Excluding ports, my favourites are:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Golden Sun series
Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak
Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue
Mega Man Battle Network series
Pokemon series
Sonic Advance series
Sword of Mana
Summon Night: Swordcraft Story series
I always wanted to try the Summon Knight games, but never seen a copy out in the wild. I mostly remember it from write ups in Nintendo Power and word of mouth from the gaiaonline forums. Apparently the game was pretty gay for a game released in the early 2000s (at least if you played as the female protag)
I definitely enjoyed Sword of Mana, though it definitely felt unpolished compared to what Square was putting out in those days. I just remember the OST hitting pretty hard, and me holding the GBA up to my ear to jam to the songs.
I don’t know what it means for a game to be “gay”. I played as the girl for both Summon Knight games and they seemed normal to me. There weren’t any dating systems or anything like that.
Dawn of Mana on PS2 had a higher quality version of “Endless Battlefield” from Sword of Mana. The GBA sound chip really held it back but the music was still very good.
I could be thinking of another game on the gba, but it was a game where the female avatar was sort of an afterthought, so if you played as the girl, she would have the male’s same dialogue, and would flirt with some of the female characters in the game.
I don’t remember any flirting. I never played as the boy so I can’t compare dialogue, though.
So I found an explanation here
In the first game, your summon beast has to be Sugar for the flirty dialogue.
In the second, there’s a character named Lynn who tries to kiss your character, regardless of gender, and your protagonist reacts to it the same no matter which.
In the first game, I had the robot guardian. In the second, I thought she was just trying to be like a very touchy older sister figure. I was very young when I played it so maybe I was just too innocent still.
And you could be right. Like I said, everything I know about these games is from hearsay, but it was definitely something that intrigued me to want to play (that and I love jRPGs in general)
Warioland 4 is amazing, and definitely one of Nintendo’s greatest achievement. I didn’t appreciate the weirdness as much as a kid, but going back to it, I simply love how off the wall it goes, and how it is halfway a Mario platformer and halfway a sonic game due to you having to rush back through the stages. If you have ever played Pizza Tower, this is the game that inspired it.
Speaking a Wario, the Warioware games were some of my favorite pick up and play titles. There is just so much to do, even after you finish the short campaign. The DS one is by far the best one though.
Dragon Ball Z Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu’s Fury are some of the best Dragon Ball games period, and are pretty decent RPGs in their own right as well. I more or less experienced the entire story of Dragonball Z through those games, and they do a fairly decent job of retelling the events (Aside from the first Legacy of Goku game, which is garbage.) If nothing else, give the music a listen. Not only are their some good remixes of the American DBZ soundtrack, but a lot of original songs that are masterpieces.
I may add more if I think of any
Not mentioned here yet:
Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission
Mega Man Zero series
The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap
Fire Emblem The Sacred Stones
The GBA was a great system; my only complaint is they didn’t include X and Y buttons. Some games could have benefited from two more face buttons.
I haven’t seen the Advance Wars series brought up yet. Great strategy game.
Seriously? No Mother 3? No F-Zero games with three to choose from? No Boktai? And Summon Night Swordcraft Story didn’t make it either.
Plus, three Sonic Advance games, multiple Metroid and Zelda titles, but couldn’t spare a slot for Mega Man Battle Network anywhere?
At least it wasn’t full of Pokémon. Reads like a top 40 radio station set list, but for gaming.
This is a really good list. Some of my favorites that weren’t on here were:
- Astro Boy
- Car Battler Joe
- Dragon Ball Adventure
- Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku (Series)
- Gunstar Super Heroes
- Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland
- Megaman Battle Network (Series)
- Megaman Zero (Series)
- Naruto Ninja Council (1 & 2)
- Rebelstar: Tactical Command
- Star Wars Trilogy
- The Invincible Iron Man
- The Sims: Bustin’ Out
- TMNT
There’s def a lot of other great games, too. Those are just a few that come to mind. Pretty sure I remember the Crash and Spyro GBA games being pretty cool, too.
Good additions. I love Kirby and Dragon Ball Adventure
Super Mario Advance 1,2,3 and 4
Mario Kart was by far the best. The ability to play coop with only one of you having the game is something all game companies should do.
Castlevania Aria of Sorrow and Mother 3 for me. Not just my two favorite GBA games, but two of my favorite games period.
Also a great time to mention how fkn great the GBA core on MiSTer is
I can’t read the list due to an adblocker blocker when i have no adblocker
The internet sucks.
Well, I have one and I could see it lol.
Confired - on my desktop where i have very many blockers, the page loads perfectly. 😅
I had tons of GBA games but the one I remember most fondly is Link’s Awakening DX.
Second would be uh… Damn, I forgot the name of it! It was that Hideo Kojima game with a solar panel in the cart because it used sunlight as a gimmick. It was the closest thing to a MGS game there was on GameBoy at the time, and I loved it. Didn’t care for the gimmick tho. You couldn’t actually see the screen if you were in direct sunlight which the sensor needed (unlike my damn calculator, using a lamp didn’t work).
Edit: Boktai! You mentioned it further down in the comments lol
Mother 3
Agreed. Really touching game that is a mix of light hearted joy, melancholy, and dread. Like it’s one of those games that lures you in with the promise of a good time, and then smacks you across the face and makes you experience every possible emotion you are capable of. Then you walk away thankful for the experience.
It also included every SNES track. No paid DLC or anything, just play the GBA courses well enough and you’ll unlock them.
So amazing
I’m surprised at the lack of Drill Dozer. Seriously, give it a try.
I’ll always go to bat for Gunstar Super Heroes. It’s a full on sequel to the Genesis game - hardly anyone seems to talk about it, which is a shame because it’s incredible. Easily one of the best action games on GBA, if not the best. Absolutely deserves a spot in any top GBA list, right alongside Astro Boy Omega Factor.
Since they haven’t been mentioned yet, I’d like to recommend all three Klonoa games on the GBA. There’s Empire of Dreams and Dream Champ Tournament which are both platformers with some puzzle elements. The third game is Klonoa Heroes, which is an ARPG (making it totally different from anything else in the series). Do note that Heroes wasn’t released outside Japan, but there is a translation patch available.
