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[VGEsoterica]

There are two types of handheld games based on series that got popular on consoles; legit smaller versions of the source material that uses the hardware to it's advantage to keep the experience alive on smaller/less powerful hardware...and the games that are absolute junk that are just absolute shovelware forced onto a handheld gaming system.

Metal Slug 1st and 2nd Mission thankfully take the Metal Slug formula and run with it in a way that perfectly fits the Neo Geo Pocket Color. The same great gameplay just on a smaller platform. It has all the vibes, charm and most importantly GAMEPLAY! It's a master class on how to make a handheld variant of a console game that everyone knows and mostly loved.

Like the GBA/Nintendo DS Castlevania games...as good as the console game it came from but just in a smaller package

But what are the GOOD and BAD examples Gaf? You always provide some great insight...and I want to hear them!

 

[consoul]

Street Fighter Alpha 3 on GBA. Obviously. That was just ridiculous. 37 characters. Beautiful art. Smooth as silk.

 

[VGEsoterica]

Street Fighter Alpha 3 on GBA. Obviously. That was just ridiculous. 37 characters. Beautiful art. Smooth as silk.

they did some voodoo magic with that game. Some interesting decompression algorithms going on

 

[amigastar]

Street Fighter Alpha 3 on GBA. Obviously. That was just ridiculous. 37 characters. Beautiful art. Smooth as silk.

Just looked it up on Youtube and yeah it seems to be a really nice version of Street Fighter Alpha 3. I'm impressed.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

The NGPC was fantastic when it released! Thanks for the content as usual VGEsoterica

 

[VGEsoterica]

The NGPC was fantastic when it released! Thanks for the content as usual VGEsoterica

its just such a bummer it never became even a minor success. Nintendo has dominated the handheld market since the OG Gameboy and it never let anyone else get a taste of the pie

 

[VGEsoterica]

Just looked it up on Youtube and yeah it seems to be a really nice version of Street Fighter Alpha 3. I'm impressed.

it feels like it SHOULDNT be possible on GBA...but there it is!

 

[SpiceRacz]

I mention it every chance I get, but Ninja Garden on Game Boy. Metal Gear Solid on GBC. The Tony Hawk games on GBA were really impressive for the time too.

 

[amigastar]

its just such a bummer it never became even a minor success. Nintendo has dominated the handheld market since the OG Gameboy and it never let anyone else get a taste of the pie

Thats true, when it comes to handheld no one does it like Nintendo. Sega tried, Sony tried but in the end Nintendo always comes through.
I still love my 3DS and DS.

 

[Investor9872]

I quickly read the title as Front Mission for some reason. Hopefully it's a premonition of a remake of FM 3 & 5 to come.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

The original Resident Evil 1 got ported to the Nintendo DS known as "Resident Evil Deadly Silence" (haha, "Resident Evil DS"... get it? ).

It's not necessarily a technical marvel since the DS was powerful enough to handle a game like RE1, but what they did was go above and beyond:

- A window for the gameplay and the second window for inventory and health
- 180 degree turn
- Skippable cutscenes
- Selection between original RE1 mode and Director's Cut mode
- And more...

So the definitive official version of Resident Evil 1 is... On a handheld. Huh, go figure.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

It's Metal Slug Mania Time! A Ten Part Series dedicated to looking at the history and evolution of the mainline Metal Slug franchise from SNK! and what do you know?! Another classic retro gaming franchise felt the need to go handheld! But here we are....Metal Slug Advance! It's a legit awesome entry in the series and it's great on MiSTer FPGA (how I played it here)

 

[Sophist]

The resident evil game on game boy color that got cancelled was truly impressive.

Resident Evil (Game Boy Color)

Resident Evil was planned for a GameBoy Color adaptation in a project outsourced to British company HotGen Studios, Ltd. Intended for an Autumn 1999 release, it was repeatedly delayed due to programming issues, and ultimately cancelled in March 2000 in favour of M4, Ltd.'s alternate proposal for...

residentevil.fandom.com

 

[azertydu91]

The resident evil game on game boy color that got cancelled was truly impressive.

Resident Evil (Game Boy Color)

Resident Evil was planned for a GameBoy Color adaptation in a project outsourced to British company HotGen Studios, Ltd. Intended for an Autumn 1999 release, it was repeatedly delayed due to programming issues, and ultimately cancelled in March 2000 in favour of M4, Ltd.'s alternate proposal for...

residentevil.fandom.com

Oh shit, that is indeed impressive, I never thought the GBC was capable of that.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

Oh shit, that is indeed impressive, I never thought the GBC was capable of that.

Well...

 

[azertydu91]

Well...

That's amazing, when I was younger I only had like 5 gbc games(half of them from the original gameboy).I guess I never had one that pushed the console so far.

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

That's amazing, when I was younger I only had like 5 gbc games(half of them from the original gameboy).I guess I never had one that pushed the console so far.

I always GBA FMV was crazy for the time but these guys did it here

 

[wondermega]

its just such a bummer it never became even a minor success. Nintendo has dominated the handheld market since the OG Gameboy and it never let anyone else get a taste of the pie

It's a conversation as old as time itself, at this point, but it's not true that there were never any other takers in the field, Nintendo just had the best recipe that worked (at the very least) "well enough" to become a success with in the handheld market. They hit it out of the park at the very beginning with the first GB with very solid games (compared to what else was available as a handheld experience, at the time) and absolutely struck gold between Mario Land and Tetris. Everything that followed was enough to keep a nice pace up, but the negatives of the system (black and white <- clearly not a showstopper, and that horrid display) were enough to relegate the system to a distant second/cool as a novelty, behind what was expected of a legit console experience. Still, for the price & what you got, it worked.

I had a Lynx since it was new, and of course spent a little time getting familiar with the TurboExpress and Sega Game Gear - they were all neat, and the presentation in each case was miles beyond what the Gameboy was offering, but in any case it really felt like each was trying to compete more on a level with the 8-bit console (or better) and that was probably to their detriment, ultimately. The things were just too big, the beautiful color screens were too battery-sucking, and the final nail in the coffin was that as decent as each of those machines' libraries were, none were able to stand up to the steady flow of NES ports that kept coming on the Gameboy.

Perhaps if they went for more of a compromise (Gameboy pocket-style tech, which means a significantly better B/W screen with much less power consumption than their LCDs) then that would have helped. I think you still have the issue of the libraries, but I can't really think of much else to fight against that.

By the time the next handhelds came out to battle The Gameboy Color - specifically, the Neo Geo Pocket Color and to whatever lesser extent, the Japanese Wonderswan - it was just more of diminishing returns. They were never gonna do well in the Western market (and Bandai didn't even bother to try with Wonderswan, obviously). I guess the point I am trying to make is, that it was never a case of "Nintendo not letting anyone else into the market" because there were a lot of earnest efforts by its competitors, but more so that no one else had a realistic and comprehensive understanding of how to be successful in that market, by comparison.

It is quite interesting to think about in hindsight. Even the Gameboy Color (already, that's several years of iterations of the base model) and more tellingly, the Gameboy Advance were STILL hampered by those godawful visibility issues, and the market still favored those devices. At that point they were the only ones that had all the games that people wanted to play, and let's face it, they were still mainly considered toys/"junior devices" to complement a gamer's main console, or just less-expensive things to keep the kids quite while on vacation.

 

[nush]

The things were just too big, the beautiful color screens were too battery-sucking, and the final nail in the coffin was that as decent as each of those machines' libraries were, none were able to stand up to the steady flow of NES ports that kept coming on the Gameboy.

Batteries were the killer, so expensive and rechargeable batteries of the day took overnight to recharge. The advantage Sega and Nintendo had was they could advertize the handhelds alongside their big console releases. Atari and SNK didn't have that advantage.