Game Boy Advance Secrets & Censorship - Did You Know Gaming? Ft. ConnorEatsPants

did you know many game boy advance games were censored including high profile releases such as mario kart super circuit parts of the japanese game were deemed insensitive by some mainly due to the shy guys in the sunset wilds course wearing native american war bonnets art for the shy guys was altered in the international release to remove the bonnets likely due to the cultural sensitivity concerns among north american staff this affected the chorus preview image as well as the shy guys themselves although the headdresses were removed native american tvs can still be seen in both the preview image and the course's background in the international release surprisingly this wasn't the only native american related censorship and a racing game produced by nintendo for the game boy advance f zero maximum velocity had several playable characters including nietzsche a young native american man who pilots the wind walker in the japanese game however his vehicle was named crazy horse this was a reference to the man of the same name a war leader for the lakota tribe in the 19th century crazy horse took up arms against the united states in several battles resulting in native american victory earning him notoriety the name was likely changed once again due to concerns of cultural insensitivity by nintendo's staff in north america the ending of maximum velocity was also slightly censored but for different reasons and the western release the outfits for jane b christie and kamika were modified to show slightly less skin another bit of censored content can be found in dragon ball advanced adventure the game has a couple interesting localization differences between the european and american releases with the eu version being closer to the original japanese game in the original game when shinron offers pilaf any wish oolong will barge in and ask for some girls panties however this was censored in the american version where oolong instead demands that shinron give him the world's most comfortable pair of underwear the underwear in question was also altered to look a bit more masculine in the north american release capcom's mega man zero series was also censored outside of japan defeating an enemy with a non-buster weapon in the japanese version of the games would make robot enemies spill it a kind of oil that looks like blood this blood-like oil effect was removed in the north american and european versions of the games either to avoid controversy or to ensure an e-rating this oil was also splashed heavily on the walls of the robot disposal sensor and the japanese version of mega man zero but in the international release the walls are clean interestingly the japanese games already had a suitable for everyone regardless of age rating with the oil ports of both doom and doom 2 were censored on the gba as well in the original doom blood has been recolored to grain and gore has been toned down in general in the pc version of doom enemies hit with heavy artillery like rocket launchers often burst with blood splatter effects in the gba version however the hostiles do not burst instead their regular death animation plays in most versions of doom there are mutilated bodies placed throughout the game in the gba version these bodies have either been colored green or replaced by a green pool of blood like doom 1 on the gba the blood in doom 2 is green instead of red and blood splatter effects are reduced one difference however is that mutilated bodies were removed outright in doom 2. the health meter was also censored to remove blood when the player is heavily damaged this wasn't the only way the games were censored in doom 1's e1 m4 command control there's a room about halfway through the level with an elevated platform in the middle in the original 1.0 release of doom on pc this platform was shaped like a swastika this was altered in later versions including the gba port where two of the symbols arms were removed doom 2 was altered in a similar fashion the game's wolfenstein 3d bonus levels were edited to cover up any offensive iconography and the painting of hitler was replaced by a painting of wilhelm strassa from return to castle wolfenstein another retro title with a gameboy advance port is super ghouls and ghosts the game was censored internationally with regional differences in both the super nintendo and gba releases super ghouls and ghost's final boss sardius is named samuel in the japanese gba release in hebrew samuel means venom of god or poison of god and in jewish lore samuel is the archangel of death the name was changed when the super nintendo version was brought to the west likely to nintendo's anti-religious reference policy that was enforced throughout the 90s the same goes for the game's graphical changes such as cross as being replaced with ox however it is curious why these regional changes carried over to the gameboy advance game in both regions considering nintendo's far more relaxed stance on religious material in the 2000s a major selling point of the game boy advance was its backward compatibility with original game boy and game boy colored games but this feature wasn't exactly perfect due to different audio hardware between the color and the gba some games would experience musical glitches one game a music creation software called pocket music didn't work on the gba at all due to these hardware differences that said a fully functioning gba version was later released the only other game boy game known to be incompatible with the advance was chi chai alien developed by pokemon series collaborator creatures inc its incompatibility stemmed from its gameplay relying heavily on the game boy color's infrared sensor later on the gba micro would do away with the backwards compatibility altogether in favor of a smaller design a brighter backlit screen and customizable faceplates that were only available in japan and north america despite the micros upgrades the device failed to meet nintendo's sales expectations selling only 2.5 million units worldwide one of the worst ever sales records for a gaming handheld satoru iwata nintendo's president at the time admitted the micro was a failure and attributed its lack of sales to a poor marketing campaign that was overshadowed by the much more popular ds the gba also had some interesting add-ons one of the first was the e-reader a peripheral that let players scan special cards to play games or unlock hidden content and other titles it was released in japan in december 2001 less than a year after the launch of the gba and would release in north america and australia but not europe although the e-reader failed to find success in most of the world it was a financial success in japan and was supported throughout the gba's life this resulted in some cards only being released in japan including sets based on mega man.exe f0gp legend mario vs donkey kong and pikmin 2. for games that were released internationally but had japan exclusive e-reader support the games were usually tweaked so any additional features normally unlocked by the ear reader were readily available however this wasn't always the case while mario vs donkey kong had secret levels that could only be unlocked with e-reader cards just 1 000 packs of 5 cards were made they were given away as part of a competition held by korokoro magazine in japan with a six card available at the 2004 next generation world hobby fair making this series of cards extremely rare each card unlocked a single level in the game though there are actually 12 levels hidden in the game's code meaning six of these levels went completely unused there are also secret levels in the north american version of the game but without evader's support they're rendered inaccessible unless players resort to hacking given the e-reader's lack of success in the west it's no surprise some of the cards have become valuable since their release the super mario advance 4 e-reader series included a total of 43 cards that could be used to unlock special power-ups bonus levels and other gameplay features five of these cards were available exclusively through walmart in the us but because the e-reader was discontinued shortly after their release these cards ended up becoming particularly rare complete sets of all the cards can sell online for as much as sixty dollars another valuable e-reader card is the pokemon ruby and sapphire eon ticket card which could be used to obtain the legendary pokemon ladies and ladios and copies of ruby or sapphire the card was given away as a promotional item at e3 2003 as well as in the september 2003 issue of nintendo power and that participating toys r us stores the e3 2003 version of this card which came in special packaging has become a collector's item and sells for over a hundred dollars on its own the rarest of all e-reader card packs however is the e3 2002 pack it was a promotional gift that included four cards two pokemon tcg cards with japanese backs a unique version of the game and watched manhole card with different art and a special kirby card that was used as part of a contest expo attendees could scan the card which would then tell them if they'd won a prize or not of the four the kirby card is the rarest since most were simply disposed of after being used and complete sets can sell for as much as 300 another interesting fact about the e-reader is that some cards contain a tune that's usually hidden totaka's song is a simple 19 note melody that sound designer kazumi totaka hides in projects he's worked on cards p13 and p15 for the japanese release animal crossing e contained the minigame who's done it which has to talk a song as the background music this is unusual as the song is usually hidden within a game rather than being blatantly on show another officially made peripheral for the game boy advance was the playan first released in february 2005 the play in was a media player designed for use with the nintendo ds and gba by loading music onto an sd card and inserting it into the play-in cartridge the gba could be used as an mp3 player or even a video player nintendo also made several mini-games available on their japanese website that could be downloaded and played on the playhand because of its power consumption the play in was not meant for use with the original gameboy advance but was compatible with the sp although the sp lacked a traditional headphone jack the play in cartridge came with one built in one of the most unusual peripherals for the game boy advance was the icard pro released in 2004 by biondo racing products it was essentially a radio receiver that displayed information about auto racing events on the gameboy screen when used at select locations that supported the icard service the information could include everything from race results and lap times to individual driver profiles and allowed for two different feeds to be followed at the same time did you also know that more than 100 games were cancelled for the n64 including super mario 64 ii and a pokemon rpg for more on these and other scrap titles check out the diddy no gaming video on cancelled n64 games and if you want to hear more from me go check out my twitch channel at twitch.tv connor eats pants i'm live pretty much every evening playing a variety of games and if you're looking for a preview of what it's like over there on the stream go check out my youtube channel i just recently ran an animal crossing fishing tournament with some of the biggest stars on the site it was a great time

Channel: DidYouKnowGaming?

Views: 392,710

Rating: 4.8990455 out of 5

Keywords: game boy advance, gameboy advance, gba, game boy advance games, gba games, nintendo, nintendo games, mario kart, connoreatspants, connor eats pants, did you know gaming, didyouknowgaming, dykgaming, dykg, gaming, gba review, game boy advance review

Id: AEzNnTX_b3I

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Mon May 04 2020