Gameboy Advance

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (GBA) / Re:Chain of Memories (PS4) Review

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Going into my first ever play through of the Kingdom Hearts series I was warned about Chain of Memories and its remake, how even some of the biggest die hard fans of the series seem to flat-out hate it, well the gameplay at least. I thought to myself “well, I want to complete all of them for this review series, so I guess I’ll just grin and bear it” but, man… hate to say it, but I’m going to have to join the many and say I really disliked the gameplay here. I was just going to play the Re:CoM edition but struggled so I heard the GBA original was easier, and it was… to a point, but the core gameplay is just badly designed. I’m sure some who played it when they were young and “forced” themselves to get good at it because it was finally new Kingdom Hearts game will get angry at my review, but for me, now in 2024? This is not a fun experience…

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Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure (GBA) Review

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I finally figured out how to get through my colossal Dragon Ball game backlog on this site: attach a game review with each movie / TV special review! Amazingly given how many films and specials the combined series has this was only JUST enough. That being said, let’s get the two Dragon Ball games I own out the way before sadly starting the Z games while still reviewing original Dragon Ball films, that’s just how much more popular the Z brand is,  and we do that with Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure (which I could’ve sworn was called “Advance Adventure”, but I guess I was misremembering…) I remember just being happy to see a game based on the original series at the time but as it turned out it was far deeper and more addictive than I had anticipated. Let’s see if it still holds up!

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Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA) Review

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Super Circuit sits in a strange place in my Mario Kart history in that I played it at launch (ish) and played it a fair amount, but its difficulty curve and me not really being a big handheld guy meant I didn’t really get into it the same way as other entries in the series (beyond 3DS and Tour, which I just haven’t played at all) Going back to it now has only made the challenge even more, well, challenging, despite having a full screen and comfortable controller in my hand. Much like when I played Super Mario Kart for this blog the old style controls are just so… counter intuitive after so many years of the newer style back-to-back. Oh well, it’s another Booster Pass course drop today, so let’s look at another Mario Kart game!

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Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) Review

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After a long break its time to complete our look at the GBA Castlevania games with Aria of Sorrow, finally mine after the recently released “Castlevania Advance Collection”. A lot of people site Aria as their favourite Castlevania of all time and it’s not hard to see why, its certainly the closest any game’s come to capturing the fun and freedom of Symphony of the Night. So let’s finally take a look at it!

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Fire Pro Wrestling (GBA) Review

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Here we go, my first step into the world of Fire Pro, a step that led to one of the most addictive games I can ever remember playing in Fire Pro Returns. GBA’s Fire Pro to get back on topic was a really fun game and it didn’t take long for me to get the hang of the timing-based controls, plus it’s always fun to rename characters! Let’s take a look then…

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Castlevania – Harmony of Dissonance (GBA) Review

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Castlevania HoD

After completing Circle of the Moon it wasn’t too long before I made a start on its sequel, Harmony of Dissonance, dropping in and out of the game as I played other things. HoD is technically better than Circle in pretty much every way, with the exception of the background music… and possibly having too much content? Let’s have a deeper look and see if I can make my mind up!

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Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA) Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Castlevania Circle of the Moon

One of my goals for this blog this year is to get rid of the “Coming Soon!” bits in the tab pages above, and to get that goal started, let’s add a Game Boy Advance game to the back catalogue! Thanks to the hype surrounding Castlevania being added to Smash Ultimate, I was in the mood for a Castlevania game beyond playing Super IV for the Smash rundown, so I decided to start with the first of the GBA games, killing two birds with one stone, plus leaving me open to play the others ones down the line… Let’s have a look then!

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