[HN Gopher] Every Super Nintendo Port on the Game Boy Advance Co...
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Every Super Nintendo Port on the Game Boy Advance Compared (2020)
Author : tosh
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-07-17 17:12 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (captrobau.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (captrobau.blogspot.com)
| emsy wrote:
| I didn't have a SNES growing up, so the ports on the GBA were
| godsend for me. Other than that, developers got crazy creative
| with the hardware, despite its low power. Aggressive Inline had
| pseudo 3D and licensed soundtrack, there were cartridges with
| rumble, tilt and light sensors. You could use the console as a
| GameCube controller. I still remember playing Castlevania under
| the lamp in our living room (the screen of the original GBA was
| terribly dark) when I heard the new about 9/11. I also got a
| flash cart and dipped my toes into developing when I was about
| 15. Fond memories!
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| It was amazing to see that the computing power of the SNES could
| be replicated in an affordable battery-powered handheld device
| few years later.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| Tech progress in games at that time was absolutely wild. You
| really get a sense of the slowdown when you compare the number
| of years since a milestone and the consider the milestone that
| number of years before.
|
| For instance, Crysis was released in 2007, so roughly 14 years
| and we've achieved marginal improvements to top end graphics.
|
| 14 years before crysis Doom released in 1993...
| alisonkisk wrote:
| 10 years: 1990 - 2000. But the SNES CPU was a 1982-generation
| design.
|
| That's 5 + 3 doublings in density/energy efficiency under
| Moore's law.
|
| And SNES was pretty low power, it didn't have or need a cooling
| a fan or disk drive.
| user-the-name wrote:
| The captures from the SNES and GBA seem to use very different
| colour spaces, leaving the SNES footage looking dark and the GBA
| washed out, even when they use the exact same graphics. Makes
| them pretty hard to compare.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| May also be a consequence of how the games were designed given
| the GBA screen.
|
| Kind of like how sprites were often designed knowing they'd be
| altered by a CRT and now look too crisp on modern screens.
| Lammy wrote:
| A lot of early GBA games are like that on purpose since there
| was no sidelit or backlit screen until the GBA SP came out.
| ReactiveJelly wrote:
| It's a bit hard to do a proper end-to-end comparison when it
| would have also depended on what kind of TV was attached to the
| SNES.
|
| You could take a photo in a well-lit room, if you can find a
| room with a working GBA, SNES, and CRT in it.
| bogwog wrote:
| Interesting how tales of phantasia (7:43) appears to be using a
| completely different set of character sprites for the GBA
| version. That's a lot of effort for a port!
| jccalhoun wrote:
| Wikipedia says that the GBA version takes things form not only
| the SNES version but also the Playstation version
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Phantasia#Development
| coopsmoss wrote:
| The GBA (before the SP version) didn't have a backlight and so
| compared to the CTRs you played SNES games on were quite a bit
| darker. That's why most of these games got a brightness bump for
| the GBA.
| piyh wrote:
| You can buy a new shell and an IPS screen with adjustable
| brightness for $45 on ebay. I'm excited to revive my old GBA
| that has a terrible looking silver finish and scratched screen.
| Pxtl wrote:
| I had one at launch.
|
| This comic accurately describes the experience:
|
| https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/06/13/lame-boy-advan...
| gxqoz wrote:
| I remember that discourse but not really having a problem at
| the time. I was generally able to see the screen. But I did
| recently go back to playing an original GBA after years of
| backlit screens and it was close to unplayable.
| Pxtl wrote:
| I think it depended on the game. Games designed with very
| high contrast art worked well, but games that didn't make
| that choice upfront were painful. My favorite game on the
| device was Mario Kart, which was pretty hard to see.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| If you had Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (one of the
| launch games), it was an incredibly common complaint. When
| the GBA SP came out some years later and I went back to
| "test" what CotM looked like with a backlight, it almost
| looked like a different game.
| gxqoz wrote:
| That was one of the games I played. I did have a Worm
| Light for playing in the car but don't recall otherwise
| using it.
|
| Of course, I later modded my GBA twice to make it more
| satisfying to play. The first added a TV out. The second
| was the Afterburner front light which I did not do a very
| good job with.
| whateveracct wrote:
| That game is amazing otherwise too. But yes the darkness
| was absurd.
| nicetryguy wrote:
| Gamecube GBplayer was a godsend. Great memories of Metroid
| Fusion / Zero Mission. I still have my disc!
| grawprog wrote:
| I have to admit, I never played any SNES ports on the original
| GBA. I had a SNES and by the time the GBA came out, SNES
| emulation was pretty good, so I'd played many of the games I
| didn't own already.
|
| The only GBA SNES port I've actually played is Final Fantasy 5,
| mostly for the new job classes it adds. But I noticed a lot of
| the things shown on the video. The audio was tinny, even on an
| emulator, the graphics looked brighter, more washed out.
|
| I have to say though, I never realized there were so many GBA
| SNES ports. I knew about the Mario ones and the final fantasy
| ones and a few others, but didn't realize there was actually so
| many ports done.
|
| The GBA was a pretty cool system. At the time though, I never
| actually thought of it as a pocket SNES. A lot of the actual GBA
| games didn't look like snes games. Most of them had a totally
| different style to them and played differently. It never really
| occurred to me until later that it was kind of like a pocket
| SNES.
| klodolph wrote:
| You should compare the audio too, not just the graphics. Hard to
| compare the audio in this video.
|
| Broadly speaking, the GBA is more capable graphically, has a
| better CPU, more RAM, a simpler interface to the cartridge, and
| the best GBA games are going to look pretty good compared to SNES
| games.
|
| However, the SNES has a dedicated programmable DSP for audio,
| which can play eight sample tracks simultaneously. The GBA just
| gives you a DAC and the CPU and you do everything there. You
| could of course try to make up for that by relying more on PCM
| tracks and leaning on the larger ROM sizes, but that will only
| take you so far.
|
| Here's a track from the FFV port to GBA:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSUWIxn0Ihw
|
| Here's the original version for SNES (edit: link fixed):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dghlAQDQneU
|
| To my ears, the SNES one is the clear winner and it shows off the
| capabilities of the DSP--less aliasing noise (that weird crunchy
| sound you hear on the GBA version), and also has some basic
| effects (like a little bit of echo).
| dEnigma wrote:
| After reading your comment I had to check out the situation in
| the case of Donkey Kong Country, since that series has some of
| the most impressive SNES soundtracks in my opinion. While they
| did an impressive job, there is still a distinct difference
| between the two systems.
|
| GBA: https://youtu.be/UlTgFb0qbxQ
|
| SNES: https://youtu.be/_4EjGXRDOH0
|
| edit: They added some interesting didgeridoo-like sound effects
| to "Forest Frenzy" though
| klodolph wrote:
| Picked out a particular song to make the comparison easier:
| Gang-Plank Galleon.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlTgFb0qbxQ&t=2191s
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4EjGXRDOH0&t=3663s
|
| Pretty stark difference, IMO. GBA version sounds shrill, all
| the note envelopes seem messed up, the variations in emphasis
| & phrasing in the SNES version are gone, etc. SNES version is
| also in stereo.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Your second link isn't the original SNES version, it's a remix
| designed to sound better. Here's the original:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dghlAQDQneU
|
| I still agree that the SNES version sounds much better than the
| GBA version, but people shouldn't think the SNES version
| sounded like that remix.
| klodolph wrote:
| Huh, you're right. I thought something was off about the
| video when I listened to it. Although the version I linked
| calls itself a remix in the description, it sounds like
| someone just played a MIDI version with new samples. I'm not
| sure I'd even call that a remix.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| It is, in an older sense, "remixed", much as some older
| music was remixed by taking the original sub-tracks and re-
| combining them in a different way with different audio
| levels and balance and similar. It certainly doesn't
| qualify in the modern usage of "novel music inspired by the
| original".
| CodeArtisan wrote:
| The GBA is more capable graphically, true, but has a poor
| screen with a lower resolution (240x160 vs 256x224 for the
| super nes). Because of that, a few ports had to rework the
| sprites to fit the gba screen better. also had to modify the
| color palette. Animations may also have less frames.
|
| For example, Donkey Kong Country, top is from Super Nes, bottom
| is from GBA. Both enlarged x4.
|
| https://abload.de/img/dkcsnesgba4xcdjn2.png
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(page generated 2021-07-17 23:01 UTC)