So i'm gonna be swapping around the review structure a bit for this due to personal preference but here we go...
Time for the
GENERIC GBA CLONE FROM DX REVIEW*
*now with 100% more caps-lock
From all the positive reviews on Dealextreme about the amazing build quality of the device i had quite high expectations for this. When i got it in my hands there was no doubt that it was built extremely well for a Chinese knockoff but there is no way it was as good as the quality of the real thing (as some people had mentioned)
The buttons (including the L+R Triggers use clicky switches in place of the contact pads of the GBA so pressing buttons turns into a noisy nightmare, especially for the shooters such as R-Type which were included with the device.
Luckily my old, broken GBA saved the day, the L+R triggers can be swapped out with a bit of de-soldering and once my CircuitWriter Pen arrives i can swap out the face buttons/rubber pads from my original GBA and have button pressing feel just as smooth as the real thing
Reliability
After a bit of playing around i was unfortunate enough to have somehow had the unit brick itself during testing which resulted in a loop of constant restarting when powered on. After hours of button mashing i happened to stumbled upon an undocumented recovery menu which (as warned by the menu) will delete all your files and is supposed to fix the unit. unfortunately it also deletes a vital system file which allows it to boot so at this point, the unit was simply displaying a white screen on booting rather than rebooting endlessly.
after a look at the file structure in comparison to a backup which i had the foresight to make beforehand, one system file is restored where as another is not so when re-copying that other file (do not overwrite the file that is already there or you just get the reboot loop again) it will finally go back to greeting you with it's OSX-esque menu.
USB Connectivity
When in-game, inserting the USB cable will thankfully just charge the unit rather than making it enter USB mode but when inserting the USB cable while in the OSX-esque main menu it will enter USB mode and allow you to browse the filesystem with your PC.
But before you do that
Hold down your shift key so that any auto-running programs on the device do not launch. Reason being that my unit (and i assume others too) was infected with a self-replicating trojan which (thankfully) avast was able to detect and thwart before any damage could be done. Feel free to delete "RavMon.exe" and "autorun.inf"
When adding your GBA ROMs you will not need to provide any boxart images with it as it would seem that it is shipped with boxarts for all games, not just those included on the device.
One other thing to note is that USB transfer speeds are unfortunately quite horrible with this device.
Retail Cartridge Support
When inserted, my Minish Cap cartridge booted correctly but unfortunately was unable to read my save data rendering the game unplayable.
I also decided to give a few of my GBC cartridges a try as the original GBA supported them (not micro, though) but unfortunately they failed to even boot.
Game Compatibility
Due to the extremely massive amount of games included i have chosen to just test the first 100 (which just happens to be all GBA games on the device plus two PocketNES ROMs for good measure)
Color key:
Works
Works with minor problems
Doesn't boot, crashes or has game-ruining glitches
included games: 92% working, 8% working with minor problems
Pokemon - The movie 2000 (The power of one) - Audio can go out of sync
Pokemon - Emerald Version
Pokemon - Sapphire Version
Pokemon - Ruby Version
Pokemon - Leaf Green Version
Pokemon - Fire Red - Works fine but it's actually a romhack called 'Liquid Crystal'
Super Mario Advance
Agassi Tennis Generation
Final Fight One
Super Street Fighter II Turbo - Revival
Gradius Advance
Total Soccer
Golden Sun
Wario Land 4
Jikkyou World Soccer Pocket
Tekken Advance
Crash Bandicoot XS
Space Invaders
NFL Blitz 20-03 - graphical glitch on one of the start up splash screens, may regress later in game
BMX Trick Racer
Comix Zone
Gekido Advance - Kintaro's Revenge
World Advance Soccer - Shouri heno Michi
Moto GP
Lunar Legend
Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper - once had invisible fighters, problem could not be replicated
Sega Rally Championship
WarioWare, Inc. - Minigame Mania - graphical glitch at game start, game play unaffected
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Crazy Taxi - Catch a Ride
Donkey Kong Country
Sega Smash Pack
Advance Wars 2 - Black Hole Rising
F1 2002 - One or two graphical glitches while in a menu
Lord of the Rings, The - The Return of the King
CIMA - The Enemy
Shrek the Third
Zidane Football Generation
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
King of Fighters EX2, The - Howling Blood
CT Special Forces 3 - Bioterror
Sonic Advance 3
Super Mario Advance 4 - Super Mario Bros. 3
FIFA Football 2005 - some audio problems in initial menu, perfectly playable
Wakeboarding Unleashed featuring Shaun Murray
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror - some in-game pausing/stuttering between level changes
Need for Speed - Underground 2
Mario vs. Donkey Kong
Final Fantasy I & II - Dawn of Souls
R-Type III - The Third Lightning
Metal Slug Advance
Legend of Zelda, The - The Minish Cap
Astro Boy - Omega Factor
Ace Combat Advance
Silent Scope
Contra Advance - The Alien Wars EX
Killer 3D Pool
Mr. Driller 2
Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Batman Begins
Dragon Ball - Advanced Adventure
Riviera - The Promised Land
Herbie - Fully Loaded
Dynasty Warriors Advance
Donkey Kong - King of Swing
Harvest Moon - More Friends of Mineral Town
Dragon Ball GT - Transformation
Megaman Zero 4
Sky Dancers - They Magically Fly!
Fire Emblem - The Sacred Stones
Gunstar Future Heroes
Ignition Collection Volume 1 - Animal Snap + Super Dropzone + World Tennis Stars
Nicktoons - Attack of the Toybots
Drill Dozer
Avatar - The Legend of Aang - The Burning Earth
Shaman King - Master of Spirits 2
2 Games in 1 - Castlevania - Harmony of Dissonance + Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow
Tales of Phantasia
Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown
Advance Guardian Heroes
2 Games in 1 - Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time + Tomb Raider - The Prophecy
Tomb Raider - Legend
Sword of Mana
Naruto - Ninja Council 2
2 Games in 1 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles + Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus
Summon Night - Swordcraft Story 2
2 Games in 1 - Cabela's Big Game Hunter - 2005 Adventures + Rapala Pro Fishing
Super Robot Taisen - Original Generation 2
Densetsu no Stafy 3
F24 Stealth Fighter
King of Fighters EX, The - NeoBlood
Original Harlem Globetrotters, The
Final Fantasy V Advance - some slow downs in-game
Spider-Man 3
2K Sports - Major League Baseball 2K7
2 Games in 1 - Sonic Battle + Chu Chu Rocket!
Super Robot Taisen - Original Generation
Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time
4 CARD G - NES game
1944 - NES game
Something to note is that the communications port cannot not be used as a communications port due to being a USB port so games such as Four Swords will suffer as a result.
Known problematic games:
Dragon Ball Z - Buu's Fury - Entered kai's house without "game cannot be played on this hardware" error no need for anti-piracy patch
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories - Freezes at opening cinematic with looping static noise
Dragon Ball Z - The Legacy of Goku I & II - both worked perfectly fine
Mother 3 - Both clean Japanese and English translation patch
Classic NES Series - Bomberman - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Dr. Mario - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Excitebike - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Ice Climber - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Metroid - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Pac-Man - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Super Mario Bros. - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - The Legend of Zelda - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Xevious - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Zelda II - The Adventure of Link - Reboots the unit
(keep in mind that thanks to all the pocketnes games included it is insignificant that the classic nes series doesn't work)
Pros/Cons
Improvements:
---
posted purely for archival sake
Time for the
GENERIC GBA CLONE FROM DX REVIEW*
*now with 100% more caps-lock
Build QualityFrom all the positive reviews on Dealextreme about the amazing build quality of the device i had quite high expectations for this. When i got it in my hands there was no doubt that it was built extremely well for a Chinese knockoff but there is no way it was as good as the quality of the real thing (as some people had mentioned)
The buttons (including the L+R Triggers use clicky switches in place of the contact pads of the GBA so pressing buttons turns into a noisy nightmare, especially for the shooters such as R-Type which were included with the device.
Luckily my old, broken GBA saved the day, the L+R triggers can be swapped out with a bit of de-soldering and once my CircuitWriter Pen arrives i can swap out the face buttons/rubber pads from my original GBA and have button pressing feel just as smooth as the real thing
Reliability
After a bit of playing around i was unfortunate enough to have somehow had the unit brick itself during testing which resulted in a loop of constant restarting when powered on. After hours of button mashing i happened to stumbled upon an undocumented recovery menu which (as warned by the menu) will delete all your files and is supposed to fix the unit. unfortunately it also deletes a vital system file which allows it to boot so at this point, the unit was simply displaying a white screen on booting rather than rebooting endlessly.
after a look at the file structure in comparison to a backup which i had the foresight to make beforehand, one system file is restored where as another is not so when re-copying that other file (do not overwrite the file that is already there or you just get the reboot loop again) it will finally go back to greeting you with it's OSX-esque menu.
USB Connectivity
When in-game, inserting the USB cable will thankfully just charge the unit rather than making it enter USB mode but when inserting the USB cable while in the OSX-esque main menu it will enter USB mode and allow you to browse the filesystem with your PC.
But before you do that
Hold down your shift key so that any auto-running programs on the device do not launch. Reason being that my unit (and i assume others too) was infected with a self-replicating trojan which (thankfully) avast was able to detect and thwart before any damage could be done. Feel free to delete "RavMon.exe" and "autorun.inf"
When adding your GBA ROMs you will not need to provide any boxart images with it as it would seem that it is shipped with boxarts for all games, not just those included on the device.
One other thing to note is that USB transfer speeds are unfortunately quite horrible with this device.
Retail Cartridge Support
When inserted, my Minish Cap cartridge booted correctly but unfortunately was unable to read my save data rendering the game unplayable.
I also decided to give a few of my GBC cartridges a try as the original GBA supported them (not micro, though) but unfortunately they failed to even boot.
Game Compatibility
Due to the extremely massive amount of games included i have chosen to just test the first 100 (which just happens to be all GBA games on the device plus two PocketNES ROMs for good measure)
Color key:
Works
Works with minor problems
Doesn't boot, crashes or has game-ruining glitches
included games: 92% working, 8% working with minor problems
Pokemon - The movie 2000 (The power of one) - Audio can go out of sync
Pokemon - Emerald Version
Pokemon - Sapphire Version
Pokemon - Ruby Version
Pokemon - Leaf Green Version
Pokemon - Fire Red - Works fine but it's actually a romhack called 'Liquid Crystal'
Super Mario Advance
Agassi Tennis Generation
Final Fight One
Super Street Fighter II Turbo - Revival
Gradius Advance
Total Soccer
Golden Sun
Wario Land 4
Jikkyou World Soccer Pocket
Tekken Advance
Crash Bandicoot XS
Space Invaders
NFL Blitz 20-03 - graphical glitch on one of the start up splash screens, may regress later in game
BMX Trick Racer
Comix Zone
Gekido Advance - Kintaro's Revenge
World Advance Soccer - Shouri heno Michi
Moto GP
Lunar Legend
Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past
Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper - once had invisible fighters, problem could not be replicated
Sega Rally Championship
WarioWare, Inc. - Minigame Mania - graphical glitch at game start, game play unaffected
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
Crazy Taxi - Catch a Ride
Donkey Kong Country
Sega Smash Pack
Advance Wars 2 - Black Hole Rising
F1 2002 - One or two graphical glitches while in a menu
Lord of the Rings, The - The Return of the King
CIMA - The Enemy
Shrek the Third
Zidane Football Generation
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
King of Fighters EX2, The - Howling Blood
CT Special Forces 3 - Bioterror
Sonic Advance 3
Super Mario Advance 4 - Super Mario Bros. 3
FIFA Football 2005 - some audio problems in initial menu, perfectly playable
Wakeboarding Unleashed featuring Shaun Murray
Kirby & The Amazing Mirror - some in-game pausing/stuttering between level changes
Need for Speed - Underground 2
Mario vs. Donkey Kong
Final Fantasy I & II - Dawn of Souls
R-Type III - The Third Lightning
Metal Slug Advance
Legend of Zelda, The - The Minish Cap
Astro Boy - Omega Factor
Ace Combat Advance
Silent Scope
Contra Advance - The Alien Wars EX
Killer 3D Pool
Mr. Driller 2
Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Batman Begins
Dragon Ball - Advanced Adventure
Riviera - The Promised Land
Herbie - Fully Loaded
Dynasty Warriors Advance
Donkey Kong - King of Swing
Harvest Moon - More Friends of Mineral Town
Dragon Ball GT - Transformation
Megaman Zero 4
Sky Dancers - They Magically Fly!
Fire Emblem - The Sacred Stones
Gunstar Future Heroes
Ignition Collection Volume 1 - Animal Snap + Super Dropzone + World Tennis Stars
Nicktoons - Attack of the Toybots
Drill Dozer
Avatar - The Legend of Aang - The Burning Earth
Shaman King - Master of Spirits 2
2 Games in 1 - Castlevania - Harmony of Dissonance + Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow
Tales of Phantasia
Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown
Advance Guardian Heroes
2 Games in 1 - Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time + Tomb Raider - The Prophecy
Tomb Raider - Legend
Sword of Mana
Naruto - Ninja Council 2
2 Games in 1 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles + Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 - Battle Nexus
Summon Night - Swordcraft Story 2
2 Games in 1 - Cabela's Big Game Hunter - 2005 Adventures + Rapala Pro Fishing
Super Robot Taisen - Original Generation 2
Densetsu no Stafy 3
F24 Stealth Fighter
King of Fighters EX, The - NeoBlood
Original Harlem Globetrotters, The
Final Fantasy V Advance - some slow downs in-game
Spider-Man 3
2K Sports - Major League Baseball 2K7
2 Games in 1 - Sonic Battle + Chu Chu Rocket!
Super Robot Taisen - Original Generation
Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time
4 CARD G - NES game
1944 - NES game
Something to note is that the communications port cannot not be used as a communications port due to being a USB port so games such as Four Swords will suffer as a result.
Known problematic games:
Dragon Ball Z - Buu's Fury - Entered kai's house without "game cannot be played on this hardware" error no need for anti-piracy patch
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories - Freezes at opening cinematic with looping static noise
Dragon Ball Z - The Legacy of Goku I & II - both worked perfectly fine
Mother 3 - Both clean Japanese and English translation patch
Classic NES Series - Bomberman - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Dr. Mario - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Excitebike - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Ice Climber - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Metroid - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Pac-Man - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Super Mario Bros. - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - The Legend of Zelda - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Xevious - Reboots the unit
Classic NES Series - Zelda II - The Adventure of Link - Reboots the unit
(keep in mind that thanks to all the pocketnes games included it is insignificant that the classic nes series doesn't work)
Pros/Cons
Improvements:
- Back-lit screen
- Rechargeable battery
- AC adapter
- USB compatible
- Onscreen prompt when low on battery charge
- Comes with 498 free, highly illegal .gba ROMs including some real GBA gems and what i would assume to be almost the entire NES catalog packaged into pocketNES ROMs
- In-game features such as Realtime Save/Load, Realtime Guide and Soft-Reset
- Clicky Buttons
- GBA carts boot but can't save or load game saves
- GB/GBC carts refuse to boot at all
- Feels too light
- BRICKS ITSELF
- Communications port cannot be used for communications, is instead used for data transfer and charging
- Avast alerts me that the exe included on the gba is a trojan
---
posted purely for archival sake
