Since I don't have the box for this game I must have bought it used. I'm about the only person on earth who saves boxes for Game Boy Advance games based on an informal survey of every time I've seen them at garage sales.

The splash screen at the beginning reminds me of a JoyStik magazine cover.

This is the only one where I won't include screenshots of every game in the compilation. There are just too many games. The selection is amazing. The rest of these collections are tiny by comparison. A lot of these games are shallow of course.

Here's the second page of games included in the compilation.

At the third page we're only halfway through. There are over 50 games included. Two of my favorites, Keystone Kapers and Pitfall!, are on this page.

Even though these are alphabetical, the fourth page has maybe the strongest overall selection of games.

The fifth page is a bit weaker. Like Stampede, neat idea, but gets really frustrating quickly.

Finally at the last page. I included screenshots of all so the full game selection can be seen. Let's try a couple games.

Pitfall! looks and plays about right. The scaling seems a little bit off but it's otherwise fine.

River Raid is, I think, one of the most popular games in this collection. It's also emulated well.

Activision Anthology also includes the homebrew Skeleton+. That's a really nice addition.

The box for my copy is kind of crushed. It also completely disproves a prior statement since I bought this at a garage sale. It only took two entries to prove myself wrong.

The title screen matches the box almost perfectly.

The menu screen is nice and simple.

Frogger plays great. I'm not a hardcore Frogger fan but I didn't notice anything off about it.

Gyruss is a little difficult to see. Moving the score and life counter to a bar along the top would help. I understand why it's this way though.

Rush 'n Attack also looks and plays fine. This was a lot easier than I remember.

I never played Scramble before and possibly never heard of it. This is a tough game, not my thing.

I've always enjoyed Time Pilot. This is again emulated well. Like Gyruss I'd prefer it full screen but get why it isn't. This seemed a little more difficult than I remembered the original being. That could be due to the small screen being tough to see well.

Is it OK to admit I never played Yie Ar Kung Fu before? If I spent the time to learn the controls I'd probably like it. I did not do well at this.

So this was obviously a clearance bin game.

High effort title screen here, also very simple to navigate.

I wasn't sure if this would be the arcade version of Gauntlet or the NES one. It's definitely the arcade version and it looks great.

Although this is a small collection, I could see taking it on a trip for just this game. I've never done a full playthough of Gauntlet and this could be a good way to do it.

Rampart I was not familiar with. I mean, I was familiar with it. I never played any version before. I need to go read the manual before trying again.

I'm so crazy I own two copies, complete and loose. The latter must have been in a bundle of games at a garage sale.

The menu has a separate page for each game. It's not apparent why until Ms Pac-Man. If the Activision Anthology worked like this it would take days to navigate.

Dig Dug is excellent. It looks like the original and plays well. This has been the game I played the most in this collection.

Next up is Galaga.

This is another game that is difficult to see. It's emulated well but like Gyruss and Time Pilot would benefit from being modified to full screen.

I suppose these games are alphabetical and not in release order.

Having both Galaga and Galaxian makes sense on a large collection. On an abridged version like this I'd prefer swapping it for a different game.

OK, so this is why the menu is like this. Although this same function could be accomplished with a menu that listed all the games.

Full screen mode is very hard to see. This mode is really only playable on the GameCube player. I don't have the Analogue Pocket dock but I suppose that would work too.

Scrolling mode is much easier on the eyes but sneakily difficult. There are many surprise deaths unless you have some super ability to understand what the ghosts offscreen are doing.

Last on this collection, Pole Position.

This looks perfect and plays fine. I've always been totally awful at this game though.

Two copies again. The loose copy must be from the same bundle that included the loose Namco Museum.

The title screen is basic and unnecessary.

This uses the same menu system as the Namco Museum. First up is Pac-Attack.

I didn't get this game when I first tried it. After some time I went back to it and really enjoyed it. It's not my favorite "things falling" game. It's better than Columns but (of course) below Tetris. It's about equal to Puyo Puyo.

The puzzle mode is my preference. Anyway, this is emulated well. More screen space for the main play field would be appreciated. Seems like this is a common bit of feedback for these collections.

Same as Ms Pac-Man, the original has full screen and scrolling modes.

It's the same trade off again. The full screen mode requires great vision.

While the scrolling mode is a constant guessing game.

I have to confess, I am a huge fan of Pac-Man Arrangement. It was something of a therapy game in the early 2000s for me. Back then I was dealing with work + graduate school + being a new parent. It was a game I played often in small doses for a mental break.

This translates well to the Game Boy Advance. It only has scrolling mode but that's OK because this is the easiest Pac-Man game ever.

This is probably my favorite game in the collection. Although the next one is close...

Pac-Mania is not usually in my top 5 "Pac" games. Something about it on this collection works really well though.

Pac-Mania, any version, is a scrolling game. The sprites and maze are very large on the Game Boy Advance compared to the other games in the collection. This makes Pac-Mania the game that translates best to the handheld.

I only have the cartridge though because I didn't buy this new. It was released in November 2002 in the US and I didn't own a Game Boy Advance until a few months later. A PR person from Sega emailed me about this release. I'm not kidding, sent a virtual press kit and everything.

The title screen looks great. Although the art reminds me most of Phantasy Star IV which is not included in this collection. They could have fit all 4 on a Game Boy Advance cartridge but I assume it would have raised the production cost. Not just for the cartridge itself, but also testing a long RPG.

I played every game on this collection roughly 20 years ago. Possibly in order but don't quote me on that. The original Phantasy Star has a major bug where it crashes often when saving. Something like 1 out of 10 saves causes the game to crash. This means you need to save often to minimize the potential time loss. Of course, that means you will experience a lot of crashes. Otherwise this looks and plays well.

I am still overwhelmed at how great Phantasy Star looks compared to every other 8-bit RPG.

I had two Phantasy Star II saves, both fairly far into the game but not at the end. I finished this game in the early 1990s because I had a lot of free time and it was an outstanding RPG then. I still think it looks and sounds great. It's too grindy though. It's hard to finish today.

The second save game was just Rolf and Shir somewhere on Dezo. I must have been trying to grind up Shir's level here. Apparently I quit.

This is still a good version of the game. I could see taking it on a daily train commute and grinding for 10-20 minutes every day in-between other games. After a year of commuting the whole party would be maxed out and the late dungeons would be... not easy, but less brutal.

My Phantasy Star III save was near the end of the game. I recall finishing it. Since it lacks an item that allows saving in dungeons your final save game will be a long haul from the last boss.

This is also a good version. It's not identical to the original. Someday, likely never, I'd like to perform a more detailed analysis of the differences.

I'll say it, the cover is kinda bad. It looks like a variety game for the 2600.

The title screen is simple.

After Burner is an accurate enough version of the original. Distant enemies are tough to see on the small screen. The music isn't quite perfect but sounds good enough.

Super Hang On looks perfect from what I can tell. I am awful at this game.

Out Run was, again, the reason I bought this. I wasn't disappointed. This is a solid port. They kept the difficultly balanced. It's not hard to finish a complete race. Like After Burner the music is a little off. Despite being a racing game it always feels more like a relaxing scenic drive to me.

Space Harrier is the same as the others. It's harder to see distant enemies than After Burner and I didn't last long.

The cover is deceptive. Ecco, fine. Golden Axe, fine. Sonic the Hedgehog... is not on this collection. It includes Sonic Spinball. The art is cropped to not make it immediately obvious it is Sonic Spinball.

The color palette on the title screen is not a good sign.

It uses a menu system like the Namco Museum and Pac-Man Collection. First up is Ecco.

Ecco looks fine and plays fine. I haven't played it all that much before but the audio sounds funky. Here's a 30 second clip:

OK, next is Golden Axe.

You can't tell from a screenshot, since it's screenshot, but it's now apparent the audio is funky. OK, worse than funky. The usually awesome Golden Axe soundtrack is bad. Another 30 second clip:

Third and last is Sonic the... Spinball.

This plays like the original but the audio is, oh, it's so bad. You have to turn the volume all the way down. This isn't an issue with the Analogue Pocket. As a sanity check I tried on a Game Boy Advance and same result. I'll dub this a weak collection. The game selection is at best average and the sound quality is much worse. Just give this a listen:

I only have the cartridge. I don't remember buying this. It must have been in a lot.

The title screen is OK. The artwork looks very 8-bit but these are games from the 1980s so it's appropriate.

Spy Hunter looks fine but controls terribly. From what I can tell they are trying to make the d-pad work like a steering wheel. The up button does nothing from what I can tell. Instead you have to try using left+down+right like this weird little virtual wheel. It's much worse than what I'm describing. After many attempts I gave up. I could never steer without crashing for more than 2 seconds. Sticking the NES ROM in with zero changes would be better.

Super Sprint controls well but is difficult to see. The cars look even tinier on the screen. This might be OK on the GameCube player.