Monday, April 12, 2010

My videogame collection I: Game Boy Advance

Since I don't have anything new to write about and the blog is disturbingly lacking in updates, I'll list the games that I own and I have at hand (the Dreamcast and PSX ones I have stored under a thousand of things, and the MegaDrive, SNES and NES ones are in "whereabouts unknown" status).

So I'll begin with the handheld games, starting with the ones for Game Boy Advance.

I bought a black GBA SP in 2003, mostly because at that moment I was doing over 2 hours of train commuting every day... Almost all the games consist of RPGs and ports of old-school games. My tastes in videogames had always been old fashioned.

Golden Sun (2001). Was the best GBA-only RPG available when I purchased the console. I liked it when I first played, but now I forgot almost everything about it, so it was not a memorable game for me.

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (2002). The second part of it. Purchased at the same time with the first one.

Breath of Fire (2001) A port of the SNES version. I'm a big fan of old Capcom games and of the old school RPGs, so was an instant get.

Breath of Fire II (2001) Idem

Lunar Legend (2002) Yet another port. I have a soft spot for the Lunar series because of the reasons that I explained in a previous post.

Tales of Phantasia
(2003) A port of the original SNES and the only version available in English. I liked this game a lot (I have figures of Arche and Mint) and embarrassingly is the only Tales game that I played.


Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (2004) A port of the PSX version. I keep purchasing the old FF games over and over... Of both games, I prefer FF1 by far.

Final Fantasy IV Advance
(2005). Another port and my second favorite FF game.

Final Fantasy V Advance
(2006) For some reason, I never have the willpower to finish it. I began both this and the PSX version of the game and I dropped both late in the game (around the time of the death of certain character). Is my personal cursed FF.

Final Fantasy VI Advance
(2006) My favorite FF game and the first one I played. This was the last GBA game that I purchased.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
(2003) This was the game that made me decide to buy a GBA. At the end it was not as good as I expected...

Sword of Mana (2003) an enhanced remake of the first Seiken Densetsu / Mana game using the style of the at that moment latest game in the series, Legend of Mana. This game, along with the aforementioned Legend of Mana made me to loose all the faith in the series (and is a shame because Secret of Mana was my first RPG ever and I remember dearly).

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
(2004) I really enjoyed the first Kingdom Hearts and this was the title that bridged it with the sequel. Unlike Kingdom Hearts 2, I sorta liked Chain of Memories .


Riviera: The Promised Land (2004) A enhanced remake of a Wonderswan game. I liked A LOT this game, probably due to the visual novel-esque characters drawn by Tobe Sunaho, because as an RPG is extremely poor and linear.

Yggdra Union: We'll Never Fight Alone (2006) The second episode of the Dept. Heaven series (Riviera is the first). I bought it after the hype that I had with Riviera. Actually I never played it (yet).

Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars (2001) A tactical RPG with giant robots, is a side story of Kojima Hideo's Zone of the Enders series. I'm not a fan of the mecha genre, but I liked both Z.O.E. games in the PS2.

Super Puzzle Fighter II (2003) Pretty much the best puzzle game for the GBA, featuring Capcom characters.


Final Fight One (2001) The classical Final Fight with added dialogue and two extra characters (Alpha/Zero versions of Cody and Guy)

Guilty Gear X Advance Edition ( 2002) A terrible version of Guilty Gear X with very bad graphics, ear-bleeding sounds and nonexistent AI. Purchased only because it was at a bargain bin for 5 euro.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival (2001) For me this is the really ultimate version of SSF2T and not the disappointing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Too bad the GBA controls are not the best way to play it...

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper (2002) I bought it because of the addition of Eagle, Maki and Yun, but now is largely outdated by the superior PSP version.

Final Fantasy Adventure aka Mystic Quest (1991). The only game for the original Game Boy that I own. Called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden in the original release, is the first entry in the Mana series that was remaked as Sword of Mana. As odd as it may seem, I prefer this version over the remake.

Shin Seiki Evangelion
Mahjong Hokan Keikaku (2000) I usually buy European releases because are easier to find, and a few cases the American editions if the game is not published in Europe or had a very limited print. This is the only Japanese version that I have.
I learned how to play mahjong with Eva to Yukaina Nakamatachi (PSX), and I wanted to have a handled Evangelion mahjong game. I still play it from time to time, since I still need to unlock Magi computer and chibi-Rei
UPDATE: Soon after I wrote that, I finally managed to unlock all, after years of attempts!

『Amazing. You unlocked everything. You played this game quite a lot, don't you think?』

And Metal Gear Solid aka Ghost Babel (2000) Pretty much a game based in the PSX game with 2D graphics and original story and characters.

5 comments:

Archerwannabe said...

There was a Lunar port for GBA? D:
I don't have a GBA anymore.


"Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (2003) This was the game that made me decide to buy a GBA. At the end it was not as good as I expected..."
The same here. Though I actually sold both the game and console off soon after since that game was the worst waste of time ever.

Quite a lot of games you have there.

Soth said...

I was expecting a solid game like the original FFT, but the story was not as good (Civil War -> Children trapped in a fantasy book) and the multiple jobs and races in most cases had little to no benefit in the game.

I used to play the GBA a lot, and is still the handheld console that I own most games for (not for much).

Sirsus said...

Heh you already know i committed the same mistake, buying the GBA for this game...

Did you get your job back already?

Soth said...

@Sirsus:

No, not yet ;_;

erros xbox 360 said...

I truly loved reading your post. Thanks!