The Game Boy Abyss - Year 3 in Review (2024)
Welcome to my annual round-up of the Game Boy Abyss, a fun little piece where I highlight the best and worst of what I reviewed in the third year of The Game Boy Abyss, and chat a little bit about how the year went. It’s a year that saw massive growth in the website's viewership, despite my output not nearly being as much as I’d like. Before I get into it all, but thank you for reading! If this is (somehow) the first thing of mine I’ve written, please take a look at some of my reviews, I’m sure you’ll discover something new from the Game Boy Advance’s fantastic(ly bizarre) selection of games.
This year, I reviewed twenty-two different games, which is honestly a bit less than I hoped - I was aiming for around thirty, but I’m going to do my best and not be an asshole to myself about it. I’ve struggled with the quality of my reviews, though I’m not sure if it’s an issue of how well I write reviews, or just how much I *can* review differently - I’ve said it before, but there’s only so much one can say about a couple of different, 2D platformers. I love writing, and I love writing about video games, so I’ll just stick with it and keep working hard. The website itself hit two major milestones this year - on Neocities itself, the website achieved over a hundred followers, which is just nutty, almost as nutty as the fact that overall the website hit over ten thousand views across all reviews back in September… and have hit an extra 5000 in the last three months! I’m not sure what happened, but general viewership has skyrocketed, largely supported by consistently high numbers on my Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Yu-Gi-Oh Dungeon Dice Monsters, Love Hina Advance, Dogz and Elf reviews. It’s fascinating what does well, I’ll tell you that. But all this yapping is just to say thank you so much for keeping up with me this year, even if I haven’t been as active as I really wanted to be.
Again, I don’t want to just repeat last year’s round-up, but it’s been another tough year. I do feel my mental health is a little better than last year, but that’s been tempered by a more strenuous, both physically and mentally, situation at my work (that’s certainly improved in the last month!), coupled with the fact that I bought and moved into a house, so settling in has taken a lot out of me. But I’ll tell you, that passion is still in me; when I really get in the mood, I can think of nothing else but which GBA game I’ll tackle next, which will be the next milestone title, and how excited I am to play Game No. 100. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but my rough goal for the Game Boy Abyss has been to hit a hundred reviews, with Game #100 being my favourite game for the console - Mother 3. 2025 will be the year we hit that, I swear, so look forward to that!
I also think my smaller number of reviews this year comes from me trying to avoid playing any of the ‘gems’ too early, lest in years I’m stuck just playing the bottom of the barrel… I think I burnt myself out playing shovelware and tie-in licensed titles, so I think I’ll be a bit kinder to myself and play a few games that are regarded as being a bit above the average.
The other thing I’d like to note is that I’ve begun streaming the occasional GBA game on Twitch, under the username GameBoyAbyss. The only games I’ve tackled thus far on stream are That’s So Raven! and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, so it’s early days, but I really enjoy streaming and just… learning to be a bit more social. I am an awkward fellow, after all. So look forward to more streams in the future!
But enough about me! We’re here for what everyone has been waiting for - the highly vaunted, highly illogical Game Boy Abyss awards, where we award the games most deserving - and undeserving - and trying to make light of this endless, sisyphean task I’ve entrusted myself with. Give the title a click if you'd like to see the full review! So, without further ado - the worst game I played in 2024…
Worst Game: Shrek: Swamp Kart Speedway
(Also Winner of ‘Ugliest Game’)
I was so, so, SO certain that Bratz was going to run away with this award. It was rare for me to play a game that literally almost bored me to sleep; but that was nothing compared to the sheer frustration, to sheer ugliness, the extreme lack of quality that is so, so inherent to Shrek Speedway. Beyond its somewhat aesthetic backgrounds, Shrek Speedway is far and away the ugliest game I’ve played on this console, with its pixels blending together into a sludge-like shape that taints… everything. Its kart mechanics feel counterintuitive, with a single tap stopping you like you ran into a log. It does nothing interesting with the kart racer genre, besides defining a floor of quality somehow even lower than something like Crazy Frog Racer. Half of this game is a snore fest, but the game kicks into an unwanted high-gear in the second half turning the already clunky, awkward kart action into one of the most frustrating experiences of the year. Coupled with the fact you’re locked into your character choice until you beat every stage - or start over entirely - is just the icing on the cake for this abomination. Shrek: Swamp Kart Speedway just isn’t the worst kart racer on the system, or even the worst game on the system - it very much might be one of the worst games I’ve ever played.
Most Interesting: Mazes of Fate
(Also Winner of ‘Most Retro Game’)
The runner up for my favourite game I played this year, Mazes of Fate drew me in almost instantly with its old-school aesthetics, dungeon-crawling gameplay and the general nostalgia-laced experience. First person dungeon crawlers are like crack to me, even if a LOT of them have teething issues, and whilst Mazes of Fate is no exception, it’s charm and adherence to old-school, albeit simplistic combat, and obscure puzzles makes it hard to hate. Just wandering these ancient temples, thick forests and dark dungeons, all paired with beautiful music that feels directly ripped from the eighties is just… Mazes of Fate is real, real special. Sadly, its storytelling, whilst having a solid and interesting enough premise, is pretty subpar, and to make matters worse, the character building felt extremely linear with very little room to express your own playstyle. But the game is simply so charming, with a wonderful blend of dungeon crawling and questing, that many of these issues can be forgiven, if not forgotten. Mazes of Fate is a blast from a past I never experienced, but its adherence to old-school aesthetics and experiences makes it one of the most unique and interesting titles on the Game Boy Advance… just have a guide handy, it’ll make your life a lot easier, trust me.
Most Likely To Return To: Eragon
(Also Winner of ‘No Right To Be This Good’ and ‘Way, Way Better Than The Movie’)
I don’t even think Eragon is that amazing - it’s also one of the uglier games I played this year - but I just didn’t expect to get such a decent JRPG out of a tie-in to the atrocious adaptation of Eragon. It's an expansion of both the film and the movie, turning scenes that were either a few minutes or a few pages long into entire sequences that let you immerse yourself a little bit more in the world of Alagaesia. Its fast, turn-based combat felt snappy and satisfying, turning the occasional grinds into much less painful affairs than I’d otherwise expect, though the game does have the danger of wandering into the wrong section of the massive overworld and encountering enemies far, far stronger than Eragon and co. It’s also a remarkably ugly game, but in a way that felt a little bit charming than anything else. Despite its occasional missteps and failings, it’s kind of a bar of what I’d like licensed titles to be - expansions of the source material with their own spin, and as someone who was obsessed with Eragon back in the day, this game hit the spot in such a nice way.
Weirdest Game: Madden NFL 2002
(Also Winner of ‘I’m Losing My Mind’)
This is purely a selfish pick; as I said in the review, even if it’s clearly weaker than console versions, there are probably some NFL fans that’ll enjoy this GBA entry. But as someone who knows next to nothing about the sport (besides the Steelers, which tickled several people more than a bit), I’ve never played a game (that I read the manual, to be fair!) that has felt so visually and mechanically impenetrable as this. The mess of signs, signals, terminology and everything else that makes up one of America’s pastimes is probably simplistic to someone from the country, but it just did nothing for me. I can’t say it’s a good or bad game (though I suspect even fans will trend to the latter), but Madden, without a doubt, is one of the strangest games I’ve encountered.
Biggest Surprise: Santa Claus Jr. Advance
(Also Winner of ‘Best Christmas Game for the GBA’)
Not to repeat myself, as my very last review of the year was on Santa Claus Jr, but I was genuinely blown away by this title; I’ve been genuinely worn down by GBA platformers these days, and a Christmas-themed one? Well, after Elf: The Movie: The Game… Santa Claus. Jr won’t win any awards (sans my vaunted selections), but it’s a game so entrenched in fantastic fundamentals, beautiful art direction and a genuinely brilliant difficulty curve that makes up for its occasionals mechanical (and total lack of info regarding several collectibles) issues. The rare ‘generic’ platformer I can’t help but recommend. Seriously, it looks like you’re platforming your way through the heavens itself by the end, what other kind of Christmas-themed platformers have that going for them?
(Also Winner of ‘Better Than The Home Console Version’)
Stuntman isn’t amazing, but that has less to do with any major faults the game has and more to do with the general lack of ‘amazing’ titles I tackled this year on the site. Stuntman’s mission statement is extremely simple - on car, motorcycle, or snowmobile, follow a linear course and perform a sequence of stunts that can range from simple jumps to triggering explosions, barely dodging other vehicles, and 180-degree turns. It knows exactly what it is, and despite the game’s occasional brutal difficulty - you can miss one early stunt and it’ll screw up your timing for the rest of the mission - when you hit that flow state and are just nailing stunt after stunt… man, it just feels good. It’s also one of the pseudo-3D titles on the GBA that actually look pretty good, creating a simulacrum of the home console version that’s rarely achieved by GBA counterparts. On that note, Stuntman was the first game I ever played on my PS2, and I honestly feel that the GBA version is just as good, if not better - it’s hard to put into exact words, but I think the more simple nature inherent to the weaker GBA just makes the game work better. Either way, Stuntman was likely the very best game I reviewed this year, and alongside Mazes of Fate, are the games I recommend the most y’all should check out.
Thank you again for reading not only this roundup, but for reading the Game Boy Abyss throughout 2024. This is a silly, silly project made to just give me a little bit more to do in life, and it’s turned into one of the most rewarding tasks I’ve ever taken. I’m not going to make any grand claims saying that ‘2025 will be bigger and better than ever’, but all I’ll say is I hope I still love doing this as much as I’ve done thus far this time next year. Thanks again for reading, Happy New Year, and I’ll see you in my next review!