Topic: GBA very underrated........

Underrated? I've seen people say it was their favourite handheld console just as much, if not more than the DS. I agree it is a little overlooked but it still gets a lot of praise.

I don't see how the GBA was underrated then or now :/ kinda like saying breaking bad or the original star wars trilogy are underrated.

Underrated has nothing to do with how much units it sold. Underrated just means it doesn't get enough praise. Just sayin'.

If by underrated you mean that everyone loved it and it sold very well, then yes.

Worth thinking about, if you own a GBA and a 3DS, you have access to Nintendo's entire 24 year line-up of handheld software.

The term underrated is vague here, it can mean many things. It also has something to do with how much was sold. There's a reason why it got to sell that many units in a small span of time. For the record, many people did view the GBA as a great system and still hold fond memories of the system, even stating it has a better library than the DS (which I can get behind).

Umm..... Like I asked earlier, People claim that the sound quality of GBA is horrible. Do you guys think this is true?

To put it lightly alot of the GBA's sound, particularly the soundtracks, are "compressed", not horrible in any way but still compressed (based on a good chunk of games I've played). I'd say while it's graphic capabilities are better than the SNES, the latter trumps the former. But as I said, the sound quality's not bad at all, nothing ear grating like the R-zone and definitely won't retract anyone from appreciating the system IMO.

No, I never had a problem with the sound. Unless you're one of those people who hates the GBA ports of the SNES games.

@Artwark: Nope, the sound was always fine to me... in fact a few of its games have some of my favorite songs from video games ever, haha!

No the sound was fine then is still fine now I don't think anyone really had a problem with GBA aside from what @ShadowFox254 mentioned about the SNES ports like Yoshi's Island and even then that was a tiny complaint.

I think it's somewhat overrated tbh.

I'd argue the GBA's library barely gets edged out by the DS library, and that's thanks mostly to a lot of good RPGs that the DS didn't have. As far as a variety of great games go, I'd argue the GBA is superior.

Well for me, even though the GBA SP was my first game console, it never "wowed" me like the DS and, later, the 3DS did... When I got my DS lite... I was in love, haha. Same deal with the 3DS. The 3DS beats the DS by miles! ...though, now, my only two consoles are my old GBA SP and my 3DS... and my GBA is not forgotten - I still play it sometimes.

I wouldn't say underrated as much as I would say it was cut short. The GBA had a comparatively short life span. The Gameboy Color didn't have a long run either, but that wasn't a full hardware upgrade. There were GBA releases after the DS debut in 2004, but it was never the same. I can't say much about audio quality. I've seen claims that the GBA hardware processed sound in software rather than hardware. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. One advantage the GBA would have would be larger standard cart sizes. The audio never bothered me, and the GBA is one of my absolute favorite systems ever.

Its weird that the sound quality couldn't match the same as Snes because the GBA if i'm not mistaken is a 32-bit system and is certainly more powerful than Snes and Genesis which are 16 bit so why couldn't the GBA run 16-bit soundtrack instead of being compressed?

I wouldn't say the GBA was underrated at all! The system sold gangbusters back in it's heyday and it's library of games have sold countless numbers. I think people are just in limbo as to whether or not the GBA should be considered "retro" or not since it's really only 2 generations back in gaming and it seems to have been a quick 12 years since it's seen release. I have a 13 year rule that a console or system be out before I can consider it retro, but that's just a personal rule and others will see it differently. But yeah, the GBA was amazing and games like Golden Sun, Metroid Zero, Mario & Luigi, Phantom Hourglass, and others helped to make this console something very special.

just a small correction, Phantom Hourglass was in the DS but in compensation the GBA had Minish Cap that's even better!

I guess I never thought of the sound as being that bad but I don't really bash on games for the sound either(unless it is absolutely unbearable somehow and in which case I will just mute it as long as it still is fun to play).

For those curious
SNES music vs. GBA music

Personally, I'd say the GBA really can't do it justice (My least favorite aspect of the system), but I'm very very picky about this kind of thing. (I hate even touching a model 2 Genesis)