@Velzek Yeah, he's aleays been a great editor, especially compared to the kind of thing you see on youtube, on average. But that effect is fairly new ... I think he highlights each color or range of colors in the screenshot, then separates them out into layers that way. Regardless, it's a cool effect.
I got about 80 hours out of FINAL FANTASY V alone, playing it on the TV via a Retro Freak turns it into a great console to, and the HDMI out is better looking than even the GAME CUBE GBA Player.
It's just a shame that the gba only really had three years in the sun. As great as it was, it could have been much better with a more standard lifespan.
Wade Hixtons counter punch is a severely underrated game. It’s basically punch out and it plays great on the gba. Plus it has the ability to link with a friend to play each other. Def worth a look
I remember holiday season of 2001. The GBA was SOLD OUT at all stores nearby. Target, Walmart, Best Buy. My mom finally scored one at a nearby Walmart just in time for my 12th birthday. Classic purple, and my first game for it was Gradius Galaxies. I still have the cart. What a lovely system.
Whilst it wasn't my first handheld, the GBA was the first one I got with my own money. Had many fun hours with Advance wars and THPS2 and being able to play the old gameboy games was a great extra at the time.
I loved 16bit style strategy games. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms games and Space Marines were my jam back on the SNES. My friend lent me his GBA for a a few days with Advance Wars 2 and he didn't see that thing for 6 months after that lol.
this is such an under rated youtube channel, I love these types of youtubers who take me back to the past and show off the coolest stuff about old school gaming, I learned a lot about the older consoles I never knew from this channel. Seriously guys keep it up, I love nerding out with this stuff.
It's because the speaker on the GBA is really small, underpowered, and overall bad. Some devs even had the music synthesized 2 different ways in their games. The Metroid GBA games are most notable, the music has toggable standard and headphone models The standard mode makes the audio that the speaker struggles with louder to try and compensate. Headphone mode is the intended volume.
They sell a amp and speaker that replace the stock speaker and it sounds 1000% better... so much so you have to put all your games back in just to hear the better toons.. this upgrade with the new screens and backlights are amazing too.. lastly they have a rechargeable battery pack that takes the place of batterys and the rear cover is changed to the pack and look normal.. basicly you can pimp your advanced game boy how ever you choose... goodluck..
I wasn't a big fan of the original GBA. With its horizontal orientation and no backlight. But, once I got a GBA SP that changed everything. Love the clamshell design, which protects the screen in your pocket or where ever. Of course the backlight made a huge difference. Then I got a GBA Micro. Even tho you need the little bag to protect the screen, the super clear lit screen was great. I didn't mind it being small. It was so tiny and was great to keep with you with a few games. Plus, the battery life on all GBAs was very long lasting. Such an amazing and great all around system.
@@Vegeta8300 Going to the GBA Micro, is my least favourite Game Boy. It's pretty small and no backwards compatibility with Game Boy or Game Boy Color games.
Always remember that many of the people from Treasure worked on some of the TMNT games, particularly TiT ("did you just say TiT?") Treasure was the Platinum Games of the early 90's and early 2000s. Got a license? Give it to Treasure.
For those that love Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem 6 was actually released only in Japan but has had a fan translation done for it. It's very similar to Fire Emblem 7 aka Fire Emblem here in the states, so fans of Fire Emblem 7 should enjoy it. Worth a download for those playing on Emulators or a Flash Cart.
Not sure what you mean by Advance Wars 2's 'you need to deploy your own forces' - that was part of the core gameplay in the first game too. AW2's main additions were extra CO powers, extra playable COs and maps and things like those missile silos
Also needs to be a GBA part 2. Tons of games were left out, including Racing Gears, Doom, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Boktai, Drill Dozer, Double Dragon Advance, scads of RPGs, and about a dozen or so Mega Man titles.
In my opinion Sword of Mana was one of the best games on GBA. The music was very good in it (and still is), and it was nice that you could play through the different stories with the two main characters. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking, but I still think it as one of my favourite games.
Been waiting on a GBA episode for time, glad you finally delivered. Some of my favorites were defiantly Metroid Fusion and Zero mission ,Wario land 4,Advance wars ,Sonic advance 3 and Zelda Minish Cap. Gba was a great system i just wish the sound was better and its life span longer.. Great episode, glad your stilll making Game Sack after all these years.
@@bildo1977 Never seen him beg for anything. Also asking anyone to support them on Patreon is no different than asking for someone to like and subscribe.
@@DanoLefourbe He's probably referring to one of three things: There was the incident where he tried to raise a lot of money to bring he and his friends on a cross country tour. I'm a bit iffy on that one myself. Imagine if an author wanted their customers to pay for their book tour, for example. Not just for the author, but their friends too. But even so, it fell through and things continued as normal. More recently, he posted a video about a leak in his basement. In the video itself he didn't ask for anything, but did mention that it could cost him $10,000... or something like that. In a pinned comment, he then left a link to his patreon, in case anyone wanted to help. Once again, this is a contentious subject. I am not against patreon personally; it's peak capitalism. If people are willing to pay to see the videos he makes more often and in higher quality, why not? He's providing entertainment and the people who complain about patreon while watching his videos are being hypocritical. They're essentially demanding free entertainment, which wouldn't be acceptable in any other medium. However, where I personally have a problem is that he tried to use the basement leak as a strategy to get more patrons. Because sure enough, it turned out that basement leak wasn't a $10,000 fix (To his credit, he made a video saying so). While I'm a believer in people paying for things they like, they should be under NO pressure to pay for his own personal problems. He should have kept that entire situation private, and if it came down to it, sold games to make the payment if he needed to. If I could compare it to anything, it would be like guilt-tripping your corporate boss into giving you a raise for things that have nothing to do with work. Of course, said boss would likely say no, but there are a lot of naive people on the internet who probably gave him money. The third thing is more recent and the most contentious. Recently an email surfaced of MetalJesus asking a youtuber called Last Gamer if he could come and film his collection (He has one of the biggest collections in the world). This email was from a couple of years ago when Last gamer's channel was smaller, so MJR offered to put him up on his channel and promote him as well for $3,000. For obvious reasons Last Gamer declined. Metal Jesus claims the email isn't from him. Last Gamer himself didn't leak the email, but did confirm that it was real. This one is tough to call because logically, it would be pretty dumb for MJR to send an email out like that. Then again, there's not a whole lot of reason for Last Gamer to just make this up. For this reason, some are suggesting the email was from someone trolling and impersonating MJR.
I’ve owned Game ‘N Watch, Tiger Electronics abominations, Gameboy, Lynx, PSP, Vita, NDS, 3DS, 2DS, Android-based handhelds…The NES-themed GBA SP I bought is still hands down the best experience I’ve ever had. Like having a quirky SNES you could fit in your pocket. Man I wish I still had it.
Something you didn't mention regarding Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, the second game is actually a direct continuation of the first game, and allows one to transfer their Clear Data from Golden Sun to Golden Sun: The Lost Age. This can be done either with one of three grades of password (Bronze, Silver or Gold) which each transfer increasing amounts of data (Bronze transfers character names, Djinn collected, utility Psynergy items, and status of certain story elements; Silver transfers everything from Bronze plus exact character stats; Gold transfers everything from Silver plus total coins amassed and the characters' inventories), or with two consoles and the link cable (which transfers everything from the Gold grade password plus Pause menu settings and keeps equipment and Djinn how they were organized between the first game's party). I didn't have access to two consoles and a link cable or I'd have opted for that method, as the Gold grade password is very long (260 characters), and it was difficult to not make a mistake while copying down and inputting that large amount of characters.
There were so many great games on the GBA! I fell in love with Harvest Moon and Mario Golf, spent a lot of hours into those games. Of course Pokemon was the main reason for owning one. But Advance Wars, Golden Sun, Wario Ware, FF Tactics Advance took up a lot of my time.
This might be the best video on the GBA i've ever seen. You can tell you have a little love for the system and you found some really choice games to highlight. NIce job.
Man, Manfred and Chris are two of my favorite video game composers next to Jake Kaufman. I’m constantly jamming out to the Iridion arranged soundtracks and all of Jake’s and Chris’ work! Excellent video as always dude!
While Gradius Galaxies being missing didn’t really surprise me (Gradius was more of a Dave series), I’m genuinely surprised that Sega Arcade Gallery wasn’t included, considering how much Joe loves Space Harrier. Also, will ALWAYS recommend Konami Collector Series: Arcade Advanced. Accurate (though not perfect) versions of six great Konami oldies, with multiplayer modes not found in the originals and bonus stuff when the Konami code is used. My favorite compilation, fun for decades!
When the gba came out I was lucky enough to have an uncle that bought us all one 😂 this and the SP were the absolute golden age of handhelds with all the backwards compatability. I really questioned at the time how things could get any better lmao. Now we can play the majority of console games on our phones.
The outline in Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance, as well as the bright colors for Soma in Aria of Sorrow and samus in Metroid Fusion were a trick to make the character more visible on the non-backlit GBA screen.
Golden Sun - The Lost Age actually isn't a sequel but is part 2 of the original game. They actually play like a single game as you can continue your progress from the 1st game with a password to carry everything over. It's best played as a single game on two cartridges.
@skins4thewin Yeah I came here to say this! My favorite game on the system and one of my favorite fantasy RPGs of all Time! 😎 I don’t usually like most turn based RPGs but I LOVED this ONE! 🤩 The world is 3.5 times bigger or maybe 5 because you sail around it in a ship! Story, music, gameplay, graphics ( Or Art Style!), sound and Epic Conclusion! 😉😎
Some of my favorite games of all time are on GBA. Metroid fusion, finally fantasy 1&2 dawn of souls, final fantasy 4, final fantasy 5, final fantasy 6, Mario and Luigi superstar saga...i especially love the extra bosses and dungeons in the dawn of souls version of final fantasy 1.
I remember lying about having a flat tire so I could wait in line at best buy to get my gba. I was like 3 hours late for work, but it was worth it. That was my sidekick until the psp came out.
I see what Joe means about "Ninja Five-O" being a mix of "Elevator Action Returns", "Shinobi", & "Rolling Thunder". At least to me, the character itself is a combination of Ryu from NES "Ninja Gaiden", Joe the "Shinobi" ninja (not Game Sack Joe), and the "Bionic Commando" guy, Ladd (Rad, bad, tad, whatever...) Spencer.
Awesome video as always. Dont forget Double Dragon Advance =) Discovered that shit on emulation and it became one of my favorite beat em ups of all time. The amount of moves , enemy variety and enemies on screen at once was impressive. Its also pretty long. I like that it went back to the original visual style of the first game but made the game much better and incorporated enemies from other installments as well. I didnt realise the variety of moves until I looked it up.
@@abelperez1434 Final Fight was a good port. There doesnt seem to be alot of beat em ups on the console. What I really liked about Double Dragaon Advance was that it was a unique version of the game that you couldnt get anywhere else. It was a nice surprise since I never kept up with the system. I didnt experience GBA at all until much later when on an emulation pc.
I will go as far as to say that this thing was better than Genesis with its huge color palette scaling and rotation abilities that seem like they exceeded the Super Nintendo and the sound is definitely better than the Sega Genesis and I'm a big Sega fan
Mariokart was my favourite gba game and I was featured in Nintendo uk magazine as one of the uks best super circuit players. Can’t play it for shit these days though but I’ve still got the magazine and the memories :D
Usually didn't leave comments but this one deserves a like and this comment I think:). Love that, you have put so many information show similarly game's whish I owned. Love that episode cuz my first portable system was a Gameboy Advance in green:) Sorry 4 my bad English and greeting from Germany.
Joe hates Mega Man games. Probably needed the radio buddy feature that he complains about all the time, because he couldn't figure out that he could shoot in every direction as Bass and consequently couldn't get past the first boss in the intro stage.
IMO the most comfy gameboy in hand. And honestly, the translucent color is as cool today as it was then. Though I def used the Advance SP more with its backlit screen. The true beginning of my insomnia issues.
Knowing gamesack its probably because you were dealing with a gamecube if you wanted to capture real hardware. GBA consolizer came out this year and I'll bet was used to make the crystal sharp video shown here.
There some technical issues recording Handheld footage from authentic devices. No hate here for Emulation, but Emulation sometimes offer a distorted perspective and you lose the authenticity of the presentation.
I am so happy you are still doing these videos as you are one of my favorite TH-camrs and I look forward to the book by RGT that you contributed to. I do, however miss the other SACK, but you are doing a great job holding it down!
@@JoeyJ0J0 Barely as post 05 like drill dozer was all Nintendo published on it, with third party support being relatively weak ie a lot of THQ license garbage.
Ninja Cop was the best!! I could never ever find an actual legit version of it though. Thank you for being the only other person to finally mention it!
Great video! Some other systems I’m sure you are aware could use coverage: -GBC -NES -Wii, Wii U, Switch -PS3-4 -Xbox 360, 1 -Virtual Boy -Wonder swan -PSP/Vita/Go Many other multi-systems, like Dingoo a330, Nvidia Shield, etc. Even if you never did another one, we are very grateful for what you have!
One of my favorite games on this system (Which I’m surprised wasn’t mentioned) is Dragonball Advance Adventure. It’s actually a fun platform adventure game.
Yeah I can't stand anime but this is a great game. The awesome channel SNESdrunk talked about it, which is how I even know about it. It's got brilliant animation, and is a great beat em up. I'm not very good at it but there seems to be tons of different moves and combos you can do. It's got a 1 on 1 fighting game mode as well as the story
I was thinking about the same. And considering I'm the third commenting I'm not the only one lol. Even the 1v1 fighting game mode is brilliant. And I love many of the Dragon Ball games for GBA, except for the obvious ones that were atrocious.
I was similarly excited about the GBA when it came out. I was already a big fan of the Neo Geo Pocket before that, but the GBA really was a great step forward bringing the 16-bit-style games to a handheld. I was also at a stage where I wasn't loving where 3D games were heading on consoles. And the GBA may be the system for which I acquired the highest-quality personal game library when it was current compared to other systems. I was smart enough to buy Ninja Five-O when it was new after reading a glowing review of it and had a great deal of other games covered here. Metal Slug was one of them. I agree that it's a bit odd. My least favorite thing about it is the enemy respawning. I get that the GBA wasn't quite up to doing a Neo Geo-style Metal Slug, partly because of the screen resolution. It was a nice attempt to give it the arcade feel, but with some concessions similar to the Neo Geo Pocket versions. Metal Slug Advance really nailed the boss fights, I thought. I really enjoyed those. I'm also a big fan of the Mega Man Zero games. I only had the first one back in the day, but I eventually played the rest of them on the DS. I thought those were well done. Good to see you cover this one. It was another enjoyable episode.
I've had almost every Game Boy since the Color and the GBA is still one of my favorites due to how much more comfortable it felt to hold compared to the original, Color & SP. Form factor aside, two of my favorite GBA series were Megaman Battle Network & Megaman Zero. I'll definitely be getting the Zero collection when it comes out for the Switch in a few months and if they ever do a BN collection I'll be jumping on that as well.
What?!?!? No love for Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis? I can forgive the lack of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but at least shout out the best strategy/tactics RPG on the system.
Hi it's me Dave. Yes I have to say this obscure title I did not think it would be good to get a hold of it and it was good to see your face outta the bed and the wall will be back on my laptop but it's a bit of fun with you and see if you had a dirtbike or tomorrow morning to get a new cool I just don't think I can be whatever is easiest for me
Lodis' SLOW unskippable combat animations basically make the game unplayable on real hardware, but I guess an emulator's fast forward button fixes that.
@@tartrazine5 Looking back, and compared to how little slowdown the DS and 3DS have had,, yeah that was a bit brutal. But for the time it was worth it for how gorgeous the graphic were and the excellent gameplay and story. I don't remmeber it hampering the experience at all.
Tactics advance is a great game. Not necessarily a great story, but it IS a great tactical rpg and if you like tactical RPGs, there's literally nothing wrong with it.
This was an awesome episode for so many reasons. 1.) The games look amazing 2.) So many cool games I didn't know existed 3.) I beat Metroid Fusion so the spoiler HINT was hilarious 4.) The hidden gems thing gets better every time 5.) I don't know what TATE is but to see some weird thing that makes me laugh that I don't understand is always appreciated 6.) The coverage for one man on so many games plus production value is VERY impressive 7.) I always appreciate the mention of the game's composers Thank you, Joe! I've been playing Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories and F-Zero Maximum Velocity on my GBA with the AGS-101 screen mod. Both good games that could do without mentioning. Ever since the screen mod I've been playing it A LOT.
Love all the content of this channel! 30:04 Not sure if anyone mentioned (or cares), but TATE (縦) is Japanese for "vertical" and pronounced (ta-teh). Pretty good word to know if you're learning Japanese. With "yoko" (横) meaning horizontal and "naname" (na-na-meh) (斜め) meaning diagonal.
I recommend a nintendo ds instead for original gamrboy advance games, lighting is better and you get to play ds titles as well. The nintendo dsi console removed the gameboy advance cartridge slot but by softmodding a dsi you can still play gameboy advance games from an sd card and ds games and emulators for consoles like nes snes sega genesis...
The GBA was an amazing system at the time and is still great to this day. Its library is so rich that covering every good game in a single video is seemingly impossible. I don't have a GBA anymore. Been a long time since I owned one, but that's okay, because emulation has come a really long way. I can play just about every GBA game that appeals to me on a hacked PS Vita and RetroArch. So, I can't say that I miss having a real GBA at all. Anyway, I enjoyed the vid. Got a see a few games I never knew about. :)
I loved the GBA, but the no back light screen sucked. I bought a blank cartridge and cartridge copier off lik sang in like 2002. Even was able to play NES games on it.
Joe, I assume you never beat the first Golden Sun, as it literally just ends, out of absolutely nowhere. Kind of like a multi disc game. And it plays just like it, basically expecting you to pop in the sequel game as if it were a 2nd disc. You can even transfer your data over from the first game to continue the 2nd game as if it was one big single adventure. That's probably why it felt like the 2nd game got right into the "meat", as it was essentially just picking up where the 1st one left off. I mean I GUESS you can just start with the 2nd game without having to beat the 1st one, but I wouldn't recommend it if you want the full experience.
Great to see Ninja Five-O (or Ninja Cop as it was called over here in the UK) getting some love along with the Treasure games. Astro Boy and Gunstar Heroes blew me away when I first tried them, with just how amazing they looked. I was tiny bit disappointed with Guardian Heroes Advanced though (after being a huuuuge fan of the Saturn original).
Dragon ball z Legacy of Goku II and dragon ball z buus fury. Both are in my opinion the very best dragon ball games ever made since they let you play the entire series plot for plot and all on the GAMEBOY ADVANCE? It’s crazy and very very fun plus nostalgic
My thought process watching this video: GS: I'm just not a big Pokemon fan. Me: FINALLY! Someone else who doesn't like Pokemon! :D GS: I've just never cared for Sonic. Me: Worst person ever!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mother 3 might be one of the best games of all time. Also, the Summon Night: Swordcraft Story series was also amazing. There's a Fire Emblem game that was never released outside of Japan for the GBA. There are Tales of.. games that also never made it out of Japan. A person could make a whole episode on GBA translations.
To throw out the game that got the most play on my GBA - Konami Arcade Advance. There are a bunch of these arcade game collections for the GBA worth picking up.
The Game Boy Advance library is somewhat definitely way bigger than many people realise, I've had mine for almost 21 years and I am still finding titles from 2001 to 2008. It was my third handheld. The games come in small cartridges. Official part of this Game Boy family line, it's backwards compatible with Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges.
What is your favorite game on the Game Boy Advance? Why? EXPLAIN TO ME WHY!!!!!!!! Or don't. Up to you.
Warioware Microgames . Too many games plus you can unlock a few
Metroid Zero Mission. They actually named Samus after my dog, or the other way around. I can't remember.
Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django.
It requires up to 10 SOLAR POWER!!!
Nightmare in Dreamland, because its Kirby
The Mega Man zero games
That hidden gems thing killed me.
Also Tate Mode was pretty sweet
@@retrogameguy1734 Love TATE mode.
TLDW where
The outro too haha
That outro made me physically laugh out loud
The transitions are so well edited. Got to love some sack in the morning
Yeah he's getting better and better...
I love sack all the time.
Dannyvw yup especially my sack ;) ballsack
@Velzek Yeah, he's aleays been a great editor, especially compared to the kind of thing you see on youtube, on average. But that effect is fairly new ... I think he highlights each color or range of colors in the screenshot, then separates them out into layers that way. Regardless, it's a cool effect.
Def one of the best game channels on TH-cam!
The GBA library is way bigger than many people realise, I've had one since release and I am still finding new titles.
9EG over 1,500 games. Enough to play a different game, everyday, for around 4 years.
I got about 80 hours out of FINAL FANTASY V alone, playing it on the TV via a Retro Freak turns it into a great console to, and the HDMI out is better looking than even the GAME CUBE GBA Player.
Most of them are ports
It's just a shame that the gba only really had three years in the sun. As great as it was, it could have been much better with a more standard lifespan.
James Playz1 no
3:24
Joe: "I have no friends"
Dave: "Ouch"
Where is dave
What went down?
@@Openthemeyes Nothing, it's a running joke.
@@paulbunyangonewild7596 he wasnt able to make time anymore for the channel.
The delivery was pretty funny.
“There are even a lot of cut scenes for you to skip” 🤣
That Metal Jesus hidden gem impression is spot on!
Wade Hixtons counter punch is a severely underrated game. It’s basically punch out and it plays great on the gba. Plus it has the ability to link with a friend to play each other. Def worth a look
thanks!
I remember holiday season of 2001. The GBA was SOLD OUT at all stores nearby. Target, Walmart, Best Buy. My mom finally scored one at a nearby Walmart just in time for my 12th birthday. Classic purple, and my first game for it was Gradius Galaxies. I still have the cart. What a lovely system.
Whilst it wasn't my first handheld, the GBA was the first one I got with my own money. Had many fun hours with Advance wars and THPS2 and being able to play the old gameboy games was a great extra at the time.
What does thps2 stand for?
Rania Khairy Tiny Hot Pants & Shorts 2
👌🏻
I loved 16bit style strategy games. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms games and Space Marines were my jam back on the SNES. My friend lent me his GBA for a a few days with Advance Wars 2 and he didn't see that thing for 6 months after that lol.
@ Rania Khairy: Tony Hawk Pro Skater
You can see that Joe was specially inspired.
Loved this episode.
this is such an under rated youtube channel, I love these types of youtubers who take me back to the past and show off the coolest stuff about old school gaming, I learned a lot about the older consoles I never knew from this channel. Seriously guys keep it up, I love nerding out with this stuff.
I swear that every GBA game sounds 10x better with headphones, but I might just be crazy.
juicemofo probably the loudness of everything around you
It's because the speaker on the GBA is really small, underpowered, and overall bad.
Some devs even had the music synthesized 2 different ways in their games. The Metroid GBA games are most notable, the music has toggable standard and headphone models
The standard mode makes the audio that the speaker struggles with louder to try and compensate. Headphone mode is the intended volume.
They sell a amp and speaker that replace the stock speaker and it sounds 1000% better... so much so you have to put all your games back in just to hear the better toons.. this upgrade with the new screens and backlights are amazing too.. lastly they have a rechargeable battery pack that takes the place of batterys and the rear cover is changed to the pack and look normal.. basicly you can pimp your advanced game boy how ever you choose... goodluck..
You are not crazy
One of the best portable systems ever created.
I wasn't a big fan of the original GBA. With its horizontal orientation and no backlight. But, once I got a GBA SP that changed everything. Love the clamshell design, which protects the screen in your pocket or where ever. Of course the backlight made a huge difference. Then I got a GBA Micro. Even tho you need the little bag to protect the screen, the super clear lit screen was great. I didn't mind it being small. It was so tiny and was great to keep with you with a few games. Plus, the battery life on all GBAs was very long lasting. Such an amazing and great all around system.
@@Vegeta8300 Going to the GBA Micro, is my least favourite Game Boy. It's pretty small and no backwards compatibility with Game Boy or Game Boy Color games.
Is the new switch backlit ?
@@captainscentsible1811 why would you even ask this question?
Only thing really lacking was an exclusive Super Mario Bros. game, Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy VI 3D remakes, and maybe more RARE (enhanced) ports.
i didn't know i could reload my save in real life Joe i have about 10 years i would like to retry
hopefully your save battery didn't loose charge
Same 😅
Always remember that many of the people from Treasure worked on some of the TMNT games, particularly TiT ("did you just say TiT?")
Treasure was the Platinum Games of the early 90's and early 2000s. Got a license? Give it to Treasure.
For those that love Fire Emblem, Fire Emblem 6 was actually released only in Japan but has had a fan translation done for it. It's very similar to Fire Emblem 7 aka Fire Emblem here in the states, so fans of Fire Emblem 7 should enjoy it. Worth a download for those playing on Emulators or a Flash Cart.
Not sure what you mean by Advance Wars 2's 'you need to deploy your own forces' - that was part of the core gameplay in the first game too. AW2's main additions were extra CO powers, extra playable COs and maps and things like those missile silos
I thought what he said was wierd too, He probably didn't play long enough.
How could you skip the cutscenes in Astro boy?? It has an incredible story and is a love letter to Tezuka's work.
no one cares, geek!
@@Metalmassacre07 this was very funny thank you
Have you thought about doing a GameCube part 2? I love to see one.
Edit: Wow I did not expect to have some likes thanks
Maybe!!
@@GameSack Definitely should, the gamecube has a ton of underrated games begging to be experienced. Still my favorite from that console generation.
@@GameSack Please do
Also needs to be a GBA part 2. Tons of games were left out, including Racing Gears, Doom, Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Boktai, Drill Dozer, Double Dragon Advance, scads of RPGs, and about a dozen or so Mega Man titles.
In my opinion Sword of Mana was one of the best games on GBA. The music was very good in it (and still is), and it was nice that you could play through the different stories with the two main characters. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking, but I still think it as one of my favourite games.
Man I love that transition from one game to the other. It looks cool as heck. Another great video. Thanks for all the content.
Been waiting on a GBA episode for time, glad you finally delivered. Some of my favorites were defiantly Metroid Fusion and Zero mission ,Wario land 4,Advance wars ,Sonic advance 3 and Zelda Minish Cap. Gba was a great system i just wish the sound was better and its life span longer.. Great episode, glad your stilll making Game Sack after all these years.
That Metal Jesus parody holy shit.
That was glorious.
Hidden gems
He's an e-begging POS!
@@bildo1977 Care to elaborate? Never seen anythign that suggests that
@@bildo1977 Never seen him beg for anything. Also asking anyone to support them on Patreon is no different than asking for someone to like and subscribe.
@@DanoLefourbe He's probably referring to one of three things: There was the incident where he tried to raise a lot of money to bring he and his friends on a cross country tour. I'm a bit iffy on that one myself. Imagine if an author wanted their customers to pay for their book tour, for example. Not just for the author, but their friends too. But even so, it fell through and things continued as normal.
More recently, he posted a video about a leak in his basement. In the video itself he didn't ask for anything, but did mention that it could cost him $10,000... or something like that. In a pinned comment, he then left a link to his patreon, in case anyone wanted to help. Once again, this is a contentious subject. I am not against patreon personally; it's peak capitalism. If people are willing to pay to see the videos he makes more often and in higher quality, why not? He's providing entertainment and the people who complain about patreon while watching his videos are being hypocritical. They're essentially demanding free entertainment, which wouldn't be acceptable in any other medium. However, where I personally have a problem is that he tried to use the basement leak as a strategy to get more patrons. Because sure enough, it turned out that basement leak wasn't a $10,000 fix (To his credit, he made a video saying so). While I'm a believer in people paying for things they like, they should be under NO pressure to pay for his own personal problems. He should have kept that entire situation private, and if it came down to it, sold games to make the payment if he needed to. If I could compare it to anything, it would be like guilt-tripping your corporate boss into giving you a raise for things that have nothing to do with work. Of course, said boss would likely say no, but there are a lot of naive people on the internet who probably gave him money.
The third thing is more recent and the most contentious. Recently an email surfaced of MetalJesus asking a youtuber called Last Gamer if he could come and film his collection (He has one of the biggest collections in the world). This email was from a couple of years ago when Last gamer's channel was smaller, so MJR offered to put him up on his channel and promote him as well for $3,000. For obvious reasons Last Gamer declined. Metal Jesus claims the email isn't from him. Last Gamer himself didn't leak the email, but did confirm that it was real. This one is tough to call because logically, it would be pretty dumb for MJR to send an email out like that. Then again, there's not a whole lot of reason for Last Gamer to just make this up. For this reason, some are suggesting the email was from someone trolling and impersonating MJR.
26:44 I wonder if Metal Jesus saw that skit?
I hope he did XD
Is that question?
@@cptnoremac Is yours a question?
@@HollowRick
My question? Yes, it's a question. I'm wondering if OP's statement is a question.
@@cptnoremac what constitutes a statement?
I’ve owned Game ‘N Watch, Tiger Electronics abominations, Gameboy, Lynx, PSP, Vita, NDS, 3DS, 2DS, Android-based handhelds…The NES-themed GBA SP I bought is still hands down the best experience I’ve ever had. Like having a quirky SNES you could fit in your pocket. Man I wish I still had it.
Metroid Fusion was my first introduction to the Metroid franchise. I had never even heard of Metroid until I played Fusion at my local Best Buy.
Something you didn't mention regarding Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age, the second game is actually a direct continuation of the first game, and allows one to transfer their Clear Data from Golden Sun to Golden Sun: The Lost Age. This can be done either with one of three grades of password (Bronze, Silver or Gold) which each transfer increasing amounts of data (Bronze transfers character names, Djinn collected, utility Psynergy items, and status of certain story elements; Silver transfers everything from Bronze plus exact character stats; Gold transfers everything from Silver plus total coins amassed and the characters' inventories), or with two consoles and the link cable (which transfers everything from the Gold grade password plus Pause menu settings and keeps equipment and Djinn how they were organized between the first game's party). I didn't have access to two consoles and a link cable or I'd have opted for that method, as the Gold grade password is very long (260 characters), and it was difficult to not make a mistake while copying down and inputting that large amount of characters.
You... you Golden Sun! 👍 😁 👍
There were so many great games on the GBA! I fell in love with Harvest Moon and Mario Golf, spent a lot of hours into those games. Of course Pokemon was the main reason for owning one.
But Advance Wars, Golden Sun, Wario Ware, FF Tactics Advance took up a lot of my time.
This might be the best video on the GBA i've ever seen. You can tell you have a little love for the system and you found some really choice games to highlight. NIce job.
Monkey Ball sure seems ambitieus for a GBA title. Despite the bad things I really am impressed with the graphics they squeezed out of it.
Man, Manfred and Chris are two of my favorite video game composers next to Jake Kaufman. I’m constantly jamming out to the Iridion arranged soundtracks and all of Jake’s and Chris’ work! Excellent video as always dude!
Joe the hidden gems part was amazing
While Gradius Galaxies being missing didn’t really surprise me (Gradius was more of a Dave series), I’m genuinely surprised that Sega Arcade Gallery wasn’t included, considering how much Joe loves Space Harrier.
Also, will ALWAYS recommend Konami Collector Series: Arcade Advanced. Accurate (though not perfect) versions of six great Konami oldies, with multiplayer modes not found in the originals and bonus stuff when the Konami code is used. My favorite compilation, fun for decades!
Love those 3D layered transitions. Really cool!
Also, FYI, it's pronounced "tah-tay", not "tate".
But it's not nearly as fun when he says "tah tay" mode.
When the gba came out I was lucky enough to have an uncle that bought us all one 😂 this and the SP were the absolute golden age of handhelds with all the backwards compatability. I really questioned at the time how things could get any better lmao. Now we can play the majority of console games on our phones.
Ninja Five-0 is an underrated game that not much people knows, glad Joe did talk about it
Wrong. It's on every damn GBA list out there.
The outline in Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance, as well as the bright colors for Soma in Aria of Sorrow and samus in Metroid Fusion were a trick to make the character more visible on the non-backlit GBA screen.
I love that the skit had the same audio quality of an actual GBA.
Did you understand Joe’s Right Said Fred reference? If you said yes, you’re old like me. Congrats!
I'm just 24 but I know a lot of old music. I got it.
3:22 Friendship ended with Dave
Now no one is my best friend
Golden Sun - The Lost Age actually isn't a sequel but is part 2 of the original game. They actually play like a single game as you can continue your progress from the 1st game with a password to carry everything over. It's best played as a single game on two cartridges.
@skins4thewin Yeah I came here to say this! My favorite game on the system and one of my favorite fantasy RPGs of all Time! 😎 I don’t usually like most turn based RPGs but I LOVED this ONE! 🤩
The world is 3.5 times bigger or maybe 5 because you sail around it in a ship! Story, music, gameplay, graphics ( Or Art Style!), sound and Epic Conclusion! 😉😎
Both Iridion games have an incredible soundtrack. Absolutely love it!
Some of my favorite games of all time are on GBA. Metroid fusion, finally fantasy 1&2 dawn of souls, final fantasy 4, final fantasy 5, final fantasy 6, Mario and Luigi superstar saga...i especially love the extra bosses and dungeons in the dawn of souls version of final fantasy 1.
Advance wars on the gameboy advance was a game I really enjoy
I'm programming a 3D Zelda and Minecraft for the GBA! REALLY! No joke. I'm working on Goldeneye on the GBA next. I love the GBA
I remember lying about having a flat tire so I could wait in line at best buy to get my gba. I was like 3 hours late for work, but it was worth it. That was my sidekick until the psp came out.
Akil Dukes life goals
Sometimes you just want something and you can't do anything till you have purchased it.
I see what Joe means about "Ninja Five-O" being a mix of "Elevator Action Returns", "Shinobi", & "Rolling Thunder". At least to me, the character itself is a combination of Ryu from NES "Ninja Gaiden", Joe the "Shinobi" ninja (not Game Sack Joe), and the "Bionic Commando" guy, Ladd (Rad, bad, tad, whatever...) Spencer.
I had Wolfenstein 3D for my GBA, it was my introduction to the Wolfenstein series
Missing music and cut down voice sample asides, it was a welcomed port for me.
I only recently bought a GBA SP, so this video comes exactly at the right time. Thanks for the recommendations!
Definitely try Metroid Zero Mission, it's one of my favorite Metroid games and has incredible replay value
it was a really dope little machine... i remember golden sun. that game was so great
I really LOVE Astro Boy on the GBA and I'm glad you gave it the respect it deserves!
Awesome video as always. Dont forget Double Dragon Advance =) Discovered that shit on emulation and it became one of my favorite beat em ups of all time. The amount of moves , enemy variety and enemies on screen at once was impressive. Its also pretty long. I like that it went back to the original visual style of the first game but made the game much better and incorporated enemies from other installments as well. I didnt realise the variety of moves until I looked it up.
Final Fight was also a pretty good port in my opinion. I wish there was more beat em ups on GBA.
@@abelperez1434 Final Fight was a good port. There doesnt seem to be alot of beat em ups on the console. What I really liked about Double Dragaon Advance was that it was a unique version of the game that you couldnt get anywhere else. It was a nice surprise since I never kept up with the system. I didnt experience GBA at all until much later when on an emulation pc.
@@theconsolekiller7113 I actually didn't know that! I may have to pick a copy up for my GBA :-)
15:02 You need to hold the direction you want to jump and then jump. Otherwise it'll default to a straight climb
One of the best handhelds ever. So many great titles
I will go as far as to say that this thing was better than Genesis with its huge color palette scaling and rotation abilities that seem like they exceeded the Super Nintendo and the sound is definitely better than the Sega Genesis and I'm a big Sega fan
Aaaaah! The hidden gems bit! I need to wash my eyes with bleach!! 😵😂
Mariokart was my favourite gba game and I was featured in Nintendo uk magazine as one of the uks best super circuit players. Can’t play it for shit these days though but I’ve still got the magazine and the memories :D
Smartlad could you share some snapshots of the magazine?
Usually didn't leave comments but this one deserves a like and this comment I think:). Love that, you have put so many information show similarly game's whish I owned. Love that episode cuz my first portable system was a Gameboy Advance in green:) Sorry 4 my bad English and greeting from Germany.
No Megaman Zero?
No Tatics Game?
No Ogre Tatics!?!?
We played the same system Joe?
Joe hates Mega Man games. Probably needed the radio buddy feature that he complains about all the time, because he couldn't figure out that he could shoot in every direction as Bass and consequently couldn't get past the first boss in the intro stage.
IMO the most comfy gameboy in hand. And honestly, the translucent color is as cool today as it was then. Though I def used the Advance SP more with its backlit screen. The true beginning of my insomnia issues.
Whoa surprised this hasn't been covered until now.
Because it's handheld . No ones talks about Handhelds with all these TH-camrs that cover nothing but videogames
Hope Nintendo DS will be covered next
Considering Dave is a handheld nut, especially when it comes to the Gameboy line, it actually is quite a surprise that this wasn't covered years ago.
Knowing gamesack its probably because you were dealing with a gamecube if you wanted to capture real hardware. GBA consolizer came out this year and I'll bet was used to make the crystal sharp video shown here.
There some technical issues recording Handheld footage from authentic devices. No hate here for Emulation, but Emulation sometimes offer a distorted perspective and you lose the authenticity of the presentation.
I am so happy you are still doing these videos as you are one of my favorite TH-camrs and I look forward to the book by RGT that you contributed to.
I do, however miss the other SACK, but you are doing a great job holding it down!
Some people pronounce Mare-i-o but does anyone ever pronounce Wear-i-o ?
it's only mare-i-o in brooklyn.
I do
Yes, British people
great transitions!!! I'm so happy Game Sack is alive and well.
Greatest dedicated handheld of all time!
It's a shame its life was cut short after the DS launched three years later.
It was supported for a while after tho
*Vita peeks out of bushes*
@@JoeyJ0J0 Barely as post 05 like drill dozer was all Nintendo published on it, with third party support being relatively weak ie a lot of THQ license garbage.
Ninja Cop was the best!! I could never ever find an actual legit version of it though. Thank you for being the only other person to finally mention it!
Jep, first Time i saw it, but it looks great :)
I treasured my white GBA back in the day...
*But dear lord it needed a backlight.*
Same here, and yes it did!
Should have gotten a worm light or something
@@clercillo that would've made all the difference. 1% atually
Great video! Some other systems I’m sure you are aware could use coverage:
-GBC
-NES
-Wii, Wii U, Switch
-PS3-4
-Xbox 360, 1
-Virtual Boy
-Wonder swan
-PSP/Vita/Go
Many other multi-systems, like Dingoo a330, Nvidia Shield, etc. Even if you never did another one, we are very grateful for what you have!
One of my favorite games on this system (Which I’m surprised wasn’t mentioned) is Dragonball Advance Adventure. It’s actually a fun platform adventure game.
Yeah I can't stand anime but this is a great game. The awesome channel SNESdrunk talked about it, which is how I even know about it. It's got brilliant animation, and is a great beat em up. I'm not very good at it but there seems to be tons of different moves and combos you can do. It's got a 1 on 1 fighting game mode as well as the story
I was thinking about the same. And considering I'm the third commenting I'm not the only one lol. Even the 1v1 fighting game mode is brilliant. And I love many of the Dragon Ball games for GBA, except for the obvious ones that were atrocious.
I was similarly excited about the GBA when it came out. I was already a big fan of the Neo Geo Pocket before that, but the GBA really was a great step forward bringing the 16-bit-style games to a handheld. I was also at a stage where I wasn't loving where 3D games were heading on consoles. And the GBA may be the system for which I acquired the highest-quality personal game library when it was current compared to other systems. I was smart enough to buy Ninja Five-O when it was new after reading a glowing review of it and had a great deal of other games covered here. Metal Slug was one of them. I agree that it's a bit odd. My least favorite thing about it is the enemy respawning. I get that the GBA wasn't quite up to doing a Neo Geo-style Metal Slug, partly because of the screen resolution. It was a nice attempt to give it the arcade feel, but with some concessions similar to the Neo Geo Pocket versions. Metal Slug Advance really nailed the boss fights, I thought. I really enjoyed those. I'm also a big fan of the Mega Man Zero games. I only had the first one back in the day, but I eventually played the rest of them on the DS. I thought those were well done.
Good to see you cover this one. It was another enjoyable episode.
Just got home from work, had a not so great day, but I have a bowl of cereal and a new episode of Gamesack. Instant remedy for a bad day.
"Lots of cut scenes for you to skip!" LOL! Perfectly stated.
SP is front light though... just a rare sub version is back light!
@Jayro Jones nope... AGS-101 is very infrequent...
I've had almost every Game Boy since the Color and the GBA is still one of my favorites due to how much more comfortable it felt to hold compared to the original, Color & SP.
Form factor aside, two of my favorite GBA series were Megaman Battle Network & Megaman Zero. I'll definitely be getting the Zero collection when it comes out for the Switch in a few months and if they ever do a BN collection I'll be jumping on that as well.
What?!?!? No love for Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis? I can forgive the lack of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but at least shout out the best strategy/tactics RPG on the system.
Hi it's me Dave. Yes I have to say this obscure title I did not think it would be good to get a hold of it and it was good to see your face outta the bed and the wall will be back on my laptop but it's a bit of fun with you and see if you had a dirtbike or tomorrow morning to get a new cool I just don't think I can be whatever is easiest for me
@@NeVerKnowFFS can you be whatever is hardest
Lodis' SLOW unskippable combat animations basically make the game unplayable on real hardware, but I guess an emulator's fast forward button fixes that.
@@tartrazine5 Looking back, and compared to how little slowdown the DS and 3DS have had,, yeah that was a bit brutal. But for the time it was worth it for how gorgeous the graphic were and the excellent gameplay and story. I don't remmeber it hampering the experience at all.
Tactics advance is a great game. Not necessarily a great story, but it IS a great tactical rpg and if you like tactical RPGs, there's literally nothing wrong with it.
This was an awesome episode for so many reasons.
1.) The games look amazing
2.) So many cool games I didn't know existed
3.) I beat Metroid Fusion so the spoiler HINT was hilarious
4.) The hidden gems thing gets better every time
5.) I don't know what TATE is but to see some weird thing that makes me laugh that I don't understand is always appreciated
6.) The coverage for one man on so many games plus production value is VERY impressive
7.) I always appreciate the mention of the game's composers
Thank you, Joe!
I've been playing Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories and F-Zero Maximum Velocity on my GBA with the AGS-101 screen mod. Both good games that could do without mentioning. Ever since the screen mod I've been playing it A LOT.
How did you do the transitions, looks amaze balls.
sorry for the off topic thing but wow a plug profile pic - you a Beano fan?
Wade Hixton’s Counter Punch is a spiritual successor to Punch Out. Anyone who loves the NES game needs to play that one.
30:01
My Reaction To A Game Who Stuck In Arcade Screen Mode In My TV
Love all the content of this channel! 30:04 Not sure if anyone mentioned (or cares), but TATE (縦) is Japanese for "vertical" and pronounced (ta-teh). Pretty good word to know if you're learning Japanese. With "yoko" (横) meaning horizontal and "naname" (na-na-meh) (斜め) meaning diagonal.
Probably my favorite system ever with my favorite set of games ever.
Boktai 1 and 2!
Boktai is underrated
I'm 36... and I'm thinking about getting one for the first time lol
Took long about it 😔
I recommend a nintendo ds instead for original gamrboy advance games, lighting is better and you get to play ds titles as well. The nintendo dsi console removed the gameboy advance cartridge slot but by softmodding a dsi you can still play gameboy advance games from an sd card and ds games and emulators for consoles like nes snes sega genesis...
@@aspinia thanks for the recommendation:)
@@aspinia However, the DS Lite's face bottons are not as good as the ones for GBA actions.
I’m a model, you know what I mean. And I do my little dance on the catwalk.
turn. He does his little turn on the catwalk.
Hellwyck - Crap, you’re right. It’s been a minute since I heard it. Lol
36:03 What's the game played on the TV in the background at the end here?
Advance wars and Wario ware we're two of my favourite!
The GBA was an amazing system at the time and is still great to this day. Its library is so rich that covering every good game in a single video is seemingly impossible. I don't have a GBA anymore. Been a long time since I owned one, but that's okay, because emulation has come a really long way. I can play just about every GBA game that appeals to me on a hacked PS Vita and RetroArch. So, I can't say that I miss having a real GBA at all. Anyway, I enjoyed the vid. Got a see a few games I never knew about. :)
I loved the GBA, but the no back light screen sucked. I bought a blank cartridge and cartridge copier off lik sang in like 2002. Even was able to play NES games on it.
Those transitions are insanely well edited
Joe, I assume you never beat the first Golden Sun, as it literally just ends, out of absolutely nowhere. Kind of like a multi disc game. And it plays just like it, basically expecting you to pop in the sequel game as if it were a 2nd disc. You can even transfer your data over from the first game to continue the 2nd game as if it was one big single adventure. That's probably why it felt like the 2nd game got right into the "meat", as it was essentially just picking up where the 1st one left off. I mean I GUESS you can just start with the 2nd game without having to beat the 1st one, but I wouldn't recommend it if you want the full experience.
Great to see Ninja Five-O (or Ninja Cop as it was called over here in the UK) getting some love along with the Treasure games. Astro Boy and Gunstar Heroes blew me away when I first tried them, with just how amazing they looked. I was tiny bit disappointed with Guardian Heroes Advanced though (after being a huuuuge fan of the Saturn original).
Goddamn, that Iridion 2 music was awesome. Quality!
Astro Boy the Omega Factor is soooo underrated. My favourite game on the GBA.
Jesper Karlsson heard good things!!!!!!
Dragon ball z Legacy of Goku II and dragon ball z buus fury. Both are in my opinion the very best dragon ball games ever made since they let you play the entire series plot for plot and all on the GAMEBOY ADVANCE? It’s crazy and very very fun plus nostalgic
You make me so happy Joe-San! ;) Every two weeks at least. Lol
I'm glad I stumbled on this channel, nice to highlight obscure games and the dry humor is hilarious XD
My thought process watching this video:
GS: I'm just not a big Pokemon fan.
Me: FINALLY! Someone else who doesn't like Pokemon! :D
GS: I've just never cared for Sonic.
Me: Worst person ever!!!!!!!!!!!!
I like Sonic way more than Pokemon. I really only played Gen 1 & 2.
Joe, are you using a AGS-101 screen in your gba or one of those aftermarket IPS panels?
All original still. :(
Best GBA game for me? MOTHER 3. Also one of my favorite RPGs of all time. So good. Even better than Earthbound, and that’s saying something!
Mother 3 might be one of the best games of all time. Also, the Summon Night: Swordcraft Story series was also amazing. There's a Fire Emblem game that was never released outside of Japan for the GBA. There are Tales of.. games that also never made it out of Japan. A person could make a whole episode on GBA translations.
Most overrated game ever. Only hipsters care for it.
To throw out the game that got the most play on my GBA - Konami Arcade Advance. There are a bunch of these arcade game collections for the GBA worth picking up.
I miss Dave 😭😭😭😢
The Game Boy Advance library is somewhat definitely way bigger than many people realise, I've had mine for almost 21 years and I am still finding titles from 2001 to 2008. It was my third handheld. The games come in small cartridges. Official part of this Game Boy family line, it's backwards compatible with Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges.