50 Best Game Boy Advance (GBA) Games Of All Time

The Game Boy Advance celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Japanese debut on 21st March 2021. Nintendo’s first true successor to the original Game Boy line (the Game Boys Pocket and Color notwithstanding), the GBA in all its forms — original horizontal console, clamshell SP model, and ludicrously small (and sexy) Micro — would be the company’s final handheld to carry the Game Boy branding; the experimental Nintendo DS came along in the mid-2000s and swiftly ate the GBA’s lunch.

One of the cleverest things about the DS, though, was the GBA slot in the bottom of the original and Lite models. You could happily transition to the new portable (and ditch the worm light if you never picked up an SP or a Micro) without losing access to the huge library of Game Boy Advance titles.

And what a library it is! Much like many of our Best Games and Series rankings, in order to find out definitively the top 50 Game Boy Advance games ever we asked Nintendo Life readers to score for their favourite GBA titles out of 10. Those User Ratings are tabulated in real-time and form the ranked list below — it’s entirely possible to change the order, even after publication. Even GBA games in our database that are bubbling under the top 50 can elbow their way in if they get sufficient love from your lovely selves!

So, don’t worry if you missed out on ‘voting’ in Advance (see what we did there?) — simply scroll down and rate them now. Alternatively, use the search bar below to search for any GBA game in our database and rate it for a chance to see it rise through the ranks and appear. For now, though, we proudly present the 50 best Game Boy Advance games ever…

Note. In order for games to become eligible, they need a minimum of 50 User Ratings in total.