When it comes to video games, Game Boy Advance is one of my favourite platforms. Not my favourite hardware though but luckily these days you can turn your GBA cartridges to roms to be played on modern hardware.
The games are what I love and always return to. The graphical capabilities and style of GBA games are at the optimal spot: they are more colourful and beautiful than Game Boy and Game Boy Color games before it and not as 3D as the ones after it. There are many series where I think going from top-down pixel art of GBA era to 3D versions of DS or Switch era made the games worse. Pokémon and Advance Wars are great examples.
So here are my most loved games from Game Boy Advance.
Advance Wars (1 and 2)
THE GBA games for me are Advance Wars and its sequel Advance Wars 2. I come back to these games all the time. I’ve written about them in their own note you can find at Advance Wars series so I won’t repeat myself here.
There are also (at least) 2 great rom hacks based on Advance Wars 2. Advance Wars Returns and Advance Wars Story that give you more campaign missions on top of what the official ones already offer.
This series alone is worthy of having Game Boy Advance.
There’s a more recent Nintendo Switch remake Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp that is kinda okay but if you have an option to choose between the GBA or the Switch version, go with the GBA. It’s way nicer.
Pokémon Emerald
There’s a handful of great Pokémon games on the system but Pokémon Emerald is the crème de la crème of them. While I’m a Johto fan first and foremost, the Emerald is very good second and truly shows the best of what the Game Boy Advance era has to offer.
It’s the ultimate version of the 3rd generation, taking the best bits of Ruby and Sapphire as was the way back in the day. Hoenn is hardly a favourite of mine as a region but the storyline is fun, the gameplay is crisp and there’s so much to do even after finishing the story. Battle Frontier is one of the coolest things a Pokémon game has to offer.
I usually jump between Silver on GBC, Emerald on GBA and a variety of great rom hacks whenever I’m looking to get my fix of catching ‘em all.
Golden Sun series
Golden Sun and its sequel Golden Sun: The Lost Age are fantastic role-playing games (RPG) with great story, beautiful visuals and good gameplay. They are very traditional RPGs and you’re looking at a good 60 hours or so of gameplay with the two games combined so there’s definitely a lot to explore and experience.
There’s magic, there’s the four classical elements of earth, fire, water and wind, and there’s a group of magical kids who explore dungeons and towns and fight monsters. What else can you ask for a role-playing game?
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Super Mario RPG games are a very surprising genre of excellent games. Mario is mostly known by his jump and impeccable plumbing work but when he tags along his brother Luigi and go on a handheld adventure in the Superstar Saga, you get to see a lot of more from this little mustache man and his brother.
These RPG style games are often forgotten when people talk about Mario. We talk about the main line platformers, Mario Karts, Mario Parties, Mario sports games and even his short stints as boxing referee or as a doctor but so rarely you hear about these masterpieces.
(Other great games in the genre are SNES’s Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Nintendo 64’s Paper Mario, GameCube’s Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and its Switch remake.)
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
The Minish Cap is a surprisingly amazing Zelda game. I never played it as a kid and only picked it up for the first time during the pandemic and lockdown. I immediately fell in love with the game. It’s not quite at the level of SNES’s A Link to the Past or Switch’s Breath of the Wild but it’s easily in top 5 of all time Zelda games.
I’ve written about the game more in depth in my blog: I really liked Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
It’s a must have for any GBA collection.
Kuru Kuru Kururin
Kuru Kuru Kururin is a fun puzzle game where you escort a spinning stick through a maze while avoiding crashing into walls. It’s way more fun than what it sounds like.
In the story (yes, it has one!), you are playing as Kururin, a bird (I think?) who helps their mom to find the missing siblings and is helped by a rabbit who’s an expert on flying helicopters.
If puzzle games didn’t fry my brain to a state of nightmares, I’d play this game way more often than I do now.
The game has a very satisfying speedrun element to it with every level having live timer and you can always try to beat your best scores by optimising the heck out of your routes.
Honorable mentions
There are some games that were published for Game Boy Advance that are ports of NES or SNES games. If you have means to play them on their original consoles, I highly recommend that but if you only have a GBA, they are definitely worthy additions to a collection.
Super Mario ports/remakes
The naming conventions are really wonky with the Super Mario games but Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 is a remake of Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES and even worsely named Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 is a remake of the best Mario game ever, Super Mario World on SNES.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
A Link to the Past is a GBA port of the SNES classic of the same name and my favourite Zelda game in the franchise. If you can’t play it on the SNES, GBA port is a good alternative.
The game also comes with multiplier game Four Swords so you get a bit more for your buck with the GBA release.
Balatro for GBA
This is a wacky one. Not an official game but someone made a fan demake of Balatro for GBA.
This project is a non-profit fan demake of Balatro for the Game Boy Advance, meant to recreate it as accurately as possible including all the visuals that make it satisfying to play. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Playstack or LocalThunk and it is not to be sold. This version is a minimal tech-demo, intended for those who already own and know the official game. Refer to the Balatro wiki below for descriptions of game mechanics and joker effects. All rights remain with the original holders.