That’s a good idea. It’s super easy to do, and a good skill to have in this hobby, but yeah don’t do it on anything valuable the first time hehe.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Speaking of GBA games, there is an Italian store on eBay selling copies of late titles like Konami’s Shaman King 2 (linear action title built on the Castlevania engine), Super Robot Taisen (SRPG like Advance Wars but with extensive robot customiation) and Yggdra Union (quirky and unique strategy game). I ordered the first two as I already had the PSP remake of Yggdra Union. It felt weird unsealing Game Boy Advance games in 2018!
Links here if anyone’s interested:
They are usually spot welded to the little tabs, which are soldered in place, but it’s a pretty easy change if you have a soldering iron.
I’ve seen posts about the backlit GBA SP here. Is the refresh rate really this much of a problem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z53VoRNCvso
At the moment I’m playing on a Japanese Game Boy Micro, but that’s mainly because I find the DS Lite, with its super high color gamut for 2006 (74% of sRGB!), to oversaturate the games. And it has minimal ghosting - less than the Lite!
But I was thinking of picking up an AGS-101 for the backwards compatibility and for the slightly larger screen whenever I needed it. How have your experiences been with it?
The SP 101 screen is comparable to the DS lite screen. Both are way too saturated for the way GBA and especially GBC games were designed, both have similar levels of ghosting.
Specifically I find that the SP-101 screen is not great for GB games with extremely high contrast black on white scrolling and GBC games that scroll fast for that very fast refresh unlit TFT (especially Dragon Warrior 3), as well as some GBA games (it is very distracting in Super Mario Advance 4: SMB3).
Honestly? Yes. It is.
Personally, I stick to Gameboy Player with GBI ULL
DS lite screen has a faster refresh rate unless I’m remembering wrong.
I can play the same game side by side and it’s about the same.
I have heard that there is variance in DS Lite screens however both of mine look the same as the AGS-101 screen.
I also prefer to use a GB Player or a non-backlit GBA in sunlight
That reminds me I had a copy of harmony of dissonance as a kid with a dead battery. Only thing is I had a regular gba so Everytime I wanted to play it I had to start over. Did end up beating it years later.
There may also be variance in AGS101 screens too.
I find the 101 screen to be wonderful and I’ve put one in my og gba and gbc.
I think the ghosting is extremely minimal and a non issue. When installing the 101 screen you need to adjust the contrast pot to get optimal brightness/ghosting and I think that’s where alot of people go wrong.
Bennvenn makes a backlite driver board that can be installed and it gives you 100% brightness (as opposed to ~80%) and people have also reported that it eliminated the ghosting.
I personally have a:
SP101
AGB101
AGB101 w/driver board
GBC 101
All of them are an absolute joy to play on and and all have an identical image.
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Interesting. Knowing what we know about nintendo’s screen calibration standards, it could be the case that not all stock AGS-101 systems were created equal.
I’m not sure if the ags101 even has a pot on it for screen adjustment. On the non backlit models the pot is there to adjust the contrast which makes me think there is either a variance is the non backlit screens or the pot is there for adjustment down the road.
Thanks for the responses, folks! I find it interesting as well that the ghosting appears to differ between models. It looks pretty bad in that video (and definitely noticeable), so there must be a difference with screen suppliers given Socksfelloff said the screen quality was comparable to the other formats.
I’ve been thinking about this as I revisit the GBA this month and last, but I seem to remember the GBA getting a reputation for being a SNES port machine back in the day. I actually find this a bit unfair now that I’ve been considering the library - in fact nearly all of my favourite or most remembered GBA games aren’t the direct ports!
- Rhythm Tengoku
- Digidrive
- Coloris
- Dialhex
- SoundVoyager
- Dotstream
- Racing Gears Advance
- Boktai series
- Riviera: The Promised Land
- Yggdra Union
- Guru Logi Champ
- Kuru Kuru Kururin
- Kururin Paradise
- Mr Driller Ace
- Advance Wars 1 and 2
- Fire Emblem 7
- Wario Land 4
- Drill Dozer
- Pokémon: Emerald
- Golden Sun: The Lost Age
- Mario vs Donkey Kong
- Donkey Kong: King of Swing
- WarioWare, Inc
- Metroid Fusion
- Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
- Metroid: Zero Mission
- WarioWare Twisted
- Gunstar Future/Super Heroes
- Astro Boy: Omega Factor
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
- Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga
- Mario Golf: Advance Tour
- Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation
- Pinball of the Dead
- Ninja Cop/Ninja Five-O (okay, I haven’t played this because it’s ridiculously rare. Put it on Wii U GBA VC Konami!!!)
Not sure if this belongs here or in the swag thread, but I’m really looking forward to playing this!
Relieved it’s an EEPROM save.
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Got these beauties, not sealed but they might as well have been because they’re ridiculously mint and all the posters, manuals and inserts in both boxes are 100% crisp and seem to be completely unused.
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Wow they’re beautiful! Great pick up!
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Thanks! 
The plastic clamps inside my Micro that hold the faceplate in place essentially disintegrated. Are there replacements anywhere to buy or do I just need to find some thin double-sided tape?