PSA: How to un-ugly your GBA games on 3DS

@spekkio More importantly, how do we turn off the god-awful motion blur?

@spekkio They let you use X and A as a substitute for Y and B, but I figure anyone who can't adapt to A and B can't adapt to A and X anyway. I don't get you people.

@spekkio This is a valid point. People can ridicule all they want, but I need those buttons mappable.

@spekkio I wanted that option too!

@Roto13
look man, there's just no good reason to not allow players to map their own controls - EVER - Doesn't matter how stupid you think it is, doesn't matter how stupid the developers think it is, but it's not hard to implement, so there's no excuse not to, and if someone wants to, say, play Halo with jump mapped to X and action mapped to A, who are you (or the developer) to tell them to adapt to the way things are?

You know what would be great? If you could select the screen size that you wanna use. I would probably make it a few cm bigger just because it is too small. Not to complain, but you can't really win right now. Either you look at a really tiny screen and hold it right against your nose, or you look at a really blurry image. I'm no programmer, but I would assume it wouldn't be THAT hard to let you choose a screen size

@mrmobius The 3DS and Game Boy Micro have the same DPI so Game Boy Advance images are the same size on the screens of both (at their original resolutions, obviously).

Personally, I'd rather have a bit of blur than a tiny image. Having to hold the 3DS an inch from my face affects my performance.

@Roto13

"an inch from my face affects my performance. "

Is that what you tell your girlfriend?

@Roto13

I lol'd

@Acosta02

How often do you read the manual for anything else?

@Gibbeynator enough that ppl cried about it when companies stopped including them in game boxes?

@Acosta02

I just did this automatically when I first booted one of the games up. I didn't need instructions from anyone. Newer gamers are so needy nowadays and require hand holding.

@alfighter27
I see what you did there...

@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam
I don't....
*holds down select button*
oh!

@Mmmmz
The "brightness" is due to how the games were originally made. A good portion of these games were made before the GBA SP was released, so the colors were kinda washed out to appear brighter due to the original GBA's non-lit screen. Then when they introduced the front-lit GBA SP, it really showed how bad this looked. Only made worse with the back-lit GB Micro and GBA SP v2. Probably the biggest offender of this is Super Mario World.

@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam

Again, it is something that can be addressed through software. It's nice to have a 1:1 experience but if you're coding an emulator it isn't hard for them to add a few optional features that would make it more worthy of release.

They're just pussyfooting around because people apparently have no standards or expectations for them.

@Mmmmz First of all, GBA games are specifically designed for dim light (or none at all). Brighten up those colours and they look like ass. No, they're not going to go in and tweak all of the sprites and backgrounds to make them look good with a bright light. That's going into remake territory, and they're not going to put that much effort into a bunch of games they're giving out for free.

Second of all, GBA games aren't emulated. They run natively on DS hardware included in the 3DS. It's the same as playing a DSiWare game on a 3DS.

@Roto13

I'm not asking to remake but fixing the brightness via software wouldn't make all the games look like ass if you adjust the pallet accordingly.

The only valid and logical thing you said is it about running in DS mode, which makes sense for the way the games are handled (not going to sleep mode for instance)

@Mmmmz Yeah, they could adjust every colour on every sprite and every background in all ten games to make them look better under brighter light. They could also put each game on its own unique 3DS and send them out to Ambassadors. They could do lots of things that are impractical and overkill.

@Mmmmz

You do realize that Nintendo of Japan is very conservative and traditional when it comes to game design, right? This is how they've always been. They aren't going to follow the crowd just because it's the "cool thing to do". Nintendo does things their own way. If you don't like it, play something else.

@BPMOmega XBL PSN Steam

Too bad we didnt get that as an ambassador title, love that game

@Roto13
READ: Color.Pallet. If you don't understand that in regards to what I'm talking about you can just be quiet because you are of an uninformed opinion and don't understand what I'm talking about. Therefore, can't form a cognizant argument for that. You were totally right about them just basically porting them over. Which if actually true, is funny since it took so long to get them released. There must be more to it than just running in DS hardware mode.

@tendoboy1984
You do realize that they're in trouble, right fantard? I heart Nintendo, truly. There's a reason why I have strong opinions about what they're doing because it's the wrong thing to be doing in THIS DAY AND AGE. I don't want to see them fall by the wayside because of their stupidity and blatant arrogance. It's showing increasingly apparent that their business strategy is weak. Oh, and I guess Sony is some Unicorn company from Narnia. Not Japan...


And the entire point to this argument is that I'm sure we all can agree that we want MORE releases from the GBA and NES era (SNES too). But, they're going to charge more for them than the GB and GBC games and if delivered in this current package, that's just shit. Plain and simple. These games weren't truly free as we early adopters got hosed by them. A few lucky opportunists got them for free, sure.

Again, they made the hardware the know the hardware, they can CODE emulators efficiently and correctly. The NES one still needs save states and it would be nice if the GB one had a Super Gameboy mode for fun but that's just being picky. As it stands, I have no issue with the GB one all things weighed and considered.

Will they fix/update the NES/GBA games? Possibly. Their current firmware makes for easy updates to software. Will they if people don't care? No. And do explain to me why you wouldn't want more for your money and more customer appreciation which in return means more money for Nintendo?

Again, I'm not asking for them not to include a 1:1 mode, that's quite easy and useful. It's just that it truly wouldn't be that hard for them to do SLIGHTLY more; UNLESS the 3DS hardware is just that crappy for them. Which is simply annoying all things considered too. But, whatever, we bought it so can't complain about them not having forward thinking for the future.

#Not really nerd raging just have little patience for insolence today.

@Mmmmz Oh, you're one of those people who thinks they paid money for these games.

Well then, that explains it. You're a self-entitled moron. Nevermind.

@Mmmmz
Seriously nobody gives a shit about any of these issues outside the odd gaming forum. There is no part of Nintendo's troubles attributable to the fact that their emulator only has one user option (stretch the screen vs. don't).

Yes they could have more options in the emulator, it would be nice, but this is not even remotely connected to the reasons for their financial problems. It's not even a *metaphor* for those reasons.

They aren't in trouble because they didn't offer options up the wazoo. They're in trouble because (a) Wii sales declined quicker than they might have hoped, and (b) they thought people would be really impressed by the 3D gimmick on the 3DS, and mostly people were like eh whatever, so they had to do a dramatic fire-sale price drop.

Claiming any of this is connected to options in the emulator is ludicrous - it's like me saying their financial problems are because they region-code everything. I personally find it really annoying that they do that, but any financial consequences for them as a result are so far after the decimal point it's not even a rounding error.

@Omega2822 I literally lol'ed at your comment . You trolls are why I visit joystiq just for a laugh

@Omega2822

There are two screens. Also it's 800x240 when it's not using the 3D effect.

@Wizardsofwaverly
I wasn't trolling in the slightest. Joke is on you.

I was genuinely surprised at the resolution mentioned in the article. I thought it was higher than that.
Considering the hardware specs of the 3DS, even with the dual screens, it should be able to do better than that.

@Raffi256 Ah is that so?

I know developers like Capcom and the Zelda OoT Remake had things like better AA implemented with the 3D off. Was not aware of the resolution increase.

@Omega2822

I'm sorry, screen resolution is the sole determinate of pricing a piece of hardware? Well shit, how come gaming laptops with the same 1080p resolution don't cost the same as everything else at Best Buy?! Why would you pay $2-3k extra for the same resolution?!? THIS IS BULLSHIT11!1!!1!

@Omega2822

It isn't as nice as it sounds. The 3DS in 2D mode gives the effect of scan lines due to the higher horizontal resolution but comparatively low vertical resolution. After being accustomed to the iPhone 4's display for the past 1.5 years, looking at a 3DS' display is a test of one's determination.

@LittleMofreaky You have a supergameboy2 as your avatar, we already know you're fine with blowing up a small image onto a larger display.

I've never seen a more appropriate avatar+comment combo.

@Extinction I don't own a Super Gameboy 2. Do you own a block with a "J" on it? Because that's what you're trying to say.

@LittleMofreaky
I actually do own a caricature of the Heavy from TF2 drinking tea.

@TheChezDispenser
They did, it was just a limited time offer with a $250 price tag.

@Jennacide

Hey Jennacide....
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shut up.

@Jennacide
god nintendo is such bullshit giving me free stuff!!!!