GBA Micro update
By ahoodedfigure 6 Comments
Thanks again to all of you who recommended I get the Game Boy Micro. I've been revisiting all my old games since then.
I managed to make it to the very last stage in Su per Mario Bros. 3, starting from the beginning. But... that Bowser. Mario needs to take a shotgun to that guy while he's asleep and end this cycle of torment forever. Speaking of torment, Mario's trial-and-error style can really get on my nerves sometimes.
Lady Sia, which many of you probably haven't heard of, gets on my nerves too, but in different ways. One problem I've had with it is that it doesn't really have a move list available. It teaches you a move once, then expects you to remember it, even though it usually involves quite a combination of button presses and D-pad spinning (not easy on a Micro). I would simply have chucked this game if its art style and whimsy didn't charm me utterly: the visuals in this game are varied and detailed, moreso than I've seen in most games of late, or its peers back during its run on the GBA. I'd say it reminds me a bit of those side-scrolling, detailed 2D animated brawlers coming out of Japan and Korea like Odin Sphere, in that they're willing to put in many frames of animation. The combat doesn't seem as smooth, though.
Lady Sia takes some of its cheaty playbook moves from Mario, but makes the levels longer. So unlike in Mario, where you can get past a few dastardly traps and finish the level, often Lady Sia's levels are just too long to be able to figure them out in the lives you're given. You have endless continues, and a half-way save point on each level, but playing through these longer levels because a thing you hadn't encountered before murders you can be demoralizing.
Still, I play it, using the occasional FAQ to remind me what moves I can use. I just wish they had tried a bit harder from the design side of things, because I think this could have easily been a classic game, even with a similar level of difficulty.
I apparently left off my Advance Wars 2 save on the very last level, with all of the extra maps and character colors purchased. Sort of depressing, since that last scenario is so frigging hard.
I played quite a few levels of Ogre Tactics: The Knight of Lodis. It makes me miss Final Fantasy Tactics a bit, the old one, but it has its own charms. One of its coolest features is a sort of achievement system that often has a direct effect on game play. You wipe out enough ghosts as a priest, for example, and you get a badge that connotes a fear penalty for all undead attacking you, or you get a bonus to your agility stat if you hit enough people with a ranged attack. Some of them are just badges of honor, and still others are penalties, but they're fun to collect and encourage you to experiment with things.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is another animal altogether compared to the original FFT. I haven't played it since I last lost my Gamecube Game Boy Player to the winds of time, but I think even that game is on its last level, making me reluctant to pick it up again only to finish it.
I never really started Golden Sun, so it's sitting there waiting for me to start it in earnest, although the fact that I don't have its sequel is sort of hanging over my head.
Phantasy Star I-III is still there if I ever get the urge to play them. I'm actually thinking I might hit III to give it another chance. They're old-school RPGs, so there's some bad that goes with that that sort of makes me hold off despite my love of the series.
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon is always fun, but I've pretty much discovered enough of its secrets that I'm not sure I'll be able to get much more out of it. I started a new game anyway, and made it to the point where I can try to tempt fate in the arena to see if I can get some nice loot.
Fire Emblem is there waiting to be completed. We've beaten it multiple times, but there are still a lot of conversations to unlock. I think it's more satisfying to do that than just read the conversations online. We started playing it again, but the work of getting those conversations unlocked must have distracted us from going much further with it.
And Tetris... I can't find it :P