Of course, not all of the Super Mario Advance games were from the All-Stars cartridge. Game Boy Advance owners were excited to get their hands on portable versions of both Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island: Super Mario World 2. Unlike Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3, these games didn't require a 16-bit upgrade; they were both big Super NES releases. In the case of Yoshi's Island, I was overjoyed to finally have a portable version of the game. Like many gamers, I had missed the title the first time around due to timing (the Super NES game hit just as many people bought PlayStations and Sega Saturns). With its timeless crayon graphics and stellar level designs, Yoshi's Island felt like a game that needed to be on the Game Boy Advance.

Super Mario World, on the other hand, continues to feel like a rip-off. There's no denying the quality of this 1991 platformer, but $30 is highway robbery for what was a decade-old game. What's worse, Nintendo was asking $30 for what was essentially a free game. For those too young to remember, Super Mario World was the pack-in game for the Super NES, which effectively made it free. Yet ten years later they're asking a full $30?

I keep coming back to the point that these are four great games. We can argue over whether or not Super Mario Bros. 2 was the best game to start the series (it wasn't), but nobody is going to deny that these four games are worth owning. Having said that, $30 was the exact same price as all of the original Game Boy Advance games making up the rest of the store shelf. There's no way that porting a Super NES game to the Game Boy Advance is going to cost the same as developing a brand new game. What kind of message does that send to the rest of the third party developers? Why bother spending the time developing original games when you can charge the same for ten year old IP?

And that's the problem; by setting this precedent, Nintendo doomed the Game Boy Advance to a life of non-stop 16-bit ports. It didn't matter who you were or what kind of game you made, if you had a game older than five years, you probably ported it to the Game Boy Advance. Suddenly we saw remakes of Earthworm Jim, Mickey Mouse and Aero the Acrobat. You know something's wrong when Aero the Acrobat is leading SunSoft's charge. If Nintendo's not going to release an original Mario game on their own game system, why should any other game company step up to the plate?

Incidentally, this is not the first time Nintendo has pulled this kind of stunt. Not long after releasing the final Super Mario Advance game, Nintendo began to repackage twenty year old NES games. In the mid 2000s, Nintendo started to see the potential of their classic 8- and 16-bit libraries. This was a time before the Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. They called it the Classic NES Series and it featured twelve games in the U.S. and thirty titles overseas. These $20 games featured the original cover art and an instruction manual. Nothing more, nothing less. These were the original games, repacked and overpriced for an entirely new generation.

As if to compound the problem, two years after releasing the Classic NES Series, Nintendo decided to launch the Virtual Console. This download service turned your Wii into an 8-, 16- and even 24-bit game console for a fraction of the cost. The retro games you paid $20 for on your GBA are now a mere $5. Nintendo shaved 75% off the price when releasing them digitally, suggesting that perhaps $20 may have been too high of an asking price for a twenty year old game.

No matter how you do the math, Super Mario Advance was a complete disaster. Not only does it give off the impression that Nintendo is out to nickel and dime you, but it also set a bad precedent. If it wasn't for Nintendo making so much money off of expensive ports of Super Mario Bros. 2 and Yoshi's Island, the third parties would have spent more time developing original content for this handheld. Nintendo could have demonstrated to the world why they are the best video game developer of all time by creating fresh and original games, but instead they settled for a remake of Super Mario World.

Looking back at it now it's all so obvious, Nintendo screwed us over and got away with it. My anger may be about a decade too late, but I'm not going to stay silent any longer. Super Mario Advance is a terrible product that should offend fans of old school gaming. But maybe somebody out there can defend this disappointing series of remakes. Are you that person? Can you defend Super Mario Advance?