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The beloved GameBoy Advance classic, Metroid Fusion, will be available for Nintendo Switch Online users on March 9th, 2023, announced by Nintendo through Twitter. As with all the other recently added GameBoy Advance games, Metroid Fusion will only be available for users that purchased the Expansion Pass for the service, which also includes N64 and Genesis games, as well as Mario Kart 8, Animal Crossing and Splatoon 2's DLC content.

It is still unknown if the addition of Metroid Fusion to the online service will have any kind of connectivity to Metroid Prime Remaster for the possible unlocking of the Fusion Suit in Prime Remaster, which is still missing from the Remastered version releases a couple of weeks ago. The original Metroid Prime on Gamecube did have the Fusion Suit as an extra unlockable when users connected their Metroid Fusion copy for GBA through the GBA Link Cable to Metroid Prime.

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[ShadowOne333]

I can't wait for it to come out,it seems to me from the teaser that there are some additional areas compared to the original(which i played and completed with the GBA emulator)

Additional areas?
Where?

 

[NeoGranzon]

Additional areas?
Where?

@ShadowOne333 ,In the teaser i thought i saw some bosses that you don't face during the game.

 

[Pandaxclone2]

@ShadowOne333 ,In the teaser i thought i saw some bosses that you don't face during the game.

Pretty sure there are no extra areas or bosses showcased in the trailer from what I saw. Generally speaking, Nintendo doesn't modify their own retro games unless it's for pragmatic reasons. (i.e. Removing effects that could cause epilepsy, or otherwise censoring/correcting content that is seen as offensive like Jynx in Pokemon Yellow 3DS re-release.)

 

[Maximumbeans]

@ShadowOne333 ,In the teaser i thought i saw some bosses that you don't face during the game.

Afraid not. I completed Fusion again the other day and everything I see in the trailer is standard stuff.

Man, they really washed the colours out though. Looks like shit compared to the standard palette.

 

[NinStar]

Just one game? Wtf? They sould at the very least add 3 games per month now that it is a new platform added to the service.
How people still pay for this trash?

 

[NeoGranzon]

Afraid not. I completed Fusion again the other day and everything I see in the trailer is standard stuff.

Man, they really washed the colours out though. Looks like shit compared to the standard palette.

@Maximumbeans ,and for the other guys nobody is perfect i may have been wrong because i remembered wrong.
What is the expansion pack?

 

[Nix_Lon]

Most GBA games on NSO get this weird filter that desaturates the colors, making the games look kinda pastel-ish.
Looking at the Fusion trailer, you can see it very well, if you look at the SA-X. It's supposed to resemble the Varia Suit from Super Metroid, but on NSO, the colors look way off. Sector 2 (TRO) looks especially washed out and dark.
View attachment 356987
I'm currently not at that point in the story, so I grabbed the GBA screenshot from metroidwiki.org
View attachment 356988
I guess they were trying to make it resemble a GBA screen, but no GBA makes the image look pastel
Would be cool if we could at least turn it off, but if Nintendo wants us to have a filter, we'll get the filter without exception.

Not surprising considering that the leaked GBA emulator (aka "Sloop", the one GBA NSO uses right now) for the Nintendo Switch has an AGS Aging ROM and several open-source accuracy test ROMs in the package to test the accuracy of the emulator - pretty telling that the devs were aiming for emulation accuracy beforehand as the NSO GBA emulator passes every test in the AGS Aging ROM.

The first GBA model (AGB-001) doesn't have a backlight, resulting in washed-out colors.
Some games mitigate this problem by increasing the saturation of their colors.

It is until the AGS-101 (aka the GBA SP backlit LCD model in 2005) and later models (excluding the OG NDS since it uses frontlitLCD like the AGS-001), also most aftermarket GBA backlight LCDs have a better color range that isn't washed out than the AGB-001, making some early GBA games look "oversaturated" or "off" like the SNES->GBA ports and Golden Sun in my opinion. The filter that GBA NSO uses attempts to desaturate the colors to resemble the ABG-001's LCD color range.

This is a video that explains it better:

Problem is that not every game was specifically designed for the AGB-001 LCD.
There may be possible cases where the game was also developed in a development kit with a backlit LCD even before backlit GBA models exist. For example, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, a game developed in 2003 natively supports the Gameboy Player by automatically adjusting the color range for the TV and rumble for the GameCube controller.
There is even a ROM patch to force the Gameboy Player color range if your emulator doesn't support "Gameboy Player" mode.

This still doesn't justify GBA NSO forcing the "desaturation filter" as it may as well be a subjective matter at the end of the day.
NERD should've made it into a toggleable option instead, just like every GBA emulator.
At the same time, the Wii U GBA VC has a dark filter that cannot be toggled as well IMO.

 

[Maximumbeans]

@Maximumbeans ,and for the other guys nobody is perfect i may have been wrong because i remembered wrong.
What is the expansion pack?

Oh yeah of course, I mean no hate or anything. Just confirming it’s the standard game.

 

[Metoroid0]

Remember this?
Yeah, no one does... I guess now we RENT games we already bought from the same company, and people LOVE IT!
EAT IT IF YOU LOVE IT! Spend your money on stupid streaming services, In the meantime i'll be in my RetroArch.

 

[Bladexdsl]

even on the wii u it looked better!

 

[Intro_to_tech]

Fingers crossed for Zero Mission soon

 

[GBCBestHandheld]

They are just going to be slowly adding shit for years to come. The drip feed is likely to have more to add during the next console generation.

The virtual console had games released in 2007.
If there was any sort of backwards compatibility, even if it was only Nintendo keeping the same games available on their online services, we would have plenty of games. Instead they just nuke everything and start again.
I have no confidence that if a successor to the switch comes out that we will have any carryover into the next console generation. Even if they did, this sort of 1 game a month timeline is bullshit.

Thank GabeN we have the Steam Deck. Or thank Sony for the PSP/Vita.
Nintendo can make us care about their IP, but god forbid we be allowed to actually access said titles.

Not an attack on you personally. Just a comment on Nintendo drip feeding and potentially carrying over game availability.

 

[Ryab]

The virtual console had games released in 2007.
If there was any sort of backwards compatibility, even if it was only Nintendo keeping the same games available on their online services, we would have plenty of games. Instead they just nuke everything and start again.
I have no confidence that if a successor to the switch comes out that we will have any carryover into the next console generation. Even if they did, this sort of 1 game a month timeline is bullshit.

Thank GabeN we have the Steam Deck. Or thank Sony for the PSP/Vita.
Nintendo can make us care about their IP, but god forbid we be allowed to actually access said titles.

Not an attack on you personally. Just a comment on Nintendo drip feeding and potentially carrying over game availability.

NSO is like the 1 thing from this generation that is basically guaranteed to come back.

 

[ShadowOne333]

NSO is like the 1 thing from this generation that is basically guaranteed to come back.

Because you don't own anything from it, you're paying for a service and a rental one at that, when Nintendo decides to move on, all those games will go to waste since you don't own a thing, and without any issue since users are paying for it as a service.

At least on Virtual console you owned them... Somewhat. Until Nintendo decides to axe VC of course.

 

[seseiSeki]

you sure this isnt just an issue with your modded gba?

There's no issue with my GBA
I'm using an AGS-101 screen, since back when I modded my GBA there were no third party screens available yet. Besides, the Fusion screenshot I grabbed was taken from an emulator without color filters applied.
I tried taking a picture of an unlit and lit AGS-001 screen as another comparison, but those pictures came out pretty bad. I couldn't get them to look right with my camera.

Not surprising considering that the leaked GBA emulator (aka "Sloop", the one GBA NSO uses right now) for the Nintendo Switch has an AGS Aging ROM and several open-source accuracy test ROMs in the package to test the accuracy of the emulator - pretty telling that the devs were aiming for emulation accuracy beforehand as the NSO GBA emulator passes every test in the AGS Aging ROM.

The first GBA model (AGB-001) doesn't have a backlight, resulting in washed-out colors.
Some games mitigate this problem by increasing the saturation of their colors.

It is until the AGS-101 (aka the GBA SP backlit LCD model in 2005) and later models (excluding the OG NDS since it uses frontlitLCD like the AGS-001), also most aftermarket GBA backlight LCDs have a better color range that isn't washed out than the AGB-001, making some early GBA games look "oversaturated" or "off" like the SNES->GBA ports and Golden Sun in my opinion. The filter that GBA NSO uses attempts to desaturate the colors to resemble the ABG-001's LCD color range.

This is a video that explains it better:

Problem is that not every game was specifically designed for the AGB-001 LCD.
There may be possible cases where the game was also developed in a development kit with a backlit LCD even before backlit GBA models exist. For example, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, a game developed in 2003 natively supports the Gameboy Player by automatically adjusting the color range for the TV and rumble for the GameCube controller.
There is even a ROM patch to force the Gameboy Player color range if your emulator doesn't support "Gameboy Player" mode.

This still doesn't justify GBA NSO forcing the "desaturation filter" as it may as well be a subjective matter at the end of the day.
NERD should've made it into a toggleable option instead, just like every GBA emulator.
At the same time, the Wii U GBA VC has a dark filter that cannot be toggled as well IMO.

Yeah, I guessed that they were going for that, but I'd say they failed. Even the not so great "original color filters" in that video still look better to me than what we're getting here for 40€ per year
I especially don't like how green turns out in the NSO emulator. Link, the bushes and the big slime in the trailer look really weird. Even on an unlit AGS-101, you can still see that those greens are meant to be bright. And Sector 2 TRO doesn't look tropical at all. It's just completely dark.
Plus: Minish Cap even has three color brightness settings built in already. I'm guessing they're for unlit, frontlit and backlit screens. In my AGS-101 pictures, I'm using the darkest option. The trailer footage and the screenshot I got from my friend are probably taken using the default brightness.

 

[Ryab]

Because you don't own anything from it, you're paying for a service and a rental one at that, when Nintendo decides to move on, all those games will go to waste since you don't own a thing, and without any issue since users are paying for it as a service.

At least on Virtual console you owned them... Somewhat. Until Nintendo decides to axe VC of course.

Oh yeah I would prefer to actually own what I pay for. But I think I've just partially accepted the fact that just about everything is a subscription at this point.

 

[ShadowOne333]

With Fusion releasing today on NSO, has anyone with both Fusion and Prime Remastered on Switch confirmed whether or not having both in any capacity unlocks the Fusion Suit in Remastered?
It's a shame that they decided not to include that unlockable. The NES title I can understand, but axing the Fusion suit altogether is just... sad.

 

[Nix_Lon]

Yeah, I guessed that they were going for that, but I'd say they failed. Even the not so great "original color filters" in that video still look better to me than what we're getting here for 40€ per year
I especially don't like how green turns out in the NSO emulator. Link, the bushes and the big slime in the trailer look really weird. Even on an unlit AGS-101, you can still see that those greens are meant to be bright. And Sector 2 TRO doesn't look tropical at all. It's just completely dark.
Plus: Minish Cap even has three color brightness settings built in already. I'm guessing they're for unlit, frontlit and backlit screens. In my AGS-101 pictures, I'm using the darkest option. The trailer footage and the screenshot I got from my friend are probably taken using the default brightness.

I was about to mention Minish Cap (and ALttP GBA) for having a brightness option for futureproofing backlit LCDs. All GBA games should've had this option if you ask me or have had a color range option in the LCD like the PSP 3000 / Go had.
(The aftermarket V5 GBA IPS display has this option surprisingly, quite envious.)

At the same time, the filter cannot be turned off, that's already inexcusable for a $50 service.
I'd even argue that adjusting the gamma would have better results than any filter.

M&L wasn't a good example, I should've brought up Castlevania: Circle of the Moon instead for having a color palette more suited for sRGB (backlit), causing the game in the AGB-001 LCD to look "too dark" or "dull" despite being a launch GBA title in contrast to the later following title (Harmony of Dissonance & Aria of Sorrow) having more vibrant/oversaturated color palettes to accommodate the AGB-001 LCD.

Edit: Nevermind, Aria of Sorrow looks better unfiltered in my opinion, as the colors aren't even oversaturated compared to Harmony of Dissonance.

 

[ertaboy356b]

This is a great game. I advise if you haven't played it yet to do so. The little underpowered GBA really has some gems. I hope to see the Castelevania Trilogy on it, those are also worth a playthrough.

Fat chance, Castlevania is already available via a collection from Konami.

Post automatically merged: Mar 11, 2023

Most GBA games on NSO get this weird filter that desaturates the colors, making the games look kinda pastel-ish.
Looking at the Fusion trailer, you can see it very well, if you look at the SA-X. It's supposed to resemble the Varia Suit from Super Metroid, but on NSO, the colors look way off. Sector 2 (TRO) looks especially washed out and dark.
View attachment 356987
I'm currently not at that point in the story, so I grabbed the GBA screenshot from metroidwiki.org
View attachment 356988
I guess they were trying to make it resemble a GBA screen, but no GBA makes the image look pastel
Would be cool if we could at least turn it off, but if Nintendo wants us to have a filter, we'll get the filter without exception.

Maybe try adding the LCD filter in the settings.

 

[SteveShannon]

The five main Metroid games will now all be available in at least one form.