects.  I think it's fair to say, the sound tracks of the FF SNES ports suffered a little due to the non-dedicated sound chip, but the games in every other respect were enhanced and made better.

 

And of course games made for it, they shine.  The system has more capabilities in line with a mix between a Sega Saturn or a SNES running permanently a FX2 and SA1 chip under the hood performance wise.  It's a sprite cruncher.  It's a sprite changer/rotator/etc not just the background(mode7) which the FX2 was needed for Yoshi to bump into that level of detail.

[MagusSmurf | 577]

so this topic is probably dead but it's a neat idea and I have FEEDBACK I MUST SHARE on some of the lists and suggestions I've seen:

-The Mega Man Battle Network games are definitely not all the same and 2 and 3 probably belong on a top games list. I'd be a little skeptical about 1 though. Haven't played beyond that but MMBN'4's reputation is absolutely terrible and 5 and 6's seems reasonably good? Probably 2/3/5/6 should be there but maybe not 1 (maybe if it's a top ~200 and it's like game 200 or something) and definitely not 4.

-The GBA ports of the big Nintendo and Square games are one thing and you could argue about their quality/appropriateness on a list here but if we're stretching to include stuff like Breath of Fire 1 and the first couple Magical Quest games on a top GBA games list, that probably says not-great great things about the GBA's second-tier games - even at their original SNES resolutions I wouldn't call those great games, and they weren't on the top 200 on @Reed Rothchild's SNES list which is NA-released games only.

-I've never played any but count me highly skeptical of PS1 demakes. I mean if SNES ports were already having issues I'm not sure putting stuff from a generation later on GBA is gonna fare well!

-Never played but Legacy of Goku 1 seems to be a deeply hated game and people don't seem to like Shining Soul either.

-I really doubt GBA-era collections of early 80s arcade games have any relevance at this point.

-Sigma Star Saga was an interesting experiment but it has issues. The exploration scenes cram pretty big character sprites onto a not-particularly-big GBA screen and the "exploration combat" was pretty dubious as a result and there was no particularly good reason it had to be. And I don't recall the "random battle combat" rating highly either; good shmups are typically fairly tightly-designed and this...wasn't. Especially not when they put you in one of those slow gigantic ships and there was nothing you could do about it. I enjoyed this back in the day and it's been awhile but I don't think it's gonna come off looking good compared to the actually-good SNES shmups or Action-Adventure games - or Minish Cap, for that matter.

-Is "Harry Potter" supposed to be the GBA Sorceror's Stone game? I won that game with a GBA in a raffle back in the day, beat it twice due to lack of alternatives. It's...it's not good. Don't play it!

-why aren't the super robot taisen original generations gba games listed they even got western releases reeeeeeee

-Is the Curious George game actually good?

[Tanooki | 4,958]

Ehh you're underrating the PS1/Saturn-ish potential of the GBA.  The problem isn't the hardware, it's either the less than competent designers, bean counter restrictions, or both.  You can see some quality conversions both 2 and 3D from the early CD era stuff that works and looks great on GBA.  SFA3, Super Puzzle Fighter, Mr Driller series, and into 3D with the V3D engine there's V-Rally (clone of Sega Rally 1) which on the tail end did a Gex/Spyro like game with Asterix & Obelix and another engine pulled off a PC conversion(well done too) of Wing Commander Prophecy.

Legacy of Goku 1 and 2 are kind of disliked because of some bad design choices in how you attack/defend, not so much that the terrain, visuals, audio or the rest sucks, just some bad choices in mechanics.  Shining Soul I've not heard was hated, but that the sequel (I owned it) was much improved and it really handles largely like a portable Diablo.

Some SNES ports though while done great had others that over shadowed it with being lazy and badly optimized included in some cases but that's not the hardware to blame, it's bad people.  R-Type III is a good proxy for fouling it up, but conversely Phalanx is amazing.  While not a port at all the Gradius game that did pop up blows many out of the water and it's not alone.  And that's your call on the second tier stuff, the Magical Quest trilogy on SNES were excellent and carried over to the GBA just as nicely (as did also Aladdin.)  The FF trilogy though, largely were very improved, just some inconsistencies largely with the mode7 effects of the overworld, but that's hardly damning.

[NostalgicMachine | 261]

The NES will always be my personal favorite console of all time, but there's no denying the SNES is arguably objectively the greatest 2D console ever. Even though the NES is my favorite, the SNES has my favorite game - A Link to The Past. It's also RPG central for me. I grew up owning a Genesis, but the SNES truly is king of that era.

With that said, I got the GBA on launch day. I remember going to my local Toys 'R Us (Peabody MA, baby!) and getting said console along with Super Mario Advance. What a memory. I loved the GBA simply because it was more or less a portable SNES, and eventually being able to play ALTTP on the go was the biggest deal to me at the time. Once the SP came out, I was convinced it was the greatest handheld of all time. A portable SNES with a backlit screen in the early 2000's was essentially pocket magic.

[Tanooki | 4,958]

It's refreshing when you see someone who got over it from the era and say something like that as a former Sega owner, not many even now will which is weird to a point.

But you are right though GBA is more powerful than SNES and Genesis, it really is like though presentation wise a portable SNES with the only lacking part a non-dedicated sound processor and the lower resolution too.  Those can be worked around, yet the output it's beyond those two, sprite pushing more on the level of a Neo Geo or Saturn, definitely pulls the same faux 3D way of making 3D the Saturn does when you get stuff like the V3D engine(VRally and Asterix) and BlueRoses (Wing Commander, Smashing Drive.)  YEs some SNES games suffered, others didn't, and those who did, it was botched rush jobs, just bad/lazy coding.  When you can counter a bad one with a good one you wonder, when you can see 3D games pulling what they did it's a larger WTF moment.  The GBA was peak handheld until it got into trying to ape the burgeoning mobile phone market adding more area and a touch capability with the DS.  With the DS, more post that, handhelds kind of lost their unique personality in a way, the gloves more came off because the clear restrictions weren't so much.

[Webhead123 | 691]

This thread seemed like the perfect place to finally voice this gripe:

Is there anyone else (likely any of the old-schoolers like me) that finds some of the GBA's ports like Super Mario World and Link to the Past absolutely ruined by the obnoxiously-added voice cues? Like, now in SMW, Mario has to flap his yap every time he grabs a power-up by saying, "Just what I needed!". Shut up, Mario! I don't need your constant Wahoos and friggin' commentary through the whole game!

And they added Link's grunt whenever he swings his sword now in LttP. It gets really old, really quickly.

It's frequent and irritating enough that I can't play through those ports. I just can't do it. I know part of it is my familiarity with the originals and the voice lines feeling like they don't belong but...is there any added value to those additions?

Is anyone else as bothered by this as I am? 

Edit: Also, I love Charles Martinet and respect the man for what he's done...but in my head, Mario's voice will forever sound like Lou Albano.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Webhead123

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

2 minutes ago, Webhead123 said:

This thread seemed like the perfect place to finally voice this gripe:

Is there anyone else (likely any of the old-schoolers like me) that finds the GBA's SNES ports like Super Mario World and Link to the Past absolutely ruined by the obnoxiously-added voice cues? Like, now in SMW, Mario has to flap his yap every time he grabs a power-up by saying, "Just what I needed!". Shut up, Mario! I don't need your constant Wahoos and friggin' commentary through the whole game!

And they added Link's grunt whenever he swings his sword now in LttP. It gets really old, really quickly.

It's frequent and irritating enough that I can't play through those ports. I just can't do it. I know part of it is my familiarity with the originals and the voice lines feeling like they don't belong but...is there any added value to those additions?

Is anyone else as bothered by this as I am? 

I never got far when it comes to owning a GBA. But when it comes to other games that have received a revision, I always hope that they include an option where I can customize it for the sake of playing. So adding things like that without an option to remove them would be annoying to me. And not fun if it becomes that level of annoying. 

[Estil | 1,267]

14 hours ago, Webhead123 said:

Is there anyone else (likely any of the old-schoolers like me) that finds some of the GBA's ports like Super Mario World and Link to the Past absolutely ruined by the obnoxiously-added voice cues? Like, now in SMW, Mario has to flap his yap every time he grabs a power-up by saying, "Just what I needed!". Shut up, Mario! I don't need your constant Wahoos and friggin' commentary through the whole game!

I'm an old skool gamer (been gaming since 1990) and I think it's cute    BTW, you forgot "Bravo!" (collects 5th Dragon coin) and "Luckie!" (1-Up)

[Tanooki | 4,958]

Eh I've got my originals, been playing at home since Christmas of 1985.  Admittedly it was a little jarring at first with it being just so well...chatty.  But I grew to have no issue with any of it, while silence is nice, it does add a slight bit of personality to it as well so I really don't mind either way.  Letting that of all things ruin a game for you seems pretty petty and shallow.

[Webhead123 | 691]

11 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Eh I've got my originals, been playing at home since Christmas of 1985.  Admittedly it was a little jarring at first with it being just so well...chatty.  But I grew to have no issue with any of it, while silence is nice, it does add a slight bit of personality to it as well so I really don't mind either way.  Letting that of all things ruin a game for you seems pretty petty and shallow.

I think it's really just that those games are so deeply ingrained in my mind that it feels out of place and jarring. Sound is also a pretty big deal to me when it comes to all forms of media, so when something doesn't "sound right", it creates dissonance.

For example, growing up, the original Terminator was one of my all-time favorite films and I watched it over and over again. The home video version that I had and watched so repeatedly had the original theatrical monaural audio track (when Terminator released, Dolby Stereo was still a new and expensive thing for many theaters to implement, so traditional monaural audio mixes to support older sound systems were still common). Years later, I bought a copy of the film on DVD without realizing that it featured a new stereo audio mix.

The music and dialog was all the same, as far as I could tell, but the new mix used different sound effects for all of the gunfire and many other effects during the action sequences. Being used to what those sequences sounded like over so many dozens upon dozens of viewings, the alternate sound effects were extremely noticeable, to the point of being distracting. My ear would be "expecting" to hear a certain sound and then that sound would be replaced by something different. Fortunately, I was able to track down a version of the film on DVD that had the original monaural track restored, so I was able to get rid of the unpleasant-sounding version and get back the original experience.

It'd be kind of like if you replaced the "jump" and "coin" sound effects from Mario Bros. with the similar "jump" and "ring" sound effects from Sonic. To anyone that's played the game enough, expecting one sound and hearing another might be distracting. If I didn't have access to the original versions of SMW and LttP, I'm sure it'd be worth overlooking the audio dissonance to be able to play those amazing games. I guess just knowing that those added bits of audio don't need to be there and having the option to play a version without them is what keeps me from being willing to stick through it. In my mind, 2D Mario and 2D Link are silent protagonists. I don't need or want to hear anything from them directly. 

Also, I'm probably being a bit more theatrical than is really deserved. I'm more "annoyed" by those added sounds than "outraged" by them.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Webhead123

[Tanooki | 4,958]

@Webhead123 I kind of get that, at least, video side of things with audio that gets screwed with.  I specifically made a local DVD buy just over a week ago specifically due to what you just wrote there.  I don't know if you grew up caring about or ever watching ROBOTECH but very recently Funimation/Big West/Harmony Gold collaboratively after decades got their head out of their asses(HG mainly) and opened things up to finally reissue that and bring Macross finally to the US after over 30 years (HG are known assholes.)  Anyway the first part was reissuing the old series by the 3 sagas on blu ray.  What they did is an abomination.  The tried to clean the video up and broke is making it super fuzzy and dark in trade for removing old video grain, but by far worse(to your point) they removed all the old sound effects from combat and put brand new ones in, and it has collectively pissed off the majority of robotech and macross fans of the 80s and they returned it, or never bought it because of it.  The last *clean* copy is this odd big plastic box that holds all 6 DVDs of the Macross part of the series.  I found it for $6 at a local shop, been playing it a bit each day since during the last week.  I'd rather always take a blu ray, but you ruin the audio, you diminish the video...that's a bridge too far.

[Webhead123 | 691]

I've only watched a wee bit of Robotech but it is a series I've wanted to give a proper viewing. I totally understand that kind of frustration. Another great example of this very issue is the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated version of The Hobbit. For whatever reason, all the official modern releases that I'm aware of on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming have a bizarre audio track where dozens of sound effects are simply missing and some instances where sound effects and even voice lines are out of sync with the video. There are also one or two moments of added voices or sounds that weren't in the original release. This oversight was frustrating enough to the fans of the film (myself included) that it prompted the creation of an unofficial fan edit, using the restored, high-res remaster to keep the picture and sound quality but restoring and correcting the missing and out-of-sync audio elements.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Webhead123