The Best GBA Game Facts on YouTube

[Music] did you know mother 3 was conceived during a stressful period before earthbound's launch series creator shigesato atoy believed that most rpgs were structured like road trip movies and wanted to switch up the formula and set a game in a single town that changes over time atoy's first idea for a protagonist was a detective who'd solve crimes while living above a supermarket the character would attempt to solve a murder but could only progress by building relationships with the townspeople because of this a toy prized minor details for example a woman hanging out washing would be seen wearing clean clothes the next day shigeru miyamoto compared the concept to that of majora's mask which used a similar mechanic satoru awad a producer of the mother 3 project hinted that atoy's pitch may have influenced animal crossing which he described as the realization of a toy's idea mother 3 was originally planned for the super nintendo but soon changed course becoming a 3d nintendo 64 disc drive game several screenshots from this time featured a playable character who looked like ness the protagonist of earthbound suggesting the game was to have stronger ties with the rest of the mother series the rewritable nature of the 64 dd software led miyamoto to consider letting players transfer their art from the japan-only mario artist into mother 3. atoy immediately shot this idea down as he didn't want to include features just to show off the console's capabilities after the commercial failure of the 64 dd the game changed course again aiming for release on the nintendo 64. due to the earthbound teams and experience with 3d technology a brand new team was brought in to develop mother 3 but this team was unfamiliar with the series and duato would often have to give them advice on how to construct gameplay scenarios things were made even more difficult by awada's absence during development as he had other commitments in america and kyoto the scope of the game was also too large for the team due to the complex interplay between the world and the characters some elements were unfeasible with the nintendo 64's hardware but the team stubbornly pursued them inspired by awada's words of encouragement never say a programmer can't do something after three console changes and six years in development mother 3 was cancelled in august of 2000 in an interview with a toy miyamoto and awada estimated the game was anywhere between 30 to 60 complete when it was canceled it was in this same interview that atoy mentioned the possibility of restarting the project on the gameboy advance producers discouraged him saying it would be just as much work to make a gba game as an n64 game nevertheless the project was restarted in 2003 for the game boy advance a compilation game called mother one plus two was also released as a refresher for the franchise and a commercial for the game ended with the message confirming mother 3 was back in development atoy did not regret downsizing the game he felt the final product reflected his vision and was happy they didn't go with the 3d look as pixel art went hand in hand with the series wood and metal were meshed together in mother 3's logo to reflect the game's themes of inclusiveness another reason was to create an uneasy juxtaposition between the natural world and the modern world a key theme in the game you would also reflect the game's chimera enemies which are separate creatures combined into one a toy compared these creatures to sids toys and toy story who were spliced together from different parts in fact while the game was in development for the 64 dd atoy considered using chimera forest as a subtitle this was not used in the final release as the team didn't want to influence how players imagined the world before they played the game the magipsy character was created in response to what a toy referred to as the more macho story in mother 3 which is focused on conflict the gypsies who find themselves in the middle of the conflict are androgynous and have accepted that they will eventually die by blending masculine and feminine traits into refusal of power the gypsies balance out the more masculine nature of the story the gypsies fit perfectly with the toy's perception of mother as a more feminine rpg franchise when one of them gypsies begins to disappear they say a phrase which roughly translates to i'm disappearing for a bit i'm okay though this is a reference to the official slogan a toy wrote for the 1989 film kiki's delivery service which roughly translates to i was depressed for a while i'm okay now the team joked that they would have refused the reference word not written by a toy himself the character duster also has interesting inspirations and was given a limp because of the game's theme of inclusivity atoy reasoned that handicapped people should be as much a part of the world of mother 3 as they are a part of ours in mother 3 the player saves by talking to save frogs in contrast with past games in the series where players called their father this was a decision made with some hesitance as the team were worried that fans wouldn't like the change frogs were specifically chosen because of their peculiar nature latoy thought that an animal like a dog wouldn't stand out enough to seem important the decision was also influenced by the song for rimakeba kaeru which translates roughly to if you turn around frog the song was written by a toy and performed by the japanese pop singer akiko yano the lyrics portray an optimistic frog who in spite of its own trivial nature encourages people not to be dejected by their failure in a similar vein the game's safe frogs are seen after the player dies there's an incognito mr saturn in the game who after bidding the player farewell is revealed to have walked just slightly off screen this was originally just a bug but was kept in the game as the toy found it funny the area tanetane island was also inspired by american tv series like lost and twin peaks however these areas had to be toned down because a toy was made so uneasy by his initial draft mother 3's soundtrack was composed by shogo sakai after the composers of the first two games were unavailable due to other commitments the length of mother 3 soundtrack which is comprised of 250 songs across 6 hours of music needed a composer who could devote their full attention to the project the composer was also required to be familiar with the game and its themes sakai was an obvious choice due to his enthusiasm for the material the game's main theme called the love theme was composed very late in development and didn't even exist in december 2005 four months before the game's release the pig mask army's theme was to be used in its place up until that point the team decided that a new theme should be composed because of an unspecified scene of extreme importance which required a greater emotional impact than the planned composition could provide eight melodies from earthbound beginnings became a popular song in japan even appearing in elementary school textbooks as a result atoy imagined a beginner being able to easily play mother 3's love theme on piano to achieve this he specified that the theme should be easy to both hum and play on piano using only a single finger sakai was evidently prepared for such an order as despite the late request in atl's stipulation he was able to produce the love theme almost immediately the sample that plays during both the game's name selection screens is actually taken from the toy himself it was recorded without his knowledge by earthbound composer hirokazu tanaka according to a toy tanaka tricked him into saying the phrase and recorded it with a hidden tape recorder there are many nods and references to other compositions in mother 3's soundtrack the music that plays during leader's story is called leader's gymnio pere this song is not an original composition but is actually an adaptation of jim nyu payday number one by eric satie additionally the song ode to ancestors eighth movement is a medley of classical musical pieces including pieces from beethoven bach and george frederick handle the intro to mr batty twist is a reference to the iconic theme music from the 1960s batman television series sixteen melodies as the name suggests contains the melodies from both renditions of eight melodies from earthbound beginnings and earthbound respectively the love theme from mother 3 is also incorporated into the song various themes in the game also include the distinctive sliding synth sample featured in earthbound and while not a composition the enemy called gently weeping guitar continues the mother series tradition of beatles references this time to their song while my guitar gently weeps as expected from its long development cycle content was cut from mother 3. it seems that the player was planned to fight the green dragos at some point during the game in the fight the drago refuses to attack the player instead confiding in you and making you cry this may suggest that the battle was to have a tragic tone with the player being forced to fight the drago against both of their wills it seems that this battle was also related to the frozen drago in the chimera lab as the drago drops the chimera lab map once defeated many of the bosses have unused battle sprites showing them from behind in the final game bosses cannot be approached from behind meaning that it's impossible to see these sprites there are also unused animations for the masked man showing him exploding levitating firing his arm cannon and being repaired although the mother series has a cult following in the west mother 3 has yet to be officially released outside of japan it was however unofficially translated by clyde tomato mandolin a professional games translator who has unofficially translated many japan-only games such as bahamut lagoon and star ocean the translation quickly passed 100 000 downloads upon its release mandolin stresses the translation was done out of love rather than to compete with nintendo despite its lack of a western release the game was re-released on the japanese virtual console in december of 2015. rumors arose in february 2016 that the virtual console port of mother 3 would finally be released to western audiences the rumors surfaced in the wake of both the japanese port of mother 3 and the release of earthbound beginnings in 2015 26 years after the game's release on the famicom it has to be noted however that while earthbound beginnings rom was completed but never released no official translation effort has ever been known to exist for mother 3. as a result porting mother 3 to a western platform would take significantly more work than earthbound beginnings did shigesato a toy has denied rumors that mother 4 is in development atoy was inspired to create the series by his young daughter whom he was unable to see as often as he would have liked due to divorce issues now that his daughter is grown up he feels no more reason to continue creating mother games atoy also compared his experience to that of a pop star who as a professional is forced to keep making albums even if they've run out of ideas a toy said he was relieved making games was not his job if it were he would have to keep making sequels for more cynical reasons atoy comically said doing things like that for fun has ended for me if i were to try to do it now it would be something i'd had to force that would be awful for my sphincter did you know prior to working on the golden sun series developer camelot made several other rpgs most famously they heavily impacted the shining force series camelot would go on to develop another rpg called beyond the beyond for the original playstation while it was notable at the time for being the first traditional japanese rpg available for the ps1 in the west it was widely panned upon release reviewers criticized the game's length pacing difficulty and overabundance of random encounters despite this beyond the beyond was something of a spiritual predecessor to golden sun several features that made golden sun a rousing success such as its combat and the pseudo 3d battle screens made their first appearance in beyond the beyond golden sun had a very long development cycle for a gameboy advance title being in production for almost 18 months by comparison handheld games at the time were generally expected to be completed in under a year the extended length of the project was mostly due to golden sun and its sequel the lost age originally being planned as one game it was ultimately split into two installments because the combined size would have been too big for single game boy advanced cartridge to hold in order to justify splitting the story in half the lost age was made to follow characters who were the antagonists in the first game a concept the studio had utilized before in an interview on nintendo world report hiroyuki takahashi and his brother shugo takahashi stated originally we had made a game called shining force 3 and it was popular here in the united states in that game you had the ability to play as both good side and the bad side and that seemed to be a really nice way for the players to understand the entire setting and a good way to convey information and story and so when we were doing golden sun we again thought well we could expand upon that golden sun's initial design documents outlined it as a nintendo 64 game development started very late in the n64's life cycle however and the project was moved over to the game boy advance this actually helped the game in the end as it released very early in the game boy advance's life and became the first major rpg hit on the system conversely the third game in the series dark dawn was released late in the ds's life seven years after the release of the lost age the long wait for sequel was a source of much frustration for fans even prompting some to make hoaxes of a potential third installment the most circulated of these was called golden sun the solar soothsayer according to an online post the solar soothsayer was a ds game announced at a small pre-e3 event complete with screenshots supposedly taken on a cell phone the rumor ran rampant for some time but the screenshots were eventually proven false as they reused promotional artwork for the lost age the creator of the hoax a forum user who went by the name opium later came forward and explained that he'd created the hoax to generate a discussion about a new golden sun game while hiroyuki takahashi learned about the hoax during an interview with in gadget he was enthusiastic about it remarking the solar soothstayer sounds really cool i wonder how the story would go i want to see how it would turn out even though dark dawn took seven years to come out camelot intended to work on a third golden sun shortly after the lost stage the project had to be put on hold as the team were busy working on the mario tennis and mario golf games after this several employees left camelot and the takahashi brothers thought their new staff weren't ready to tackle development of such a large-scale game in an interview posted on camelot's japanese website hiroyuki takahashi said the idea to make a new golden sun game for the ds came to him after drinking a lot of liquor at a party since dark dawn was being made for the ds the team naturally wanted to take advantage of the system's features and toyed with the idea of playing the game using only the touchscreen golden sun featured a system that allowed players to carry over their save data into the lost age either by way of a 260 character password or by using the game link cable to many players dismay dark dawn didn't include any kind of data transfer system according to takahashi they decided not to include it because dark dawn took place 30 years after the lost age so there wouldn't have been much benefit to transferring the save data anyway there are some interesting unused assets and secrets in the golden sun series hidden in the code for the first two games is an alternate character portrait for alex what's interesting is that the image is located in the same area reserved for the portraits of playable characters suggesting alex was intended to join the player's party at some point there's also an unused npc sprite for the character resembling link from the legend of zelda in the data for the lost age the sprite's intended purpose is unknown but it's thought to be simply a nod to the zelda franchise when starting a new file in the original golden sun the player will be given the option to change the name of isaac the main character if the select button is pressed three times on the name input screen the player will also be given the option to rename the other party members garrett ivan and mia on mia's name input screen if the player presses up down up down left right left right up right down left up then select they can also change the names of jenna felix and sheba it's also possible to get a secret bad ending in the first game early on the great healer will ask the player if they will accept responsibility for the fate of the land if the player answers no and leaves the room the screen will turn grey and a message will appear saying and so the world began drifting toward its fated destruction the tv commercial for the first golden sun is famous for having absolutely nothing to do with the game dark dawn referenced this by including the chandelier dragon from the commercial as a new summon camelot also referenced some of their older games in the lost age there's an injured shopkeeper behind the item shop in madra casting mine read on her triggers the text eyes shining in the darkness no go away shining in the darkness is the first title developed by camelot in the first entry in the shining force series shining force featured the character dark soul as the game's antagonist in the lost age the final boss doom dragon has an attack named dark soul grasp the future of golden sun is uncertain and hiroyuki takahashi said that whether camelot makes a fourth game depends on how much fandom man there is did you know advance wars is actually the fifth entry in a series generally referred to as nintendo wars the first game in the series was famicom wars followed by game boy wars 1 2 and 3 as well as super famicom wars a faster paced turbo edition of game boy wars was also made with more levels though this is largely considered the same game although the war series had stayed in japan up to this point advanced wars was lucky to see a release in japan at all the game was one of several projects nintendo made as part of their lineup of launch titles for the game boy advance but they were stretching themselves then in order to help alleviate their workload nintendo asked intelligent systems to aid with development of advance wars at the time the team was told that turn-based games weren't popular outside of japan due to their complicated nature early on members of intelligent systems would get together and discuss new ideas for the game but these ideas were almost always shot down by nintendo for being too sophisticated and unsuitable for a casual audience in response the team worked to make the title simpler and easier to understand one way they did this was by adding a detailed tutorial so players wouldn't have to read the game manual before playing members of the team also incorporated elements from their own favorite game genres into advance wars for example the precision of movement when controlling units was inspired by shooter games and rhythm games like beat mania help to add a rhythm to the way the game is played when nintendo of america's marketing team got a chance to try advance wars they loved it and decided the game was suitable for a full international release the game received critical acclaim in north america and may have helped change nintendo's view of the western market kintaro nishimura one of the game's designers cited the success of advance wars as a key reason why nintendo eventually released fire emblem outside of japan since the games had a similar play style nintendo thought the american game boy advance audience had been primed for fire emblem this seems fitting as fire emblem only exists at all thanks to the original famicom wars with the first fire emblem using the famicom wars engine advance wars was launched in north america first with releases planned for japan and europe shortly after ironically despite originally being planned as a japan only title advance wars actually ended up being cancelled in japan one explanation for this is that the game's original japanese release date was october 12 2001 just one month after the september 11th terrorist attacks in the united states an alternate theory is that the game was pushed back due to the release of game boy wars 3 which came out in august of 2001. it's possible nintendo didn't want their own games competing with each other and delayed advance wars to give game boy wars 3 a fighting chance due to advance wars being cancelled the game's sequel advance wars 2 black hole rising was also cancelled in japan despite both games being developed in the country the games finally saw a japanese release in the form of a 2 in 1 compilation cartridge in 2004 prior to the release of advance wars dual strike on the nintendo ds however cancellations would continue to plague the series in japan the next installment advance wars days of ruin was released internationally in 2008 but was ultimately cancelled in japan following a series of delays interestingly the international versions of days of ruin contain a full japanese translation in their data though it's only available through hacking this seems to indicate that the japanese version of the game was fully completed and ready for release well before it was canceled days of ruin would eventually become available in japan in 2013 as a downloadable title for members of the club nintendo reward program although many advance wars titles released in japan after the west the japanese game seems to serve as the base for all titles after both versions of advance wars released gamers saw several notable differences between the two versions most of the game's commanding officers had their names changed in the west and some were even given redesigns nell was originally named catherine and wore a sleeveless top with a shorter skirt drake was named a mop and seemed more like a traditional pirate sanja originally called asuka wore glasses instead of a hat and her uniform was changed from red to green and grit was called billy and wore a cowboy hat the most drastic changes were made to olaf who was originally named whip and had a white beard and a santa hat and kanbe who was called kikuchio and wore samurai armor in the japanese game other differences from the japanese version include the term shogun being changed to commanding officer and the red star army being renamed to orange star this subtle change in color was possibly to avoid direct comparisons to communist regimes in advance wars 2 many of the visual changes to commanding officers were at least partially incorporated into the japanese designs leading to fewer differences between officers in both releases in japan advance wars 1 and 2 are known as game boy wars advance 1 and 2. although the advance wars name was kept for the ds game's dual strike and days of ruin in the west both titles adopted the leading title famicom wars ds in japan days of ruin had a notable tonal shift for the series having a somewhat more realistic and gritty art style according to one of the game's english localizers tim o'leary the change was made due to some fans saying the series was becoming repetitive and predictable interestingly the shift was also influenced by sales data although it began as a japan only franchise advance wars had become much more popular in north america than in japan as such intelligent systems altered the game's tone in an attempt to cater to westerners intelligent systems also felt that the new style fit better with days of ruins near future sci-fi setting there are several unique secrets and easter eggs hidden in the advance wars series in the first game's tutorial level copter tactics the player is instructed to win by capturing the enemy's headquarters if the player instead wins by routing the enemy it triggers an alternate dialogue from nell where she congratulates the player for their work conversely in the first tutorial level of advance wars 2 if the player somehow manages to run out of fuel nell will scold andy for goofing around and tell him to forfeit the level in the map editor mode of advance wars 2 if the player repeatedly attempts to place a unit on an illegal square at least 50 times in a row it'll cause nell to interject with a snarky comment saying you must really like doing that over and over again keep it up if the player holds down the l and r buttons while selecting the map editor the game will load a special bonus map that spells out nintendo in kanji this same map appears in both advanced wars 1 and 2. dual strike also includes a new bonus map featuring the name of the series itself which was even translated for the english release another interesting fact about advanced wars is that practically all of the weapons and vehicles in the game are based on real devices for example the orange star mechanized infantry is inspired by the american m20a1 a1b1 super bazooka and the blue moon mech unit is based on the russian rpg-7 rocket launcher the orange star fighter jets also resemble the american f-15 eagle while the blue moon jet seems to be based on the french dassault mirage 3. the original advance wars also contains a bizarre glitch involving the map editor to trigger the glitch the player must first play the level naval forces and lose by allowing the enemy to destroy their teacopter then go to the map editor by placing one unit and then deleting it the game will respond as though the player's forces have been wiped out if the player then exits the editor using the in-game menu rather than the map editor menu the map editor's features will be available to use anywhere in the game this glitch has several practical applications first and foremost it can be used to delete enemy units during a normal level allowing the player to easily bypass any mission in the game additionally the glitch can also be used to save the campaign maps as custom maps which allows the player to use custom maps that are smaller than the default size of 30 by 20 tiles the war series was also planned to appear on the nintendo 64. in 1999 nintendo announced a new entry in the series to be released for the nintendo 64. dubbed 64 wars or advanced war 64 by fans the game was being developed by hudson soft rather than series creators intelligent systems hudson likely got this opportunity because of their work on game boy wars turbo and game boy wars 2. much like previous titles the gameplay of 64 wars would involve players controlling units on a 2d grid however the game would transition to 3d graphics to illustrate key moments in battle as well as combat between units 64 wars was also going to feature connectivity with game boy wars 2 via the nintendo 64 transfer pack according to promotional material players could start playing a level on their nintendo 64 and then transfer the game to their game boy to continue playing on the go they could even transfer it back to the n64 to finish the level sadly 64 wars was a short-lived project and was only ever shown in a few magazine ads and previewed at nintendo's space world event in 1999. no reason was given for the game's cancellation but hudson did go on to make a third game boy wars game the series would eventually make it to the gamecube in the form of battalion wars 1 and 2. although these entries have completely different gameplay and are considered a sub-series they were originally announced under the title advance wars under fire and are known as assault famicom wars versus in japan the advance wars name was dropped in the west so that players didn't expect the game to play like a typical wars game 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 teepees 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 and 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 in 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 peel off 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 and 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 game boy 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 aux however it is curious why these regional changes carried over to the game boy 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 chichai alien developed by pokemon series collaborator creatures inc its incompatibility stem 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 megaman.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 e-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 one thousand packs of five 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 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 60 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 at 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 three hundred dollars 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 as 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 play yan 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 in this episode we're going to be looking at some trivia from titles released on nintendo's game boy advance nintendo's grip on the portable gaming world has always been strong it's perhaps one of their most revered ventures by fans and critics after the game boy and game boy color came the game boy advance a portable with very little competition in the west with specs comparable to that of the super nintendo the best-selling trio of games on the system were pokemon ruby sapphire and emerald versions which saw several revisions and were even remade on the 3ds games are usually tweaked and reprinted shortly after they're released as a large audience of players encounter bugs that the comparatively small development team never found these revised builds usually have a number that indicates their version such as version 1.1 1.2 etc pokemon ruby and sapphire's version 1.1 release had several changes but not all of these changes fixed bugs humorously the english localizers happened to misspell the names of multiple pokemon in the original release which were fixed in 1.1 the item description for the togepi doll misspelt its name as top guppy and mowil's pokedex entry in ruby spelled his name as mahwal you're saying it weird why are you putting so much emphasis on the h speaking of differences pokemon emerald version had several pieces of exclusive content including the elusive mirage tower this tower or at the very least its english name may be a reference to a tower with the same name from final fantasy both mirage towers appear in a desert and only appear under certain circumstances they both also contain a spiral shaped dungeon within them some other gba games were considered hits even though they didn't sell nearly as much as pokemon the best-selling game on the system that didn't have pokemon in its name was mario kart super circuit which had a rather extensive amount of unused content the game has all four of super mario kart's battle stages within its data completely unused since tracks from super mario kart can be unlocked for regular cart races it's speculated that these battle tracks were planned to be unlockable at some points during development the game also has several unused items some of which have some functionality when hacked back into the game there's an unused fake item box which places a banana behind the cart there's also a gold mushroom which has the same functionality as in later mario kart games and an infinite mushroom which never runs out of boosts there are triple bananas as well but these have no programming attached to them upper bomb icon also exists in the game's data but it's unclear whether these would have been items like in mario kart double dash or if they'd represent the player as a bomb in battle mode like in mario kart 64. hidden content can be found in other gba games as well such as in the data of f1 2002 looking through the data a number of standard jpeg format images can be unearthed in both the ntsc and pal releases of the title these files are mostly made up of photographs though one of them shows a cg dinosaur it's possible that these were included by the game's developers to use up excess storage space on the cartridge in the japanese version of mario and luigi's superstar saga boomerang bros can drop an item called oho gear once they're defeated this item raises the player's defense by 28 points and can be equipped by either mario or luigi for unknown reasons it was removed from all international ports of the game the item can still be found in the game's data in the english game however and can be used through hacking or cheat devices the item is fully functional in all versions and its description was translated into multiple languages this seems to indicate that the ohogie was originally meant to be in the game's international releases but was disabled late in its development the reason for this remains unknown developers sometimes want to incorporate their history into a game as can be seen with maya the bee the great adventure normally booting the game will run through the developers credits such as the shin en logo by holding both of the system shoulder buttons during this sequence the shenen logo will actually change to abyss instead and the game's credits will instead use the developer's pseudonyms this is because the company xin is actually made up of members from the demo group abyss a prominent team from the demo scene during the days of the amiga kingdom heart's chain of memories saw the series first venture onto nintendo hardware but it initially had a different name tetsuya nomura stated in the kingdom hearts ultimania book for the title that the game was originally called kingdom hearts lost memories this seems fitting for a game about sora trying to recover his memories of the past events from the first entry in the series it would have also been fitting to have deep jungle the tarzan themed worlds from the first game make a reappearance though it does not the reason for deep jungle's emission from the title was due to copyright both square enix and disney were unable to get the rights to use the franchise's concept and characters from the estate of edgar rice boroughs another game which struggled from copyright issues was it's mr pants many will be unaware of mr panzer's history being a joke mascot created by rare staff member lee loveday with ms paint he was fleshed out after becoming popular with fans of the company before he finally made his video game debut on the game boy advance in 2004 however this game wasn't always intended to be a mr pants game and was initially a donkey kong title called coconut crackers featuring donkey kong characters locations and items before landing on coconut crackers they even considered calling the game splodge nutcracker animal crackers and sunflower during development the game could have been played in both 2d and 3d a feature removed due to issues with the consistency across both views eventually the donkey kong license was dropped due to microsoft's acquisition of rare in 2002 before thq picked up the title and replaced donkey kong with mr pants and his family to keep the game's graphics true to its childish art style origins the game's artists would create graphics using their less dominant hand its mr pants was also planned for release alongside other microsoft titles for the gizmondo handheld though it was later cancelled due to the gizmondo being a commercial failure speaking of undergarments dragon ball advanced adventure has a couple of interesting localization differences between the european and american releases the american version has a spelling mistake as well in the level land of corrine after catching him 10 times over korean will say that goku's power has increased several times over mega man battle network took the mega man series to the game boy advance with its own use spin-off series of rpg titles and makes reference to pokemon in yai's house a yellow rug can be found in her living room similar in appearance to a skinned pikachu from pokemon also in the game outside the den town movie theater is a movie poster for upgrade impossible 3 featuring rom cruz a clear parody of the movie mission impossible 3 and his lead actor tom cruise another popular rpg on the game boy advance was final fantasy tactics advance in the game's introduction the player encounters three schoolyard bullies guinness colin and lyle after the battle the player is warped to the magical world of ivalice morbidly much later in the game a mission will become available which involves saving a professor from three zombies each with the same names as these children harvest moon more friends of mineral town has a bizarre easter egg based around fan speculation if the player goes to sleep at 9pm on the 30th day of winter there is a chance they will be shown a dream sequence featuring both the female playable character and the mayor of the town mayor thomas the two will appear to be getting married only for the player to wake up confused so confused in fact that she will even forget how the word dream is spelled an obvious mistake by the developers pushing a console to its limits is something many game developers strive to do with the game boy advance being a primarily 2d gaming handheld the desire to push the device and create 3d games was an understandable one ray light games an italian studio was one of the more prominent 3d developers for the gba and created their own 3d engine for the handheld with impressive results they created two demos showing the rendering capabilities of their blue roses engine one by recreating a similar area to the hangar from metal gear solid and another of a playable demo for resident evil 2. this resident evil demo put players in control of leon during the opening moments of the full original playstation release the demo also includes a small non-playable snippet showing a shot from street fighter x after completion while none of the games were finished or officially endorsed by their original rights holders these demos were created to show off the light footprint and power of ray light's blue roses engine ray light tried to pitch the game to capcom officially but it was turned down in part because the game boy advance was ending its relevancy but also because capcom saw issue with a mature game for the system nintendo is praised for the many different genres in which it's willing to feature its eponymous mario not only has mario starred in a variety of popular games ranging from platformers sports games and educational titles to puzzle games shooters and fighting games one of the most popular being the variety of mario rpgs fans of super mario rpg developed by squaresoft for the snes and published by nintendo in 1996 had to wait some time for a new mario rpg title the next rpg focusing on the mustachioed pipefitter was paper mario in the year 2000 having mario take on a new form and appearance the next rpg which concentrated on the classic form of the character would be mario and luigi superstar saga in 2003 often considered the true successor to square's earlier take on a mario rpg however prior to superstar saga's release developers alpha dream had created another game which perhaps acted as the catalyst to mario's return to the role-playing realm of term-based mechanics that game which was aimed primarily at a younger audience is tomato adventure [Applause] tomato adventure was developed by alpha dream and published by nintendo in early 2002 for the game boy advance exclusively to a japanese audience the player takes on the role of demille an anthropomorphic hair-like character the game's setting is a land known as the ketchup kingdom under the reign of the tomato fanatic ruler king abeera the meal has been shunned from society and banished to spend his days in the cliffside kobori village being exiled as with the rest of the villages because of their distaste for tomatoes when the national holiday tomato day rolls around demille is watching tv when an announcement is made revealing that a machine has been completed called the supercara cooker according to king abira this machine would allow for the citizens of the ketchup kingdom to remain as children forever as tomato day is a special occasion demille is given the opportunity to fight for the chance to leave the village in which he is being confined just for the day after winning this right he explores the nearby toy ruins with his girlfriend pasaran during their tour of the ruins the couple are kidnapped by two purple creatures called bariki and goriki who escape in an airship they drop the meal out of the ship setting his adventure in motion as he sally's forth to rescue his girlfriend paseran is taken to the gimmick palace where king abira reveals his plans to use her energy to charge the super cara cooker not only that but it's revealed that the super kara cooker is not a machine intended to keep the entire kingdom young but instead it will be used to turn the inhabitants into toys demille must adventure through the world taking out these six super kids collecting six toy parts along the way to grant him access to the gimmick palace so that he can save his girlfriend prevent the supercarla cooker from being activated and defeat the king on his quest to save the tomato village demille is joined by other characters who assist him on his journey they must battle with enemies using a variety of toy-like weapons called gimmicks each gimmick attack is unique in how it's carried out similar to the special bros attacks within mario and luigi these fall into four categories time gimmicks requiring the player to press a button with the correct timing render gimmicks involving hitting the same button multiple times speed gimmicks having to tap a series of buttons quickly and doki doki gimmicks which are unique in execution these different forms of attack contribute to the game's active participation during battles where unlike most traditional rpgs before it the player would simply choose to attack and it would be executed automatically without player input each character can have four gimmicks selected for use within battle with each having a limited number of uses after all uses of these attacks are depleted they will all be replenished each gimmick can also be adjusted to the player's preference individually gimmicks can be given their own difficulty setting changing the weapon's damage the higher the difficulty as you would expect the higher the difficulty the harder it is to successfully perform the attack the player is even able to test how the difficulty will change the attack from their inventory screen failing to successfully pull off a gimmick attack will still hit the enemy however gimmicks can also be upgraded with batteries found throughout the journey after successfully executing gimmick attacks the player is rewarded a number of stars depending on the gimmick's difficulty setting contributing to their cool meter though failing an attack will completely deplete the bar by filling a certain amount of this bar a gear will be activated which can be spent executing a cool attack effectively a team attack which will change depending on which partner is in battle with demille the player will obtain not just a variety of different gimmicks on their adventure but a large array of usable items as well as gear which can be purchased and equipped to create new gimmicks the player has to find hidden items called pacifiers these can be found while walking around the game's maps hidden in a variety of places while individual weapons can be upgraded and gear can be equipped to bolster character stats experience is also earned for each character and they are capable of leveling during exploration of the game's maps there's also the possibility of coming across interactive objects adding more gameplay to the usually minimally participatory portions of rpgs these include things like timing button presses for jumps or simply holding a button to make platforms move part way through the adventure a card based minigame is unlocked called gimmicker after unlocking this mini-game it's possible to duel with or obtain new cards from several characters throughout the player's journey the objective of the game is to reduce your opponent's health below your own or to zero there are two types of card gimmick cards based on the various gimmick weapons in the game used to attack an opponent these are automatically put on the table and given a rank based on a color seen in the middle of the screen a higher ranking card will win a round though green will always beat blue after gimmick cards are put into play the player must select a character card from their hand these cards change the gimmick's stats such as increasing or decreasing a rank or changing the attack value the difference between the attack stat of the two gimmicks in play will be the damage dealt to the losing player of the round if both cards remain on the same rank the higher value attack gimmick is deemed the winner of the round after all of the player's cards in their hand are used or one player hits zero health the game is over tomato adventure was the second title to come from the alpha dream studio being released after koto battle tengai no moribito for the game boy color nintendo approached the team wanting them to develop a new role-playing game under the title gimmick land named after the concept of the game's utilization of gimmicky toys to not just have a game based around turn-based rpg mechanics but also to introduce more active participation from the player in battle during this phase of development the game was being produced for the game boy color and had made significant progress only two screenshots are known to exist from the game's earlier gimmick land period though the title was allegedly close to completion and was almost ready for release that was until nintendo released the game boy advance as the gaming community's interest shifted away from the gameboy color to the new system the team was requested by nintendo to redevelop their game and rename it tomato adventure they had also been instructed to not just rework the quality of the game's visuals and audio but also introduce a character which would not just reflect the game but also be easily recognizable and easier to market in an interview while discussing how tomato adventure came to fruition chihiro fujioka the game's director was initially worried about the shift to the new system however he also considered this a potential spot of luck as having a product published on newly released hardware is a good business opportunity it was also revealed that gimmicker the card based minigame was created so that the team could test the gameboy color's communication features originally players would obtain cards dropped within the world but nintendo suggested that this be changed to having the cards be obtained from defeating key characters instead with the minigame proving to be popular among game testers at nintendo this portion of the game was expanded resulting in shortened dialogue from npcs to save storage space on the cartridge allowing the introduction of more diverse elements to gimmicker the meal proved to be a popular character within nintendo with many making assumptions that he would be a surefire inclusion into the super smash brothers series with the release of brawl on the wii in 2008. masahiro sakurai the director of super smash brothers had included the meal twice within polls asking players who they would like to see added to the game despite his double inclusion he has never made a playable appearance outside of the initial release of tomato adventure though much later he would appear as a spirit within super smash brothers ultimate to promote the game's release nintendo announced a contest which would see gamers enter a draw for a kilo of famed sweet tomatoes from the kochi virtue valley area of japan superstar saga actually includes two unused musical tracks within its data which are clearly based upon tomato adventure's title music one of the title's bosses is also incredibly reminiscent of the yododsuli enemies found within the sunken ship of tomato adventure alpha dream was formed by chihiro fujioka in the year 2000 after his departure from squaresoft during his tenure with square fujioka worked as the director for super mario rpg his most prominent role within the studio and thus it is fitting that he would be in charge of mario's continued ventures into the realm of rpgs tomato adventure proved incredibly popular with not just japanese audiences and critics but also the team at nintendo after gauging the public's response to the game nintendo provided alpha dream with the rights to develop their own mario game which was soon fleshed out into mario and luigi superstar saga superstar saga has an incredibly strong resemblance to tomato adventure though one major difference between the two was mario and luigi's release outside of japan plus its incredible popularity resulting in four sequels the game was at some point set for release within countries other than japan in 2019 a prototype rom was published online which revealed a chinese localization had been worked on for release on the iq system china's alternative to the game boy advance this rom was based on a cartridge which had been sent to the chinese government for review at a time when the country held a strict ban on video games for more information on that check out the did you know gaming video on gaming within china while tomato adventure never saw localization in the west clyde tomato mandolin created a set of tools to work on translation efforts for the title alongside his own translation of the game's items enemies attacks and menus some of the game's early dialogue has also been translated though not enough to deem the game completely playable without knowledge of japanese his inspiration for taking on the project came after the completion of the fan translation for mother 3 wanting to work on another nintendo-based rpg with a distinctive style plus his online handle is tomato which just seems extremely fitting after starting work on the translation tomato came to realize the project would be as intensive as that of mother 3. in 2010 he had uploaded his tools to allow others to attempt progress on the project though too little avail in 2016 clyde did a live playthrough of the game on twitch using a basic proof-of-concept translation so the audience could follow receiving suggestions on new names for items enemies and the like in december of 2016 he had completed the game on twitch updated his patch and his tools and uploaded them to his blog legends of localization when speaking on superstar saga's remake with game informer yoshihiko mayakawa a producer at alphadream was asked why the west never saw a release of tomato adventure he responded the reason why is the age group we were targeting was a bit too low and a bit too small we also had some trouble with the battle system and it wasn't received well at the time of release throughout the various interviews conducted for the title the team would often reiterate that the game was incredibly child friendly but that this wouldn't be the only audience who would enjoy it despite this it's very likely that nintendo had noticed the demographic most drawn to the game in japan and considered mario to be a much more marketable venture to undertake and invest into if they intend to publish an rpg in the west you

Channel: DYKG Clips

Views: 167,134

Keywords: gba, gba game, game boy advance, gameboy advance, mario, mario kart, pokemon, advance wars, golden sun

Id: Eudw1CZiajg

Length: 57min 45sec (3465 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020