The History of 3D Graphics on the Gameboy Advance | minimme

Join me as we relive the weird and wonderful timeline of 3D graphics engines on the GBA - be sure to rest your eyes when necessary!

Sebastian Macke's Voxel explanation

Music:

Ocean - DeeTunez
Free Beat 2014 - DeeTunez

Watching the Clouds - LAKEY INSPIRED
Fly With Me - LAKEY INSPIRED
Warm Nights - LAKEY INSPIRED
Monroe - LAKEY INSPIRED

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Video Credits/Sources:
"Monster Truck Madness ... (GBA)"
"Mario Kart: Super Circuit ... (GBA)"
"Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf ... (GBA)"
"Sega Rally Championship ... (GBA)"
Videos by YouTube channel 10min Gameplay

"007: Nightfire - Game Boy Advance"
YouTube video by Gaming Exhibit

"Game Boy Advance Longplay [099] Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon"
YouTube video by World-of-Longplays
Played by: Mad-Matt

"Grand Theft Auto on the Amiga!! Payback [Quick Play] | Nostalgia Nerd"
YouTube video by Nostalgia Nerd

"The Most Impressive GBA Game Ever!? - Port Patrol"
YouTube video by Fraki

"Prototype - Game Boy ADVANCE - E3 Trailer [16:9]"

"Gameboy Advance 3D-Trip by Oxygene by Oxygene, 2001"

Graphic State's Open World Demo

AGB/Pocketeers C2 Engine Demos

Raylight Blue Roses engine demos

"Sniper Elite 4 - Launch Trailer"

French interview of Velez and Dubail for footage

GBA SP Unveil B-Roll by Giant Bomb

Radium trailer

GP Advance/DR Advance engine prototype

E3 2004 DS intro

E3 2004 PSP intro

The Touryst Trailer

Shin'En Prototype

Virtua Racing Prototype

Mario Kart XXL

Quidditch/Tennis C4 demos

Rise trailer

Praetorians HD trailer

Cities: Skylines trailer

Twilight Princess Wii U trailer

Other credits:
VD-Dev quote from SSFF's video on them

Sebastian Macke's Voxel explanation

IGN/Gamespot/Journo/News Articles:

AGB Games archived website:

DR Advance quote

Raylight website:

[minimme]

The description is so absurdly long because of references. I hit the character limit - here's some stuff that wouldn't fit! (like the spreadsheet)
Timestamps:
Intro - 0:00
2000 - 1:28
2001 - 2:53
2002 - 6:25
2003 - 13:25
2004 - 20:47
2005 - 24:25
2006 - 26:35
2007 - 27:17
The years afterwards - 27:50
Outro - 31:47



Corrections:
- Backtrack could use raycasting rather than BSP, but most of the other shooters appear to use BSP. It's hard to really know. This was a big oversight on my behalf, apologies
- I didn't explicitly call the voxel based engine what it's known as - a voxel-space engine
- Nightfire could be BSP
- I say Yoshi correctly don't @ me ;)



Notes:
- There's every chance I've missed some games, as there's no database of this stuff and it's not widely known. I'd basically have to look at/play all 1500ish GBA games to really know
- It's a small data-set, so most 'trends' are pretty meaningless
- It's a bit rough, originally I made it just for me but decided to share
- There's an arbitrary element to what is good enough for the spreadsheet. I just made judgement calls on whether games were 3D enough, which I acknowledge is vague. I also didn't include mode7 style games, but did include voxel/BSP games which is again, in some sense, quite arbitrary

[Jasa]

VD-Dev: *slams full line of coke*
"Let's create 3D open world games for the GBA"

[gokushkameha-ha-ha]

3d snes/genesis/GBA games hit a special aesthetic, same with ps1 vs n64 vs dreamcast, all have their own vibes but they are all good vibes

[WH]

There are two types of 3d games on gba. Interesting attempts, and Asterix & Obelix XXL.

[JomasterTheSecond]

This is the culmination of everything Minimme has done. I'm proud of you, Peter!

[sokoTV]

31:46 "Go Australia"

*cuts to game footage of a raging fire*

I see what you did, minionme.

[izzieb]

This is a long video! Did wonder why you'd not posted in a while. Good job.

[Lazy_eye_blobFish]

You're addiction to 3d gaming on non 3d systems has lead you to this moment....this is true nerdvana.

[handsomebrick]

That Driv3r port being featured alongside all these other 3d GBA games really highlights how impressive of a feat it was, graphically speaking.

[INXSive]

Wow. This has to be the definitive video on this subject. It is borderline to a fantastic essay. I very much hope to see more work like this in the future. Thank you!

[BugsyFoga]

3d games for the gba is an aesthetic I absolutely adore .

[samuelc]

I still have some of these games, and remember having owned many of them and being very impressed by it all. I only had handhelds because we didn't have a tv, so 3D shooters were a rarity, and I had to try them all.
Most aged terribly, but the good memories are there, for many of the games mentioned. I even finished MoH Underground...

[TheAtoll]

Your deep dive have so greatly inspired me! I even did a complete history of Waterworld video games just because I was so encouraged by your plunge into the obscure and forgotten!

[eVerProductions]

I remember when you had around 8k subs and how you made me feel like I wasn’t the only person that was so interested and curious of the graphical capabilities of underpowered handheld consoles especially the game boy and ds. I loved any and every 3D game on the go because I’m of the generation where 3D games started only on home consoles and to see them grow now to where we have full blown high quality 3D games on the go it’s crazy, back in my day 3D was only on a PlayStation 1 or Nintendo 64 and look at us now

[bakerdoze]

“Oversaturated and aimed at kids” sounds like how the Wii’s game library ended up, with all its share of shovelware.
Although the Wii probably had more bangers than the GBA did overall

[OrdinaryThings]

new minimme vid. Always a cause to celebrate!

[treytonjenkins]

6:58 Looking at Star X, I am genuinely surprised Nintendo never put a SNES-style Star Fox on the GBA. They did it with F-Zero, so why not their other often-forgotten sci-fi franchise? They could have just touched up Star Fox 2, renamed it "Star Fox Advance" or whatever and slapped it on there

(although am I right in thinking there was some licensing thing going on behind the scenes? I know 2 was cancelled for 64, but I'm sure I heard somewhere that it took so long to surface because of internal conflicts. Maybe I'm wrong, I'm not a Star Fox fan)

[barry-allenthe-flash]

Yo, this video is fantastic, but I gotta give you mad props for the Description. Holy shit - you linked _everything_ - that is unbelievably thorough. Appreciated, for sure though! You definitely gave us a bunch to chew on here, so I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to dive into some of these other links. Props! Excellent work as always

[fehzorz]

This kind of programming wizardry will be a lost art outside of demoscene. Everything is too powerful.

[RetroBreak]

A few people have directed me to your channel after I did my GBA homebrew games episode and really enjoying your videos so far! :D