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[Thad]

...The original Mother is one of those that makes you select "Talk" from a menu, right?

Because I'm too old for that shit.

[sei]

>stairs

[James Edward Smith]

I just got my GBA flash cart linker cable working again after some very annoying driver issues that had left me unable to load or remove roms from it for about 3 years (I've had Zero Mission, Circle of the Moon, Airtraffic Controller, Advanced Wars and RCR:EX on it ever since). When this translation is done, I know what I'm loading onto it.

But until then, what should I load on it for now? What are some other good GBA games besides the ones I mentioned were on the cart for all this time?

[sei]

Sift through metacritic's listing by rating and go with stuff in genres you like or that otherwise looks appealing? GameSpot's got a list and lots of other sites probably do too.

(Yeah, cop-out.)

Sigma Star Saga wasn't that great, but it was kind of unique and may be worth dinking around with.

I liked the Golden Sun games, the Metroids (ZM and F), Mario & Luigi, and FFTA.  Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis was okay.  Don't think I was a huge fan of MMZ or the MMBNs.  It's been a while.

Guilty Gear X: Advance Edition had bad AI.  You could go on basically forever in survival mode spamming Baiken's air HS.

[LaserBeing]

This news makes me very, very happy. It's probably too late for this thing to get all Chrono Ressurrectioned, right?

This really isn't the same thing as Chrono Resurrection. That was an entirely new game, made from scratch, using an existing IP without permission, and as sorry as I am that all that hard work was wasted, they really should have fucking known better.

This on the other hand, (as far as I know) is no more illegal than writing a script translation for GameFAQs. They're not providing a game or a ROM, all they're doing is providing a patch to translate the text. Seems to me to be closer to reverse-engineering than to IP "theft", and reverse-engineering is legal if I'm not mistaken. Then again IANAL and I am probably way off base on all that. God knows current IP laws don't need to be any more nebulous or confusing.

My point is: it's not like this project is exactly secret. The simple fact that it's been allowed to progress for so long without getting a C&D suggests to me that Nintendo actually doesn't have a legal basis to do so. A friend of mine got a C&D for making a Zelda game in Klik & Play; these are not exactly the kind of folks who just let this shit slide. The only reason I can think of for them not putting the kibosh on this immediately is that they actually can't.

[Thad]

This on the other hand, (as far as I know) is no more illegal than writing a script translation for GameFAQs.

Probably true.

They're not providing a game or a ROM, all they're doing is providing a patch to translate the text. Seems to me to be closer to reverse-engineering than to IP "theft", and reverse-engineering is legal if I'm not mistaken.

Used to be.  Isn't under the DMCA.

Then again IANAL and I am probably way off base on all that. God knows current IP laws don't need to be any more nebulous or confusing.

My point is: it's not like this project is exactly secret. The simple fact that it's been allowed to progress for so long without getting a C&D suggests to me that Nintendo actually doesn't have a legal basis to do so. A friend of mine got a C&D for making a Zelda game in Klik & Play; these are not exactly the kind of folks who just let this shit slide. The only reason I can think of for them not putting the kibosh on this immediately is that they actually can't.

No, the difference is that Resurrection was a trademark issue and this is a copyright issue.  As I've said before, the blanket term "IP" tends to muddy the distinction.  The main point here is that trademarks must be aggressively enforced or you lose them, while copyrights can be enforced selectively.

Fan translations ARE copyright infringement; translation rights are covered under copyright.  But copyright infringement is not the same as trademark infringement.

Remember the motivation here is in protecting the company's bottom line.  ANY reasonably high-profile example of trademark infringement has the potential to do financial harm to a business.  Whereas in cases of copyright infringement, the company gets to pick and choose which cases are worth prosecuting -- there's a financial incentive for sending the FBI to a warehouse full of bootlegs, but not necessarily for sending a C&D over a fan translation of a game that isn't being sold in that language anyway.

[Niku]

But until then, what should I load on it for now? What are some other good GBA games besides the ones I mentioned were on the cart for all this time?

Ninja Five-O, Drill Dozer, Astro Boy: Omega Factor.

Honestly, Earthbound Zero can be safely skipped. It is to Earthbound what Evil Dead is to Evil Dead 2.

This is technically true, but by playing EB0 with the XP patch and constantly using the double speed frameskip for the grindy portions, there are some fun little experiences to be had in the game just the same while wiping out several of the annoyingly aged situations.  I think I appreciate the game more having played it after Earthbound than I would have otherwise, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

[LaserBeing]

I knew if I talked out of my ass with enough gusto, someone smarter would make the situation clear.

Mission accomplished, by me. Please, please... no applause necessary. Just doing my duty.


Oh, I should also possibly point out that the aforementioned Zelda fan-game was singled out because it was the only one that actually had "The Legend of Zelda" in the title. His dozens of other Mario and Zelda-based fan-games were left alone because they had nonsense titles. So yeah, the difference between trademark and copyright right there, I guess. Or between fair-use parody and blatant IP infringement, possibly.

My head hurts.

[Kayma]

I had a class on e-commerce law in college that went over IP, trademarks, copyrights, and the DMCA extensively.

It was truly the worst.

GBA RIDER: GAME RECOMMENDATION: Rhythm Tengoku

[Norondor]

Ninja Five-O, Drill Dozer, Astro Boy: Omega Factor.

Don't get Sigma Star Saga unless you like being sad that the game isn't beatable.

[Catloaf]

Ninja Five-O, Drill Dozer, Astro Boy: Omega Factor.

Don't get Sigma Star Saga unless you like being sad that the game isn't beatable.

What do you mean?  I beat that game.  I liked it too.  Well, except when I randomly got stuck with the fatship.

Edit: 

[A²]

except.

[jsnlxndrlv]

Earthbound SEEMS like it does the "select talk from menu" thing, but it's actually mapped the contextual interaction command to the L button.  Since you can open the menu by pressing L after pressing Select, you can play the game one-handed.  Not so relevant on a computer, but on an actual SNES, it's amazing.

[Catloaf]

I don't know why more games don't let you play one handed.  Especially with the amount of porn games in japan. 

[Bongo Bill]

Because then you'd be wasting half the buttons! Half of them!

[sei]

They actually make one-handed controllers.  I remember one for as old of a console as SNES (and I'm sure one of you fucking dinosaurs will discover one from the atari era or talk about bearing down on a joystick).  While Catloaf is close, they claimed it was one-handed so that one could map while playing.

[LaserBeing]

some people just have one hand

don't they deserve video games too

[Detonator]

some people just have one hand

don't they deserve video games too

From my experience, these people just get pissy about using autofire.

[sei]

some people just have one hand

don't they deserve video games too

doesn't the rest of the world deserve to watch them work the other half of the controller with their mouths

om nom shimpu nom hadouken

[Romosome]

Either Nintendo Power, the manual, or the strategy guide actually said how that control scheme let you play while eating a sandwich.

If you don't think this is awesome you need to move out of America.

To the BOTTOM OF THE SEA.