15) Mario Tennis
Developer: Camelot
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2005
Camelot already proved itself in the realm of tennis and golf on the original Game Boy Color, so when the team announced that it would be creating a follow-up to the game on the Game Boy Advance, we weren't surprised that the sequel ended up as awesome as it did. The game featured a much more fleshed out single player experience and also brought forth more Mario characters and moves for this update. The power moves we're a cool addition, but luckily they didn't need to be in play at all times if you just wanted to hit the courts to play a much more traditional version of the sport.
14) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Developer: Square
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2003
At this point in the Game Boy Advance's life cycle, Square Enix wasn't quite ready to bet the farm on the Nintendo handheld. The studio was carefully testing the waters, and one of its early games, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, brought back a really excellent PlayStation game's theme in a new and original storyline. This GBA game offered some great strategy, some excellent characters, and really challenging gameplay in a take-anywhere form.
13) Ultimate Card Games
Developer: Cosmigo
Publisher: Telegames
Year Released: 2004
When you have a Game Boy Advance on you, you want to have a cartridge that has a tremendous amount of replay value, and one with pick-up-and-play appeal. Telegames managed to create one of the few "must have" third party games in the GBA line-up with a collection of card games that are near impossible to put down. Solitaire, Cribbage, Poker, Black Jack and a good number more are available in this cartridge, and what's more, any multiplayer game can be sent to other systems without the need for an additional cart. On top of all this, the game has fantastic statistics tracking and a pretty awesome soundtrack to accompany the gameplay. If you haven't picked this one up, why the heck not?
12) Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Developer: Alphadream
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2003
The Super NES had Super Mario RPG. The Nintendo 64 and GameCube had Paper Mario. And the Game Boy Advance? This is the portable equivalent. Both Mario and Luigi work together in this unique action RPG game that borrows heavily from the Super Paper Mario design. The way players manipulate both plumbers together gives the game a very unique feel, especially when you have to do very traditional Mario Bros. mechanics using both GBA buttons to do the jumping. The battles feature some real-time elements that add an extra element of player involvement to spice up the gameplay. And the adventure's also funny as hell. A can't miss, gang.
11) Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2003
Even though this Super Mario game came before the time of Yoshi and other cool elements that were introduced in Super Mario World, this was one of the top games in the series. I mean, you could dress Mario up like a raccoon! Seriously, this game featured some of the most tough-as-nails level designs in the series. And if they weren't enough, you could go out and buy a second Game Boy Advance, an e-Reader, a link cable, and a pack of cards to upload some brand new level designs that weren't built into the original cartridge. It was a concept ahead of its time -- hopefully the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection and the Nintendo DS can bring back the idea of post-release level updates. But for now, you've got Super Mario Bros. 3.
10) Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
Developer: Game Freaks
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2003
We couldn't do a top game list without Pokemon being in there somewhere, and the first official update to the incredibly deep Pokemon RPG franchise -- Ruby and Sapphire -- squeak in there with a place in the Top 10. And rightfully so, too. Yes, the game's clearly aimed at the younger crowd, and yes, it's really cool to hate on the hundreds of cute little critters and the millions upon millions of gamers who've enjoyed the design since the late 90s. But the Game Boy Advance game offers so much strategy...and everything you do in the package can be moved over to the console versions of the Pokemon battle games. The game might not be a visual or audio marvel, but it's got it where it counts: gameplay.
9) Metroid: Zero Mission
Developer: Nintendo R&D1
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2004Metroid Fusion may have brought the franchise to the Game Boy Advance, but it was Metroid: Zero Mission that really validated its existence. The design, touted as a remake of the game that started it all -- Metroid on the NES -- was far more than that. It was a visual upgrade with familiar areas, but the designers took liberties with where the game went. And even when it ended, it didn't -- there was something else waiting for gamers that was fresh and new, bringing a different style of gameplay that fit the overall Metroid theme. It was a wonderful surprise, and that element's actually being referenced to in an announced, upcoming Wii title. No spoilers here, nope!
8) Final Fantasy VI
Developer: Square
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2007Of all the remakes of the Final Fantasy series on the Game Boy Advance, none stands taller on the system than the brilliant Super NES to GBA conversion of Final Fantasy III. The numbering structure has changed to mirror the Japanese releases, but Final Fantasy VI is a remake of the final Final Fantasy game released on the 16-bit system in the US more than a decade ago. Awesome graphics, even better soundtrack, and the traditional Final Fantasy gameplay that can't be missed. It's known as the best 2D game in the series by the fans, and the fans have spoken: the game is the best one on the GBA as well.
7) Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2002We'll go to the grave believing thatYoshi's Island is close to, if not the best 2D platform game ever made. The original Super NES game introduced so many new gameplay elements that utilized the power of the FX chip to drive these ideas. The Game Boy Advance had enough power under the hood to bring back these elements without the need for additional processing hardware, and for those that missed out on the original console release nearly a decade prior, the Game Boy Advance does a brilliant job bringing the award winning gameplay and level designs to the handheld. It's a shame that Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy had to be destroyed in the move to portable. Otherwise, this is an incredible conversion that absolutely needs to be experienced on the GBA.
6) Mario Golf
Developer: Camelot
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2004On the Game Boy Advance, "pick up and play" style gameplay is king. And nothing's more pick up and play than the sport of golf. Mario Golf Advance Tour is a portable follow-up to Camelot's incredible Game Boy Color golf game, which was a port of the Nintendo 64 console design. Almost mirroring that strategy, the GBA version took all of the elements of the GameCube game and shrunk them down for play on the portable. There were tons of course designs with tons of cool little hidden tricks that just couldn't be done on the real-world courses. Even with its 2D restrictions, Mario Golf Advance Tour ended up the finest take-anywhere game of golf then created. And we're still waiting for a development team to best Camelot's design on the Nintendo DS.
Back in 2001,
Nintendo led us to believe that the in-development, soon-to-be-released Game Boy Advance system would be on-par with the Super NES for its gaming power. That's a pretty good place to be, since, for years, we've been playing Nintendo handhelds that were on the level of the NES system. We were certainly looking forward to playing lots of multi-layered side-scrolling platform games and racing titles using the system's Mode 7.
And then Vicarious Visions, best known for producing some great Spider-Man games for the Game Boy Color, stepped in with something absolutely breathtaking: a portable rendition of the brilliantly fun Neversoft
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Even though, due to system limitations, the game had to remain in a fixed overhead perspective, the Game Boy Advance version created by the VV team retained the look and feel of the skateboarding action game. It was an absolute stunner of a launch title for the handheld, and it's amazing to see how well it's held up over the years -- even after a half dozen sequels over the course of the GBA's life-span, it's still a thrill to see the series' portable origins.
4) Advance Wars
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2001In Japan, Nintendo fans had a series they could call their own: Famicom Wars, a turn-based strategy game that never made the localization move to North America. Which is a darn shame because the design's US premiere,
Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance, was one unbelievably deep and fulfilling design that challenged console players in a unique way.
The game offered it all: tough-as-nails strategic gameplay, an extensive single player campaign with tons of memorable characters and situations, tons of user customization in the form of a map creator, and full-on four player multiplayer mode where only one copy of the game is required for the network.
Advance Wars had unfortunate timing on its release, shipping during the time of 9/11 in the US. The game was actually a US-exclusive release for quite some time, which was a surprise considering the game's origins as a Japan-only release on previous systems. The sequel added a few new gameplay elements that were followed up on a dual-screen version a couple year's later on the Nintendo DS, but the original game made the biggest splash on the GBA, by far.
3) Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with Four Swords
Developer: Square
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2003The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past with Four Swords is, admittedly, a "mere" portable conversion of a Super NES game. But if any Super NES game deserved to be milked, it's A Link to the Past, easily one of the top, most memorable adventures in Link's career of saving Zelda. The GBA hardware handled the game admirably well, retaining the look, sound, and feel of the original Super NES game with very little compromise in the move to the handheld. The awesome classic remained a classic on the GBA.
What made this game truly awesome was the multiplayer mode, Four Swords. Multiplayer Zelda? Are you serious? How could that be any fun? Only said by people who couldn't find four GBAs, four copies of the game, and enough link cables to keep everyone connected. This mode was a brilliant combination of cooperative adventuring and competitive ass-kicking, an idea that was expanded on in the GameCube game Four Swords Adventure. Traces of the Four Swords idea continued in the original GBA Zelda game Minish Cap, and we're sure there will be many more instances of the Four Swords influence for many years to come.
2) Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Year Released: 2004Konami backed the Game Boy Advance horse right from Day One when it produced Castlevania: Circle of the Moon on the handheld as a launch title. The GBA series started out with a bang, and by the time the third game hit the system with
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, it ended with a tremendous boom. Three games hit the system over the course of the GBA's life, and even though all three were amazing action adventures that offered something new with each iteration, Aria of Sorrow was the one we all remember the most. And it's not just because it was the final game on the GBA. All the new gameplay elements, all of the additional characters, all of the enhanced visuals, and all of the amazing soundtrack pieces combined to produce one of the best games in the Castlevania series...for any system.
1) Wario Ware Twisted
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Year Released: 2005If there was that one game that we would force into anyone's Game Boy Advance library, of all of the hundreds upon hundreds of games released for the system, it would be, without a doubt,
Wario Ware Twisted. Wario Ware: Mega Microgames might have started the whole "five second gameplay" genre that's been sequeled and cloned over the years, but Wario Ware Twisted took the concept in a completely amazing direction that just couldn't be missed.
A gyroscopic sensor housed inside the cartridge turned the GBA into a twistable controller, and game designers had all sorts of fun coming up with awesome little challenges using this concept. Dial a phone. Turn a world upside down. Even play a modified version of Super Mario Bros. We should have seen it as a sign of things to come: the technology in the cartridge is what we're now enjoying in the Wii Remote. And the Game Boy Advance got it two years prior.
Unfortunately, even though this game can't be missed, it was missed. By many people. The game sold modestly but never really reached that coveted "million seller" that so many Nintendo published games enjoy. Perhaps it was the daunting size of the thick box on the shelves. Or perhaps it was Wario's ugly mug on the cover. Whatever the reason, it's disappointing to find that, with the tens of millions of Game Boy Advance systems and additional millions of GBA-compatible Nintendo DS games out there, that only a small fraction of system owners played this one. Try to find a copy on clearance before you regret it and miss an opportunity to enjoy what we believe is the best game on the system.
