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Who the hell plays GBA Doom?


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It's a censored, watered-down port! Every time you kill somebody they bleed Baron of Hell's green blood, also the blood on Doomguy's face is what appears to be "sweat".  

Gibs? Forget it, now all the enemies die normally when they drop below their negative max health. No nazis either, so you won't see the iconic Wolf3D levels in their glory. 

Also, MAPs 15 and 24 are now divided into two because the GBA isn't strong enough to run them. 

 

If you're playing Doom on Nintendo, I'd suggest picking up the SNES or Switch port compared to this one.

  

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11 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Who the hell buys GBA games in 2020?

 

Just to elaborate on my point; anybody who is buying GBA games in this glorious year of apparently-perfect vision, is likely someone collecting either a whole set of them, or retro curios, or anybody else that is less-bothered about the accuracy of an almost twenty year-old port for modest hardware than they are HOLY SHIT LOOK WHAT ALSO RUNS DOOM!!!1

Also, I like the green blood. Stood out better than regular ketchup would on the terrible non-backlit OG GBA screen.

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3 hours ago, FireballCaco said:

I'd suggest picking up the SNES...

Are you sure about that? I'd pick green blood over that "technically impressive" clunky mess of a port.

3 hours ago, FireballCaco said:

No nazis either, so you won't see the iconic Wolf3D levels in their glory.

But there are nazis in GBA Doom 2, if that's the game you are talking about. There are different textures, but that's not much of an issue.

And don't worry, after 18 years I'm sure nobody would be interested in buying those ports, except for collectors.

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2 hours ago, FireballCaco said:

It's a censored, watered-down port! Every time you kill somebody they bleed Baron of Hell's green blood, also the blood on Doomguy's face is what appears to be "sweat".  

Gibs? Forget it, now all the enemies die normally when they drop below their negative max health. No nazis either, so you won't see the iconic Wolf3D levels in their glory. 

  • It is censored because Nintendo, but its generally an accurate rendition, using the actual Jaguar Doom engine as its base. They had a custom engine working prior before Carmack provided them with the JagDoom code.
  • Doom 2 on GBA used the Southpaw Engine.
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Also, MAPs 15 and 24 are now divided into two because the GBA isn't strong enough to run them. 

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If you're playing Doom on Nintendo, I'd suggest picking up the SNES or Switch port compared to this one.

Its funny you mention both SNES and Switch:

  • SNES runs its own custom engine called VRAGE/Reality.
  • Switch runs Doom through an Unity framework.

Doom GBA at the very least has the JagDoom code directly talking to the hardware instead of using a wrapper or a custom engine.

 

1 hour ago, SteelPH said:

It was all we had as far as handheld Doom was concerned. Not quite an issue now of course.

Doom already existed for Windows CE based PDA's and the Gamepark 32 back then aswell as Tapwave Zodiac and Palm (Zodiac/Palm run similar OSes.)

 

The WinCE ones are actually quite interesting and not documented yet, one is even based on Legacy.

Edited by Redneckerz

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But he does not play it on the GBA, instead he is using the GBA-AddOn for the Gamecube, as you can see he is playing with an Gamecube gamepad.

 

250px-GameCube-Game-Boy-Player.jpg

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GBA Doom is okay considering SNES Doom and its awful graphics and dumbed down inaccurate behavior of everything, but it has a lame ending ("Dis" is just Fortress of Mystery, no bosses) and the Cacodemons are hopped up on caffeine (seriously why are they so fast?). The music also sucks. But I take more issue with the detrimental changes and the armor bug in GBA Doom II. It also looks and runs worse on the highest difficulty compared to its predecessor. At least the whole damn game is present though, and the music sounds a lot better, that's more than can be said for Doom II on consoles prior to the X360 port and onward.

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well at the time of release it might have been the best way to play doom on the go. people probably just ignored the censorship and enjoyed playing doom at school or on the bus etc. nowadays im sure its just played for its nostalgia or its novelty.

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Well, I'm not pretty sure, but I think that many people play the GBA port. There are still speedrunners that play the GBA one.

 

Here, check a speedrun of the entire Episode 1:

 

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On 3/8/2020 at 5:34 PM, randomgamerguy1997 said:

Is it wrong to unironically like the Jaguar version of Doom levels that are present in PSX Doom and GBA Doom?


I saw them in PSX Doom first so I associate them more with that version than any other version of the game. It didn't even occur to me that Jag couldn't do crushing ceilings and teleporting monster traps until much later on, seeing as the Doom II portion of PSX Doom didn't have these problems (and the inclusion of episode 4 for that matter).

Edited by Lila Feuer

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@FireballCaco

What you call watered-down, I call interesting.  I like the fact that enemies have green blood.  I think it's neat that there's another port based on the Atari Jaguar version, and that it came out 7 years later.  I also love that it was developed by a relatively unknown studio, and that they created custom deathmatch maps for the game.  Plus, who wouldn't want to be able to play DOOM on their GBA, DS, or GameCube?

 

@Jayextee


I mean... I just bought Ecks vs Sever last year and DOOM this year.  DOOM GBA was kind of an impulse buy but I had always wanted to play Ecks vs Sever.  I don't really consider myself a collector so much as a fan of video games in general.  Also, just because something is old doesn't mean my interest has waned.  Hell, my next major purchase is either going to be an Atari Lynx or an Analogue Pocket + Lynx cartridge adapter.  (I really want to play Kung Food!)


@randomgamerguy1997

Nope!  In fact, all of this talk about JagDoom-based ports is making me want to break down and buy Final DOOM for PSX.

Edited by KainXavier

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1 hour ago, VGA said:

I see you play GBA Doom on an emulator. Why haven't you applied the decensoring romhack?

 

Because it was a beta mod showcase without edits. I didn't care about decensoring at all. The patch was applied when I've finished the mod, for regular players.

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I can't seem to find many GBA Doom 2 videos on Youtube. I watched a full playthrough of the first GBA Doom with commentary and can't find one about the second game.

Edited by VGA

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I mean, to be fair... Most ports are either watered down or janky. Even the PC ports released by Bethesda these days are missing things.

It's still kinda cool to look back at these older releases on fairly limited platforms that demanded sacrifices. It was a different time.

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On 3/6/2020 at 1:27 PM, FireballCaco said:

 

If you're playing Doom on Nintendo, I'd suggest picking up the SNES

  

Why would you do that? It's horrible 

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lmao recommending SNES Doom over GBA Doom

 

This port is actually pretty nice for it's time given how it's so highly accurate thanks to the Jaguar Doom engine, and not only that, but there really wasn't a lot of console versions yet that had four player multiplayer except for maybe the Xbox original ports that you only got exclusively through Doom 3 Limited Edition and Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil on the system.

 

And c'mon dude, you were able to play Doom on the GO with a nice battery life and some pretty good controls!

 

And things only got better with the Doom 2 port, which yes, used a custom engine, but was just so great for it's time.

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On 3/11/2020 at 12:00 AM, KainXavier said:

@FireballCaco

What you call watered-down, I call interesting.  I like the fact that enemies have green blood.  I think it's neat that there's another port based on the Atari Jaguar version, and that it came out 7 years later.  I also love that it was developed by a relatively unknown studio, and that they created custom deathmatch maps for the game.  Plus, who wouldn't want to be able to play DOOM on their GBA, DS, or GameCube?

 

@Jayextee


I mean... I just bought Ecks vs Sever last year and DOOM this year.  DOOM GBA was kind of an impulse buy but I had always wanted to play Ecks vs Sever.  I don't really consider myself a collector so much as a fan of video games in general.  Also, just because something is old doesn't mean my interest has waned.  Hell, my next major purchase is either going to be an Atari Lynx or an Analogue Pocket + Lynx cartridge adapter.  (I really want to play Kung Food!)


@randomgamerguy1997

Nope!  In fact, all of this talk about JagDoom-based ports is making me want to break down and buy Final DOOM for PSX.

Kung Food is horrible. If you want a good side scrolling beat em up on Atari Lynx, your best bet is Ninja Gaiden. It's a port of the arcade original and not an action platformer like its NES/Master System/Game Boy counterparts. 

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On 3/21/2020 at 7:07 PM, famicommander said:

Kung Food is horrible. If you want a good side scrolling beat em up on Atari Lynx, your best bet is Ninja Gaiden. It's a port of the arcade original and not an action platformer like its NES/Master System/Game Boy counterparts. 

I know it's a terrible game, but it's also an exclusive one with an interesting premise.  That and I can already play the arcade version of Ninja Gaiden through Ninja Gaiden Black on the Xbox.

Edit: Thanks for the recommendation, though!  I've never been that big on Ninja Gaiden but a portable version could be neat.

Edited by KainXavier

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On 3/6/2020 at 11:27 AM, FireballCaco said:

It's a censored, watered-down port! Every time you kill somebody they bleed Baron of Hell's green blood, also the blood on Doomguy's face is what appears to be "sweat".  

Gibs? Forget it, now all the enemies die normally when they drop below their negative max health. No nazis either, so you won't see the iconic Wolf3D levels in their glory. 

Also, MAPs 15 and 24 are now divided into two because the GBA isn't strong enough to run them. 

 

If you're playing Doom on Nintendo, I'd suggest picking up the SNES or Switch port compared to this one.

  

There's a hack that restores the original content and fixes a couple of things.

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On 3/8/2020 at 8:34 PM, randomgamerguy1997 said:

Is it wrong to unironically like the Jaguar version of Doom levels that are present in PSX Doom and GBA Doom?

 

For me, depends on the level.  I find some of the later levels in Doom 1 to be painfully overlong on the PC version...my first exposure to Doom was on the Jag (no music) and then the PSX.  So I got very used to those maps...I didn't really play the PC version hardcore until I played it on the 360 Live...I love the original E1 so much (as long as it's to Aubrey's music...more on that below) that I now find it VERY hard to go back to the PSX versions of those levels.  I do think some of the truncated Jaguar/PSX versions (like Containment and Spawning Vats) are much better, both in style and in length.  Love the lighting effects in the PSX version too...BUT, though some of the textures in the PC version are kinda ugly, the Jag versions of the maps can often look way too stripped down/plain.  PSX frame rate is hard to get used to once you get used to smoother versions too (though I'm guessing most play the PSX TC version if they want to play that version, as opposed to the actual PSX version on PSX hardware).  

 

I only heard the Prince tunes here and there...when I first played the PSX version, since that was the first version I played that had music, I assumed that was just the standard Doom music.  When I first heard the Prince tunes, my reaction was "What the hell is this crap?"  I can't play Doom without Aubrey's compositions.  

 

And oh yeah I bought a GBA several years ago, just to play Doom (the idea of it on a handheld was pretty cool).  Didn't really take.  Was just too primitive.  Think I sold it to a friend after a couple of weeks.  

Edited by Devils950003

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16 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

There's a hack that restores the original content and fixes a couple of things.

I have heard of that hack. Was it not called Vanilla Doom?

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