Handheld Highlights
I feel like the retro handhelds don't get as much love as home consoles did. As far as system I liked the Sega Nomad despite it's horrid battery life. As for handheld games, one of my personal faovirtes is the Boktai Series on the GBA. What are some of your favorites?
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On the Game Boy I had fond memories of Kirby's Dream Land, Tecmo Bowl, Super Mario Land, Dr. Mario, Tetris and TMNT Fall of the Foot Clan.
As an adult, I've really come to enjoy the Game Boy library. It's gotten a bit pricier to attain but I'd heartily recommend Kid Dracula. It's a fantastic game. I'd also recommend the three Castlevania games, the 2 remaining TMNT games as well as the Mega Man titles, especially Mega Man V (again, expensive but a solid game.)
There are other standouts that I don't have nostalgic factor tied to in titles such as Kid Icarus, both Battletoads games, Gargoyle's Quest and so many more.
GBA: Golden Sun (both titles)
Here are some of my Favorites growing up! there are PLENTY More that are worth a play through that I didnt list!
GB/GBC:
Mole Mania
Kirby's Dreamland 1-2
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Donkey Kong Land 1-3
Super Mario Land "series"
Yoda Stories
Metroid II
James bond 007
Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
Gameboy Camera
Gargoyles Quest
Zelda: Links Awakening /DX
Zelda: Ages/Seasons
Pokemon Pinball
Pokemon TCG
GBA:
Castlevania "Series"
Mario Kart Super Circuit
Super Mario Advance "Series"
Metroid Fusion/Zero Mission
Zelda: Minish Cap
Mario + Luigi
Golden Sun 1-2
Sonic Advance "Series"
DBZ: Legacy of Goku
Sonic Battle
Gunstar Heroes
Fire Emblem
Metal Slug Advance
Super Robot Wars
Bomberman Advance
Megaman Battle Network
Final Fight ONE
Game Gear:
Sonic Triple Trouble
Star Wars
Duck tales
Collumns
Tails Adventure
Streets of Rage
Neo geo Pocket:
Pocket Fighter
Sonic The Hedgehog
Metal Slug
Dark Arms
N-Gage:
Sonic N (Sonic Advance)
Elder Scrolls
Wonderswan:
Gundam Operation U.C.
Dont get me started on the DS... with that being said with the GAMEBOY alone Theres just too many games to list!
I generally am not too big on the GB family for the most part. DS is one of my all-time favorite systems though.
Here's a few notable ones:
PSP:
Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X
Mega Man: Powered-Up
PopoloCrois
GAME GEAR:
Tails Adventures
DS:
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (great tool for japanese learners, much better than that shit My Japanese Coach which taught me nothing and that I promptly sold)
Pokemon SoulSilver
Just to name a handful of them.
The GBA Ports of the FF games are stellar.
I generally am not too big on the GB family for the most part. DS is one of my all-time favorite systems though.
Here's a few notable ones:
PSP:
Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X
Mega Man: Powered-Up
PopoloCrois
GAME GEAR:
Tails Adventures
DS:
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (great tool for japanese learners, much better than that shit My Japanese Coach which taught me nothing and that I promptly sold)
Pokemon SoulSilver
Just to name a handful of them.
I totally forgot about the PSP There are a TON of Great PSP games out there too! (alot of them are imports)
But we did get a good lot of great stuff here too!
Growing up, I had the Game Boy Pocket, GBC, GBA, and DS. I'd have to say that I was the perfect age to ride the Pokemon train. I sunk hundreds of hours into those games; I had almost all of the main series games up until they made the jump to 3DS. One of my favorite series, for sure. Another big chunk of my time was devoted to SNES ports on the GBA; we never had a SNES growing up, so besides some random times at people's houses, the GBA was my main introduction to SMW, Yoshi's Island, etc.
But we did get a good lot of great stuff here too!
PopoloCrois was the main reason I bought a PSP in the first place. It was already a popular series for the PlayStation systems in Japan, and to see it finally localized was nice. I became aware of it when I heard a song from the game on someone's website years ago. Fun, charming, and definately underrated, at least in the west.
I had a black play it loud gameboy, a kiwi green GBC, and a Glacier GBA. Had most of the obvious games on GBA/GBC.
For GB i had the following. Looking back i missed out on a lot of games, and even entire series. But this is what my childhood consisted of from about 4 years old.
Links Awakening
Donkey Kong
Mario Land 1,2,3
Tetris
Heinkayo Alien
Batman
Revenge of the Gator
Pokemon
Double Dragon
TMNT
Castlevania adventure
Killer Instinct
Final Fantasy 1,2,3,A
Zen Intergalactic Ninja
Kirby Dreamland and blockball
My favorite memories of playing handhelds...
Probably my most cherished game is Shining Soul 2 for the gba. When I was young I didn't get new games very often so I did TONS of research into them. Once I decided on this game I found that I couldn't find it in any of my local stores: Walmart, target, eb games. But my aunt took me to the mall one day and I went to the game stop (or it might have been eb games at the time) and they had that game! She even bought it for me so I didn't have to use my own money.
I put so many hours into that game. It was the first action rpg I had ever played.
Now that I'm thinking about it I'm probably going to have to bust it back out again tonight. Hopefully all my saves are there
Link's Awakening
Kirby's Dream Land
Super Mario Land (1/2)
Tetris
Bart vs. The Juggernauts
GBA
Metroid Zero Mission
Ninja Five-O
Advance Wars
Guardian Heroes
PSP
Lumines
Infected
DS
999
Monster Tale
Art Academy
3DS
Link Between Worlds
Pilotwings Resort
VITA
Gravity Rush
Uncharted
Sly Cooper Thieves in Time
DJ Max Technika Tune
Virtue's Last Reward
Danganronpa
I admit the PSP does seem catered to the dudebro demographic. It became a great destination for JRPGs towards the end of its life, but honestly was like the Xbox of handhelds. Pretty graphics with dudebro games galore. And like the Xbox, the software library is so easy to pirate that no one bothers to buy the actual games, although I'm glad to say I do own my most favorites. Still, I'd rather play Disgaea or Phantom Brave on PS2. The latter didn't look as smooth as it did on the original console, and honestly I'd rather play the PS3 remaster of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep than the original handheld one. Ape Escape had a good port on the system, but PSP was the most guilty of giving me eye-strain. Too bright and flashy. Games like Gradius Collection were painful to play on it, and honestly I didn't care for emulators when I softmodded mine. I mostly use it to play games I own transfered to the stick, as well as pirated sports games for my nephew when he comes over.
God, There Are so many Great Handheld Games!
Here are some of my Favorites growing up! there are PLENTY More that are worth a play through that I didnt list!
GB/GBC:
Mole Mania
Kirby's Dreamland 1-2
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
Donkey Kong Land 1-3
Super Mario Land "series"
Yoda Stories
Metroid II
James bond 007
Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow
Gameboy Camera
Gargoyles Quest
Zelda: Links Awakening /DX
Zelda: Ages/Seasons
Pokemon Pinball
Pokemon TCG
GBA:
Castlevania "Series"
Mario Kart Super Circuit
Super Mario Advance "Series"
Metroid Fusion/Zero Mission
Zelda: Minish Cap
Mario + Luigi
Golden Sun 1-2
Sonic Advance "Series"
DBZ: Legacy of Goku
Sonic Battle
Gunstar Heroes
Fire Emblem
Metal Slug Advance
Super Robot Wars
Bomberman Advance
Megaman Battle Network
Final Fight ONE
Game Gear:
Sonic Triple Trouble
Star Wars
Duck tales
Collumns
Tails Adventure
Streets of Rage
Neo geo Pocket:
Pocket Fighter
Sonic The Hedgehog
Metal Slug
Dark Arms
N-Gage:
Sonic N (Sonic Advance)
Elder Scrolls
Wonderswan:
Gundam Operation U.C.
Dont get me started on the DS... with that being said with the GAMEBOY alone Theres just too many games to list!
This guy gets it, honestly sometimes I think I like GB/GBA more then NES/SNES.
For shame we still dontbgave a DS player or Wii U App. Even after it was mentioned at their Board meeting last year
GB/GBC Color:
Dragon Warrior Monsters
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 (both versions)
The main series pokemon games of course (all 6)
Zelda links awakening
GBA:
Boktai
Fire emblem
Fire emblem sacred stones
Megaman Battle Network (All 6)
The main series pokemon games (all 5)
Super Mario 3
Zelda a link to the past
Super Robot Taisen Original Generation
Super Robot Taisen Original Generation 2
Breath of Fire
Breath of Fire 2
Scurge Hive (this is on the DS as well)
DS:
Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 1 and 2
Dragon Quest Heroes Rocket Slime
Digimon World DS
Digimon World Dawn
Digimon World Dusk
Drone Tactics
Pokemon (all the main series ones)
Suikoden Tierkreis
Yu-gi-oh World Championship 2011
Megaman Battle Network 5 Double Team DS
Tetris DS
Mario Kart DS
Civilization Revolution
Final Fantasy Chocobo Tales
Geometry Wars
Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland
3DS:
Cave Story 3D
Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon
Fire Emblem Awakening
Pokemon X and Y
Star Fox 64
Super Smash Bros for 3DS
Zelda Ocarina of Time
Zelda a link between Worlds
PSP:
There are so many that look good it's not even funny. So far though I've only actually played through a lot of these 2
Hexyz Force
Final Fantasy
GBA - Minish Cap, LttP
DSi - Spirit Tracks
Game Gear - X-Men and Joe Montana Football.
Atari Lynx - Rygar, California Game, Road Blaster
Kirby's Pinball
Space Invaders
Mole Mania
Battle Arena Toshinden
Urban Strike
Super Off Road
Pokemon Red
But I'll be damned if I didn't play the shit out of Pokemon Red all the time on that big brick.
Here are my top 5 picks:
GBC:
5. Tetris DX
4. DK Country
3. Metal Gear Solid
2. Mario Golf/Tennis
1. SMB Deluxe
GBA:
5. Sword of Mana
4. Mario Golf
3. Tactics Ogre
2. WarioWare
1. Advance Wars 2
DS:
5. Chrono Trigger
4. Phoenix Wright Series
3. Radiant Historia
2. Advance Wars Dual Strike
1. Dragon Quest IX
3DS:
5. Animal Crossing
4. Virtue's Last Reward
3. Super Mario 3D Land
2. Story of Seasons
1. Fire Emblem Awakening
Monster Hunter 2 and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite
Phantasy Star Portable 1 and 2
Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles
Darkstalkers Chronicles: The Chaos Tower
and Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core