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Pokémon: Leafgreen (GBA)
by Thebaker50
Hi everyone, this is my review of pokemon leaf green for gameboy advanced.
For those of you who didn't have a childhood, the general theme of pokemon is a world where these creatures live, termed pokemon. The pokemon can be caught, and trained by abtly called pokemon trainers, who can use their collected pokemon to battle one ... another, and win trophies and money. There are different types of pokemon, each living in its own habitat, such as insect pokemon (e.g. weedle, caterpie etc) who live in forests, to fish pokemon in lakes and seas, and bird pokemon etc.
Pokemon can evolve into higher pokemon, making them stronger. For example, caterpie can evolve into metapod, and subsequently evolve into a butterfree. To evolve pokemon, they must gain experience and level up by defeating other pokemon in battle.
Different types of pokemon are strong vs other different types. FOr example, Fire is weak vs water, but is strong vs leaf pokemon. There are literally loads of different types that have weaknesses, and strengths.
Moving on to the game. The game is a turn based RPG game, where you play a pokemon trainer from your humble beginnings in pallet town, through your adventures in viriden forest, the darkness of Mt Moon cave, and so forth. You must travel the lands collecting pokemon, training them up, defeating other trainers, and defeating gym owners. When you defeat a gym owner, you gain the gym badge, giving you various advantages in battles.
Furthermore, you face up against team rocket, and underground criminal organisation who abuse pokemon for their own criminal ends. Towards the end you then enter the pokemon championships, and if you have the data transfer cable, then you can even battle or trade pokemon with your friends.
This game these days has a cool retro feel to it, and it really takes me back to when I was younger and used to collect the cards and watch people play this in the school playground (not owning my own gameboy when i was younger, sometimes they would lend me their gameboy and let me train up their pokemon for them).
You have a world of pokemon, and you must also better your rival (who you can name yourself), and collect data for proffessor Oak.
Just a word of mention, this game is essentially the same for pokemon fire red, and water blue, and pokemon yellow, really there are just minor differences between the 3 involving what pokemon can be caught, and minor changes like this.
In summary, if you have a GBA, then you need to get yourself a pokemon game, and for me personally, it would have to be red, green, yellow or blue, because I stopped watching pokemon before all these new ones came in. And anyway, there are plenty of pokemon to choose from the old pokemon, why add more?
The only disadvantage is that retro seems to be cool at the moment, and buying a game can really set you back (hopefully you can either trade someone who still has it, or have one lying around somewhere), as buying on ebay when i looked was around Ł12 plus delivery, which is expensive for what is essentially a 8 year old game on an outdate console.
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Yoshi's Island - Super Mario Advance 3 (GBA)
by AverageJoseph
The Classy favourite from 1995 is back, this time under the label of Super Mario World 3: Yoshi's Island (the original being no.2) for Nintendo's Gameboy Advance (2002) instead of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Found used between 5 and 10 pounds, you can pick up an complete bargain game with real heritage. The title may ... say Mario World, but his involvement is minimal, yet essential to all the Yoshi's - dinosaur like creatures that can eject their tongue for an attack, eating coins for points or enemies to convert into eggs, which in turn are used to fire at various targets, ricocheting off walls and causing all sorts of havoc. The Yoshi's can also use their heads to slam into the ground, and find a few types of fruit - green allows you to spit seeds, red releases flames and blue turns enemies to ice. The Yoshi's jump and can hover slightly to remain airborne, avoiding falls or to reach higher areas. Speed is also achieved by holding the B button, found in several mario games beforehand. Should you run into an enemy or have baby Mario stolen, a timer will go down until he is saved or eventually he will be captured and its game over. His cries are the most annoying noise ever heard but thankfully, stars can be found to increase the timer. The main plot is largely down to baby mario, being held by a stalk, gets separated from his brother Luigi by an evil broomstick wielding 'magikooper'. Luigi gets captured and Mario falls down to Yoshi's Island, landing on the original green Yoshi. The multicoloured dinos club together and decide to share the burden of carrying Mario across the land, looking to free his brother and stalk, so that they can be delivered to the mushroom kingdom - so all Mario and Luigi's adventures wouldn't have even begun if it wasn't for the heroic Yoshi's!
There are 6 lands to browse through, each with 6 unique levels, 2 castle expeditions (with bosses), secret levels and minigames to gain more lives and items. Upon completion there are 6 additional levels that have been added to the GBA version. Expect to see all sorts of enemies, flowers, ghosts, koopas, bats, fish, penguins and of course the giant blue bugger on the front cover. Most of which can be turned into eggs :) The enemies span across a variety of landscapes and environments - plunder water and crystal filled dark caves, medieval castles full of dangerous contraptions, jungles with exotic creatures such as thieving monkeys and levels that keep ascending through the clouds. This may not sound too appealing when the described locations are displayed on the small screen of a Gameboy, and the game is from the mid nineties.. However, this is no ordinary video game. Yoshi's Island is filled to the brim with imaginative illustrated foregrounds and backgrounds, all coloured in with creamy smooth pastels - just use google image search to find some really good examples. There are often '?' clouds that when shot at, can supply you with coins, stars or even little bridges to aid you along the way. The musical score caters to all kinds of moods, with upbeat energetic melodies to rain drop crystal sounds and intense dungeon tracks. Towards the end of levels, you get the chance to play minigames and the castle levels have bosses that must be fought within the space of small rooms.. until you fight the mighty Bowser ..some simple strategy is required at times.
Its all pretty jolly and childlike, with flowers for lives, mushroom soft surroundings and only really gets dark when fighting bosses. It can be a bit difficult at times so it is probably best suited to gamers over 7 or 8. This GBA version comes with the fun multiplayer minigame where the mario brothers fight for coins and avoid enemies. It was also on the SNES's Mario Allstars game. Despite its simple plot, its gameplay and environments are rich and well balanced, offering different experiences and is one of the best 'Platform' games in history. A must have for the Gameboy Advance.
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