So I've recently went full steam into Zelda. (20 hours into my very first Zelda game...Twilight Princess HD).
I was doing some reading and decided to pick up a few more and got A Link to the Past, Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass & Spirit Tracks. (I already have WWHD, all the 3DS titles and SS).
With A Link to the Past & Minish Cap, what will give me the best experience:
Play on my Advance SP?
Play on my Wii U VC?
I already bought the cartridges for the Advance, but before I begin I thought I'd get forum thoughts.
(Bonus points: SNES vs Advance version of A Link to the Past)?
A Link to the Past and Minish Cap are best on Wii U, for obvious reasons (you can save your game anytime, and you can change the button configuration). Despite what others are saying, the emulation of NES, SNES, and GBA games on Wii U is top notch, as they feel 1:1 like the original that you wouldn't notice a difference.
However, the GBA version of ALttP is best if you have four copies of it and 4 GBA SP's, and 3 more people, to play the included Four Swords extra game.
GBA ALttP has lower resolution and a couple of other differences. The most obvious ones concern the audio side of things: the music is of a much lower quality and Link has his sounds from Ocarina retroactively added to the game, which you might find tiresome after some time. Other than that, the GBA version has an extra dungeon, IIRC, but I've heard it's nothing to write home about. Some text was also altered to fit better with concepts introduced in Ocarina as well. Nothing too major, but different enough to alter your perception of the game.
I'd say go with the SNES version if you can, since it's the original experience.
I love the GBA to death, but I strongly disagree with this, especially considering @Dreamliner is playing on an SP model, which probably means no headphones.
@Meowpheel Immersion purposes and more obvious channel difference. I usually play on a micro, so I use headphones all the time due to the default mono sound. I'm not that familiar with the SP, doesn't it have just one speaker?
I think it does. I also play on the Micro, but rarely use headphones. ALttP sounds just fine without them though.... Maybe it's just me.
About that URL, it doesn't really mention changes to the in-game text. But it does list other differences, it's a good read if the thread creator wants to see which version is better for them.
@Meowpheel It does sound fine, just not as good. About the text, check the "Naming Changes" section. Small details, but it does make the GBA game more consistent with the rest of the series than the original version.
I did remember something that might give the GBA version the edge, though: the reworked Ice Palace. Way less tedious in the GBA version. Not as much of a pain as the Water Temple in OoT vs. OoT3D, but inconvenient nonetheless.
@Dreamliner Check the IGN list I posted previously and pick your poison. Each version has strengths and weaknesses, so ponder which one you think you'd enjoy more.
Graphics in SNES ALttP were designed for standard definition T.V.s and (as I understand from reading this thread) it has better sound...so really, there's no advantage to playing it on the GBA other than the convenience of playing on handheld.
Minish Cap was designed ground up to run on GBA and for the small GBA screen and so blown up to that many times the size and without scan-lines (which the GBA doesn't have, but which just tend to help matters with 16 and 32 bit SD games in HD regardless of where they originate (Minish Cap is nowhere near even standard SD resolution)) you might find the graphics a bit of an eyesore...if that doesn't bother you then I'd say play both on the Wii-U VC for the additional features (although I'm not sure what those are as I don't have a Wii-U yet).
If you've got an old SD CRT around the place somewhere I'd recommend running your Wii-U into that for your SD Wii-U VC games rather than an HD LCD screen (not sure if there are scan line generators out there that work with the Wii-U. I've not looked at the market for that stuff for a while. I've got one for my Dreamcast and it says it works with other machines but I've not tried it with anything other than dreamcast).
If you're getting seriously into retro-gaming I'd recommend looking at picking up an XRGB-Mini as its easier than trying to source a CRT, it can (I believe) generate scanlines and up-rezzes and smoothes graphics to look a bit nicer on LCD screens, (you might want to take a look at their forums beforehand to check Wii-U compatibility.).
Minis Cap and ALttP(GBA) have basically the same character-background size ratio. They both (and the NES original) look quite wonderfully on the GBA.
It's also worth mentioning that ALttP was reworked a bit to work properly on the GBA. Areas that required you to notice something on the edge of the screen take the smaller size in consideration.
On the WiiU, GBA games have a nice pixel blending feature that makes the game look nicer on the big screen. SNES and GBA both support save states and control customization.
GBA VC games can be played with a normal WiiMote, though there's not enough buttons compared to a GBA so results vary from game to game.
If I want to make a good collection of Virtual Console games I could only save 300 games on one external memory storage anyway, so a good collection is not possible without deleting all your other stuff or getting a second storage medium.
I collected 150 Virtual Console games but with a 300 limit it's not fun. In fact I already deleted most NES, and SNES games to have room for new Nindie games. I wish Virtual Console was just one channel instead of every game is its own channel. I wish you could save up to 1000 games instead of 300, especially when you got a 2TB hard drive. Now with that limit I could live. Until I hit it again. ^^
Forums
Topic: SNES & Gameboy Advance...Original cart vs WiiU VC?
Posts 1 to 20 of 22
This topic has been archived, no further posts can be added.