10 best Game Boy Advance games ever

The Game Boy Advance has some of the very best 2D games ever made in its library, and that’s no joke. SNES ports, enhanced Game Boy and NES titles, and a litany of completely exclusive and original GBA games that fans love to this day. 

In this list we’re putting together a list of ten of the best GBA games of all time, with a few rules. Only one game per series, and this list does not include any ports, only entirely original games made with the Game Boy Advance in mind. If you want to play some of the best GBA games the system has to offer, then you should start with the games in this list. 

If you want to see more of the best retro games ever, take a look at our lists of the best NES games, the best SNES games, and the best N64 games. If you’re a Sega fan, consider our list of the best Sega Genesis games.

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

The last of the Capcom-developed Legend of Zelda games, Minish Cap is excellent. This game takes the Wind Waker art style and makes gorgeous sprite work out of it, and that makes this one of the most visually memorable Zelda games. In addition to that, we have the cheeky Ezlo, a talking hat with a bird head, and the ability to shrink you down to tiny proportions, allowing you to enter new places and solve puzzles in new ways. As much as it irks me to agree with a former GLHF staffer, you should play Minish Cap. 

Advance Wars

The GBA was a fantastic home for a variety of RPGs, and even though we’ve somehow managed to ignore Fire Emblem on this list, tactical RPGs still get a fair mention. Advance Wars is the first of the bunch, and if you’re disappointed following the delay of the Nintendo Switch remake, then you should just go back and play the originals. Advance Wars is a fantastic tactical RPG following the fight between the blue and red teams. Building up your forces and capturing points on the map is great fun. 

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga

The Mario RPG series is wonderful, blending action commands with turn-based combat. This game has you collecting beans while exploring an entirely new world, filled with some familiar Mario staples. It’s weird, it’s wonderful, and still might be the best Mario & Luigi game there’s ever been. Well worth revisiting. 

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

When life is hard it’s not uncommon to wish to escape to a fantasy land – and that’s exactly what happened in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Upon getting sucked into a strange world along with two of his friends, our protagonist must gather a new group of strong friends and essentially become a mercenary guild, available to hire to complete all sorts of tasks – which usually means killing people in the woods or something. An excellent fusion of great gameplay and a memorable story. 

Metroid Fusion

The Metroid series was infamously dormant for years, and one of the last games we were blessed with was Metroid Fusion, otherwise known as Metroid 4. This game is a direct sequel to Super Metroid, and takes the foundations of that game and improves on them in a number of ways. Still often considered to be the definitive Metroid experience by fans. 

Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

The home console games by this point focused on 3D visuals, and the 2D Castlevania series was in danger of being ignored. Luckily that wasn’t the case, and the GBA became the new natural home for most 2D adventure games. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow is one of several Castlevania games on GBA, and is often considered to be the very best. 

Sonic Advance

Sonic has had a bit of a troubled past, as we all know too well, but the Sonic Advance series was not a part of that. Sonic had three original platformers on GBA, and they were all pretty great. They allowed you to play with multiple characters, had a full save system, and looked better than Sonic had ever done before, at the time at least. Sonic Advance is much better than the later Sonic The Hedgehog 4, there’s no doubt about that. 

Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire

We all love Pokémon, right? Right! And Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire was the first time a mainline Pokémon game couldn’t run on a Game Boy Color. That means the developers could suddenly add much more detail to each and every sprite, which led to the third Pokémon generation feeling like the biggest and best one yet for many players. Hoenn is a beloved region, even if it has a lot of water. 

Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town

The perfect kind of game to play in short bursts or marathon sessions, Harvest Moon has the kind of gameplay loop that is hard to break. Waking up, taking care of your animals, tending to your crops, socializing with friends, and then heading to bed, only to do it all again, sounds boring, but it’s the original cookie-clicker formula. The more you do, the more you build up your farm, the more you have access to, the more easily you can produce your produce, and the more money you earn. Building up a successful, wealthy farm along with finding a partner is incredibly satisfying and will make you wish that real life were so simple. 

Golden Sun

Camelot’s Golden Sun is utterly adored, and yes, people are outraged that there hasn’t been a new entry in this series since 2010. It’s a very traditional RPG from the team otherwise better known for the Mario sports games, particularly Tennis and Golf – yes, they were responsible for bringing Waluigi to life. But Golden Sun has to be the game that Camelot fans are most ravenous for more of, and they will probably continue to be disappointed, unfortunately. The original GBA games, Golden Sun, and the sequel The Lost Age, are still well worth playing. 

Written by Dave Aubrey on behalf of GLHF.

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