Koji Igarashi on why Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was made for GBA
Posted on 6 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, News | 0 comments
Shmuplations has translated a pair of classic interviews with the developers behind Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. One of these was a discussion with Koji Igarashi, the game’s producer – and is currently leading the way on Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
One interesting part of the interview came about when Igarashi was asked about why Aria of Sorrow was developed for the Game Boy Advance. He cited strong sales of Circle of the Moon and the fact that 2D games were more acceptable on the device in comparison to something like the PlayStation 2.
Mario + Rabbids creative director made a pitch for a demo of Zelda: Wind Waker on the GBA
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA | 21 Comments
You may know Davide Soliani as the creative director behind Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. But many years before that Switch game, Soliani wanted to work on another Nintendo franchise: Zelda.
During the GBA era, Soliani says he and artist Fabio Pagetti “almost convinced our managing director to let us produce a demo for a GBA version of Wind Waker.” Unfortunately, it didn’t get very far. There is also no working demo sadly.
Soliani shared the following on Twitter:
GBA game Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge coming to Switch
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, News | 11 Comments
Do you remember the GBA game Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge? That same title is now coming to Switch.
Naps Team revealed on Twitter that Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge will be on the console soon. Other than the tweet below, we don’t have much to go on.
Gekido Kintaro's Revenge… Coming soon on Nintendo Switch#NintendoSwitch #Gekido #NapsTeam #Nintendo #indiegames#IndieGameDev pic.twitter.com/BVChlRA8oq
— Naps Team (@NapsTeam) December 5, 2017
Gekido Kintaro’s Revenge features beat ’em up gameplay. It’s unclear in what ways (if at all) the Switch version will be updated, but we’ll bring you further details as soon as we have them.
More: Naps Team
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga – GBA vs. 3DS video comparison
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, GBA, Videos | 9 Comments
GameXplain put together a video comparing the original version of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga to the 3DS remake. Get a look at how the two stack up against each other below.
MercurySteam originally wanted to remake Metroid Fusion instead of Metroid II
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, General Nintendo, News | 9 Comments
Next week is the launch of Metroid: Samus Returns. It’s a remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, which hit the Game Boy many years ago. Nintendo collaborated with MercurySteam on the project. But interestingly, Metroid II wasn’t MercurySteam’s first choice.
Game Informer reports that MercurySteam initially pitched Nintendo on potentially remaking Metroid Fusion. Although series producer Yoshio Sakamoto was impressed with the pitch and their passion for Metroid, he said no to revisiting the Game Boy Advance game. Instead, Sakamoto wanted to remake Metroid II.
Going with Metroid II over Fusion may have been the smarter choice. You can make an argument that Fusion still holds up today, but the team was really able to make significant improvements to Metroid II.
Famitsu readers choose the top 100 best games of all time
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, General Nintendo, News, Switch, Wii, Wii U | 54 Comments
Japanese magazine Famitsu put out its 1,500th issue this past week. In celebration of that, readers were asked to vote on the top 100 games of all time.
A number of Nintendo games made the list, including the a few in the top ten. These include Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon, which were selected fifth best and third best respectively.
The full list is as follows:
More: Famitsu
Game Freak’s Junichi Masuda was very stressed and had health issues while working on Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, News | 11 Comments
Which Pokemon games were the most challenging to make? When Game Informer posed that question to Game Freak co-founder and Pokemon director / producer Junichi Masuda, he referred to Ruby and Sapphire.
Masuda first told the magazine:
“With Ruby and Sapphire, the screen got a little longer and it was a different aspect ratio, a lot more colors and sound channels so the tech was improved dramatically. It allowed us to do a lot more and gave us more freedom, but at the same time it made it take a lot longer to do things and was more resource-intensive.”
“After Gold and Silver came out, it was a huge hit around the world, but shortly after everyone was saying, ‘That’s it. The Pokémon fad is over! It’s dead!’ It was a very stressful project, for sure. When we were first developing it, I had the idea in mind that it would be Ruby and Sapphire, and then the next games, including the titles, would be Diamond and Pearl, and in between we would do the remakes, FireRed and LeafGreen, so we could create this structure where you could take the Pokémon from the Kanto region to the Diamond and Pearl games.”
Fan turns Game Boy Advance SP into a Switch dock
Posted on 7 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, News, Random, Switch | 11 Comments
One fan has repurposed an old Game Boy Advance SP into a Switch dock. Alexander Blake, who had a broken system lying around, realized that the dock’s circuit board is basically the size of Nintendo’s old handheld.
All of this was done by removing what was in the GBA SP. Blake then simply transferred the parts inside of a Switch dock. Finally, a hole was carved above and inside the screen so that the port connecting to the Switch would fit and be protected.
Here’s a closer look:
Video: A look at prototypes for Crawfish’s cancelled version of Grand Theft Auto III for GBA
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, Videos | 4 Comments
Many years ago, Crawfish Interactive was working on a version of Grand Theft Auto III for the Game Boy Advance. It was sadly cancelled, which eventually prompted Digital Eclipse to create Grand Theft Auto Advance.
A video recently surfaced showing Crawfish’s work. Both are based on very early versions of development. Although there isn’t a ton of depth to the prototypes, they’re a neat part of gaming history.
Sakamoto on making Balloon Fight, Iwata memories, canned GBA hardware idea, more
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GBA, General Nintendo, News | 6 Comments
Nintendo recently published another new interview on its Japanese website to promote the NES Classic Edition / Famicom Mini. This time, Yoshio Sakamoto of Metroid fame sat down to talk about Balloon Fight. Nick Mosier translated the piece, which had some interesting talk about how the game was made, memories of the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, and a GBA hardware idea that was cancelled after making it to the mock-up stage.
We’ve picked out some notable excerpts from the interview below. You can read the full translation here.
