Super Monkey Ball Jr. is a conversion of the classic GameCube game by Sega. It was first released in North America in 2002, and in 2003 in Europe.
From what I can tell, Super Monkey Ball Jr. was never released in Japan… That can’t be right… I thought the Japanese were (rightly) mad for Super Monkey Ball?!
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.
Continue reading Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Game Boy Advance
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
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.
Based on the infamous horror/gun arcade game series from Sega, The Pinball of the Dead is a [wait for it…] pinball game with three different, horror-themes tables. They being: Wondering, Movement, and Cemetery – all based on locations from the first two House of the Dead games.
Cinemaware‘s classic Defender of the Crown was ported to the Game Boy Advance by Crawfish Interactive and published by Metro3D in 2002 and it is an excellent conversion.
The 1994 sequel to StarTropics, Zoda’s Revenge again features the red-haired hero, Mike Jones, only this time he’s on a time-travelling adventure searching to find a series of puzzles shapes called “Tetrads”.
These Tetrads are actually a nod to Tetris, and in the Virtual Console re-release of StarTropics II their names have been changed to “Blocks”, probably to avoid any legal problems. But anyway, I digress…
StarTropics is an action adventure game released by Nintendo in 1990. It was developed in Japan, but was only ever intended for released in North America and Europe, which is kinda weird, but that was the plan all along apparently…
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.
The King of Grabs 