So I got a Miyoo Mini Flip and a long airplane trip ahead. The device plays GB, GBA, SNES, NES, that kind of power. Please give me game recs! If there are ports of games it can play that are worth it, that’s great too!!
Showing my age but the tony hawk GBA games are pretty fun for a handheld.
Oh god, Tony Hawk, forgot that genre of games existed. Many hours playing on PS2 at my neighbour’s. Maybe I’ll go down memory lane
They’re very limited vs the console ones but the movement is satisfyingly technical and the visuals surprisingly smooth and clear.
Defs some trade-offs in textures but there must have been some very clever optimisation done considering the battery life and power of that machine.
GBA is a great console, imo. The library was excellent and it was late enough to have some more modern game design sensibilities in the titles. Metroidvanias imo are where this really shows up - SCIV had pretty conventional level-based gameplay without the exploration aspect of the later games and only Super Metroid (strong rec btw) really went all in. I have limited nostalgia for the 16 bit generation because most of the games have that same, fairly straightforward, beat-this-level-to-get-to-the-next-one sensibility (also I was a sega guy through and through and the Mega Drive frankly just wasn’t as good as the SNES…) Metroid Fusion has already been recommended and I agree it’s fantastic. I also love the Castlevania GBA games - Aria of Sorrow, Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance. Aria in particular is critically acclaimed, the other two got a mixed reception but personally I don’t really see why, they’re fun as hell. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was one of my favourite games ever at the time but the hit rates and slow character movement just frustrate me now, which is a shame, because I genuinely had a blast with it back in the day.
I see myself playing Aria of Sorrow, I loved Dawn of Sorrow on DS when I was younger and I believe it’s a sequel to Aria. Cool!!
You should download the GBA Balatro homebrew. It’s seriously addictive: https://github.com/GBALATRO/balatro-gba
Also tactical RPGs are great, like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Advance Wars 1+2, and any of the Fire Emblem GBA games (look for translated roms).
I also especially like old Lucas arts (and similar) adventure games on SCUMMVM.
I haven’t tried it but also there’s apparently a Plex port for Onion OS out there, so if you have a plex server or know someone who shares, you can download stuff to your Miyoo Mini Flip and watch it.
Final Fantasy Tactics and Advance Wars are awesome games, played them both. I’ll consider fire emblem.
I know NY brother’s hooked to Balatro, I didn’t know there was a GBA port lmao that’s so cool, I’m 100% getting that!
I’ve been playing the balatro homebrew! It is addictive, I just don’t think they have any in-game descriptions of the jokers so I have to look them up to figure out which one I’m buying, and they don’t even have the joker name to give you a hint, you need to work out the icon…
I thought they recently updated to include some short descriptions, no?
Edit: yeah just check again and they introduced in v0.2.1 in addition to a lot of other stuff. I need to update the rom.
basically every Pokemon romhack is based on the GBA games - FireRed or Emerald
there’s a good process now where you just get the base rom (from vimm or wherever) and then patch the rom file on https://www.hackdex.app/ to turn it into the romhack. i just got into playing some of these on my phone recently and the quality is surprising. notable ones are Unbound, Elite Redux, Odyssey, R.O.W.E, Super Mariomon & Celia’s Stupid Romhack
otherwise, GBA classics will definitely take up your time: Advance Wars, Golden Sun 1 & 2, Wario Land, Metroid
I really really liked Pokemon Odyssey, been thinking of trying other rom hacks. I think I can figure out what Super Mariomon is supposed to be, mind giving the quick elevator pitch for the other ones you mentioned?
Just because I doubt anyone is going to recommend PC Engine games (hope you like shmups, I guess):
- Legendary Axe
- Super Star Soldier
- Final Soldier
- Soldier Blade
- Bonk I-III
- Air Zonk
- Blazing Lazers
CD games (need a BIOS file called syscard3.pce):
- Gate of Thunder
- Lords of Thunder
- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood
- Ys Book I & II
- Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire
- Super Air Zonk
- Seirei Senshi Spriggan
That’s gonna require some research, but why not!! Thanks for the esoteric ideas!
Advanced Wars 2 gets an emulated spot on every phone Ive had. Its a little turn-based strategy game, and is perfect for filling in 20 min to 2 hour attention gaps depending on map size.
There’s also Fire Emblem, which people seem to regard well, and is a worse turn-based strategy game with, like, plot i guess, and no artillery or soviet parodies.
Advance Wars one is also a really good timekiller
Depending on the game, you get archers instead of artillery and pretty girls on pegasus’s instead of helicopters
I played one Fire Emblem game until they introduced the “6000 year old dragon who looks and acts like a child” character who wore a bikini
If I had to guess, it was Nowi in Awakening. They’ve had that problem since the beginning, but IIRC Awakening was the first time they paired it with an inappropriate costume.
Yea that’s who I was think of, I fully stopped playing the game shortly after she was introduced, kinda soured me on the whole series
In most of the games archers are basically useless tho.
Yee, It’s a matter of taste largely. Although i think AW has overall better unit balance, and FE’s lack of factories in most editions of the games changes the way maps are played.
Like, I dont really wanna explore Swordsman Thick Bricko’s tragic backtory and help him find his lost throne, losing the mission when he dies. I wanna send Pvt 1st class Bridge Namer into this chokepoint, and then draft his brother next turn.
I like them both, a lot, lol.
Advanced Wars is a blast, I’ll try and download the second one!!
All one needs is pokemon pinball…. I can still hear it
I think the games people usually recommend are great, but it sounds like you’ve played a lot of the usual stuff, so:
NES: Fire 'n Ice (puzzle game), Conquest Of The Crystal Palace (hard platformer with sword), The Adventures of Lolo 3 (action puzzle; they’re all good but I think 3 is the best intro), Super Mario Bros Flow (ROM hack, joyous)
SNES: Lufia II (whole RPG with great combat mechanics), EVO The Search For Eden (RPG platformer about evolution, weird as shit, grindy, kind of a trip), Demon’s Crest (hard as shit platformer with rpg/metroid mechanics), King Arthur’s World (RTS), Ultima 6 (open world RPG, completely unlike the SNES RPG canon)
finally another Lufia 2 enjoyer, was like the first game i emulated
Those sound like very niche recommendations, I’ll make sure to download them and check them out. Thanks a ton!!
Dunno what kind of games you’re into but there’s at least a dozen JRPGs for the SNES that are great, Star Ocean, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 3, Shadowrun, Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Evermore, Super Mario RPG, Earthbound. Off the top of my head for other genres, Yoshi’s Island, Super Metroid, Legend of Zelda, F-Zero, Starfox, Mega Man-X, Earthworm Jim, Demon’s Crest, Pocky and Rocky
Ohhh, super Mario RPG sounds interesting, I played Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, is it comparably good?
I’ll check out some of the JRPGs you’ve recommended, any in particular you recommend above the others? I used to love Sword of Mana so maybe I’ll like the setting of Secret of Mana
I haven’t played those but Super Mario RPG is regarded fondly by most people, they did do a remake a year or two ago. Secret of Mana looks pretty close to Sword of Mana just glancing at screenshots, I do really enjoy the early Star Ocean games, the battles are instanced but has similar combat to the Mana games and probably would have been more popular but it wasn’t ported to western markets until much later. Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 3 are also considered some of the best games on the console.
SMRPG is not really like Paper Mario or TTYD, but it’s still great. Instead of prototype Paper Mario, expect a particularly relaxed Final Fantasy with timed hits (and surprisingly good platforming)
Donkey Kong for the Game Boy Color. It looks like a simple arcade port at first, but they made a boatload of extra puzzle platformer levels.
I owned this one back in the day, it’s so good lol
I gotta try this one out, it looks way more ambitious than I was expecting.
There’s a handful of Mario vs Donkey Kong games that I believe are sequels to it. The OG is super charming, though, since it’s a very ambitious Game Boy game
The original Mario Vs Donkey Kong on GBA was and then the rest of the series is closer to Lemmings. They remade the gba one on switch for full price. I’m a big fan of the gba one, has more puzzles
Not exactly the answer you’re looking for but take a look at TechDweeb’s yt channel. He has a lot of videos that are compilations of sometimes off kilter games. And most videos have gameplay footage in them of something or other.
I would definately prioritizing playing something you’ve never tried before, as you’ll have time to settle in and really get to know it. Some good options that I think have aged well:
NES:
Kirby’s Adventure
Zelda 1
GB:
Link’s Awakening
Super Mario Land 2 (try the DX version)
GBA:
Advance Wars (any of them)
Metroid Zero Mission
SNES:
A Link to the Past
Super Mario All-Stars (the remastered version of Super Mario 3 is in here)
You might get pretty far through Super Metroid. A plane ride without distractions might be the right frame of mind to do some of the required exploration.
If you like RPGs, there are a gazillion great ones
Don’t disregard Sega console stuff. The Genesis had some frantic gameplay and spritework:
Gunstar Heroes
Thunder Force IV
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (best to play the Sonic 3 Complete romhack)
Castlevania - Bloodlines
Tons of good recs, I love advance wars and Mario games, as well as a link to the past! I’ll download kirby and the metroids, I’ll check out the castlevania too, I loved dawn of sorrow so maybe it’s up my alley
The pokemon trading card game for gameboy is a really fun rpg if you’re into the original 151 pokemon.
Shit I used to play that when I was like 4, I had a ROM in japanese for a PC emulator and I never understood anything, I’ll 100% be downloading that!!
There’s a sequel that only came out in japan but has a good fan translation i played. I think it’s just pokemon trading card game 2
Super Mario World 2
Any Pokémon before Crystal
Pokémon Trading Card Game for GB
I’m not exactly sure how the storage and file system works on that device but I’m assuming you load ROMs onto a SD or something. So for example you can torrent a zip file of ROMs for every SNES(and the other consoles listed but I’ll just to math for SNES here, but I can’t imagine the other are massively different) games is like 2 to 3 GB and unzipped 4.5 to 5.5GB, so assuming you have the version with 64GB storage you could feasible be able to get a ROM of every game for every platform you listed on it. Still good to get recs though as you may get ‘choice paralysis’ but if you can why not so you have the option if you get bored of whatever recs you get/play
Shin Red romhack for Pokemon is probably my favourite for first gen.
My go-to so far has been vimm’s lair, not sure where I could find such a zip file with all the games mentioned
Assuming you know how to torrent(you can just get a client, I use Transmission, and click the magnet links to initiate download, but you may want to check one of the piracy comms for a more detailed guide) just search for e.g. SNES games on a torrent site like the following Pirate Bay mirror(Ad blocker recommended)
Here’s one with 6666 games for a bunch of the platforms you mentioned
https://tpb.party/torrent/6988236/6666_games_Nintendo_NES-SNES-Sega-GBA-Atari-Arcade_ROMs_emulator
the actual torrent magnet link:
only 5.6GB (compressed)
this one has complete games for the platforms you listed + some more(but while torrenting you can pick and choose which parts to download, usually by right-clicking the download in your client’s list and selecting something like ‘files’ depends on client but can be googled easily, each console will have its own folder so just untick the ones you don’t need)
https://tpb.party/torrent/5712814/Dingoo_A320_Complete_ROMS_Pack_-_ROM_GBA__GBC__SNES__SMD__NeoGeo
magnet link:
27GB but will be less if you only select the platforms you want
Holy fuck that’s insane. I’m not very experienced in torrenting, I’ve downloaded a few things using deluge client but I’m sure I’ll manage. Awesome shit, immense thanks!!!
np!
Punch out!
