Sam's video game collection essentials

The only completely original single-player Legend of Zelda adventure on the Game Boy Advance came rather late into the system’s life cycle. It’s a prequel to the multiplayer Four Swords, featuring the same antagonist, Vaati. Link finds himself teaming up with a sentient cap replacing the regular green cap that he usually wears. This cap is named Ezlo, and he has a head resembling that of a bird. By and large, the gameplay here is very much like what you’d expect from a 2D Zelda game. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some twists. The biggest new feature is a power granted by Ezlo, the power to change size! Link can now shrink down to a size barely bigger than an insect. As you can imagine, this comes with many gameplay implications, such as being able to fit into really tiny spaces. Link must change sizes to suit each situation he comes across. This is cleverly implemented, and it’s really cool to see what are normally small enemies made larger than life, for example. The graphics are...

Since the Game Boy Advance was roughly equivalent in power to the Super Nintendo, it’s no surprise that a number of classic titles from the latter would be ported to the former, made portable for the first time. Link to the Past was an obvious candidate, being one of the most beloved SNES titles. It’s one of my favorite games, and you can read a lot more of my thoughts and feelings about it here . Are there any differences between the original Link to the Past and this iteration? It’s a pretty faithful port, but yes, there are. With GBA ports of SNES games, you can typically expect the graphics and audio to be just a little bit worse, and that’s roughly the case here. For whatever it’s worth, the game is now in widescreen. And because the GBA has two fewer face buttons, some actions previously done with face buttons now have to be done with shoulder buttons instead. Also, Nintendo added in sound clips of Link shouting from Ocarina of Time, so you’ll now hear that whenever you attack....

Developer Camelot got its start by making RPGs for Sega platforms, when they were originally known as Sonic Software Planning. But after the Sega Saturn, they switched gears and formed a partnership with Nintendo instead. They started out by creating the first two major Mario sports titles, Mario Golf and Mario Tennis, which were not technically the first ones ever, but they really made a splash and kickstarted a trend for the plumber and his peers. With the release of the Game Boy Advance, they were tasked with making their first RPG on a Nintendo platform, so they created an entirely new IP which would be far grander and more impressive than any handheld RPG that had been released previously. The story of Golden Sun involves a world that’s somewhat like a medieval fantasy setting. The world is composed of the four “classical elements” (earth, fire, water and wind), and magic exists which can use them for powerful spells. Those capable of using it are called Adepts, and they each spec...

The third and final Game Boy Advance Fire Emblem game looks and plays very similar to the previous two entries, but it’s an entirely new story not connected to any other game in the whole series. It takes place on the continent of Magvel, and the two main characters are the prince and princess of one of five kingdoms on the continent. Trouble brews when one of the five kingdoms begins invading the others and destroying sacred stones which protect against a supposed mysterious evil demon. The two blue-haired royal youths set out on a journey to stop them, gain allies and find out what the deal is with Grado. While the gameplay basics are pretty much the same for the third straight entry, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing different about Sacred Stones. It seems to take some ideas from the second Fire Emblem game, Fire Emblem Gaiden, which was a highly experimental title that had done a lot of things differently from the rest of the series. Perhaps the coolest Gaiden-inspired gameplay cha...

The Fire Emblem series, which basically invented the “strategy RPG” genre as we know it, had been kept exclusive to Japan for the first six entries, spanning over a decade. What prompted Nintendo to finally give it a shot in the rest of the world? Well, there’s probably two main contributing factors. One was the presence of two Fire Emblem characters in the second Super Smash Bros. game, which dramatically increased awareness of the series’ existence in the Western world and sparked curiosity. Another was the success of Advance Wars in the West, made by the same developer, Intelligent Systems. While Advance Wars lacks RPGs elements, it proved that there was an appetite for strategic turn-based gameplay. And so, the seventh Fire Emblem game in 2003 would be the first to be officially translated to English. The game’s Japanese release had a subtitle, “Rekka no Ken”, translating to “The Blazing Blade”, but they decided to simply go with “Fire Emblem” for the English title. This may have b...

Here we have the sixth entry of the Fire Emblem series, and the first one made for a Game Boy system, and it’s perhaps surprising that they waited so long considering that turn-based games are a good fit for portable gaming. And they wouldn’t stop here, as this is the first of three consecutive Fire Emblem games on the Game Boy Advance. I considered covering all three of them in one post, but decided that each one deserved its own spotlight individually. In this game, you play as Roy, son of the marquess of the land of Pherae, as he leads an army to oppose the kingdom of Bern’s conquest of the region. Binding Blade keeps much of the same basic design as the odd-numbered Fire Emblem games (since the even-numbered entries were more experimental). It’s a strategy RPG, where you and the enemy team take turns. Each player moves all their units in a given turn, as opposed to some other strategy RPGs where each individual unit gets their own turn. The “weapon triangle”, first introduced in Fi...