The legacy of Nintendo’s Game Boy is one that speaks for itself, fondly remembered by many gamers as the pinnacle of handheld gaming before the turn of the 2000s. However, in March of 2001, Nintendo upped the ante with a direct successor, the Game Boy Advance, and the rest is history. A fantastic piece of handheld hardware, the Game Boy Advance was sleek, durable, and had a wonderful library of games to enjoy. Covering all the great Nintendo franchises and introducing a few new ones, the Game Boy Advance was a must-own portable device for any gamer who needed a quick play break.
In many cases, games on portable devices are often seen as inferior versions of their console counterparts, but that wasn’t really the case with Game Boy Advance. Many titles were bursting with personality and felt tailor-made for portable gaming, providing bursts of entertainment wherever needed. As we celebrate 25 years of the Game Boy Advance, let’s take a quick look back at some of the best games to ever grace the system! Listed in no particular order, these are the best GBA games ever made.
1. Mario Kart: Super Circuit
In short, Mairo Kart: Super Circuit offers everything you’d want out of a fun and lighthearted kart racer. It’s got colorful, exciting stages, a cast of beloved Nintendo characters, fun power-ups, and a fine selection of both single-player and multiplayer content. Three single-player modes and four-player competitive multiplayer keeps the fun alive for hours on end, and even if it’s a little lackluster when compared to handheld kart racers of the future, there’s no doubting that Mario Kart: Super Circuit kickstarted the trend. Nowadays, the Mario Kart franchise has found its footing on both consoles and handhelds, but with millions of copies sold on handheld devices like the Nintendo DS, we owe a lot to Mario Kart: Circuit for getting the party started.
2. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire
Pokemon and Game Boy go together like peanut butter and jelly, and Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire showed us just how improved that proverbial sandwich would be on the Game Boy Advance. Packed with color, improved graphics, and tons more Pokemon to catch, Ruby and Sapphire felt like the perfect next step after Pokemon Gold and Silver. As with all of the Pokemon games, this third-generation of sequels sees you controlling a new Pokemon trainer, eager to go out into the world to find, catch, and train their very own Pokemon team. Exploring the Hoenn region and discovering its many quirks and unique Pokemon was an absolute treat, and an experience that fans continue to come back to. Don’t just take our word for it: combined, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire are the best-selling Game Boy Advance games of all time, and by a major margin. With over 16 million copies sold, it’s clear that Game Boy fans can’t get enough of Pokemon.
3. The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap
It’s nigh impossible to write a list of the best GBA games without including our green-clad hero, Link. For a franchise as beloved and successful as Super Mario Bros., Nintendo is not afraid to take some chances with The Legend of Zelda, and that’s exactly what happened with Minish Cap. In this prequel, we follow Link as he sets out to save the Picori, a tiny race of magical fairies that have been threatened by an evil villain. In truth, the story is passable, but it’s the gameplay that sticks out. Like other Zelda games, you control Link from a top-down view, exploring the world, battling enemies, and solving puzzles. However, Minish Cap taps into the tiny vibes of the Picori by shrinking Link down to miniature size, making way for some truly memorable dungeons and boss encounters. Despite its small scale, The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap was a well-designed and engrossing adventure akin to A Link to the Past, and it fully deserves its spot on our list of the best GBA games ever made.
4. Golden Sun
The Game Boy Advance is home to quite a few stellar turn-based RPGs, including Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, Fire Emblem, and more. That said, the best of the best has to be Golden Sun, a long-overlooked genre gem exclusive to the GBA. Originally planned as a Nintendo 64 game, Golden Sun follows a group of magic teens who look to save their world from an emerging evil. It’s pretty standard fare for a turn-based RPG story, but the execution of Golden Sun is where it earns its reputation. Not only is the world beautiful and fun to explore, but the battle system is engaging, the fight scenes look awesome, and there’s a great gameplay loop. When it comes to RPGs on handhelds, none did it quite like Golden Sun, which refused to dumb down its systems in the jump from console to GBA. Better than most SNES-era RPGs, Golden Sun is a game that’s worth owning a GBA for, even if you never play anything else.
5. Metroid Fusion
Metroid is a curious franchise, as despite excelling with almost every release since its inception, it’s a series that Nintendo doesn’t celebrate as much as its other “big” names. Sure, there are a few stinkers here and there (Metroid: Other M, anyone?), but the great games far outnumber the bad ones. Standing as a beacon of quality on the GBA is Metroid Fusion, the fourth overall installment in the franchise, which sees Samus Aran trudging through a mysterious space station while battling a parasitic race of foes. More challenging than most other sidescrollers of its ilk, though linear in progress, Fusion offers everything you’d want out of a 2D Metroid game. Great boss fights, interesting puzzles, and wondrous exploration await in this vastly underrated GBA title. If you pine for the glory days of Super Metroid on the Super Nintendo, Metroid Fusion is the next best thing, and any fan of the franchise owes it to themselves to give it a try.
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