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The benefits of being an early 3DS adopter and paying a heck of a lot more than everyone else for your system finally came full-circle yesterday when Nintendo released those 10 long-awaited Game Boy Advance titles for 3DS Ambassadors. The list of games is kind of awesome -- seriously, it amounts to ten world-class titles for a $70 surcharge, and that doesn't include the 10 middling-to-good NES games we received at the end of the summer -- but as always, nerds can always find a way to see the clouds in their silver lining. In this case, it's kind of justified, though; the GBA games look pretty terrible. They're blurry and overly dark due to resolution differences between the GBA screen (240x160 pixels) and the 3DS's top screen (400x240 pixels). To take full advantage of the 3DS's screen dimensions, a GBA game has to be stretched... and that's never pretty.
The good news is that those GBA games don't have to be stretched. As with standard DS carts and NES games, you can secretly elect to play these Ambassador titles at their original pixel resolution. That means there's a lot of empty screen space bordering the game graphics, but it also means all that lovely pixel-art isn't distorted and blown-out. To my mind, I'd rather squint a little than spend the entire time trying to shake the nagging sensation that I've suddenly developed cataracts.
The secret: Once you launch a GBA title from the 3DS channels menu, hold down the Select and Start buttons [correction: Select or Start buttons; you just need one!] until the black boot screen ends and the game begins. Ta-dah! Your GBA game is no longer ugly. Just tiny. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that the quality of GBA sound is a little crummy, or that the 3DS's D-pad layout is incredibly uncomfortable, or that there's no sleep mode, or that the remake of Yoshi's Island is a bit janky... ah, but there are those clouds in the silver lining again. Sorry; it's my nerd programming at work.
source
that, kind of sucks.
The good news is that those GBA games don't have to be stretched. As with standard DS carts and NES games, you can secretly elect to play these Ambassador titles at their original pixel resolution. That means there's a lot of empty screen space bordering the game graphics, but it also means all that lovely pixel-art isn't distorted and blown-out. To my mind, I'd rather squint a little than spend the entire time trying to shake the nagging sensation that I've suddenly developed cataracts.
The secret: Once you launch a GBA title from the 3DS channels menu, hold down the Select and Start buttons [correction: Select or Start buttons; you just need one!] until the black boot screen ends and the game begins. Ta-dah! Your GBA game is no longer ugly. Just tiny. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that the quality of GBA sound is a little crummy, or that the 3DS's D-pad layout is incredibly uncomfortable, or that there's no sleep mode, or that the remake of Yoshi's Island is a bit janky... ah, but there are those clouds in the silver lining again. Sorry; it's my nerd programming at work.
source
that, kind of sucks.
