19 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
Suddenly, my N-gage is looking worlds better.
Date of Review: Feb 24, 2006
The Bottom Line: A novelty. That's it.
Nintendo are drunken sailors who spend money like drunken sailors. But to be fair, they're at least intelligent drunken sailors. They know even if they release the same Gameboy system four different times, it'll still sell by the millions. Although, the Micro is not exactly the hottest gameboy ever. In fact...I have no idea why they felt the need to make it.
Many of us know what the original Gameboy Advance is right?? Well, in case you don't, it's the first 32-bit handheld that ever really existed, though most people wouldn't call it that. It's basically a Super Nintendo in the palm of your hand, which is not a negative thing. Boasting the most lightning quick and most outstandingly colorful, vibrant, heavenly graphics ever seen on a portable before it's time. And with a game library chock-full of 100's upon 100's of games ranging everywhere from action, adventure, puzzle and fighting, to RPG, strategy, card games, horror games, great third-party support, great in-house titles, and home to the infamous and exclusive Pokemon series, the advance is the cornerstone of portable gaming mayhem! Its polygonal capabilites, though, are somewhat lackluster and a great majority of its titles are nowhere near as deep and huge as Nintendo's new Nintendo DS is capable. So with a redesign of the Gameboy Advance (which is the SP) and a new portable to compete with Sony's 128-bit PSP (which is the Nintendo DS), Nintendo thought, "...nope, nope, not good enough." So they release now a third rendition of the amazingly popular Gameboy Advance system.
As far as being a novelty, the Gameboy Micro will certainly make you widen your eyes with awe and enchantment. And there's no denying how utterly cute it is. In a nut-shell, it's nothing more than a Gameboy Advance shrunk down to the size of a credit card (but still half an inch thick), with a much smaller, but unbelievably high-resolution screen with an adjustable backlight screen for all lighting conditions.
THE GOOD: Seeing as how the main quiffs people had with the original Gameboy Advance were how its screen was hard to see and didn't light-up, and with the SP supposedly solving those problems, the Micro definitely has utterly perfected the Advance as we know it. Its screen, although very small (the size of two postage stamps put together), is a marvel to gaze at, being so beautifully and perfectly lit up right to the standards of most high-end cellular phones. And the portability of the Micro, being just as small as most high-end cell phones, is yet another dream for a handheld. The Micro in fact sets a world-record for the being the smallest gaming handheld ever to exist, outside the game and watch dealios, but we're talking about quality handhelds anyways. Not those cheesy old cereal-box toys.
The brightness control is a nice touch to the facade. It has three different selections of brightness for different times of day. In nearly any lighting condition, you can see the screen quite well. In really bright sunlight, I was a tad disappointed. Gameboy's screen is still not as wonderfully reflective as my lovely old NeoGeoPocket Color, a similar portable console from 1999. Nothing has ever quite touched the quality of THAT screen.
Even better, it supports regular standard headphones without the need to buy an adapter. The volume control is adjustable with the click of a button (not a moveable spoke like SP), and the unit is powered with a rechargable lithium battery just like the SP. And charging only takes a couple hours, yes, just like the SP.
The Gameboy Micro is rather stylish (if that happens to concern you at all) because also like most cell phones, you can change the faceplates of the Gameboy Micro with tons of cool hot colors to choose from out there. That's actually a refreshing new direction to go for the Gameboy. Since the early 1990's, the only chance you ever had at getting a new color for your Gameboy was to buy an entire new game deck because each one made was always just one dedicated color.
Also, I have to say, that even though this Gameboy is unbelievably, and sometimes annoyingly, tiny, the controls are all beautifully placed to play quite comfortably. Wherever your fingers naturally rest on the unit, your buttons are right there. The start and select buttons are on the underside near your thumbs, and the trigger buttons are on the top rim, like any advance, where your index fingers rest. I never felt any strain to speak of.
THE BAD: As tremendous as it's design is and how cool it appears to be, that feeling dries off faster than white-out. We're talking about 15, count 'em, 15 minutes of fame here. Because this system is not only nothing more than a Gameboy Advance repackaged in a cute little basket, it doesn't even have the best features of the other two advances: BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY! All those tons of classic GB titles that you may own, the Micro has the same denying security built-in as does the Nintendo DS. Two little spokes blocking the cartridges. And why would Nintendo do this? Well if you think it through logically, you can figure it out. After all, if the Micro can do everything the Advance SP can do, nobody's going to want an SP. Same reason why Nintendo DS won't play the classic games. So that it doesn't replace those delightful little money-making SP's. And to even keep interest alive in the SP, they've re-released them with a brighter screen that's of the same quality standards as the flippin' Micro! So what's the point of this thing????
And seriously, could we get much stupider than having to buy a whole new 2-player cord for a system that's not even new??? Nintendo needs more reasons for me to spend money like I need more reasons to jump off a bridge!
So really: WHAT REASON IS THERE TO BUY A MICRO??? It's pretty sad that my Nokia N-gage plays more gameboy games than the Micro. What is up with THAT??????!!!!
