Display MoreWing Commander Prophecy GBA is an incredible technical achievement and an extremely fun game in its own right… but there's not a lot of information out there about the ins and outs of the port itself compared to its larger PC ancestor. The team at Raylight did an incredible job turning three CDs of full motion video and elaborate game mechanics into a Game Boy game… and now we're going to start cataloging it! Mission layouts, mechanics, cutscenes and everything else in the game are significantly different and we will aim to provide a complete guide.
Content Changes
Wing Commander Prophecy GBA replaces dozens of cutscenes with 'talking head' style conversations. It does retain three cutscenes that it animates in engine: the introduction, the losing endgame where the Nephilim overrun the Midway and then the winning endgame. Mission layouts are largely reworked to match the gameplay of the port and many systems are significantly simplified. Some ships are removed (Mantas are replaced with the Devil Ray model, for instance) and there are a few substitutions (the Devereaux is a Pelican and a Condor in the intro!).
One of the most fun 'lore' changes is that the designers correctly thought to replace the original 1997 game's odd mention of a "Taliban colony" with the "Eilitian colony". An absolute necessity for a port made after 2001!
How many missions does Wing Commander Prophecy GBA have?
The PC version has 61: 51 in the campaign and 10 simulator missions. The GBA version drops the simulated missions and, according to a hex editor, three of the campaign missions. The cut missions are all from the Kilrah system: I2: Kilrah - Cap Missile Interception, I3b: Kilrah - Cleanup and I4: Kilrah - Defang the Beast. I2 and I4 both introduce new mechanics (cap ship missiles and skinning dreadnought turrets) so dropping them makes sense... and I3b would've only been accessible if you lost I2, so that also tracks.
With that information in mind I played through the entire campaign and attempted to unlock every indexed mission. Since Prophecy GBA retains the wonderful flight history feature I was able to create a single save state that gave me access to everything! Or almost everything: despite there being 48 missions listed internally I could only find ways to unlock 46 of them. The two that seem to be inaccessible are T'lan Meth F6b - Panther Scramble, the extra mission you have to fly if you help Hawk attack the Kilrathi (which doesn't seem possible here), and C2b: G'wriss - Shrike Escort, which you originally accessed if the Midway takes damage to the bridge in C1. The GBA version drops capital ship components so it's impossible to do this! It's possible that these missions are present and there's some unique way to unlock them… but nothing I've tried so far has worked.
How do you 'paint the target' in the GBA version?
One near showstopper I ran into while playing was that there is no tracking disc to drop in the 'paint the target' mission and you can't just destroy the alien fleet yourself. The objectives screen still mentions the disc and it turns out you need to pay attention to the briefing instead. To win the mission and continue you must simply drop your load of mines near the enemy ships. Voila, the route to Kilrah is open!
Save States
You can download my (almost?) 'everything unlocked' save state here if you'd like to explore more of the game yourself. This is for use with the mGBA emulator.
