The Game Boy Advance

After dominating the handheld market since 1989, Nintendo finally released a major upgrade to their flagship portable system in 2001. It is true that there had been a couple of small updates in the previous 4 to 5 years, such as the Game Boy Pocket or Game Boy Color, but the design and architecture of the system wasn’t radically changed and had been more or less the same since its release. The Game Boy Advance would be different though.

It had a 32-bit processor, but by this time processors were starting to be made differently, and the "bit count" was less important. What the hardware could do graphically was very comparable to the SNES, and so it represented a major upgrade from the 4 shaded dot-matrix graphics of the original Game Boy. Because of this, many SNES games were ported to the GBA with minor upgrades. Like the SNES, the various sprites had some “special effects” that could be utilized like transparency or rotation/scaling.

The system had a horizontally oriented form factor which made it easier to hold. It had the same buttons as the previous system (B, A, Start, Select), but with the addition of L and R shoulder buttons. It had a jack for a GameLink cable on the top, and the headphone jack, volume dial, and power switch on the bottom.

Like the older GB, it had only one speaker, but would put out stereo when using headphones. It used only 2 AA batteries and had around a 30 hour life. While the sound and music were much better than the original GB, there was a certain, “poppy-ness” to it, almost similar to the Virtual Boy. The GBA had a green light indicating power that would turn red when the batteries were nearing the end of their life.

Continuing with the tradition started on the GBC and the later run of N64 consoles, the GBA was available in multiple colors, including purple, black, white, orange, and clear blue. Later on, more colors and special editions would also be sold.

A major selling point was that it was backwards compatible with every GB and GBC game made up until that point. When it detected a GBC or GB game, it booted up in GBC mode, allowing the player to colorize older games in the same way using the same palettes. When an original GB or GBC game was turned on, the familiar “ding” played, but the word “Game Boy” was displayed in color, during which players could select which palette they wanted to use. But a newer tone with an animated logo was displayed when a GBA game was played. GBA games were actually smaller than the older games and fit perfectly in the GBA, but older games would stick out above the top of the system. It had a wider screen, allowing for more things to be seen at once. When playing an older game, the L and R buttons served to toggle the screen between its original resolution with black bars on the sides, or to stretch the picture.

While the original Game Boy allowed 2 players through the use of a GameLink cable (and more with an additional adapter), the GBA could support 4-player games using 3 cables because each one had a connection point in the middle of the cable allowing another player to link in. Some games also supported download play, meaning that only one copy of the game was required, slightly reducing the amount of equipment needed to play 2-player. 

Later when the GameCube would be released, the use of a different cable allowed players to connect the GBA to the GC and unlock certain features. For example, a GBA with Metroid Fusion hooked up to a GC with Metroid Prime unlocked a special gallery, the Fusion Suit, and a hidden copy of the original Metroid. On The Wind Waker, hooking up a GBA with no cartridge to the GC let a second player assist Link as Tingle. Playing the GBA version of Splinter Cell hooked up to the GC version equipped the player with some additional weapons while the GBA player could scout out locations in advance to warn the other player of enemies. Finally, one of the most promoted uses was The Legend of Zelda: Four Sword Adventures, where the main game took place on screen, but when players went into a house or cave, the action took place on the individual GBA's screen. Essentially, the GBA served as a controller that happened to have its own screen when needed.

It seemed like the GBA to GC connection was emphasized heavily by Nintendo, more so than the N64/GB connection had been. But it would continue the tradition of having a handheld and a console connect together.

The only major criticism of the GBA was the lack of a lit screen. It still required a fairly bright room or being outside to play. Accessories like the Worm Light made things a little better, but would often leave a glare on the screen. Nintendo released a solution in the form of the Game Boy Advance SP.

The SP was a major redesign for the GBA, as it now had a clam shell style case that could be opened and closed via a hinge. The major selling feature was that it had a front-lit screen that could be toggled on and off with a new button. The folding nature of it also made it smaller and easier to carry around. Later models would replace the front-lit screen with a back-lit screen, reducing washed out colors and glare. Another upgrade was the internal rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery. Instead of using AA batteries, it could just be plugged into the wall outlet to charge up the battery for around 10 hours of play with the light on (more with no light, obviously). In addition to the green/red power light, an orange light indicating the battery charging status was added.

But there were a few sacrifices that were made with the SP. Firstly, the design made the SP just as vertically narrow as the original GB/GBC, so it was harder to hold for those with bigger hands. Second, the headphone jack had to be sacrificed and was actually combined with the AC adapter jack. In order to use headphones, a separate adapter needed to be plugged into the jack, meaning that one could not both use headphones and charge the system simultaneously. Another change was that games would be loaded into the front, and not the rear of the system. 

Like the GBA, the GBA SP also came in many colors. The clam shell design also helped save the screen from being scratched up while in a purse, backpack, or pocket. Some games also started including the “Sleep” feature, where a game can be paused and the system closed while conserving battery power. This was especially useful for games that could only be saved at certain times/places, so the player wouldn’t lose any progress. To wake the system up, usually it required a 3-button combination so that it wouldn’t happen accidentally in a pocket. The design would stay and be improved upon in Nintendo’s next handheld, the Nintendo DS.

All together, over 1,000 games were released for the GBA. It was superseded by the DS only 3 years later, but games continued to be developed for it until 2008 because the DS had GBA backwards compatibility. 





Stop Skeletons from Fighting's video on the GBA/GC Link Cable