The third and final Castlevania game on the Game Boy Advance, Aria of Sorrow was first published by Konami in 2003.
Development was again led by Producer Koji Igarashi (who had previously worked on Symphony of the Night), and the end result is another brilliant and varied mix of platforming and RPG, with challenging enemies and boss battles.
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The second Castlevania game released for the Game Boy Advance, Harmony of Dissonance was published by Konami in 2002.
In this game you play as Juste Belmont, a direct descendant of Simon Belmont – the protagonist from the first Castlevania. And – for some reason – he has a blue glow around him, and a blue trail, that he leaves in his wake as he moves…
Continue reading Castlevania: Harmony Of Dissonance, Game Boy Advance
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was the first Castlevania game released for the Game Boy Advance. It was developed by Konami‘s Kobe division and released in 2001.
Circle of the Moon was also a launch title for the GBA and went on to sell over one million physical units worldwide.
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Car Battler Joe is an interesting cross between a JRPG and a driving game. It was developed for the Game Boy Advance by Ancient and published in 2001.
In some respects the driving sections remind me of Tranz Am, but they’re much more varied and the car you drive is more dynamic than in Ultimate‘s classic driving game. In truth Car Battler Joe is probably more influenced by Origin‘s 1985 game Autoduel and Steve Jackson‘s post apocalyptic RPG, Cars Wars.
There are two Metroid games on the Game Boy Advance. One is an original game, called Metroid Fusion, and there’s also this one: Metroid: Zero Mission, which is a remake of the original Metroid.
It was first released in 2004 and features modernised graphics and gameplay, but the same core gameplay as the 1986 original.
The sequel to the superb Super Pipeline is more of the same frantic pipe-fixing action, with you playing a foreman, directing helpers to fix holes in order to keep the water flowing.
Actually, is it water, or is it oil? I don’t know…
In the early 1980s a Bridlington-based company called Taskset made some stand-out Commodore 64 games and Super Pipeline is one of their best.
In fact, only the sequel – Super Pipeline II – is on a par with this entertaining game, at least as far as Taskset output is concerned.
Little Ninja Brothers is the second game in the “Super Chinese” series* and the predecessor of Super Ninja Boy on the SNES. It was developed and published by Culture Brain in Japan in 1989. North America got it in 1990 and Europe in 1991.
It is an excellent one or two-player level-grinding RPG, with random battles, but instead of turn-based combat you get real time beat ’em up action instead, and works very well.
Super Ninja Boy is an action role-playing game developed by Culture Brain and released on the SNES in 1991 in Japan, and in 1993 in North America.
It’s a sequel to Culture Brain‘s previous title, Little Ninja Brothers for the NES, and it’s not a brilliant game the truth be told, but it does hold a special place in my heart because it was one of the first games I ever reviewed as games journalist.
Conqueror is a 1988 release from Superior Software, designed and programmed by Jonathan Griffiths. It’s a 3D tank game that was released as a sequel to Zarch – and it uses the same game engine.
The King of Grabs 