Sam's video game collection essentials

Super Metroid in 1994 greatly raised the bar for the Metroid series and was released to critical acclaim. While it wasn’t one of Nintendo’s absolute top sellers on the SNES, its sales numbers were still more than respectable. So it is perhaps a surprise that Metroid as a series went dormant for quite a few years afterward. Not a single Metroid game was released on the Nintendo 64 or the Game Boy Color. But thankfully, Nintendo saw the error of their ways and revived the series once the Game Boy Advance hit the scene. Metroid Fusion plays a lot like Super Metroid, and is a direct sequel to that game. The story involves Samus being attacked on an expedition by small parasites called X. Her colleagues manage to rescue her and grant her a vaccine against the X. Parts of Samus’s power suit have to be removed and examined, which is a clever way to explain how she lost her powers in between games. But when trouble strikes at the space station, Samus has to go and investigate, finding that the...

Here we have the third Mario Kart game, and the first ever to be released on a handheld system. The first two Mario Karts are pretty different from each other, and Super Circuit combines elements from both of them to make an entry to the series that has always felt rather unique. It’s the only game in the series developed by their longtime partner Intelligent Systems. The Game Boy Advance hardware is much closer to that of the Super Nintendo than it is the Nintendo 64. And so, the track design much more resembles that of the original Mario Kart, as pretty much everything is flat. “Coins” make a return as well after being scrapped in the sequel, collectibles on the track that allow racers to move a bit faster. But the influence from Mario Kart 64 on this game is also very clear. The sprites are clearly based on those from that game rather than the original. The item system works like the one from 64, with the same item lineup minus a few. Races are still 3 laps as opposed to 5 like in t...

I previously covered Mario Golf on the Nintendo 64, made by Camelot. What I DIDN’T cover was Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color, which was somewhat of a “sister title” to the N64 Mario Golf, a rather different game where you could train and build up your own characters and transfer them to the Nintendo 64 title. That GBC Mario Golf is probably quite good for what it is, and I do own a copy, but honestly I’ve never played it for more than just a few minutes or so, leading to its lack of presence on this list (at least for now). In the next console generation, Camelot wanted to make a “brother-sister” pair of Mario Golf games in much the same style. And so, a Mario Golf game was made for the GameCube (stayed tuned for that), and this here is its Game Boy partner title. You’ll find pretty quickly that this game is a little weird. If you’ve played a console Mario sports title, you’ve likely developed a certain set of expectations for what such a game is like, and this game will not match th...

A Mario JRPG had first been conceived, made and released in 1996 by Square. The second such game was Paper Mario a few years later, also a JRPG but developed by different people and largely doing its own thing rather than copying the template of the previous game. Now, perhaps surprisingly, there would be a third Mario JRPG that would also have its own style rather than being a follow-up to one of the other two games. It would be developed by AlphaDream, a company founded in part by former Square employees, so some who worked on the original Mario RPG would also work on this one. Thus, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was born. As the title implies, this game prominently features both of the brothers sharing the spotlight as main characters, with no other party members joining in. Like the previous games, it features an emphasis on timed button presses during the turn-based battles, as well as platforming elements outside of battle. And like the first Mario RPG, it features some compl...

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...

The original Final Fantasy Tactics on the PlayStation is one of the most beloved strategy RPGs of its era. It wasn’t the hottest seller in the world, but it’s one of those games that developed a deeply passionate fanbase. The fact that the game literally got a new remaster on modern consoles less than a week before I’m writing this is testament to its impact. I, of course, wrote about the game already in this very blog . There’s no way Square wasn’t going to make some kind of follow-up. And so, a few years later when they were reconnecting with Nintendo, and said company had a new handheld system which would be a nice platform for tactical RPGs, Square decided that it was the perfect time to make a new Final Fantasy Tactics game. Story-wise, this game is not connected to the original. This time you play as a boy named Marche who lives in what appears to be the real world. One night, he and his friends somehow get transported to what appears to be a magical dream world. He quickly reali...

Nintendo’s futuristic, high-speed racing series debuted with a launch title on the Super Nintendo and effectively showed off the power of the hardware. The sequel, F-Zero, came years later in the middle of the Nintendo 64’s lifespan and effectively reimagined the concept of the first game in 3D with impressive results, though not with impressive sales. For the launch of the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo made a brand new F-Zero game titled Maximum Velocity, which felt very much like a successor to the original Super Nintendo game. Unfortunately Maximum Velocity isn’t making my list, I never was a fan of the game’s “slippery” controls and thus never at any point put very much time into it. But F-Zero wasn’t done on the GBA. In 2003, an F-Zero anime would be produced. An anime tie-in made sense, since F-Zero X had introduced a large cast of interesting-looking characters that had potential to be expounded upon. I can’t tell you a whole lot about the anime because…well, I never really watched...