Nina wrote:

Someone's being an ace person and searched for a Micro and Panel De Pon while in Japan! Loving it, I think Panel De Pon might be my favourite puzzle game, together with Tetris. It plays great on the Micro too. Now I just need to find or make a small case /pouch so I can easily carry it everywhere. Now the actual game collecting can begin, met someone at a retro game swap a few weeks ago who occasionally has Japanese GBA games, hopefully he'll have a Kuru Kuru Kururin at some point. That plus Wario Ware will be my Japanese trio I think, should be easy to play without being able to read the text.

Kuru Kuru Kururin and Wario Ware are both in contention for the best handheld game ever award.  Along with two or three other GBA games.  Lovely stuff, I don't think there's another console that makes me grin just looking at it.

Final tests on lag:

Raman Legends on PS4 gives 4 frames of lag on my monitor using my testing approach.

PC games:

Shovel Knight vsync off - 3.6 frames
Shovel Knight vsync on - 3 frames (maybe got these two swapped as vsync off should be better)
Steamworld Dig 2 - 3.4 frames
Rayman Origins - 3.1 frames

Thumper set to run at 120fps - 2 frames (32/34 ms). Go PC master race.

Haha, looks about right! I don't have the micro boxed though, guess that would only increase the price and I'm trying to be as sensible as possible with money.

Was really hard deciding between purple and blue, but the choice was easy in the end as there was only the purple one available. Or limited editions, but I don't care for those that much.

It actually feels so nice that you turn on the console, and it's straight to the game start screen.

Already opened and closed ebay very quickly...

I do love the Japanese boxes, so what I can get and actually play without knowing the language I'll buy Japanese. I'm guessing that I'll end up with a mix of EU, USA and JP boxes in the end, I'm not gonna rebuy the games I already have.

I do remember a picture of your shelf, and that's kinda what made me decide to just go for it. GBA might be my favourite handheld, it has so many classics but also a good amount of original games. It's almost too much.

Two more votes for the Metroid GBA titles.

I think they do, but I'm not 100% sure.  I know some dodgy carts won't save, so I assume they're supposed to have batteries.

Yeah they, do.
It is one of a few ways of spotting fake Pokemon games as they have semi-transparent cases and are easily the most faked games.

I guess battery tech just improved a lot in between the two.

Googling seems to indicate Fusion doesn’t have a battery (yay) but Zero does (boo).

Which seems odd as Zero came out later than Fusion.

Looking into full ROM set sizes, it may well be possible to fit all Game Boy games in existence onto a single SD card and whack it in that, too. That'd be pretty fucking awesome.

Reading up some more, it looks like the GB/GBC support on those is via emulation, too, so might not have great results. Still, all the GBA games (or all the decent/interesting ones, at least) on a single cart would still be awesome.

What GBA model do you have/want AJ?

That's weird, Minish Cap was definitely one of the dodgy carts I bought on Ebay that wouldn't save.  Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland and Donkey Kong Country 2 were the other two, both of which I've never played properly since, even though they're both on my Pi, presumably because I'm still sulking.

Liveinadive wrote:

What GBA model do you have/want AJ?

I have an original, white one, which I bought near to launch, and a silver Micro, which I bought from Chump (IIRC). I want an SP in good nick with decent battery and screen. There's the DS Lite which gets used for GBA stuff ever so occasionally, too.

Been into town this afternoon and had a look in ye olde second hand shoppe. No gba metroids to be found (wasn’t really expecting any) but I did see a micro in the flesh. They are tiny and not sure I’d be able to read anything on the screen.

Readability isn't needed when buying Japanese games. But honestly, I haven't found it to be a problem so far, think it's supposed to have the best screen, and it looks really good.
I'm loving it so far, it boots super quickly, and then it only takes a couple seconds to start the game. Which is perfect if you just want to have a quick 15 minute game.

@Davy, not really given Dr Mario a chance, it feels a bit slow and for some reason I always end up with the pills rotated wrong. Might need some practice for that one, but Panel De Pon is just too good.

I've been wanting a good puzzle handheld game for a while now. Tetris Ultimate (I think, it's by ubisoft) on the 3DS was a big disappointment (loved the DS version, must have that one still at my mom's place). I bought a Bubble Bobble DS game, which is ok but playing endless just goes on for too long without actually getting harder, it also looks a bit blurry. Tried Puzzle Quest DS, I loved that game one the 360 but it feels a bit slow on the 3DS.

I only played a bit of Panel De Pon years ago, when B had his Snes with a rom loader hooked up. Remember it as the only game my mom ever wanted to try, and how disgusted she was with herself when she realized how much time has passed playing a game.

It's probably my favourite along with (a good version of) Tetris. I'm still hoping for the switch Tetris /Puyo combo to drop in price at some point.