If it had come with any kind of front- or backlight, the original Game Boy Advance would inarguably be the best Game Boy that Nintendo ever made. The

How to make your old Game Boy as good as (or better than) new

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2021-05-31 12:00:08

If it had come with any kind of front- or backlight, the original Game Boy Advance would inarguably be the best Game Boy that Nintendo ever made.

The console’s wide horizontal layout made its shoulder buttons more comfortable to press than those on the more cramped Game Boy Advance SP; it has a regular headphone jack where the GBA SP requires a (surprisingly forward-looking) adapter dongle; and it's also the only Game Boy or DS model that can play every single Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance game on the original hardware with no software emulation or screen scaling. The GBA’s processor had the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color’s processor built into it, after all. So even oddball games like Kirby Tilt ‘n’ Tumble will work. That game (and one or two others) included an accelerometer built into the system that only functions properly when the cartridge is facing up; the GBA SP and DS both pointed GBA cartridges down instead.

When playing games made for the original monochrome Game Boy, the Game Boy Color (and Advance) will automatically choose a color palette to apply to it. Sometimes, as with Metroid II, this custom color palette is relatively attractive; but most of the time you end up with color-clashing pink sprites against a green background (or something similar).