I got my old game boys and have been playing pokemon gold on the gameboy color. I also have red and blue.
But, I want to play through the rest of them on original hardware up until the switch. I plan to use flash carts or some kind of mods to play the games as they are quite expensive.
Please let me know if there are any flaws in my plan.
Gameboy Advance SP (I like this as it’s backlit and will let me play my other gameboy games)
- Pokemon Emerald
New 3dsxl/2dsxl
- the rest of the games I’d like to play them all using flash carts or software mods. Since these games are not as old I’ll buy the original if they are under $100
Is it as simple as picking up these two consoles to play all the pre-switch pokemon games? Is there a better non-emulation option?
I made a video a while ago going over the DS line if you want to watch my opinion: https://youtu.be/LAzUY1L0yOE
If you want to go into the nitty gritty 3DBrew has a wiki for it: https://3dbrew.org/wiki/Hardware
However to directly answer your question. 3DS, 2DS and 3DS XL do have minor differences between the versions, at their core are the same machines with an ARM 9 Processor.
3DS was the original release, and while it’s hardware hasn’t aged well. The system sold well enough.
2DS was a budget friendly option, going as low as $99 USD with game bundles. The system only had a single display pretending to be a dual screen.
3DS XL was for those who wanted a bigger screen. Bigger didn’t mean more pixels. Just physically larger.
The New Nintendo 3DS line N3DS, N3DSXL, and N2DSXL were the ones with hardware upgrades and are worth a pretty penny. If you were looking to emulate more than what Nintendo offered this is the one to get.
However if you want more details I’d watch some videos going over them. It’s hard to understand their differences without seeing it.