The Game Boy Advance is one of the most beloved handhelds ever, and you guys certainly seemed to belove our last video on the handheld’s hidden gems. So we’re here to highlight some more hidden gems that you little saucepots recommended, but also mix in some of our own, like a Coke float. You’re the ice cream.
Advance Guardian Heroes – @darkjackl999
@darkjackl999, the enemy of Light Jack, took a break from his eternal war with his brighter doppelganger to recommend yet another Treasure banger: “One of my absolute favourites was Advance Guardian Heroes”.
As certified Treasure fiends, we’re compelled to agree with Dark Jack’s wishes. Guardian Heroes is a game that needs no introduction at this point, with the now legendary beat ‘em up considered among the best of Treasure’s trove of games. But despite that universal acclaim, little is ever said about the GBA follow-up release. Aptly titled Advance Guardian Heroes, the game follows a new vessel for the Undead Hero, as they face off against Zur, Kanon and the previous game’s heroes.
Much like the first Guardian Heroes, AGH is a side-scrolling beat ‘em up with the player earning experience by battering their way through hordes of enemies. What separates the sequel from its predecessor is the fact that the player is no longer locked to three lanes of movement, and can freely move towards and away from the screen. Despite the diminutive stature of the GBA though, Treasure still managed to make the combat deep and engaging, same as it ever was. Shame this version of the game never got the port/remake treatment like the original Guardian Heroes did on Xbox 360, hey? Maybe one day we’ll see it on the Switch, it could be pretty killer.
Kill.Switch
We’re big style Kill Switch fans here, both of the Metalcore band Killswitch Engage and of a forgotten 6th generation game, and it’s our curse to rabbit on about both.
Kill.Switch, the PS2 shooter that helped to push Winback’s cover system forward that’d go on to inspire Gears Of War (and then every other cover shooter immediately after Gears blew up), does deserve its flowers. What many people might not know, however, is that Kill.Switch even received a GBA port, and while many GBA ports of PS2 games at that time tended to be watered down versions of a game, often played from a completely different perspective or genre, Kill.Switch aimed to be a bit of a demake of the original release.
Released a year after its home console counterpart, Kill.Switch for the GBA is basically the same game, only with vastly inferior visuals. The levels are still massive, the cover shooting is still present and you’ll still get shot to ribbons if you try to run and gun this bad boy. Quite frankly, the fact that the game’s developers were able to get a third person cover shooter to work on the GBA is mind-boggling, so it being pretty decent is just the icing on the cake. Is it better than its bigger, home console brother? No, and it’s barely over an hour long, but if nothing else, it’s a testament to t he development team’s talent that they attempted this project and the result is actually playable in the first place. Right, we’ve not said anything about robots in about a minute and a half.
Super Robot Wars J – @senny
@senny was pretty sen with his shout: “Best GBA game will always be Super Robot Wars J”.
Not to be confused with the British series hosted by Craig Charles, everyone’s 8th or 9th favorite scouser mentioned in the last video, Super Robot Wars is a tactical RPG series that’s been running for the past 30+ years. Kinda like the Super Smash Bros. of mecha anime, the Super Robot Wars series gathers characters and robots from a variety of mech-based anime and manga and decides to let you be a big kid smashing toys together. The series itself is huge, with plenty of games and even extended media like anime and more celebrating the juggernaut that is Super Robot Wars, but for many people, SRWJ on the Game Boy Advance is a series highlight.
Players are able to choose from one of two original protagonists, setting out to try to protect the Earth from a variety of threats in turn-based, tactical RPG combat. There’s a lot to sink your teeth into here, from the fact that you can select your favorite mech series, giving them a boost during your campaign, to receiving bonuses if you place troops next to each other that have an established relationship in their respective series. Despite the tiny GBA cartridge, Super Robot Wars J is one of the meatiest games you could ever play, and there’s even plenty of incentive for multiple New Game Plus playthroughs if you don’t feel like doing anything else for the next few hundred hours.
Rebelstar: Tactical Command
We didn’t mean to double up on tactical RPGs here, but Rebelstar: Tactical Command certainly gets a pass when you consider that the game was developed by Julian Gollop, the man considered to be one of the leading minds behind the creation of XCOM.
With a legacy like that, you’d think that Rebelstar: Tactical Command wouldn’t be quite so much of a hidden gem, but then again, XCOM only really broke big into the mainstream in the 2010s with XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Before then, it was just a tactical RPG for the sickos, so trying to encourage anyone to play Rebelstar based on that information alone would’ve been like ice skating uphill.
Set on a future Earth that’s been overthrown by aliens (way to step outside your comfort zone there Julian), you control Jorel, who has travelled to Mexico to join the rebels after his parents were kidnapped by the aliens. As you’d expect from a tactical RPG, you control a range of units, each with their own skills and proficiencies, levelling them up as you go. Quite why Rebelstar: Tactical Command fell into obscurity is unknown, as the visuals are good, the combat is fantastic and the story is– well, it’s fine. The only theory we’ve got is the game’s awful cover art. The guy on the left looks like he’s just walked in on his best friend probing his wife. It might have been this next little dude.
Alien Hominid – @AngloLee
We always appreciate it when comments meet us on our level, so when @AngloLee gave their recommendation, we just had to listen: “Alien Hominid on GBA is a banger”.
Alien Hominid is the Metal Slug inspired, run ‘n’ gun shooter from The Behemoth that launched on PS2 and GameCube back in the mid-2000s, offering a budget-priced blaster that they’d come to find aplenty on digital marketplaces a few years later. Perhaps most fondly beloved for its visuals and humor, Alien Hominid’s gameplay straddles the line between entertaining and maddeningly difficult, throwing enemies and bullets at you like confetti as you fly across the world murdering humans. Now, imagine all of the chaos, and stick it on the Game Boy Advance. It shouldn’t work, but somehow, The Behemoth managed to pull it off.
While the graphics and overall visuals were obviously downgraded, along with some bosses and levels that were removed, Alien Hominid on the GBA is a pretty faithful recreation of the original game. Sure, the Game Boy Advance was rife with Metal Slug-like clones, like Lilo & Stitch from the last video or Astro Boy, but they were developed with the GBA in mind, making them slightly more limited in scope. As for Alien Hominid, they somehow made the square peg go in the round hole, like my tiny arse trying to reach the pedals.
Car Battler Joe
Sadly not a game where a dude called Joe keeps trying to fight your dad’s Ford Focus, Car Battler Joe is set in a world where cars are revered like ancient relics. And so society has decided that the most entertaining thing to do with their relics is battle each other across multiple arenas. Playing out like a cross between Final Fantasy and Twisted Metal, if you can believe that, Car Battler Joe sees the 16 year old Joe setting out into the world with his car to try and make a name for hi mself. Considering it’s two thirds of the game’s title, the car battling is the main focus of the game here, with players given a massive amount of control on how they want to customize their vehicle, from weapons to propulsion to various Overdrive mods that can really change how your car functions.
The Mode 7-enabled graphics during the car battles are a real highlight for the game, proving very early on in the GBA’s lifecycle what this incredible handheld would be capable of. Outside of combat, you’ll find a world that essentially lives and breathes car battling, so this might not be the RPG for you if you’re more of a penny farthing guy, but if you’ve been looking for a game that asks what the drivers from Destruction Derby get up to outside of the cars, Car Battler Joe is a very good answer. Now to harass Nintendo endlessly until they add it to the GBA Emulator on the Switch. Or, you know, seek alternative means, matey.
Right, let’s switch focus to our favourite zombie-focused extended universe. Not you, my somehow eternal 30 year olds.
The Pinball Of The Dead – @Dukefazon
The enigmatic @Dukefazon opted for a scattershot approach to recommending games, offering DK: King Of Swing, the GBA port of Max Payne and others in their comment. We’re partial to zombies and/or balls though, so let’s focus on The Pinball Of The Dead.
Say what you want about The House Of The Dead as a series, but it refuses to be pigeonholed. You’d think that The Typing Of The Dead would be the most bizarre entry in this zombie shooting series, but then The Pinball Of The Dead shambled its way onto the Game Boy Advance in 2002. To be fair, we really shouldn’t be surprised that The House Of The Dead got a pinball spin-off, considering years earlier, SEGA also made a pinball spin-off of Sonic The Hedgehog with Sonic Spinball. It’s only a mat ter of time before we get a “Like A Pinball” game, which, yes, I would buy that, cheers.
The Pinball Of The Dead is like many of the virtual pinball games out there, in that it’s infinitely more interesting and mechanically bonkers than a real pinball table. There’s three different tables to play on, each based on different locations from the first two House of the Dead games, along with boss fights with six of the bosses from HOTD 2. Alongside that, there’s bonuses to collect, skill shots to achieve and plenty of wonderfully crunched visuals to enjoy. It’s not the best game ever, but it’s still a fun curio, and I’m holding out hope that House of the Dead 2 – Goldman, The Best Of
Now then, EVO, where’s this next game in your schedule, ya frauds?
The King Of Fighters EX2 Howling Blood
The Game Boy Advance wasn’t really known for its fighting games, especially those that started life in the arcades or home consoles. Games like Tekken and Mortal Kombat really struggled to make the transition to the Game Boy Advance, but one developer that thrived was SNK. It probably helps that SNK had plenty of experience on working on handheld fighting games thanks to their work on the Neo Geo Pocket, along with its Color follow-up. Despite their own handheld console, that doesn’t mean that SNK weren’t afraid to port their games to the Game Boy Advance either, with The King Of Fighters EX2 Howling Blood arguably being the best fighting game on Nintendo’s console.
Based on The King Of Fighters 2000, KoF EX 2 tells a brand new story in the world of KoF, with a evil-doer trying to resurrect the spirit of an extremely unchill priest inside the body of a child. This is King of Fighters, baby.
Howling Blood introduces multiple new characters along with plenty of series favourites as playable fighters, making a full roster of 21 characters. Honestly, that’s more than most modern fighting games these days, so you’ve certainly got value for money in that little cartridge. Throw in the Strikers system that KoF used around that time, where you could summon your teammates to batter your opponent, and you’ve got an almost arcade perfect take on KoF in the palm of your hands. Also, the sprites are still gorgeous to look at, which isn’t all that surprising given how amazing SNK sprites are.
If you thought Triple H had the monopoly on the letter H, get a load of this next game.
Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak – @chipthepark10
@chipthepark10 wasn’t the only person to suggest Hamtaro to us in our previous vid, but he definitely made the best case for it: “Fun little puzzles, good story, cute characters. Highly highly recommend. Recently replayed it and it holds up.”
We don’t want to be known as the Ham-Ham Heartbreakers, so let’s make everyone happy and gas up Hamtaro. Based on the anime series of the same name, Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak isn’t the only game in the Hamtaro series, with the first game, Tottoko Hamtaro: Tomodachi Daisakusen Dechu, launching on the Game Boy Color in Japan in the year 2000. Funnily enough, that was a fortune telling game where players would enter their own information so the game could pseudo-randomly generate predictions based on your answers. But Ham-Ham Heartbreak is actually more like Ham-Hams Unite, which also launched on the Game Boy Color a year later.
An adventure game in nature, players explore the world of Hamtaro as the titular protagonist, attempting to stop the evil Spat from, you know, being evil. Look at his evil devil wings. He needs to be eliminated. To accomplish this, Hamtaro needs to learn various Ham-Chats, combinations of words, actions and items that can be used in conversations and other situations to get other hamsters to do what you need them to do. Like most old school adventure games, there’s plenty of trial and error to overcome, but at least Hamtaro has the distinction of being ten billion times cuter than Broken Sword.
Sigma Star Saga
Now, did I sit down to voice this one out and discover that WayForward are planning on releasing the game on modern consoles this year, complete with a reprinted GBA cartridge release too? You bet your bottom, but until Sigma Star Saga is properly liberated, this game is still a GBA hidden gem.
Far from being an adventure featuring a few dozen chads with chiseled jawlines, the story follows a pilot with the shockingly normal name of Ian Recker going undercover with an alien race that nearly wiped out all life on Earth. However, his loyalties start being tested between his new Krill allies and the humans he’s left behind, with multiple endings to unlock too.
As for the gameplay, Sigma Star Saga switches between two distinct modes of play, as the overworld exploration plays out like a top-down Metroidvania, with Recker speaking to allies and unlocking new abilities that allow him to explore new areas. However, there’s also side scrolling shoot ‘em up sections which introduce RPG mechanics, with players using their experience points to level up their Gun Data and unlock better weapons.
It’s an ambitious blend of two genres, all wrapped up in a pretty engaging story, creating one of the most fun sci-fi adventures on the GBA. All in all, we’re definitely glad WayForward are bringing this one back from the dead.
Reckon they could do Jackie Chan Adventures next? Lil bit of Jackie Chan?
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