# The Good Ol' Days



## JPH (May 22, 2008)

Well, I was just thinking about the GBA days. What were they like? 
I can imagine it was better. 
I'm sure back then, flashcarts were less mainstream, dumping teams were more active, and it was overall just better times.

So, how were they?


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## gizmo_gal (May 22, 2008)

I dont know. I never used or was serious about flashcards on the GBA because they were so expensive. I played an emulator before I got an SP, after I got an SP I never really played the emulators anymore. I've probably owned about 7 games over all for my sp, but I loved it and played them often. I go through intense gaming phases every now and then and then I go through long spells of not gaming at all, so my games lasted me a long time.


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## Panzer Tacticer (May 22, 2008)

"Good ole days"

I thought you would at least make back as far as the NES 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Everything was cool right up to the moment the new thing arrives.

I still find it interesting how disinterested my son can be in the PS1.
But I recall when it first came out how frickin awesome it seemed.
Right up till the PS2 made it look like crap.
Then the PS3 made the PS2 look like crap.

I think the Nintendo DS is great. I've gone through all the pre DS games, and frankly I don't need a slot 2 option, don't want to play any of those games 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




And in a few years time I suppose something will be on the shelf that makes it hard to be thrilled to own a DS.


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## FAST6191 (May 22, 2008)

Usual disclaimer: I am not and have never been part of the scene proper ("proper" groups, rules, encrypted FTP, IRC and whatnot) but that is not really what you asked I guess.

handheld: the biggest difference from my perspective is lack of intros (a different topic though, see state of the GBA / NDS scene somewhere a year or two back: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=36088&st=0 for more on that).

Flash carts: expensive perhaps but I never felt ripped off once. In some regards led by hardware rather than software (RTC, PSRAM, NAND memory vs NOR and then external memory versus the desire for stuff like soft reset, cheats, ingame stuff, real time saves and whatever else I see people whimper on about). Vendors/makers were far more isolated than they are today even if the big makers today were around back then in some form (people were happy to mess around machine translation and Chinese forums to get software and the most they ever contributed was a cheat or two compared to now where we have customers leading the charge with cheats, skins, patching help, cart based software (pogoshell was pretty much it for cart access software)).
While they may not have been quite as widespread the ratio of idiots to sensible people is about the same.

Rom hacking was pretty much just cheats and courtesy of extremely well developed emulators they were extensive. OK there were some pokemon hacks but most were awful 3 hours with a hacking tool job.
Homebrew: emulators were great and a lot of games were also great while stuff like ftp, email and so on was non existent for the most part (probably owing to minimal internet capabilities and lack of cart side memory access and lower resources).
Most hacking from a saves/protection side of things was "scene" led unlike today (barring some of the recent wii stuff) which has flash cart makers and a few individuals doing the vast majority of stuff (DS wise the last stuff was perhaps the browser hacks from triforce with previous stuff having to go further back to the few patches and patching tools released).

Consoles: every fool and his donkey had a PS1 chip or some method of running backups, a situation I see reflected in the wii right down to the ratio of inspired works to shovelware. Homebrew (even if only for emulators and media playback) plays a far bigger role however. The level of customisation is incredible too: my xbox currently runs a whole different OS (of sorts), my DS has a custom firmware and a whole raft of software and if I bothered to fix it my wii looks to be heading down the same route. Nod to Sony for making half decent official attempt at this with MS and Nintendo even making an effort in the area.

Overall it was different in many regards but I would not go so far as to say better, provided you look hard enough the people are still there. The rise of cheap broadband and media (flash cards may appear expensive in retrospect but look at prices for CF back then and you will not see much disparity) has certainly helped/changed things although I find it odd that a fair few people have returned to usenet, irc, ftp and slightly less ostentatious hosting sites like rapidshare (although with the exception of rapidshare I guess it is proven technology: split 20 meg rar files are far from a new distribution method).
Just for the record here in the UK and any part of Europe I found myself in (which granted was mainly western Europe) in the midst of the PS1 era ISDN was awesome and cable modems the stuff of legend, 650 meg CDRs of dubious quality were about £1 a hit if you were lucky (drives were not bad though) meaning rental shops did great business (for a day or so).

RE: Panzer Tacticer and old(er) consoles it may just be the circles I find myself in but the younger siblings and offspring of friends are still up for the odd blast on an older game amongst the newer stuff. This may have something to do with the 16 bit era largely representing the finest games of the 2d type and 3d stuff still playing catchup aside from a precious few titles/developers.


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## Hadrian (May 22, 2008)

The GBC years were much better, always seemed like there was a good game out each month.  GBA was great but not as much.


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## SleepingDragon (May 22, 2008)

Hey Panzer Tacticer, it's the "Circle of Life" my friend, the circle of life!

I think the main thing that has happened in the new flash cart/emulator world is the reduction in value of _a single good game_.  I mean, I still remember the day I got Tecmo Bowl on my NES.  What an awesome day that was!  My parents bought it for me and sent it in a care package to me at college.  My buddies and I stayed up playing that game for weeks without sleep!  My grades took a serious nose-dive and my social life went in the toilet, but I didn't care.  I was playing the greatest game in the history of gaming, or so I thought at the time.

Nowadays, my daughters ( and I too) have so many choices as far as which games they can play, they seem to get bored with them very quickly.  Even when a game comes out that they have really been waiting for, like ZeldaH or the newest Pokemon, they start almost immediately talking about what is coming out _next_!  I guess we just don't savor and relish each induvudual game today like we used to.  Of course, it could be because there aren't as many good-quality games to savor these days!


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## Westside (May 22, 2008)

Back in the GBA ages, people barely used flash carts, as Visual Boy advanced and other emulators were extremely well done and near perfection so people didn't see the reason to even buy the GBA hardware.  NDS is more difficult to emulate, therefore ALOT more people ending up buying the flashcart and all.


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## Minox (May 22, 2008)

Westside said:
			
		

> Back in the GBA ages, people barely used flash carts, as Visual Boy advanced and other emulators were extremely well done and near perfection so people didn't see the reason to even buy the GBA hardware.  NDS is more difficult to emulate, therefore ALOT more people ending up buying the flashcart and all.


True, I was playing Gba games on my old 400mhz computer.

I still consider the Good Ol' Days to be the Snes era though.


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## DeMoN (May 24, 2008)

Heh, I still remember when the DS came out and people waited a long time for emulators and flash cards that never came out.  Only now have we finally cracked the DS.


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## CorruptJon (May 27, 2008)

Yeah... the days when GBA roms were actually HARD to find. Crazy if you think about it


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## T-hug (May 27, 2008)

The GBA days/scene was awesome and I miss it dearly.  I don't even consider the DS to have a scene.


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## Norman3000 (May 30, 2008)

They're still good here at my place all of my friend still stick to gba and there are only a three of us with dses here kind of sad i sold my gba for a ds i cant join their fun but its ok, my ds can play music lol


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## Eternal Myst (May 30, 2008)

The Snes.Which I have beaten almost every amazing game on it,and also beat their hacked versions.
Did someone say hacks?
Click on the Sig for more info.

I wasn't alive in the snes era,but  I found my father old snes after he passed away,and I fell in love with it.


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