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I have two Game Boy Advance units, each with a wireless link accessory. I also have only one copy of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. I have tried to connect both units by hosting one with the cartridge, and searching with the one without the same cartridge inserted, but it didn't work. I have not seen in the manual if this works. Does this just take a while, or does it just not work at all?

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  • This is the accessory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_Advance_Wireless_Adapter
    – user128965
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 17:09
  • I'm looking up more information on the game in perticular, but would you be able to procure a physical link cable? The Wireless Adapter is limited to games that knew to look for the accessory, but that also means many GBA games which supported multiplayer (before the release of the accessory) wouldn't know how to read the wireless connection.
    – NBN-Alex
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 17:26
  • @NBN-Alex Yes, I could tolerate a link cable, but I'm experimenting with different ways of using the wireless linking, just to be sure of what works and what doesn't. I was hoping that for this particular game, I could just use one Game Pak, but I have a sinking feeling that it has to work with one for each system linked wirelessly.
    – user128965
    Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 6:10

2 Answers 2

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To start with, while most GBA games do require a second Game Pak in order to play multi-player, Nintendo included support for what they called "Single-Pak Linking" onto the Game Boy Advanced and SP. (Also know as "Multi-Boot" in development circles based on some of the research for this question.) In order for this feature to work, the game in the host GBA needs to support the Single-Pak functionality. (note 1)

Amusing that the host as one of these games, the steps required to make this work is the following:

  1. Have all the GBA/SP/Micro systems turned off.
  2. Insert the Game-Pak into the host.
  3. Plug the Link Cables into the host and each of the guest systems. (The cable has a purple end and gray end, with Purple being the host.)
  4. (Follow the instructions included with the game at this point) Usually, at this point you turn all the GBA/SP/Micro systems on at the same time. Some games might require you to hold "START" and "SELECT" on the guest systems, while others will just work.

Instructions pulled from Nintendo's website, using a Micro as a host.

From there, the host system needs to access the "multiplayer option", which should start the process of rebooting/transferring the game onto the guest systems.


Some of the possible problems here:

Based on the provided information, there are two possible issues happening right now: The first issue is that the Wireless Accessory does not work on any game, but rather the game would need to see/communicate with the device.

A major drawback of the Game Boy Advance Wireless Adapter is that it is not backwards compatible; that is, it will only work with games that have been programmed to support the wireless adapter, excluding all older model Game Boy games. As of July 2009, only about 30 Game Boy Advance games support the wireless adapter, and many of the few supported games are the bit Generations series (Japan only) and the Classic NES Series.

In the list of provided games, I didn't see Chronicles in it. It's possible that Chronicles does work, but there's little evidence of this right now.

The second possibility is that Single-Pak Linking isn't supported by the game. Based on a substantial list of games that support Single-Pak Linking, it does not seem like Chronicles shows up here as well. (Same idea, it does not prove that this game doesn't support Single-Pak Linking, but there's very little evidence if this is even an option for that game in particular.)


Note 1: (Nintendo created a logo for publishers to add to boxes if this feature was supported, but looking as most of the box art, it seems there are only a handful of games that actually used it.)

Single-Pak Link Logo

Note 2: There were some "wireless" devices created before the official one from Nintendo, but they seem to be a link cable with RF or some other wireless tech as a bridge.

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    After several more experiments with a link cable, I gave up on the idea of using a single Game Pak for multiplayer play on The Chronicles of Narnia. It won't work either way. Thanks for the info, though - I'm changing the question title to something more general, so others can see this, too.
    – user128965
    Commented Jan 4, 2016 at 22:40
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This accessory is to link devices for multiplayer gaming, such as with Pokemon games (for example, trading/battling) when both players own their own copy of the game. From the link in your comment:

Like the Game Boy Advance Game Link Cable, this device allows for multiplayer gaming with the Game Boy Advance, and attaches via the External Extension Connector.

Multiple players playing off the same cartridge at the same time from different devices is not possible with many games (and very likely not Narnia).
But as @NBN-Alex noted in his comment for example, Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland allowed for others to play the sub-games.

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    This is true for most games, but some GBA games did feature ways to play without a cart. Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland (for example) allowed for others to play the sub-games (minigames) using just a transfer cord from a host to guest system.
    – NBN-Alex
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 17:32
  • I will add that, @NBN-Alex, although I don't believe this feature was included in Narnia. Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 18:35

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