How does Shantae know? She's a genie, that's how.

love how this answers why the ds couldn't play gb games on the gba slot and why you need separate ever drive for gbc and gba

"How the Game Boy Advance knew it was running a Game Boy Game" -Ooh! I wonder what technical trick they used to pull this off! "It was shaped different" -oh

The real reason for the palette change is that the GBA screen is much darker than the GBC screen was. Nintendo, in all their wisdom, put the burden on the game to check if it was running on GBA and correct the palette instead of correcting it in hardware. You're not supposed to view them side by side like that. Rather, the aim was to match the color palette so it looked the same on both systems even though their LCD screens were different. Doing it this way instead of in hardware also did mean that only games released after the GBA had an opportunity to apply this correction. Of course, being able to detect that the game was running on GBA also meant that you could add easter eggs and other bonuses for GBA as well, which some GBC games released after the GBA did.

Mind you, the Wii is just two Gamecubes held together with some gaffer tape...

Fun fact: Another Wayforward GBC game, Wendy Every Witch Way, also got a GBA enhanced mode. With it, you get access to an exclusive set of Advanced Levels where the gimmick is the level fades in and out as you navigate through.

I never realized that a simple switch in the GBA cartridge slot did so much to allow the system to switch between GBA and the GBC hardware. Shows how simple yet complex Nintendo was with their systems.

So if I understand this correctly, the "GBA Enhancements" aren't actually giving you anything more in terms of system features/performance - the game is still running on a GameBoy Color, no extra access to the GBA's RAM or CPU, and so it's only really useful to adjust for the two different screens? Does that mean that Shantae's Tinkerbat transformation could have worked on the GBC perfectly fine? (Not criticizing, just wondering why it was GBA-only if the GBA-Enhanced mode doesn't give any extra horsepower)

I'm far from an electronics expert but let's suppose that switch gets stuck or damaged and it delivers 5 volts to a 3.3v GBA cartridge - did they have some over voltage protection on those carts or is it not enough of a difference to damage them?

In all honesty I didn't know there were and GBC games that were enhanced in this way. It certainly wasn't advertised in any magazines that I am aware of here in the UK at the time.

Like I have commented before. I simply love that you go into deep hardware and software dives. This is the way my brain works too and always have to know why and you give me that. Thanks for the videos. Keep them coming

‘GBA enhanced mode’ just means ‘terrible screen mitigation mode’

Interesting about Oracle of Ages! But the color palette just seems brighter... I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the change.

Actually this is probably why they didn’t include backwards compatibility in the Game Boy Micro because it would take up a lot of space even though Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges fit in there

Hope we see MVG cover the EA hack from last week.

I NEVER noticed that switch in my GBA cartridge slot!

I would love to see a dive in the strangeness that is the 3DS GBA support as how it's done catches a lot of people off guard when they look into it. Really wish Nintendo would of made more use of the feature.

MVG, I've been following for a couple of years now. I tune in for videos like these. You go far beyond what most people are capable of, because of your dev background. Seeing your unique perspective is really cool. Your production quality and professionalism is also second to none. Love your content. Keep rocking!

Wayfoward's GBC game Wendy: Every Witch Way is GBA Enhanced too...

To this day, the gameboy colour had two technical advancements which never saw the light of day. 1) resident evil port (unreleased) 2) metal slug clone called 'terrifying 9/11' The metal slug clone had outrageous content, but the gameplay was just too good and easily maxed the gameboy colour performance

They could have just used a menu, killer instinct gave you a brightness option in the menu.

What was the idea behind the alternate color palettes for GBA-mode games? Were those colors just better suited for the GBA's vs GBC's screen hardware? Or was there an artistic element to it?

The amount of investigation, detail and technical description seen in this channel is almost unmatched. Congrats on the great content!

When sitting my ass down for the night to watch some vids I was presented with about 8 new notifications for new vids from people I really like. MVG wasn’t even considered anything but first. Really look forward to these, you’re doing a fantastic job, and all the work is greatly appreciated. Thanks man.

Getting both types of catrtidges to run reliably without a physical switch would have required one more voltage regulator or some high-side switches, and a new 3V3 pin in the socket, and i'm not sure there was a robust way to accomplish that. The fundamental problem why you can't just probe both cartridge types only digitally is that they need different voltages, 5V supply for GB/GBC and 3V3 for GBA. Manufacture of higher voltage ROM chips and other chips was becoming no longer viable.

Fascinating. Always wondered how the Advance recognized GB cartridges, or Color as well. The library, and accessibility was amazing. Also it's awesome to know the same hardware was built into the GB Player (which you covered several videos ago) I'm curious, if every game is ported to the Switch. Using this system. It is possible for the entire library to be playable. Btw your work with Shantae, the Switch port was fantastic.

Thanks for this! I was hoping to see a video on this topic after we talked about your work on Shantae! -Steve

Thank You so much for making this! Your explanation of the B function was easy to follow and the video was very informative.

Nothing quite like a MVG video on Monday morning to go along with my cup of English Breakfast Tea. Part of a complete balanced breakfast.

GREAT! It would be interesting to know how the Genesis/Mega Drive did backwards compatibility as well

Thanks for another great video! I always love waking up to find another excellent video from MVG. It really makes my day!

0:14 You had me at Golden Sun. One of my all time fav rpgs!

I’ve always been intrigued by coding and hardwire modifications etc but never had the confidence to try it. This channel is amazing to me.

After witnessing that T block placement in Tetris I immediately hated the video. I can't believe you.

GBA was my first handheld and it Was amazing so much great memories. Even now from time to time i get back to Megaman battle network series and Pokemon. I remember that i use backwards compatybility alot with GB/GBC Pokemon games. Because of it discover Pokemon Trading Card game (hidden gem in my opinion) and my favorite Pokemon game to this day - Pokemon Crystal version.

It's great you documented this in this fashion, this is extremely fascinating for examining simple solutions to problems when working on dev projects

Is it just me or does the GBA enhanced color palette look washed out?

This channel is an absolute jewel. I've learned so much.

II love how simple and elegant the solution was. As a kid, I never gave a second thought to the GBA being able to play GB games, after all it was also a gambeboy.

Unbelievably informative and helpful. Truly greatful for this kind of video.

Loved the time when handheld batteries lasted +24 hours, and that still seemed somehow low... thanks for the videos!

What else could it let you do besides palette changes? Can you access the audio DAC and utilitise the scaling and rotation etc..?

I love your channel. These detailed overviews you give really crank up my strong desire to learn programming and coding. But I always get stuck and can't figure out solutions, so I set it aside and give up.

Your explanations are always so concise and thorough, even to the layman. Thank you!

wouldn't be surprised if they originally wanted to use the vcc as a way to tell the carts apart. attempt to read cart at 3.3V. if success must be gba if not gbc, but i'd guess that some gbc carts would work with only 3.3V so a different method was needed

Awesome mate, as always. Very intriguing

Such a simple little handheld with so much power and potential. Love these small vids.

An answer to a question no one ever asked, yet still entertaining to watch. Thanks for the fun content

So if that switch breaks & is stuck in the ‘down’ position, will GBA games not work at all?

Meaning to ask "RSA Secured" at the back of Nintendo DS

One of my favourite bits of trivia for the GB/A. I knew about the hardware switch before because of how the gba micro couldn't play original gameboy games, but I didn't know it went this deep

i'm starting as a TA for a GBA dev class in the fall, i love watching these videos they are all super interesting :D

I saw the different voltages and thought it was going to be easy. Run 3.3v. Is it on? GBA. Else: GB/C

This is super interesting! I always wondered how this worked. Odd that there are so few GBC color games which take advantage of this!

The only console I own is SNES but I am watching your every video they are just so good and informative. Keep up the good work!

I see that lovely backlit screen. I also did this to my GBA. Such an improvement. Anyway it was extremely interesting to see how the console detected how it knew what games it was playing.

When I try to use Shantae on emulator in GBA Mode, I put the emulator to run in GBA Mode... when the emulator have such option.

"press +" I see you're using your own ROM of Shantae ;)

Love me some MVG on a Monday morning. The into music is always a bonus!

I'm actually learning about assambly language at school and this video just got me more interested into learning more. Keep the good work man!

The GBA really was a powerful little system for it's time. 32 bits might not sound like much, until you realize windows 98 ran on a 32 bit processor.

The Game Boy Advance is still one hell of a machine..."

Wonderful as always. Fascinating stuff

Your content is always super interesting! Thank you!

this reminds me of pokemon gold/silver on gbc, and the colour palette

Somehow the standard version looks better to me.

I love mondays because of your content, thank you very much for brightening it :)

I like to watch these videos with friends around and every so often nod my head and let out little "hmm"s. Maybe even sometimes exclaiming "Oh! Thats how they did it. I understand." I don't understand. But still, I love to try and learn.

Well, Shantae GBC game can be enhanced with GBA and it really helps! Cheers to Limited Run Games and WayForward!

Console: We can't run earlier versions of our own games due to incompatibilities PC: I can run everything from every console ever! \o/

Great video! Very informative!

Wow this is very detailed throughout, great stuff

Honestly, it does look like quite an elegant solution though.

Should explain how you patch code to work on these types of systems or "rom hack" or how to look at code, video memory and so on. And how to look at memory in the game.

Quality Content! Keep up the great work!

fantastic video, thank you so much, had all the game boys when I was a kid and had no idea it was as simple as a switch moved by cartridge

All of those palette brightening “enhancements” are redundant with the sp and now the ips screen. Someone should make patches that add the extras but ignore the color changes

The development team was instructed by Satoru Okada to get the system to boot in GBC mode simply using software, but when this wasn't possible, he instructed them to use a switch instead. I don't remember the source of this, but I think it was in an Iwata Asks interview.

Congratulations to 600k subscribers!

Aww, I was hoping you'd cover the Super Gameboy borders & enhancements some games got, too, and if there was any possible way to hack in something like DK'94's SGB color mode when using a GBC or GBA. Maybe an idea for a future video?

This was probably the most awkward description I've heard you give in one of your videos. From the comments, it looks like it left plenty of people confused as to what "enhancement" actually meant. Shantae's code doing math on the value of B is irrelevant to the flag itself, you can simply check for B=1. You over-complicated the description with extraneous info. Here's a clearer description: "The Gameboy game code can detect it's running on a GBA because the Gameboy boot ROM leaves the registers in a specific state. The game code can do whatever it wants with that information. In most cases, palettes used for games are adjusted to match the color response curves of the GBA LCD. In some instances, it's used as a GBA sales promotion tool: get exclusive features unlocked if you buy a GBA! It does not, however, give the Gameboy program access to any useful GBA hardware features. Also, various Gameboy models have differing initial data in their registers to such a degree that the code can tell if it's on an original Gameboy, Gameboy Pocket, Super Gameboy 1, Super Gameboy 2, Gameboy Color, and GBA. This is how dual-mode mono/color games in the black cartridges tell which version of the code to run. Fun fact: the color-only games don't have a power-switch notch like the mono/dual-mode games did, but if you defeat that notch and run a color-only game on a mono Gameboy, the games are supposed to display a message stating they can only be played on a Gameboy Color."

Has anyone else noticed very specific recurring awkward phrasing in these videos? It's very common for MVG to say the redundant set of phrases "By doing x, means y", instead of "By doing x, y" or "Doing x means y". For example, at 10:07, you hear "By taking advantage of different initialized registers when the Game Boy Color is powered on in GBA mode, means that it is possible to check and apply enhancements to the game for the Game Boy Advance only," when one of the following would be more correct: - "Taking advantage of different initialized registers [....] means that it is possible to apply enhancements..." - "By taking advantage of different initialized registers[,] [...] it is possible to check and apply enhancements..." The content is always great though, thank you.

Thank you, not only was this interesting, it was helpful for emulator configuration

Great video. I love this machine. So many memories come alive watching this.

I don't think GBA Enhanced colors looks better in any of those examples (Zelda/Shantae). Just looks washed out.

"Limited Run GBC cart" Wait, they made a new cart for the GBC? Damn, I had no idea that was even a thing.

Your videos are rally informative

Nice video. A subject I’ve often wondered about!

I admire your ability to pull content out of nothingness

So the "GBA Enhancements" were really just a colour palette to better suit the GBA's new screen and unlocking some extras in the game which could have run on the original hardware. Probably at least sold a few extra copies to folk who just bought a GBA though I guess...

Learned something new today. I never knew any of these features existed. Thanks! :)

Such a good video! Thanks for sharing

It seems like the "enhancements" are nothing more than using a much brighter color palette so the game looks decent on an original GBA screen

In short: Back then nintendo actually knew what they´re doing.

Mind blowing, for all these years i didn’t know about the Gameboy Switch in the GBA

great video! didn't really care for the topic at first but I watched the whole thing cuz... its an MVG vid!

I personally think that gba enhancement looks worse than standard gbc. It looks a little bit washed out.

TL;DR on booting up in GB mode, the GBA sets the B register to 1 instead of 0, and a game checks that, and that's it. I mean I like these videos, normally, but god he dragged it out a bit.

Great work as always.

Very fun and interesting video! Would you consider doing a video on the color pallets that are available to choose from when playing a GB game on a GBC or GBA? Thank You!