TLDR; It is the GBA.
this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2025
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Really? I thought it objectively clear it's the DS.
The gba is a little too much a remade snes and features many games of the like, nevertheless still a very good device.
However, the DS is spectacular in comparison imo. A far better library (over its lifetime - the first year was bad). Classic games, touch games and a huge slew of RPG and starts of great series.
But the ds is a fairly new console, surely it wouldn't even be an option in a retro cont- oh...
Hehe 😁
it was not a remade SNES. that's what people assume but the GBA was a powerful little guy. and had some decent 3d capabilities that were solid for the time.
and it was backwards compatible with the original gameboy carts that pushed it to being extremely popular. and the library for it was massive as well.
I think the number of games ported over from the 16 bit era gives that impression. GBA didn't even get it's own Mario game, they just released the All-Stars versions of classic games, which I get was super cool at the time but still.
But yes, GBA was a very capable machine. GBA could run Doom with a smooth framerate, SNES couldn't. Not to mention the stuff like Driv3r, Asterix or even GTA Advance.
I'm well aware that it's an arm7 device and hence different. However what it was directed at and done with it resulted in being as I said.
Vrally some other games do impressive things, I agree.
If we’re considering backwards compatibility, then the DS should have won. Because it could do everything the GBA could, and more.
I don't think the DS could play original game boy carts, could it? if I am misremembering I'm gonna be mad for the me that didn't know that when I got a DS. lol
Nah it couldn’t, the DS only supported its own and GBA cartridges.
It's a nostalgia contest.
I have a lot of nostalgia for it and it's 2 (3 if we count switch 2) generations gone, so yeah 😁
Plus, if you have a DS Lite, you get both a GBA and a DS.
Phat DS can play them too, don’t forget about my thicc boi
I personally liked the GBA SP better than any other handheld and I was not a fan of the DS at all. The only positive of the DS for me was that it was relatively easy to write homebrew games for (though not as easy as the GBA).
There's a lot I love about the DS but it suffered immensely from the gimmick problem. Games that had no business being touch focused were forced into it. Zelda was probably the worst example, but the metroid game that used it for an fps was also up there.
I love the DS for my nostalgia of it, but any replaying of it is as uncomfortable as the wii
I thought Metroid did it pretty well. Hunters at least, not sure if there was another you might be talking about.
Both are good examples, but the one that probably bothered me the most was Dawn of Sorrow. The castlevania game that would force crappy stylus patterns to finish off a boss, but otherwise had no touch usage. I swear I had to kill some of the later bosses 4-5 times because of the touch not working right.
I mean, at the time it was not a competition at first. I loved the gba, then the gba sp even more.
And when the DS (grey first model) came out, imo the games were a dry spell for at least a year!
Anyhow, given the opportunity I would love to bring you closer to the DS games catalogue and I am very convinced I could bring you to change your mind.
Most times I've seen the DS being massively underestimated is because of not being aware of the massive amounts of gems of games there are, just a few popular ones and lots and lots of shovelware (akin to Wii) which e.g. we in Germany had in the stores. That selection sucked mostly!
I am EXTREMELY familiar with the DS, you cannot "bring me close to the DS games" lmao. If anything, I am pissed that so many excellent games are trapped on it and will never get ported.
Hm, I don't like getting laughed at but still apologies for the misunderstanding. Would love to show you my collection 🤷
Sorry, I wasn't meaning to laugh at you as a person, more that I literally wrote games for it and played many, many DS games and thus showing me games would definitely not change my mind on the system. I am more than a little salty about the DS and it's evil gimmicks. It is one of the only systems that I ended up selling (the Wii is also in this short list).
Thanks for explaining!
I felt the same way about the Wii. Several games that would be great are almost unplayable for be because of this and at the least unenjoyable which defeats the purpose.
So Wii... Yeah. At that time I always feared Nintendos next gimmick.
But why the DS? I thought there are enough games that are not gimmicky annoying.
Without going into too much detail I would be interested in examples (and possibly go 'hey yeah that was bad!').
There are certainly games on the DS that don't have the stylus gimmicks, but here are the biggest/most dissapointing ones that come to mind:
- all the DS Zelda games (it ruined them IMO)
- Metroid prime: hunters (unplayable to me)
- Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (I am still pissed how the tacked on stylus gimmick was required to defeat bosses)
The thing is, it isn't just the games that use the stylus that are the gimmick. The entire second screen IS a gimmick. Instead of a single better/bigger screen, you get two lower res medicore screens. You now have to look at two screens, you now have a heavier handheld that feel awkward (to me) to hold in the correct position, especially if you end up needing the stylus. The fact that the PSP came out in the same month as the DS and was better in many ways did the DS no favors.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow ended up causing me severe wrist pain and I had to stop using the console entirely and sold it. The fact that there ARE good games on the system is actually more annoying. Because of weirdness of the DS, all the games were difficult, if not impossible, to port to other systems. Much like the Wii, it essentially orphaned a whole generation of games from future ports without a ton of work to change how the game works.
Interesting, thank you!
Since I'm no Zelda fan there was no pain there (although I collected the games for my collection). I have fond memories of all 3 DS Castlevania games.
I do recall the tacked on stylus rune crap but that didn't leave any lasting impression. Still, I agree!
Prime hunters as well as Mario 64 have crap control, full stop. At that point I'm even more angry at the 3DS for getting analogue control (with 'new') and then not using it! (kid icarus)
Anyhow, thank you for elaborating.
You're welcome, thanks for letting me vent! The 3DS repeated the sins of the DS and added their whole new gimmick. And yet again, it trapped an EXCELLENT Zelda game (Link Between Worlds) on the system as well as the 3D Mario Land (I don't recall the exact title). I had decided not to bother buying one even though the Zelda game is the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time, but my friend gave me his when he got one of those larger XL models so I picked up the aforementioned Zelda and Mario. I quickly saw why he got the larger model, my hands cramped using those teeny tiny controls. It now belongs to my daughter, so it worked out, but it's funny, I still have a working OG Gameboy and GBA SP and those feel fine to use. Nintendo just lost me with their controllers. Even now, I only play the Switch using a Sony DS controller using the 8Bitdo adapter. Their first party controllers are nigh unusable to me.
Soo many fire games for it - Currently playing FF:Tactics
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a banger. I might have been just the right age for it when I played it, but I have such fondness for it.
When I was younger someone deleted a save file of FFTA I had clocked over 400 hrs on (it was a genuine accident), and I was devastated.
I then proceeded to play again with over 1k hours. Might be one of my favorite games ever made.
It must have been a major influence on Expedition 33 as well - at least that's what I felt when I played E33. Very similar themes.
The E33 devs were very clearly huge Final Fantasy fans. The game has direct parallels to several FF games.
For instance, the plot parallels to FFX are so brazen that I was able to start predicting what would generally happen next.
All I remember about that GBA is the lack of a built in backlight.
Homebrew on the PSP was actually insane though. You could play everything up to the Nintendo 64 on it and even some PC games like quake. I played so many super Mario world ROM hacks on it
Modded psp was the shit too!
"Hey can I borrow your game cartridge for a few minutes? I wanna copy it to my memory card." 😎
Could you rip UMDs to MS Duos? I was big into PSP CFW (like, modified the firmware of an a battery to boot into recovery menu on the 2000s before they were easily moddable) and was unaware of that functionality. That would also take ages!
Yeah p similar, my buddy already had a modded battery (I think he took it apart and cut one of the wires inside) probably around 2005-ish, idr how long it took to copy, but probably took like 20 mins, but also it was easier/faster to just download the iso file online.
Neat! I forgot how I did mine, but I remember it being called a Pandora Battery. I still have it!
People slept on the Vita but it’s like a PSP ultimate. Plays all PSP games and emulates an insane plethora of consoles on a beautiful OLED screen.
PSP is clearly the uncrowned king
man it was amazingly versatile. iirc I had vnc working on it in 2010, was able to use it to prototype psp games w/o a devkit.
Pata-pata-pata-pon!
Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon!
I think DS should take the final round - plays the DS and GBA library + relatively easy to emulate GBC if you really want to.
And still the only way to play some games - Contra 4, Sonic Rush for example, are horrible to play on emulator but still really fun games.
GBA is a worthy winner.
Hacking a vita is so easy you do it straight from the console browser. I still can’t manage to get my DS properly hacked no matter how many guides I try.
To "hack" a ds you simply buy a 5€ flash cart and you're done.
Love my R4DS!
Man they did they Wonderswan dirty. I always felt that was a fantastic handheld. IMHO way better than the Lynx.