As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm alternating between working on my mod Remako and doing some new stuff with my YouTube channel. Below you'll find that first video. I hope you like it?
The Game Boy Advance is often called a ‘SNES you can carry in your pocket’. Everyone knows the handheld featured dozens of ports from the Super Nintendo. But how many SNES ports were there exactly on the GBA?
As an avid retro gamer, I wanted to find out. I couldn’t find a single source that listed them all, however. So I set out to create my own list and turn it into a video.
Before I could begin, I had to create some rules on which games to count and which to leave out:
The SNES audio is on the left channel and the GBA audio is on the right channel. That way you can compare not just the graphics, but also the audio of both games.
- Naturally, I included games that were direct ports of SNES-only games.
- I also chose to include games that were a port of a multi-platform game that also appeared on the SNES, even if it didn’t use that version as a base (ex. Doom). I did this because these games are often counted as ports and can be compared 1:1 well in a video.
- I decided to not include games that differ completely in gameplay/level design (Super James Pond on SNES/James Pond 2 on GBA). Those are more like remakes than ports.
Sources for this video:
https://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2906
https://emulation.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_notable_SNES_ports_and_remakes
So what do you think? Would you like to see more videos like this? Let me know in the comments.
Comments
It was interesting for me as a retro gamer, since I remember GBA versions looking better but sounding worse. However, I can see this was usually not the case. It appears common that:
- The UI was redrawn and sprites were resized
- Brightness & saturation went way up. I know there are studies for photos (not sure about games/2D art) that show that simply brightening the image tends to increase engagement. In this case, I believe the form factor and outdoors nature of the console may have had an impact
- Some games had to actively reduce their graphics. I noted in Earthworm Jim that some frames of animation have been cut.
In either case, it's not represented in the video but the sound quality is certainly worse on the GBA so I will always prefer SNES editions were possible.
I would be curious to see more comparative videos of this nature though not sure what you'd do. For cross-platform, there are a lot of channels dedicated to it (esp. Digital Foundry) and the volume of games is enormous. Moreover, the comparisons are a lot less direct. I'm not sure why there is a semi-transparent volume icon on the top left by the way but it should be moved elsewhere or removed from view as it obscures part of the image. Thanks for the great video.
Regarding the volume icon, that's there to indicate that one sound is playing on the left channel and the other is on the other channel. The two channels are there for comparison's sake. But the icons do obscure the games a bit, so I might need to find a better spot for that.
There's indeed more than enough comparison videos on the web. Digital Foundry goes into the technical differences, VCDecide compares two games side-by-side, VGLibrary shows off every game for a system, etc.
I'm like the idea of a comparative video and I'm trying to find my own niche. I'm trying a few things:
-Side-by-side comparison of ports, remakes or remasters
-Every game in an (obscure) franchise
-Every game in a genre on a certain console
-Every game for a very obscure console or handheld
I try to either answer a question I can't find answered online (or in video form). 'What are the SNES ports on GBA' was one of them. Other types of comparisons I haven't found answered/visualized is:
-Arcade ports on the NES, SNES, etc.
-Which games were released for both the Master System/Genesis, the NES/SNES, etc.
For both the comparisons and the 'every game' type, they're very much fed by my curiosity about such things. I like discovering each and every game in a certain category (franchise, ports, etc.) and want to share that with others.
I've also had some ideas in this format that would work for non-gaming things. I don't know if you know the Studio Ghibli films (Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, etc.) Those anime movies are filled with inventive looking airships. It has to do with the director's love for aircraft. I haven't seen an overview of these airships online yet, so an 'Every' video with short snippets showing off each airship might be interesting for fans of these movies. Does that sound interesting?