Super Nintendo on Gameboy Advance

Is the Gameboy Advance really just a portable Super Nintendo? Well, with over 40 SNES games being ported over to the GBA it definitely seems that way. But, how do the GBA versions of games like Super Mario World, Zelda A Link to the Past, and Donkey Kong Country compare to the 16-bit originals? Let’s find out.
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[@plumtree7485]

more than half of the videos on the sidebar of this video are scott the woz videos and it made me realize how similar this video was to one of them

[@GrumpySylveon]

Did you make that yearbook just for the bit? That’s dedication man. I commend it

[@Canady117]

Based on your comedic talent and the production quality of this video if I didn't know any better I'd think your channel would have a million subs. This video was excellent, I'm thankful KZbin shoved it in my face!

[@sxbrielle]

Great video as usual, glad to see you bring a topic I enjoy a lot about gaming, portable conversions. Excited to see your next video!

[@nintendogamecube5278]

I never actually knew about Mario Advance 1 being a remake like that. It's a shame they didn't go all the way and just make the screens vertical scrolling act as it did in Mario 3 and World though. So many of these games would be their definitive versions if not for minor issues like this and it makes me sad.

[@totallyfrozen]

With the hardware strength of the GBA (being superior to the SNES), I think they could have done a much smoother job on the screen scrolling. I think it could have been faster and smoother.

[@MaoRatto]

... The SNES looked better than the GBA for Yoshi's island. Getting dizzy on that version is choppy!

[@ShockHat734]

this channel still feels like it should have 100k subscribers

[@vtea]

Love the IRL bits in this video, you should do more

[@Ren-gk2tg]

Your content is really enjoyable to watch! You deserve more views, for sure.

[@sheedays]

I just found your channel and wow! The sheer quality of everything is just mind blowing, the channel really feels high quality, and it’s a shame that you’re not more popular, keep up the amazing work!

[@dwaynethemineraljohnson412]

How did you notice the terrible gba sounds with yoshi's island in my opinion it sounds pretty decent for a gba game better than the other mario advanced games atleast

[@NostalJackMusic]

Man, every video on this channel is a straight banger. Keep up the good work, the recognition will continue to come because it so well-deserved 👌🏼

[@jaxxh6529]

after super mario bros. deluxe, for the game boy color then begins the advance series.

[@KleinerTrottel]

Hey man. I love your stuff and especially this video. Your creative input realy improved and all this extra scenes and jokes made it so interesting to watch. Keep up the good work! I never owned an GBA, but I've always admired it. Superstar Saga, Advance Wars and Metroid Zero Mission, to name a few are such great games. To have one of the best Mario games on the system is neat, but to play them on such a tiny screen? I don't know.. Back then it was probably realy cool to play your favorite games on the go, but today, i rather stick to the original

[@Vitorio582]

The reason why they started with Mario 2 is because it was supposed to be a sequel to Super Mario Deluxe on the GBC

[@minignoux4566]

I tought the same!

[@mrwii5741]

Great Job on this review! Keep up the good work with your reviews!

[@mariowario5945]

The reason we didnt get a new mario game on the gba, was because the gba was treated as an extension to the exsisting gameboy line, which in context, means the gameboy line already got an original mario game under mario land 1 and 2. This is why the gbc didnt have one either, under the eyes of nintnendo, all the gba was was an enhanced advanced gameboy, a model revision of the original dmg, like the cgb was

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

I was hoping for some coverage of some of the more niche SNES ports, but this was a really great video and it was cool to see your feelings on these games.

[@Jakstalgia]

I've been planning a followup to this video for awhile now where I do exactly that. Hope to start working on it soon :)

[@Prauwlet213]

nice content. This channel is very underrated.

[@yaboybones1954]

Love the vids keep it up

[@NISSANZ33]

First new video since subscribing! Nice

[@officeboyreloaded5427]

thanks for making excited about stuff i was excited about ... :D thanks !

[@LinkDZelda-ur8il]

It always disturbed me, that they did not release the mario advance series in chronological order, but i am sure, they had their reasons. I just don’t know them and don’t even care that much but i am enjoying them all on my GBA/DS. Thank you for the hilarious commentary and deeper insights into the donkey kong series for the gba.

[@jeterman29ny]

Spoiler Alert. Half of this video is dedicated to Mario games

[@mariowario5945]

Nah, rpgs and strategy games get enough attention on this console, it's about time someone didnt mention them in a video about gba

[@strain42]

The Game Boy Advance is one of my favorite consoles of all time and weirdly enough I never really played ANY of the games that were simply SNES ports. Tactics Advance, Sword of Mana, DemiKids, Pokemon, Robopon 2, Golden Sun, Medabots, Friends of Mineral Town. It really was an awesome system. Also thanks for reminding me that I wanted to get the Mario 2 remake on my Wii U. I should go do that.

[@Maru-dm7rh]

I'm probably the only one in the world that loves the DKC series on the GBA, despite actually growing up with the SNES versions (which I adore as well). I really like all the extra content they added, and the graphical changes grew on me over time.

[@robinr2740]

I have just recently acquired all three complete for the GBA. I never planned on it until I found out that the save system on the GBA versions are more friendly and respects your time. They don't look nearly as good as the SNES versions even on a GBA Consolizer, but they play just as well and are easier to complete thanks to the revamped save system.

[@slavicgaming]

Megaman and bass on the gba is one of the hardest games I've ever played

[@timroehm1728]

Screen crunch, enough said

[@Rassenomatjutut]

It would've been awesome if Nintendo had ported Super Metroid as well (either as an independent cartidge or as part of collection cartidge in the style of Super Mario All-stars featuring NES Metroid 1, Zero Mission, Metroid 2, SM and Fusion).

[@Jakstalgia]

I completely agree. It would have been absolutely amazing to have basically the entire 2D Metroid series on the GBA.

[@SumeaBizarro]

width of SNES is actually wrong. Well, yes, technically right, if you think of it's High Res mode which almost nothing ran at, especially most mario games and such. 256×224 is the internal resolution of SNES which makes these transfers compare much better. It does not take THAT much to make a huge difference in screen crunch when just 50 pixels is like 30% more real estate. Still; the high res mode was not a default nor widely used and when it was, it was sometimes just part of the screen or SOME elements overlayed on top of otherwise 256×224 screen which is... insane analog tricks. Lot of Japanese games used this type of trickery to display Kanji characters in high res mode while rest were 256×224 but... Yeah.

[@totallyfrozen]

12:32 Honestly, there’s no legit reason why Nintendo couldn’t have provided a backlit screen on the GBA right from the beginning. I think the screen quality is what shortened the lifespan of the GBA. It was a pretty amazing handheld, but AFTER everybody had bought a GBA and all the necessary accessories to be able to play it, THEN they brought out the GBA SP. Who’s parents were going to fork out $100 for ANOTHER GBA just for a lit screen when everybody already had the worm lights? So Nintendo had to bring out their next handheld…the DS. It’s a shame because the GBA was 32-bit and very few developers maximized the potential of the system. All those SNES ports were 16-bit. As great as the GBA was, sadly, I think Nintendo wasted a great opportunity. Nice work! Sub’d

[@mr.fearingtoon3549]

Hey waitaminit this isn't Scott the Woz? Lol subbed

[@BigTrees4ever]

After the intro I immediately subscribed.

[@fennecRBX]

I think superstar saga would count as a original "mario" game, got luigi too tho. Great vid btw!

[@jsrodman]

What I wonder is what the tooling looked like to accomplish these ports. Rebuilding a C-source game for the GBA from SNES sounds pretty doable with a relatively small amount of reworking, if the games had been designed without a lot of logic tied to super Nintendo internals. However, I really doubt that games in 1992-1996 or so were built that way, especially given the poor targettability of 650x architcutre for c compilers, the available quality of compilers at the time, memory limits and so on. Now, the GBA offers an quite large increase in cpu time and ram over the SNES, so there's a lot of approaches I could imagine with building a sort of snes-like layer in a library, without necessarily going with a full emulation. But I can't find any info, and Japanese game development typically isn't super talkative (especially in the anglosphere) so.. I guess I'll just have to wonder.

[@HybridAngelZero]

I've spent a lot of time playing SNES remasters on GBA, especially Final Fantasy. I'd say the GBA version of Final Fantasy V is easily the definitive one, and all three of the SNES Final Fantasies got redone localizations, bonus dungeons and extra features. It was awesome.

[@MrMartellSincere]

I love the GBA games that i can take my SNES games on the go as 2000s teen.

[@Hugom9270]

Dude you’re underrated

[@steventechno]

The GBA was unique. Some games actually had great audio, such as Golden Sun and Minish Cap. It was also capable of doing (3D) as with the NFS games, GTA Advance, Driver 2&3 and others. It was more than just a mobile SNES. but in a way it was less, as most ports had degraded audio due to the lack of dedicated SPUs. (But ALTTP was surprisingly close!)

[@timroehm1728]

The funny thing about this is that SNES games are officially on the 3DS however it’s only for the New models! Unfortunately the New 3DS XL couldn’t handle SNES games like Kirby’s Dream Land 3, and even Yoshi’s Island, to makes things worse the said system called New 3DS XL couldn’t even handle the GBA games for some stupid reason!!!

[@HumorManJevil]

Scott Wozniak Jr.

[@simobourne561]

I think that the lower resolution cannot really be considered a disadvantage since it is the case for almost all handhelds (Game Boy resolution lower than NES, Game Gear resolution lower than Master System, NDS resolution lower than N64, PSP resolution lower to PS2, 3DS lower resolution than GC...)

[@misterzygarde6431]

I wonder what would games on the GBA have been like if they included X and Y buttons along with ZL and ZR buttons. You know the same amount of buttons as the PS1’s pre-dualshock controller.

[@Jakstalgia]

I have no idea why Nintendo didn't add at least an X and Y button to the GBA. It would have made controlling some of these games SO much better.

[@quekit]

sma4 came out on the 3ds too but NO e-reader levels!...for some reason

[@Overseer190]

3:37 Resolutions are 240x160 and 256x224

[@nostalgialodeon9305]

Hello! I have been a huge fan of this channel along with jak and lev for the longest time and I gotta say I really miss the jak and lev show but I do have an idea: they made a sequel to nickelodeon kart racers very recently and I know you 2 would like it a WHOLE lot more than the 1st one and it's online so you guys would be able to play that game together. Amd maybe you guys can start a new channel called Jak vs Lev where you guys race to beat a certain game first. Then for this channel I was hoping maybe you could do a video of Mario Kart 8 deluxe vs Super Smash Bros Ultimate and then a review of the nickelodeon app game called Super brawl universe. But thank you for so much amazing content and keep up the amazing work! :):)

[@Emberson-9000]

The gba game I played most as a kid was Mega Man and Bass, with Zero Mission being close. I honestly don't get the MM&B hate. Its my favorite classic Mega Man game. I prefer the SNES version, but its still pretty fun on GBA.

[@CurtindoAqueleDrama]

3:33. 512 in Mario Allstars?

[@sackerlacker5399]

We did got a original Mario game Mario vs donkey Kong

[@Naturefreund]

I do love the many ports theyspent for Gameboy Advance Although I was a bit disapointed when I compared the Donkey Kong Country ports and originals between my Gameboy Advance and SNES But oh well its a portable SNES in some way I was very happy when I bought These games I loved on the SNES new and my first Advance SP, I skipped the first Model didn't like the design The also did a great job with like Harvest Moon and many other games still on of my favourite handelt system These days GBA got it's own unique Mario Game I think, it's Superstar Saga weich seems like a Mixtur between Paper Mario and a classic jumper They even brought a Max Payne and GTA Game to the Advance that play very well which I personal found phenomenal Greetings from Germany

[@marioyungblood]

I thought you were turning a GBA into a SNES my bad... thx foe the info though #ThumbsUp #NewSub

[@onism3053]

I'm playing donkey Kong country 3 on my gba everdrive mini with a moded backlight gameboy (not the sp) while watching this video.

[@mariavega4244]

7:53 I got The Legend Of Zelda: A link to the past on GBA, if i this game was on Nintendo Switch online I'll play it but, when it comes to multiplayer Nintendo Switch handles it you grab a few Nintendo Switch controllers & problem solved

[@penburger]

In defence of Mario advance 2, it's difficult to improve of perfection.

[@Skathacat0r]

In the original Super Mario World, when you get hit as Fire Mario or as Cape Mario, you go all the way down to regular Mario, but in the GBA version, you just go down to Super Mario.

[@CAslayerlukeCCHawk]

You sound exactly like Scott the woz 👍🏻

[@Lucas-dx2bp]

U forgot about mario vs donkey kong

[@19AGJ86]

Why can't an SNES emulator for the GBA be made?

[@grongy6122]

I have a weird feeling like this video actually has a buttload of views, like ~300k, but KZbin"s views are broken.

[@ragzlz8266]

But what about the Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga? :(

[@pixaafterdark9915]

I am actually really pissed rn. I have been subbed for months have notifications on. Yet for some reason I always miss your videos. Why is this happening.

[@johneymute]

Neither of Those games were rewritten and made from the ground up, that would,ve been waste full of time since there were already toolchain sets wich could partially convert one game from one platform to the next one,sure there are still some manual adjustments required such as debugging,altering and changing the recompiled source code, deciding how to remap those button layouts,deciding whether you want to crop or just zoom in on the image ,whether you decide to change instruments and sound effects or leave or partially leave them as what they are trough midi convertor tools etc,,, However i find yoshi’s island to be a huge task to be converted into gba format since those tasks from the superfx2 chip also has to be transferred over to the gba,why nintendo never ported starfox or mario rpg to the gba is beyond me.

[@everygamersdream72]

That's funny, I always heard Donkey Kong Country 3 was rubbish and I remember it being pretty great, but I only played the GBA version.

[@noobtuber10]

Gba got mario and luig super star saga doe

[@cristianmastrocicco4552]

Too bad there aren't many (If at all) SNES games ported to DS. They could've benefitted a lot from the much more powerful hardware, much bigger cartridges, better sound capabilities, lack of screen crunch and well-lit double screens

[@quackywhackityphillyb.3005]

3:33 wrong res on gba

[@ToyWolfTM]

luckily I have a gba with a backlight mod, or in other words, has a screen with backlight. My gba also has a see through blue shell mod but thats irrelevsnt to this. What im trsing to say is, If you can, buy a backlight modded gba. It saves you so much pain. Oh also, If anyone knows how i can chsnge my gba shell to ome of the defaults, tell me. didnt want the shell mod anyways

[@infravalktexas]

bro, you had me so confused. I remember playing DKC back then on the GBC. I never knew they had an advance port lol. omg, I just looked at the GBC port, I don't remember it being that ugly 💀

[@johneygd]

I absolutely don’t believe that mario advance ,donkeykong country 1,2 and 3 were remakes, i do believe that they were recoded with an compilor to convert 65X code into ARM code, then added extra content to them as well as debugging and optimizing the code to run on gba, About donkeykong country for instance , for what i do know is that most content of the source material were on a harddrive but a few content of them were on some obscure diskettes for it,i think it were the map screens of the game,wich explaines why those map screens were recreated from scratch, but not the rest, About the GBA ram, it only has 128KB of ram for wich 32KB can be used for older gameboy games, That 256KB is Dram and it’s only used for temperatury storing downloaded multiplayer games on it,

[@RoboticEdward]

The GBA sound hardware is so bad it doesn't even have sound hardware. As in no soundchip.

[@Michirin9801]

Sigh... I've heard the GBA's sound hardware being called "bad" so many times, especially in the context of SNES ports to the system, which honestly, I find to be extremely unfair... Lemme tell ya something: Any sound hardware is only ever as good as the developer using it! And despite people's perception of the GBA being a "portable SNES", its sound hardware was VASTLY different from the SNES's, needless to say, if you simply take a SNES song as is and try to cram it onto the GBA, it's obviously not going to sound as good! But calling the GBA sound hardware "bad" based on that is just... Ignorant? I mean, you heard what happened when instead of trying to cram the SNES OST into the GBA game, David Wise made a whole new soundtrack for DKC3 right? It sounded better didn't it? I strongly encourage anyone who thinks the GBA sound is bad to actually try and listen to soundtracks that play to the system's strengths, such as: Mario Kart Super Circuit (particularly Sky Garden), Iridion 2, Densetsu no Stafy 1, Mother 3, Puyo Pop (the first one, not Fever), Summon Night Swordcraft Story 2, Advance Wars... The main thing that makes the GBA sound unique imo is that it has the GB/C soundchip inside of it still, which it carried over for backward compatibility, but it can also play SNES-like samples on top of that (samples are basically pre-recorded sounds), however, while the SNES has dedicated hardware sound channels to play samples, the GBA has to mix them in software, which means that the more samples you play on it at once, the worse it's going to sound, however some developers took that into account and mixed sample playback with GB/C chiptunes, and if you ask me, the results are absolutely delightful, and unlike any other system before or since! Well, that said, there are things that can be done to mix in more samples into the GBA's direct audio with less of a quality loss, and many games managed to pull off soundtracks that didn't use the GB/C soundchip at all and still sounded pretty good!

[@simobourne561]

Totally agree, the GBA sound may even have some advantages over the SNES (not that 64 kb limit for each track, some things like quite long vocal sequences for example in the first stage of Wario Land 4 or the title screen of Castlevania circle of the moon, and the strings often seems better and more varied to me on GBA than on SNES), and as you said it depends on the developers and the cpu resources available, the only things I find significantly worse about the GBA sound is that it's often more buzzy/less smooth and Game Boy channels are often misused (when they are used). Like GBA games that sounds really good I would also mention: Fire Emblem 7 and 8, FFTA, Final Fantasy I & II Dawn of Souls, Final Fantasy V Advance, F-Zero GP Legend, Astro Boy Omega Factor, Dragon Ball Advance, TMNT (2003), Minish Cap... among many others :)

[@supermariokid6424]

Technically Mario Party Advance was a new Mario game!!

[@minignoux4566]

Or mario vs donkey kong More close because platformer

[@nintendrew87]

Love the content, but man, watching you throw those fragile GBA boxes around stressed me out!

[@JaxTheEpic]

nah its a portable nintendo 64

[@nguyengamer7906]

No ways. Its powerful than Snes but nowhere on par with n64 capability

[@bobjohnson9806]

great video, but your moaning is sort of obnoxious.

[@mattyice230]

Every GBA remake except Contra Advance were stellar ports with funny voice acting and extra content compared to the garbage Wii U games ported to the Switch.

[@DexterHill2013]

gba's 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂