Video game peripherals, it's just useless junk to get you spend more money, am I right? And Nintendo, they're one of the worst! Donkey Kongas, the N64 Expansion Pak, the DS Expansion Pak, the Wii steering wheel, I definitely got a Balance Board in storage somewhere, [CRASH!]
but who am I kidding, I'm not above throwin' money at this kinda thing, but who am I kidding, I'm not above throwin' money at this kinda thing, I love this kinda stuff, and besides, sometimes you find a peripheral that really cuts through the hype and is truly something special! The Gamecube Game Boy Advance Link Cable is maybe Nintendo's most successful peripheral after the... Rumble Pak?! This little guy connects your Game Boy Advance to your Gamecube controller slot, works with either the Gamecube or the Wii, and is the key to unlocking an incredible amount of bonus content! It's compatible with just shy of 60 games, which is pretty amazing, considering the Gamecube was a bit of a flop for Nintendo, selling less than both the original Xbox and the previous-gen N64. I guess more developers were banking on their customers owning a GBA than a Gamecube, which was a safe bet! I've previously talked about the games that require the Link Cable to play, but in this episode we'll be talking about the Gamecube games featuring extra content unlocked with just a cable and a GBA system, no extra game required! Not everyone's got time for double games, Nintendo! Welcome back to Punching Weight, the show that celebrates the weird, ambitious and unnecessary, and I've dug through my Gamecube collection, and I'm ready to show you what kind of secrets are hidden behind the Gamecube Game Boy Advance Link Cable. But first, keepin' fresh is a challenge in the hot, sweaty summer months. I'ma spare you the details, but when it's hot outside, when it's humid... The Swamp is a problem, ya feel me? Manscaped got me set up with the Perfect Package 2.0 kit, it is a packed kit with lots of products to keep you fresh, like the Lawn Mower 2.0, which is 100% waterproof, wire-free, and includes replacement blades to keep the family jewels full 'o tude and nick-free, which is VERY important! 20% off your order, plus free shipping and plus, a free travel bag, which is actually the perfect size for games AND all your grooming stuff too! And that's when you use the promo code "SSFF20". All Manscaped products feature a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try Manscaped risk-free, that's 20% off, plus a free bag, with the promo code "SSFF20". And now... onto the show! Gonna link up! Link time! Get linked in! Wait, can't use that one! First off, we gotta start with one of Nintendo's best and most innovative games of the era: Animal Crossing. Seriously, what a unique gem of a game, there was just so much you can do! Plus, it worked with just about every major peripheral Nintendo had at the time! It came with its own memory card, supported the e-Reader, and of course, the Gamecube Link Cable. About the only thing it didn't use was the broadband adapter and microphone, which, of course, would be implemented in future releases. You can actually do quite a lot with Animal Crossing by hooking up a GBA! The most major thing you can do is access the island: At the bottom of your town will always be a dock, usually a good place for fishin', but with a GBA plugged in, Kapp'n shows up and offers to take you to a special island where it's always sunny and summer! Oh hey, it's been 68 weeks since I last went to the island. Wait, 68 weeks, that's not right, we just played this like a few months ago for the e-Reader video... [β« Mr. Resetti's theme β«] [inhales sharply] Whoops!
[β« Mr. Resetti's theme β«] Anyway, the island has exclusive fruit, fish, and its very own villager! You can't do much there, but when you leave, you can keep playing on the island with your GBA! If you remember to leave treats and tools there, you can boss your villager around and have them do stuff for ya! Yeah, chop that tree! And that tree too! Now relax and do some fishin'!! I got a little bit too into it and poked them too much, and they got sad and the music slowed down. But I gave 'em some fruit and that cheered 'em right back up. Sorry, buddy. YEAH, MORE FISHIN'!! There's a lot you can do on Animal Island, it's apparently how you farm certain rare things like the NES games. I mean, I have no idea, I just used the cheat codes. C'mon, man. If you hate your island, or want a new islander, or are really impressed with your island, you can trade islands with a friend through the GBA Link Cables! Man, can you believe this game existed without the internet on the Gamecube? It's always gonna be so impressive to me how many really creative ways Nintendo got around that. There are a few more features in Animal Crossing though, like designing stuff on the GBA instead of in-game, which actually saves you a couple hundred Bells! Nice! But the thing that I had no idea you could do is you could download and play NES games on your GBA, which means that not only is there an NES emulator inside of Animal Crossing, it's also, like... Well, it's like a Russian nesting doll emulator situation, right? Like, there's a game with a game, and then shoved into another game system! Like it's awesome! The only problem is that all the two-player modes have been removed, and Excitebike does not have the option to save your tracks, which actually makes sense, the NES games can't stay on your GBA once you turn the system off anyway. Some games like Wario's Woods don't work at all, because it was a late era NES game, and is physically too big for the GBA's memory. Also, did you even know Wario's Woods was in here? Man, Animal Crossing is so cool! VILLAGERS: "Animal Crossing, for Nintendo Gamecube!" ROB: "I just been fishin', ya know?" DEREK: It's time to talk Zelda! Now, we've already covered Zelda: The Four Swords Adventures, which was basically the flagship Gamecube Link Cable game. It came bundled with one, and each player requires one of their own for multiplayer. But it wasn't the only Zelda game with this compatibility: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has the Tingle Tuner. This is a 100% optional item that basically turns Wind Waker into a co-op game! Maybe it's just me, but I was kinda shocked at how well-advertised this little inclusion was, because no-one I knew ever talked about it, and it feels like no-one talks about it now, but it's really amazing! Getting the Tingle Tuner is itself a bit of a sidequest: You actually need to release Tingle from his jail on Windfall Island, and then he gives you his GBA. Or... I mean, sorry, "Magic transmitter"? Wait a second... if Link got a Not Game Boy Advance, then why the heck did Luigi get a Not Game Boy Color? Hang in there, Luigi! I got stuck with my brother's hand-me-downs too, your year will come, don't worry. - "γ«γ€γΈγ»γ€γ’?" DEREK: So, the Tingle Tuner lets Tingle act as your Super Guide: He has flavor text and info for just about everywhere you can go, and gives you fun little minigames around the world, like for example, I had to find all the benches in Windfall Island. It's not exactly riveting stuff, but y'know, it works! He also finds you hidden rupees, which comes in handy with the items he can buy to help Link, like balloons to walk on the air, bombs and whatnot! These items ain't cheap though, and the trailer itself admits that there's nothing really to stop your GBA partner from dinglin' up the Tingle Tuner. ANNOUNCER: "Choose your friends wisely..." DEREK: It also has its own sidequest: Using the Tuner you can uncover five Tingle statues, and if you get them all, you'll rescue his brother Knuckle who will upgrade the Tuner. The Tingle Tuner was a super-fun little extra that was unfortunately cut in the Wii U HD remake, which I guess they did because they wanted you to have access to the map on the Wii U GamePad at all times? Even though it would've been perfect for the Tingle Tuner! So, uh, instead it had the Tingle Bottle, which was actually a really cool idea, but no longer exists due to Miiverse dying. That means the Tingle Bottle messenger was only available for four years. Man, the Wii U was a weird system. GIRL: "Find secrets with the Wii U GamePad!" BOY: "And did we mention, togetherness?" - "Just check out the simulation." - "Yeaah, look like I've been upgraded!" "Pow!" - Alright, so that's a couple 'o Nintenda games, how 'bout we switch gears and talk about Sega games? During the Gamecube days, Sega had just left the hardware business and had really hit the ground running! And it shouldn't really be a surprise that a company that loved making peripherals and add-ons as much as Sega would go a little bonkers with the Gamecube Link Cable. Is it still... oh, it's loading. GRACE: God, it lost... it wants to, just a minute...
DEREK: Hold on, hold on... - The Gamecube Link Cable, Sega. 's Sonic Adventure now. GRACE: [laughs] These load times! DEREK: Several of Sega's Gamecube and Game Boy Advance games had Gamecube Link Cable support, and they all mostly center around one thing: CHAOS! Oh, sorry, not chaos, Chaos! These little Tamagotchi-like creatures were first introduced in Sonic Adventure, and one of the coolest things about them was you could carry them with you on your Dreamcast VMU! Well, maybe you can, I can't, because my VMU batteries have been dead since the Clinton administration. A bunch of Sonic games for the Gamecube and GBA featured a minigame that utilized the GBA, called the Tiny Chao Garden. Here's how it worked with Sonic Adventure DX: You can go to the Chao Garden, plug in your GBA, grab a Chao, and then go to the GBA kiosk. From there you can transfer your buddy into the Tiny Chao Garden, where you can feed them, play minigames and level up your little guy's stats. Being able to take them on the go with the GBA emulates the Dreamcast VMU, see, I don't even need new batteries for that thing!! But if you turned off the system, or the batteries died before transferring them back to your Gamecube, you'd lose all the work you did. Forever! However, Sonic Advance 1, 2 and Pinball Party for the GBA all have the Tiny Garden minigame too, and you can transport and save your little Chaos there as well! We don't actually have any of these GBA games, but it didn't matter because, and this is maybe the coolest thing, you can use the Tiny Chao Garden to transport your Chao into other games, which is how we got this adorable Tails Chao! You see, Sonic games didn't have the market cornered on Sega Link Cable extras. There are minigame extras in other games too, like my favorite Sonic Team series, Phantasy Star Online, or PSO. The Gamecube version featured a four-player splitscreen couch co-op, which I played for dozens of hours in college, it's still one hell of a great game, and... Oh god, if I don't get back on track I might get addicted to this game all over again... ... anyway! There are four downloadable GBA games in PSO, and the easiest one to access is the Tiny Chao Garden, similar to the one in Sonic DX, though it's hidden away and extremely easy to miss: On the mission The Fake in Yellow, after you finish the quest but before collecting your reward, warp back down to Forest 1 and walk up to the waterfall, and surprise! It's a Chao! Now head back up to Pioneer II, and the same GBA kiosk from Sonic Adventure DX will be there. It'll only be loaded with Tiny Garden, but you'll be greeted by a Tails Chao. After poking and feeding him for a little bit, I put down my GBA, turned off PSO, booted up Sonic DX, went to the Chao Garden in the hotel and transported Tails off my GBA and into my Gamecube, and boom! My sweet prince had arrived! I then tried to feed him Dark fruit, hoping to turn him evil, but it turns out Tails is just too pure. Also, I don't know anything about how Chaos work. But what about the other three unlockable Sonic Team minigames in PSO, Chu Chu Rocket! Challenge, NiGHTS Score Attack and Puyo Pop Endless Version? Unfortunately the Tiny Chao Garden is the only GBA minigame attached to an offline quest. To get access to the other three, you need access to the online quests, which means you'll have to do one of the following: Get your Gamecube online and on a server, which you actually can totally still do today, thanks to some awesome fan communities, and complete the missions, or get a copy of PSO I & II Plus, which has all online-only quests available offline, but that game is rare and kind of expensive, or you can just play them all in Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg! Yeah, when was the last time you thought about THIS game?! Big Boy Billy Hatcher was basically Sonic Team's last big new IP before diving full-tilt into "Sonic! Sonic! Sonic!" And it's a pretty cool game! It has five GBA minigames that you unlock by hatching special eggs in various levels, and three of these minigames are the exact same as the ones tied to online quests in PSO! It took some doing to unlock them, but let's run down them by starting with Chu Chu Rocket! Challenge. This is a 24-stage challenge mode, with a good variety of stages, it's a really solid demo! However, they are the exact same stages found in the GBA version, just with way, way worse music. GBA Chu Chu Rocket! is a great port of a great Dreamcast game, except the lack of buttons on the GBA makes the time-based stages extra stressful and... well, challenging. Really, the highlight of that port is the crazy amount of chill puzzles. This minigame is all time-based, all the time, plus there's nothing really exclusive about it, so for me, it was a bit of a letdown. Contrast that to the Puyo Pop minigame, which is probably my favorite one: This is basically just the Endless mode from the Puyo Pop GBA game, with the same two sub-modes: Task mode, where you play until you run out of time, and Normal mode, where you play until you reach the top and die. And I mean "die", you can't pause and quit to the menu, and you also can't turn off the system or you'll lose your scores? The controls feel kinda stiff, but otherwise this is a great get! I mean, it's classic Puyo Puyo, one of the all-time great puzzle games! It's nuthin' you can't find in any other Puyo Puyo game, but it's probably still the best minigame on either Billy Hatcher or PSO. But probably the most important minigame in this package is NiGHTS Score Attack. NiGHTS is definitely one of Sonic Team's most important games, and it still blows my mind that for such an iconic Sega character, he's only had, I guess, four games, and one of them is a minigame locked away in Phantasy Star Online and Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, makes me wonder if there ever were plans to make a full GBA game. Overall, this is standard NiGHTS fare: Collect all the gems and loops before time runs out. It's got great music, of course, and it looks pretty sharp! It's too bad there's just not much to it: There are only four stages that loop, and like the name implies, it's a race against the clock to get the highest score possible. It's pretty hard! It wants you to hurry up, but also not miss anything, which is pretty tough when your character controls with the grace of a whale! Still, it's a neat little bonus for NiGHTS fans out there! Of course, Big Boy Billy's got his own exclusive minigames: Billy Hatcher Hyper Shoot, which is sort of like a bowling-billiards-shooter kinda game that I actually really liked! Might go through the trouble of playing more Billy Hatcher to unlock the Hard mode version! To unlock all these, you have to play through a large chunk of the game, it took me about, like, I guess six hours to unlock them all? Though that's maybe because it was my first time playing in, like, forever. And there are worse ways to spend your time! Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg is rough around the edges with its controls and camera. It's also a pretty weird concept, but it's still pretty charming! It has great music, and is one of the last flashes of that classic creativity from early 2000's Sega. It's kind of the end of an era, and could use a remaster, I'd recommend it on its own merits, as well as for these minigames. And speaking of ends of an era, Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc! This game with "HUGE FEATURES" also includes some pretty sizeable GBA connectivity, giving the Gamecube version an edge over the others! It's one of those rare games that has compatibility both with and without a corresponding GBA game, so I came prepared! I got both the Gamecube and GBA versions, only I accidentally got myself the PAL version of the GBA game, and turns out you can't cross those streams. But I was still able to go Seattle's Pink Gorilla and exchange it out for this lil' pink buddy over here. Thanks, Kelsey! And actually, some of Rayman 3's GBA connectivity isn't all that much to write home about. There's 2D Madness mode, which is a fun throwback to the series' roots, it's kinda like a Rayman remake, but it was also featured in the PC port, so it's not exclusive. There is an exclusive minigame called 2D Nightmare, which was supposed to unlock when you beat all the levels in the GBA game, but there's a glitch that makes it so the GBA never registers the final level, meaning the only way to play this game is with a cheat device. Turns out that doesn't matter all that much, because there are minigames you can play without the GBA game! And the Mad Trax mode is probably the best example of multiplayer Gamecube-GBA connectivity, and straight up one of the coolest co-op games I've ever played! Here's how it goes: The player on the GBA lays down track in Tetris-shaped chunks, dodges or blows up asteroids, while the Gamecube player attempts to drive on that mess they've made. The pressure is on! You have a limited time, and pieces disappear only a few seconds after being laid down. It's fast-paced, and the driving controls are a little rough, but I think it adds to the madness of the whole thing. It's super fun! In terms of how to unlock it, I'd never actually played Rayman 3 before, and I gotta be honest, I was grumpin' hard on the way it controls, especially the camera, but I called in for some backup, I gotta give a shout to Nitro Rad for givin' me some emotional support and telling me about this secret room on the first level, with that I was able to very quickly get the 20,000 points necessary to unlock the Mad Trax mode. There's also a four-player version called Wheelis, which puts two people on GBA's, and that sounds amazing! But that unlocks at 350,000 points. I had to decide for this video if I wanted to play a ton of Rayman 3 or Billy Hatcher, and no disrespect, but I went with Big Boy Billy. BILLY: "Good morning!" DEREK: If we're talkin' games where you don't need the GBA to have a good time, then my absolute favorite on this list is the legendary... ... er, Dakar 2. Yes, Dakar 2: The World's Ultimate Rally, a forgettable sequel to an I-don't-know-I-guess-fine quality racing game based on a baller-crazy real life race. It's a game I never thought twice about, and I'm gonna guess neither had you, but it has one of my all-time favorite bonuses: A full, unreleased GBA game, with 12 maps, complete with four modes of play and four vehicles. God, I love this stuff! It's not a bad-lookin' game, though there's no music, just engine noise but the four vehicles all feel vastly different to drive, which to me feels like Acclaim spent a lot of time on this game! What I can't understand is why this wasn't released on the GBA, I mean, everyone was makin' games for that thing! Was Acclaim THAT broke in 2003, they couldn't afford to release a GBA game?! Anyway, this mode is not even hidden, it's right there on the Extras menu. However, the other 11 maps need to be unlocked in the campaign mode, and you can only download one map at a time, which... eh, makes sense, the GBA only had so much memory. I guess each map is smaller than Wario's Woods. Unfortunately for all you cheaters out there, the Unlock All Tracks cheat does not open these maps up, you still need to play it and finish every level. But it's almost two full games in one! That's a hell of a lot to chew through! Man, first Top Gear Rally 2, and now this. What is it with forgettable rally racing games and having amazing special features?! Like I said at the top, SO many games support this thing, which means you'll find Link Cable capability in the weirdest places... like a demo disc! The Gamecube was not Nintendo's first disk-based system, but they somehow still did not understand the appeal of demo discs in the same way their competitors did. The Gamecube Preview Disc is one of the very few demo discs released for the Gamecube, and it was sold - yes, sold in stores, and was also a North American exclusive. And it's actually a pretty feature-filled disc, including a bit of Link Cable support! I mean, if you're only gonna make a few demo discs, you might as well go big, right? It's got some playable demos, trailers, a couple of which show off Link Cable capabilities, and two downloadable GBA games! We got the NES version of Dr. Mario, a classic! I'm not sure why exactly, but... eh, whatever. It's like the Animal Crossing NES games in that it's the full game, but only one-player. I even tried downloading it to two separate GBA's and linking them together, but nope. No multiplayer. The demo disc also has this mouthful: "WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames Trial Version". It's a trial run of the introduction stage of the very first WarioWare game, except it doesn't have the boss stages like the full game, and it starts to change games into fun advertisements. I love this series, and actually, this demo is also downloadable on the Wario World Gamecube game too. The actual weird thing though is that you CAN'T get this demo on the actual Gamecube port of the GBA game, but it DOES have Link Cable capability: It lets you hook up your GBA and use it as a controller, so... [laughs] You got controllers, but no demos?! Wario, why are you so inconsistent and evil? [Wario cackles]
Wario, why are you so inconsistent and evil? [Wario cackles]
And one last thing: For this video we actually used our Wii as our Gamecube, and our Gamecube running the GBA Player and, well, did you know that the Link Cable is also compatible with the GBA Player? Yes, you can use your actual GBA... with the GBA Player, like, how amazing is that! Like, think about that: So, if you have a GBA, a GBA Player, a Gamecube, a Link Cable, but not a Gamecube controller, you can still enjoy your GBA games on the big screen for however long your battery lasts. By the way, the Link Cable covers up your charge port, so good luck with that. But actually, it's maybe not as dumb as it sounds, the Gamecube's D-pad is so frickin' small, playing off of an actual GBA doesn't sound so bad. The Gamecube GBA Link Cable really is one of the greatest little gadgets released in this console generation. With cool stuff like this, it's sometimes hard to remember why the Gamecube was such a bust financially for Nintendo. But from this device, you see the ideas that would grow into the DS, the Wii and Switch. Man... no-one fails better than Nintendo. Thank you so much for watching, if you have any unnecessary, weird or ambitious games you'd like to see on Punching Weight, let us know in the comments below, join the family at the Patreon, the specialest, specialest of thanks to all our Patreon supporters, and also, hey! Don't forget, all of our Stop Skeletons T-shirt and pins, our merch is 50% off right now, link... all that links in description below, thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you again real soon!
Love videos from this guy and his wife. I didn't have a link cable for my GBA so I didn't know it could do all of this cool stuff!
So I watched one video from this guy that was posted here a while back, and the comments were all pretty critical of him. And then the actual video had a ton of dislikes, but when I watched it he seemed rather innocuos.
Watched this video and it was cool. Feels a little too "Blues Clues" as a host, but it was well made.