Micro Mario and Zelda

This is a short follow up on the previous post about the Game Boy Micro (GBM). You may have noticed that I didn't talk about any games that I may have gotten for the device. So lets talk about some GBM games, after all what good is a game system without something to play on it? Like anyone who gets a new system you immediately look up the top rated games on the platform. Didn't take me long to spot three all time classics that were available - Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 2 and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Both the Mario games have been re-branded for the Game Boy platform as Super Mario Advance 2 and Super Mario Advance respectively. There isn't really anything new that I can say about these games that hasn't already been said before and in more elegant prose than I can muster. I will say that Super Mario World in particular holds up extremely well and looks particularly impressive on the GBM's high resolution screen.

Super Mario Bros. 2 is an interesting game to me because the first time around I found it was just too different to the original for me to properly enjoy it. When I got to play it years later in the Mario All-Stars Collection I found it to be the weakest of the games so of course it got the least play. Now with the GBM this is my third time around to play it and another chance to finally complete it. I'm currently further in the game than I've gone before, which is good but the last time I played it was two months ago.

My experience with The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the GBM though was, whisper it, disappointing. It isn't that the port isn't good, it is probably spot-on but rather the game has failed to stand the test of time like Mario. Maybe it is just that the RPG genre was never my favourite or perhaps I'm being too shallow that I'm allowing the dated graphics to get me down but I won't be playing through this game again. I think it would be best served leaving it in the past and those glorious memories of completing it in tandem with my friend on the SNES.