El-Hazard the Magnificent World on GBA
From EHOL
Shortly after the successful completion of the PC version of El-Hazard, I decided it was time to move on to
something new and interesting to spend my time with. A small, short-lived 2D scriptable platforming game engine I wrote
for Windows would cause me to gain interest in programming for the Gameboy Advance, which was the most similar platform
at the time. I decided the best way to learn to program the GBA would be to do something simple that already worked.
And the choice was made -- the PC version of the El-Hazard game would be ported to the Gameboy Advance system. While this
was done for fun originally, the console emulation community held this up with much praise. Not because they're all
El-Hazard fans, of course, but just because some guy like me made something so big and complex.
Having said that, the GBA version actually was made quite some time ago, but recieved very little attention on this site
mainly because I was embarrased by the original version's music engine, which was my first ever on GBA and thusly
sounded worse than old 8-bit Nintendo games. The new one however features a custom digital mixer I created myself and I
think pulls it up to par with at least an average GBA title.
While this is more like a shrunken and dithered version of the Windows PC edition, it gets points for being crammed into
the 32MB max ROM space of a GBA (with THREE full vocal ending songs) and for being on the GBA in general (which is seriously
tedious programming!) If you purchase a flashcart it can even be played on a real, physical GBA or GBA SP handheld. And
then you can impress your friends by saying "I just spent almost $200 on a 256Mb flashcart kit just to show you something
that can be downloaded for free and has a nicer looking version not available here!"
Speaking of which, if you'd like to get this up and running, you'll need either the aforementioned flashcart (which you
probably own only if you're also coincidentally a GBA geek like me or a cold pirate) or a GBA emulator. Currently the only
one I recommend -- really for ALL GBA emulation -- is VisualBoy Advance, which can be found at the VisualBoy Advance Homepage.
Download El-Hazard for the GBA (ROM Version 3)
For reference, Version 1 and 2, released as ROM with a version headers 99 and 10 respectively, had the bad sound engine, and Version 1 in particular had several bugs in it that prevented it from running on a real GBA. Version 3 here is pretty much functionally identical to Version 2 except with the new sound engine.
