1.5/5 ★ – Zacnitude's review of Grand Theft Auto Advance.

Where do I even begin with this game? As a big GTA fan I decided that before the Definitive Edition trilogy came out I'd play through all the GTA titles in the 3D era (Definitive Edition Trilogy came out and oh boy there's a lot of issues with those titles huh? Anyway, back to the focal point of the review) So, naturally I also wanted to play the portable entries too. Once I saw there was a GBA title I was intrigued to see what that game was like, and I decided to look up some reviews prior to playing. To put it lightly, the game didn't seem very good from what I saw, but I decided I wanted to play it anyway because it's a GTA game, how bad can it be, right? Turns out, quite bad. For a prequel of GTA 3, taking place a year before the story, none of it really has much weight on the story of GTA 3 especially when compared to Liberty City Stories, which had a lot more of a connection to the narrative of GTA 3. The only plot elements that have some connection is that 8-Ball got arrested during one of the final missions, as he is in the prison convoy in the opening of GTA 3. Apart from that, there aren't many other elements that matter to GTA 3's story, there are characters from GTA 3 like King Courtney, 8-Ball and Asuka. That's it. There are no mentions of the Leones or the Forellis, the only Mafia mentioned is referred to as "mafia". Miguel isn't even mentioned or seen despite the Columbian Cartel being in the game and important to this game's story. But hey, it may have failed as a prequel, but how does it stand on its own? Well, not very well. The game's story is somewhat similar to that of GTA 3's story, with the main motivation used throughout the game being revenge. Unlike GTA 3, our protagonist, Mike, actually talks (via text, there is no voice acting in this game which makes sense, it's a GBA game). Playing this game made me wish he didn't. He's not written very well as a character, most dialogue he is in just boils down to him going "I'm angry, I want to get revenge on my friend Vinnie's killer." which sure I understand that but at the same time there's nothing else to this character, it's all just wanting revenge and that's it. It feels like he's less of a character and more of a character archetype. With Claude there was that driving motive of revenge sure, but he was also just driven to find some work and earn money, but here in GTA Advance Mike only does missions just because he is promised that he will get more info on Vinnie's killer, or at least until the secret is revealed. The side characters included are nothing of note, Asuka's niece is kinda just there for some reason and after this game never shows up again so her inclusion was kinda baffling. Jonnie is your standard sleazy bartender that has racked up a criminal debt and also dies rather quickly, and Cisco is probably one of if not the most well written character in this game, there seems to be a lot more personal flair with this character. Existing characters like Asuka, 8-Ball and King Courtney are written pretty well at times too, though not consistently. The rest of the included characters with dialogue aren't really that interesting all things considered. The game's story is as follows: Mike and Vinnie are best friends, partners in crime as it were, and they both plan to flee Liberty City to start fresh somewhere else. Before they leave, Vinnie does some jobs for the Mafia and by does some jobs I mean he gets Mike to do it all for him. Anyway, eventually he stops working for them and both Mike and Vinnie get prepared to escape, making fake licenses, getting a fast getaway vehicles and all that jazz, and it gets stored by a small apartment that Mike owns. Instead of meeting Mike at the apartment, Vinnie tells Mike he's doing one last deal and that he should drive over to the diner at Callahan point to meet him there and that he'd be inside someone's car. As Mike gets there, Vinnie is "killed" as the car he is in explodes, leaving Mike to flee the scene in the getaway car. Mike then proceeds to do jobs for people as he tries to find out who killed Vinnie, with the occasional death of potential leads or individuals involved in then search like the bartender Jonnie, a bomb maker who the player finds dead in their apartment during a cutscene and Cisco. All of this eventually culminates to the grand reveal that somehow, Vinnie was actually still alive and had faked his own death so he could take all the money and escape by himself. Mike kills Vinnie, tells 8-Ball who then is injured in a shoot out and is arrested, deals with gangs that are out to get him either for the money or because they think he killed someone, ends up in a big shoot out with King Courtney and quickly flees to the airport to escape with tanks and police cars after him, After reaching the airport, he takes Cisco's private jet and flies away, leaving Liberty City for good. Despite the plot focusing on Vinnie's killer and having the big reveal that Vinnie is actually alive, the same mission that is established is also the mission where the player just kills him, so that big twist is weakened because he's dead after the fact anyway. This felt like an odd conclusion because in several cases throughout the story Vinnie has several people who are investigating his death killed so they don't learn the truth as they build him up as the antagonist and that he's hard to track down and then the moment it is revealed he is killed a few seconds later. The gameplay of GTA Advance is a combination between the 2D titles with some elements of the 3D games thrown in there as well. On the surface this could've been fine, but this game does not pull it off very well. The game's framerate is questionable and fluctuates frequently and rarely feels smooth to play (That is in part due to the GBA hardware and partly due to optimization). Driving is made very difficult due to the size of the screen and the fact that the camera is closely zoomed into the car itself, which makes it difficult to see what is coming ahead. As well as the camera, there are also car physics like in the 3D titles, which do not work great, and sometimes you could be turning a corner with a heavy vehicle like a truck and then the truck flips over, and going over ramps is extremely risky and will more often than not end with you in the water or having the car destroyed so you'll want to avoid ramps (unless you're playing one particular mission in which case you'll need to use the ramps if you want any chance at beating it). Shooting is extremely lackluster and feels like you're shooting water-guns at enemies unless you use the shotgun. The shotgun is the only viable gun in the game as if you have the right distance most enemies just die with one shot, it does lots of damage to vehicles and the shotgun's bullets don't need to travel through the air like the other guns. However, sometimes you may be in a position where it looks like your shot should hit them, but somehow it does nothing because that enemy is somehow not in your range despite looking like they're quite close to you. Melee combat is not great either, if you're using a katana for instance you could slash someone with it like in the other games but unlike the other games they will most likely get only temporarily knocked to the ground and get back up instead of them being killed. The game's missions are nothing to write home about and are your standard GTA fare, go here, kill these people, do this. For the most part that's fine, the thing that lets it down though is the gameplay itself. One mission that stands out from the rest (but not in a good way) is the mission Smackdown. Smackdown has to be one of the worst missions I've ever had the misfortune of playing in a GTA game. The mission's main premise is kill 10 Yardies scattered around Shoreside Vale, the third island, in 4 minutes or less. On paper, this doesn't sound bad, until you realize just how unforgiving that time-frame is. If you don't go for the Yardies in a very specific order, you are more than likely going to fail. If you make a mistake, you may as well restart at that point. And remember what I said about the ramps earlier, and how there was one mission where using ramps was basically a requirement? Well this is the mission. The optimal route requires you to go over ramps multiple times to jump between the islands, which means each failed jump will put you into the water or if you miss the ramp on approach and have to back up and try again, you have a high chance of failing that mission as that is more time wasted. Oh, and don't use any other gun than the shotgun to kill them in this mission, with how long it can take with every other gun to kill someone the shotgun is the best choice here. Overall, GTA Advance is not a game I'd recommend playing. It fails as a prequel, and it fails to stand on its own. If you wanted a portable GTA game then at the time this came out this would've probably been your best bet, it does provide an experience similar to that of the 3D GTA games, though not a great one. But titles like GTA LCS and GTA VCS (Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories respectively) offer a better experience with the same gameplay as the mainline 3D era games, and GTA Chinatown Wars offers better 2D gameplay than this game so there is no real reason to play this entry nowadays unless you're curious like I was. I would recommend skipping this game, as there isn't much you're missing out on.