Tag Archives: Japanese

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Game Boy Advance

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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Castlevania: Harmony Of Dissonance, 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…

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Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, 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, 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.

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Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Game Boy Advance

This handheld version of Mario Kart was developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo on the Game Boy Advance in 2001, and it is quite wonderful to play! Like pretty much every Mario Kart game ever made… What’s not to like about them?

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Metroid: Zero Mission, Game Boy Advance

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.

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Advance Wars, Game Boy Advance

Advance Wars is turn-based tactical war game developed by Intelligent Systems and was first published in North America on September 10th 2001.

As everyone knows: the following day the world witnessed the horrific attacks on the World Trade Centre, and this tragic event resulted in the delay of Advance Wars being released to the rest of the world.

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Zoda’s Revenge: StarTropics II, NES

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…

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StarTropics, NES

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…

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Head On, Arcade

Head On is an early arcade game, developed by Sega and manufactured by Gremlin Industries (not to be confused with Gremlin Graphics or Gremlin Interactive) in 1979.

It was the first maze game where the goal was to collect the dots, making it something of a precursor to Namco‘s Pac-Man which came a year later in 1980.

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