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After witnessing the way SquareEnix updated Final Fantasy III for Nintndo DS, I expected to be disappointed when they finally got around to re-releasing the immortal Final Fantasy VI for Nintendo GBA. After all, compared to DS, GBA has less impressive graphics that would lend SquareEnix an excuse to keep the treatment of the game more of a simple port than a complete makeover.

And that’s pretty much what has happened. With the exception of a couple of cinemas, Final Fantasy VI GBA is basically the same game you might remember playing on your old SNES. There was little fanfare with the release, no gifts or extras or gimmicks like FFVI promo pens given away. And it didn’t matter in the slightest.

That’s because anyone who has been around long enough to remember the original FFVI will remember that it is also one of the top Final Fantasy titles of all time. Although FFVII on PSone made a bigger pop-culture splash, most series fans still hold FFVI to be superior in just about every way.

So, yeah… getting a DS remake of FFVI would have been better by far. But time still hasn’t caught up to this game. It’s a perfect handheld distraction, and a welcome addition to the GBA library.

It’s silly, it’s corny, it’s cliche and it’s formulaic. Yes somehow Konami’s Marvel Trading Card Game for Sony PSP … works. Anyone familiar with Konami’s YuGiOh! series of trading card videogames knows the formula. It’s familiar, tried and true, about as innovative as sectional sofas.

And still, it works.

Maybe it’s because the game provides US gamers a set of traditional Marvel Comics characters to play through as; Marvel Comics generally has a broader appeal than the Japanese anime stuff most trading card games are based on. In fact, that probably plays a huge factor.

Maybe it’s that the game’s story is presented with comic book style still art rather than trying something more ambitious, but calling to mind comic books in the process, in a style similar to the Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel release from, I think, 2006.

Sure, there are subtle differences in the style of card game MTCG provides compared to YuGiOh … and veterans of the real-life Marvel Trading Card Game will obviously have a step up on newcomers, but … it works.

It’s a game I didn’t expect to like. But I do. It’s not gaming immortality by any means. But I like it.