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Mario's Handheld History Pt. 2: The Advance Years

This time we examine the numerous ports and original adventures Mario participated in during the GBA's lifespan...

(Read part 1 of this this feature here)

In the late 1990's, there was constant rumor that Nintendo was working on some almighty new handheld to properly replace its aging 8-bit technology. Magazines were full of artists impressions of all kinds of weird and wonderful looking designs. Hopeful competitors SNK and Bandai began launching rival machines, which while more powerful than the Game Boy Color, couldn't match the variety of games on offer from Nintendo. Their arrival did appear to prompt some activity at Nintendo's headquarters though, with rumblings of a ' project Atlantis ' being impossible to ignore. A 32-bit handheld, landscape in orientation with full backwards compatibility with the old boys. People dreamed up all kinds of specs for the machine but in traditional Nintendo fashion they remained silent, with many almost giving up any hope of seeing a new handheld. Come August 24th 2000 though, everything would be revealed at Nintendo's annual Spaceworld show in Tokyo. Called the Game Boy Advance, many of the rumors about it were true but the machine was not quite as powerful as many people had expected, being more of a 2D powerhouse with limited 3D abilities, like a portable Snes infact. The machine was deliberately kept from being overpowered to keep the battery consumption of it at a sensible level.

One of the first demos shown was a level from the N64 game Yoshi's Story, fueling hopes that the game would be a launch title for the system, which was never to be. The unit would launch within a year of its announcement, in March 2001 in Japan, and 3 months later in the US and Europe, launching with a selection of great titles including the likes of Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity and a certain game with some plumber guy with a stache...

Super Mario Advance

Following on from the success of Super Mario Brothers Deluxe on the Game Boy color, this launch title for the Game Boy Advance was a conversion of Super Mario Bros 2. An odd choice Many thought at the time due to its lower popularity, the original game is as we all know by now a conversion of the Japanese Famicom Disk System game Doki Doki Panic and is by many people not considered a 'true' Mario title. The truth is though, converted from another game or not, its still an excellent game that introduced a load of ideas and characters to the Mario universe that became staples of Mario gameplay.

Now obviously, as a game to showcase a new system, they couldn't just convert the Nes title directly, so they looked back to the Super Nintendo version from the Super Mario Allstars collection. The game fitted the technology of the GBA very well, they took the snes title and added a few extra treats and graphical refinements. The original Mario Bros game was included, huge enemies and vegetables were introduced, the gameplay was adjusted, making the game slightly easier by giving the player more health and a higher availability of hearts to top that health up. An addition too far many thought though was the introduction of voices for the characters, which many of us found them grating and a little too overused.

While the game plays very differently to any other of the Mario games, it was still a worthy launch title and it was a good indicator of the Advanced handheld goodness that was to follow.

Mario Kart : Super Circuit

The GBA launched with a karting game that was pretty good. It sold rather well then sales suddenly slowed a few months after the launch. That game was Konami Krazy Racers and while it was in itself pretty damn entertaining, it was seen as a stopgap measure to tide us all over until the arrival of the main attraction... The first ever portable outing for the Mario Kart series.

Mario Kart : Super Circuit as it was known as was felt very much like a spiritual sequel to the original Snes title. Featuring 8 playable characters, 5 championship cups (Mushroom, Flower, Lightning, Star and Special) to be won, which could be entered at 50cc, 100cc and 150cc speeds. They were all new tracks but should one unlock the special championship AND come home with a gold trophy in that category, you would unlock the super special treat that is the original games tracks to play on. Especially fun for versus games between nostalgic Nintendoheads.

The way that it played was familiar, after all why change a winning formula? Featuring the classic powerups like Mushrooms for speed boost, banana peels to spin out other racers and ofcourse the deadly shells. Additions from Mario Kart 64 also appeared, like multiple shells and triple mushrooms, woohoooo! The game was extraordinarily well recieved, actually achieving more sales than any of the Mario Advance titles themselves. You could say the only downer to the game was having to use cumbersome cables to engage in link play, but hey, Back then, we didn't know any better and it was the most awesomest thing ever!