In retrospect, the GBC was less its own system than it was the equivalent of the DSi or N3DS -- that is, to say, a half-generational SKU.
Lokarin posted...
It came out at an unfortunate time, but almost every game on it is a gem
No, it had a lot of crap but it didn't last long so you probably didn't notice.
WarGreymon77 posted...
Sorry, but in 1998 there is no valid excuse for it not having a backlight. And then, to think, even the first GBA didn't have one. I mean damn, Nintendo.
Uh, what? I'm not even sure what your reasoning is. At that point, the only major handheld with a backlight was the Game Gear and it was massively energy inefficient, among other problems. (Yes, you very briefly had *other* handhelds as well, but most of them had already left the market.)
Also I should note that even the *early* GBA-SPs (AGS-001) were frontlit instead of back. The backlit ones (AGS-101) are harder to find and tend to be far more expensive. Honestly, the frontlit ones work well enough.
The technology was certainly there in 1998. The Game Gear, Lynx, and pretty much everything else had a backlight. But not Nintendo. ---