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tendo handheld showdown!!!! which family of Nintendo handhelds is superior?

Which line of Nintendo handhelds is superior?

  • Total voters
    122
Imru’ al-Qays

Imru’ al-Qays

Member
64bitmodels said:
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Steam Deck sucks hard, I regret buying one. Way too big, terrible battery life, loses charge even when asleep, requires constant tinkering to do anything
 
Spukc

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
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64bitmodels

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
T

tomato shrub

Member
I have hard nostalgia for GB, but considering its 10 year lifespan, the library is kinda mid. GBA had some sick games, but too many ports/remakes and it died too early.

DS was the place to be for Japanese 3rd parties during the dark ages of PS360, while 3DS was the place to be for Nintendo games during the dark ages of WiiU.

Hardware-wise the DS line might not be as iconic, but the libraries were richer.
 
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64bitmodels

64bitmodels

Reverse groomer.
paprikastaude said:
I have hard nostalgia for GB, but considering its 10 year lifespan, the library is kinda mid. GBA had some sick games, but too many ports/remakes and it died too early.

DS was the place to be for Japanese 3rd parties during the dark ages of PS360, while 3DS was the place to be for Nintendo games during the dark ages of WiiU.

Hardware-wise the DS line might not be as iconic, but the libraries were richer.
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yeaaa thats also kind of the thing. I do NOT like a lot of Gameboy games. There's like Super Mario Land 2 and that's mostly it LOL.

GBC was far better in that regard (Link's awakening, Shantae, Pokemon though the remakes on GBA/DS are better) but even then those games are kinda dated. GB is one of the few systems where i genuinely think that a majority of the games have just... aged badly and are NOT fun to play. I don't even say that for the NES but i just can't find myself booting up a gameboy emulator for any reason.
GBA was the system when the games started being just plain good and i revisit quite a few gems from time to time like Metroid Fusion, WL4, Advance Wars, etc. but by then DS was on the horizon
 
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kunonabi

kunonabi

Member
DS for me. There was only a small handful of GB games I loved and I completely skipped the GBA since I lost interest in handhelds after the NGPC died. The DS got me back into handheld and the 3DS flirts with being my second favorite gaming platform of all time. Hell, I still have backlog of like 30 games for it I really want to play.
 
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Saber

Saber

Gold Member
DS, but I wouldn't group with 3DS imo.
DS has a good amount of great games. Games that took every advantage of the crappie hardware, which to me felt like devs were creating games because they love to.
With 3DS, it has s bunch of crappie games just for the sake of having games. I barelly got any interest in my 3DS besides pokemon, even Mario Kart there is boring as fuck.
 
C

cartman414

Member
64bitmodels said:
yeaaa thats also kind of the thing. I do NOT like a lot of Gameboy games. There's like Super Mario Land 2 and that's mostly it LOL.

GBC was far better in that regard (Link's awakening, Shantae, Pokemon though the remakes on GBA/DS are better) but even then those games are kinda dated. GB is one of the few systems where i genuinely think that a majority of the games have just... aged badly and are NOT fun to play. I don't even say that for the NES but i just can't find myself booting up a gameboy emulator for any reason.
GBA was the system when the games started being just plain good and i revisit quite a few gems from time to time like Metroid Fusion, WL4, Advance Wars, etc. but by then DS was on the horizon
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Even the GB's best (DK 94, Link's Awakening) are as timeless as any game on more advanced hardware though. Agreed that a good chunk of the games needed more meat though.
 
Gameplay Gods Bless

Gameplay Gods Bless

Member
64bitmodels said:
2 screens or 1 screen, backlight or no backlight, old fashioned or new gen? Which family of Nintendo handhelds do you like more, Gameboy or Dual Screen?

For me.... it's a no brainer, DS had backwards compat with gameboy and a lot of the DS games are great to me. Rhythm Heaven, Warioware D.I.Y, The World Ends with You, Mario Kart DS, Ocarina of Time 3d, Star Fox 3d... not to mention the dual screen mechanic was one of the few gimmicks nintendo had that meaningfully added to the gaming experience. Flipnote was just.... a thing of beauty. (it's still alive today with Sudomemo!)
most of the returning GB franchises would hit their stride on the DS. Best pokemon games were on DS, best handheld Mario Kart was on DS, best WarioWare games were on DS/3DS, best advance wars, Fire emblem, etc. Not to mention the DS had the best port of Chrono Trigger.

what's your take though??
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The Vita :(
 
Trilobit

Trilobit

Member
I have so many amazing memoires with my GBA. It felt perfectly in my hands and had great sound. The lack of backlight was terrible, but despite that it's amazing. The NDS Lite was an amazing evolution with a clamshell design and great backlight. But it didn't feel as good holding it.

So honestly I just see GBA and NDS as their own little excellent family. :)
 
calistan

calistan

Member
Here’s my collection, or at least the ones I can find right now. I’m particularly fond of the original Game Boy for multiplayer Tetris. Game Boy Advance was like a handheld SNES (with missing buttons) but the lack of a backlight was pretty bad. I installed Afterburner frontlight kits on a couple of them.

People forget how utterly fugly the original DS was. Just look at that thing. And the twin screens was a gimmick that even Nintendo didn’t know how to use in the early days - remember the little thumb-nub on the strap so you could use the touch screen as a virtual joystick? But the DS Lite was a beauty, and genuinely pocketable.

These days it’s probably the Game Boy Micro that gets the most use (which isn’t much). There’s something super cool about having such a tiny games machine. Shame they never released the interchangeable front panels for it.

zGWyoYo.jpg
 
phant0m

phant0m

Member
TurnOneYeti said:
If you aren’t voting for GBA you’re dead to me.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/gba/filtered
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I vote DS/DS Lite because you get DS and GBA

real talk though, best are the roughly ~$100 modern retro handhelds (anbernic, miyoo, etc) that can play NES thru PSX/N64. It's fucking wild you can walk around with one of those in your pocket a with a 128 GB card and have the entire LIBRARIES of every handheld in this thread at your disposal.
 
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Hoddi

Hoddi

Member
We talking games or systems? I've only played a few GBA games in an emulator on a tube TV and they were all fantastic. But those GB/GBC games that I've tried were a pass.

I still use my N3DS and bring it with me whenever I go on holiday. It's got so many good games that I haven't even played half of them.
 
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