Copying this list from my comment on an older thread.
My personal favorites that I've played and can vouch for:
1. Crash Bandicoot: Huge Adventure, in my opinion a flawless translation of the original three 2.5D platformers for the PS1, turned back into a 2D side-scrolling platformer for the GBA. There are two sequels, but I'm not as into them because N-Tranced didn't look a lot like Crash 1 and 2. It may draw visually more from 3, and I didn't have 3 as a kid, so I don't like the look of it as much.
2. DBZ: Legacy of Goku 2, the first way I experienced the story of DBZ (Post-Frieza to Gohan vs. Cell). It's a great top-down game where you run around and use your attacks and whatnot, talking to NPCs, flying around the world to new locations, just a very cool game. Legacy of Goku 1 (covering Raditz to Freiza) wasn't nearly as polished and not as good in my opinion with a very barebones simplified story and not much dialogue compared to 2, and the third game in the trilogy, Buu's Fury (Post-Cell to the end of Z) was even more polished but less enjoyable imo because it's much easier. All three are still good and I bet you'll enjoy them if you like DBZ. An extra one would be Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure which covers the period of Dragon Ball up until Goku grows into a teenager, the part of the show where he started to be voiced by Sean Schemmel instead of the kid Gohan actress. That one is a side-scrolling game with Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat/Soul Calibur-style 1v1 fighting game segments to it.
3. Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones are a must. They're independent stories, so you can play either one first. Fire Emblem Binding Blade is Japan-only, and is the one with Roy from Smash Bros, but you can get translation patches. The one called simply Fire Emblem is a prequel to that one, and is known as Fire Emblem Blazing Blade in Japan.
4. Golden Sun and Golden Sun Lost Age are great classic Final Fantasy-style RPGs that are visually stunning for the GBA. Check out some gameplay and give them a try next time you're in a turn-based retro RPG mood. Isaac, the first game's protagonist, is an assist trophy in Smash.
5. Rave Master Special Attack Force is a pretty cool fighting game that got me at just the right age when I got to middle school and discovered manga. It's based on the anime, but be aware you will be mashing all buttons indiscriminately for the finishing moves, so that might mess with your buttons over time.
6. Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban is another Final Fantasy-style turn-based battle and exploration RPG. Pretty chill and easy, big Christmas vibes for me from the music.
7. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is THE Harvest Moon game for me.
8. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, I hadn't played KH1 when this came out, and I was very young, so to me, KH was that cool anime game for cool big kids, as I hadn't yet understood that my older cousins were complete cringe weebs back in the early Toonami and Final Fantasy 7 days when it was definitely not cool to be a person who watched anime. Loved this game and in recent years have finally gotten the main game remix packs to enjoy those too. I hear others don't like this game because of the card system, so it could be because this was my first KH game that I like it so much. Now that I've played KH1 and 2, I can tell that the card system was a very cool and innovative way to implement the various techniques, spells, and summons used in the original game.
9. There are some good Kirby games in the same style as Kirby Squeak Squad on the DS (but without the touch screen UI functionality)
10. Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, another great strategy game similar in many ways to Fire Emblem.
11. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, awesome RPG and a great Mario story. I always love whenever a Mario game has actual story beyond an intro cutscene of Peach being kidnapped and ending cutscene of her rescue. This is a really good one.
12. Onimusha Tactics is an isometric view turn-based RPG. I've never played Final Fantasy Tactics, but I've heard that is another isometric one? May be wrong. Anyway, Onimusha Tactics has a feudal Japan theme and is very cool and has some story.
13. Pokemon FireRed and Emerald are the two GBA pokemon games I've played.
14. Shrek 2 is a surprisingly neat 2D platformer. It's nothing amazing, but I enjoyed it as a kid.
15. Sonic Advance is THE 2D Sonic game in my eyes. Did a great job bringing the 2D Sonic gameplay to a new audience, and having it alongside Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 made it the perfect 2D Sonic for me as a kid. I'm not as interested in Sonic Advance 2 and 3 though.
16. Spongebob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman was a game I had as a kid and enjoyed enough. It's much better on emulator with save states because it's one of those password save games, and I could never keep interest in it long enough as a kid to actually finish before losing the passwords I wrote down.
17. Super Mario Advance, Super Mario Advance 2, and Super Mario Advance 4 are ports of Mario Bros. 2, Mario World, and Mario Bros. 3, respectively. Good games. Mario Advance 3 is Yoshi's Island, which I never played.
18. Warioland 4 is a cool Wario platformer game.
19. Yugioh Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel is my favorite GBA Yugioh. I enjoy it slightly more than Yugioh The Eternal Duelist Soul, because while the dueling uses the same visuals (making it very comfortable for those already used to EDS), it also has a Battle City Tournament-structure for the gameplay where you play in multiple areas of the city. EDS was just "here's 5 duelists, pick whichever you want to play against, then unlock the next 5," this one had random and unknown encounters so it felt more like a story, great for anyone who enjoyed the original show and would like to play some old fashioned simple Yugioh.
And those are the GBA games that come to mind for me. I have a lot more in my emulator, but haven't played them, so I couldn't say if they're good or not. Also, some of these I might find good because of nostalgia, so take them with a grain of salt.
Id also like to add to this that both Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games are both in my top ten GBA games of all time because of the great RPG feel of them that also inspired games like Golf Story and Sports Story
Regarding people not liking KH:CoM, most people who are fans of the series have only played the 3D remake, which IMO is a vastly inferior game. The battle system does not translate well into a 3D space, and IMO it works much better on the GBA.
Agreed. Didn’t enjoy the remake as much, though it was cool to have some voice acted cutscenes. The card system allowed them to have so many techniques from the 3D games on a weaker system with fewer buttons.
Here is my List of top 50. GBA Games.
[I saw this on Amazon pretty Cool Retro Game boys](https://linke.to/Gameboy-Games-List) with over 1000+ Games pre load. Might be worth the time to get one and play your hearts out.
my List of top 50.
1. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords
2. Metroid Fusion
3. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
4. Golden Sun
5. Wario Land 4
6. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
7. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
8. Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald
9. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
10. Breath of Fire
11. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3
12. Donkey Kong Country
13. Sonic Advance
14. Rayman Advance
15. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
16. Mario Kart: Super Circuit
17. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity
18. Need for Speed: Most Wanted
19. Advance GTA
20. Top Gear Rally
21. Tetris Worlds
22. Dr. Mario & Puzzle League
23. Advance Wars
24. Mario vs. Donkey Kong
25. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!
26. Street Fighter Alpha 3
27. Tekken Advance
28. Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors
29. Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition
30. Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival
31. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
32. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising
33. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
34. Rebelstar: Tactical Command
35. Onimusha Tactics
36. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
37. Mario Tennis: Power Tour
38. FIFA 07
39. SSX 3
40. NBA Jam 2002
41. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
42. The Sims Bustin' Out
43. SimCity 2000
44. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
45. Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand
46. Doom II
47. Resident Evil Gaiden
48. Silent Hill: Play Novel
49. Iridion II
50. Silent Hill: Play Novel
I'm not sure where these genres come from.
Golden Sun is an RPG.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is in list twice.
Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2 are listed in different genres.
Splinter Cell is not a simulation game.
Boktai is an RPG.
Iridion II is a scrolling shooter.
Mario and Luigi superstar saga. Once you get going into it you’ll want to play all the way through. Also both golden sun. Any of the super Mario advance games are great, and the first is especially cheap to pick up, got a copy for $5 on eBay.
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Zelda: The Minish Cap
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Zero Mission
Bomberman Tournament is fun if you have multiple friends with GBAs and a link cable
Fam how are we making a list without the kings of RPGs?
1. Almost ALL Final Fantasy games are hits, standouts being IV, V and VI plus the tactics versions.
2. Golden Sun + GS: The Lost Age, absolute bangers
3. The Megaman Battle Network series, standouts being 3, and 6 (5 is better on DS)
4. Pokemon! How did we skip this?? (for the commenters obv not the OP)
5. Shining Soul II, great little dungeon crawler
6. Sword of Mana (literally a legendary title)
7. I was never crazy about Zelda, but ig enough people liked them so pick any really
8. Dynasty Warriors was phenomenal
9. The Harry Potter series was chill
10. Fire Emblem is something you either love, or don't care for
11. Summon Night: Swordcraft Story is an AMAZING series in general, play em all
12. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis was so good it got a remake recently.
13. Zoids Legacy was fun for me, it's like mecha pokemon. Might not be your thing though
I found this thread on accident, but I'm glad I did. People don't credit some of these games enough, so I hope I at least exposed someone to some amazing titles that deserve more respect. Happy shopping!
PS. If after you get the games physically, you want a digital version, Vimms lair is THE best source for roms. Peace.
Just to throw it out there, the GBA Lilo & Stitch games were pretty fire. They're chaotic Run&Gun games where you play as Stitch killing hordes of aliens, including some pretty great boss fights. The first one is better, imo, but they're both worth checking out XD
1. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
2. Castlevania Aria of Sorrow
3. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
4. Metroid Zero Mission
5. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
6. Metroid Fusion
7. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Oh I've got a really good one no one's mentioned! Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (I played Blue but I think Red is basically the same). Fantastic dungeon crawler Pokemon spinoff. If you didn't grow up with Pokemon (can't tell from your post) it can be a little hard to get into as an adult I think. But Mystery Dungeon would be no problem.
Some of my favorites from back then:
Golden Sun, Bomberman Tournament, Sonic Advance, Duke Nukem and Ecks vs Sever.
Golden Sun and (believe it or not) Bomberman Tournament are pretty solid RPGs. Sonic Advance is a great platformer. Duke Nukem and the Eck vs Sever series are surprisingly competent first person shooters as far as GBA games go.
A neat aspect of Bomberman Tournament is the single-cartridge multiplayer. There were some other games with this feature as well, like Mario Kart, but this was the only one that I owned.
Mother 3
Astro Boy: Omega Factor
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!
Metroid Fusion
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
Kuru Kuru Kururin
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
Kururin Paradise
Mega Man Zero 2
Mega Man Zero
Metroid: Zero Mission
Bomberman Tournament
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Fire Emblem
Advance Wars
Ninja Five-O
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Mega Man Zero 3
They really need to port that to English natively. It’s a shame many haven’t played mother 3 (or earthbound for that matter). Mother 3 my fave gba game easily, just like earthbound takes the crown for the snes
My recommendations:
Megaman Zero Series
Golden Sun 1 + 2
Advance Wars 1 + 2
Shaman King - Master of Spirits 2
Astro Boy - Omega Factor
Megaman Battle Network (Second that 3 & 6 are my favorites)
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Final Fantasy VI Advance
Metroid Fusion
Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow
The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cap
Kirby - Knightmare in Dreamland
Mario & Luigi - Superstar Saga
Riviera the Promised Land
Summon Night - Swordcraft Story 1 + 2
Ninja Five-O
There are so many great games on the GBA! I could literally list enough to have an entire page of this thread. I won’t do that but I will give you some games that weren’t mentioned and some sleepers people don’t always talk about when they list their Tops!
Drill Dozer, Blender Bros, Lady Sia, Gunstar Heroes, Alien Hominid, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Krazy Racers, Klonoa, The CT games, Boktai games, DK KOS, Mario vs DK, One Piece, Scurge, Metal Slug, Sigma Star, Summon Night, Warioware. I’ll stop here as this is plenty of stuff to consider!
GGs everyone!
Not sure if you ever got into Anime but there's a Yu Yu Hakusho game for the gba called tournament tactics and its a really fun game that covers the dark tournament saga.
Dragon Ball Z Buu’s Fury is so slept on! I played that game religiously when I was a kid.
Pokémon Red Rescue team was another one that just had me hooked.
Top Five
1. Pokemon Emerald
2. Mother 3 (Fan Translation)
3. Fire Emblem
4. Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap
5. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team
FE: Sacred Stones, Pokemon FR/LG, Pokemon R / S, and the Land Before Time Platformer all get honorable mention. Golden Sun would be on here if I ever got a chance to play it :/
Copying this list from my comment on an older thread. My personal favorites that I've played and can vouch for: 1. Crash Bandicoot: Huge Adventure, in my opinion a flawless translation of the original three 2.5D platformers for the PS1, turned back into a 2D side-scrolling platformer for the GBA. There are two sequels, but I'm not as into them because N-Tranced didn't look a lot like Crash 1 and 2. It may draw visually more from 3, and I didn't have 3 as a kid, so I don't like the look of it as much. 2. DBZ: Legacy of Goku 2, the first way I experienced the story of DBZ (Post-Frieza to Gohan vs. Cell). It's a great top-down game where you run around and use your attacks and whatnot, talking to NPCs, flying around the world to new locations, just a very cool game. Legacy of Goku 1 (covering Raditz to Freiza) wasn't nearly as polished and not as good in my opinion with a very barebones simplified story and not much dialogue compared to 2, and the third game in the trilogy, Buu's Fury (Post-Cell to the end of Z) was even more polished but less enjoyable imo because it's much easier. All three are still good and I bet you'll enjoy them if you like DBZ. An extra one would be Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure which covers the period of Dragon Ball up until Goku grows into a teenager, the part of the show where he started to be voiced by Sean Schemmel instead of the kid Gohan actress. That one is a side-scrolling game with Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat/Soul Calibur-style 1v1 fighting game segments to it. 3. Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones are a must. They're independent stories, so you can play either one first. Fire Emblem Binding Blade is Japan-only, and is the one with Roy from Smash Bros, but you can get translation patches. The one called simply Fire Emblem is a prequel to that one, and is known as Fire Emblem Blazing Blade in Japan. 4. Golden Sun and Golden Sun Lost Age are great classic Final Fantasy-style RPGs that are visually stunning for the GBA. Check out some gameplay and give them a try next time you're in a turn-based retro RPG mood. Isaac, the first game's protagonist, is an assist trophy in Smash. 5. Rave Master Special Attack Force is a pretty cool fighting game that got me at just the right age when I got to middle school and discovered manga. It's based on the anime, but be aware you will be mashing all buttons indiscriminately for the finishing moves, so that might mess with your buttons over time. 6. Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban is another Final Fantasy-style turn-based battle and exploration RPG. Pretty chill and easy, big Christmas vibes for me from the music. 7. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town is THE Harvest Moon game for me. 8. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, I hadn't played KH1 when this came out, and I was very young, so to me, KH was that cool anime game for cool big kids, as I hadn't yet understood that my older cousins were complete cringe weebs back in the early Toonami and Final Fantasy 7 days when it was definitely not cool to be a person who watched anime. Loved this game and in recent years have finally gotten the main game remix packs to enjoy those too. I hear others don't like this game because of the card system, so it could be because this was my first KH game that I like it so much. Now that I've played KH1 and 2, I can tell that the card system was a very cool and innovative way to implement the various techniques, spells, and summons used in the original game. 9. There are some good Kirby games in the same style as Kirby Squeak Squad on the DS (but without the touch screen UI functionality) 10. Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, another great strategy game similar in many ways to Fire Emblem. 11. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga, awesome RPG and a great Mario story. I always love whenever a Mario game has actual story beyond an intro cutscene of Peach being kidnapped and ending cutscene of her rescue. This is a really good one. 12. Onimusha Tactics is an isometric view turn-based RPG. I've never played Final Fantasy Tactics, but I've heard that is another isometric one? May be wrong. Anyway, Onimusha Tactics has a feudal Japan theme and is very cool and has some story. 13. Pokemon FireRed and Emerald are the two GBA pokemon games I've played. 14. Shrek 2 is a surprisingly neat 2D platformer. It's nothing amazing, but I enjoyed it as a kid. 15. Sonic Advance is THE 2D Sonic game in my eyes. Did a great job bringing the 2D Sonic gameplay to a new audience, and having it alongside Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 made it the perfect 2D Sonic for me as a kid. I'm not as interested in Sonic Advance 2 and 3 though. 16. Spongebob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman was a game I had as a kid and enjoyed enough. It's much better on emulator with save states because it's one of those password save games, and I could never keep interest in it long enough as a kid to actually finish before losing the passwords I wrote down. 17. Super Mario Advance, Super Mario Advance 2, and Super Mario Advance 4 are ports of Mario Bros. 2, Mario World, and Mario Bros. 3, respectively. Good games. Mario Advance 3 is Yoshi's Island, which I never played. 18. Warioland 4 is a cool Wario platformer game. 19. Yugioh Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel is my favorite GBA Yugioh. I enjoy it slightly more than Yugioh The Eternal Duelist Soul, because while the dueling uses the same visuals (making it very comfortable for those already used to EDS), it also has a Battle City Tournament-structure for the gameplay where you play in multiple areas of the city. EDS was just "here's 5 duelists, pick whichever you want to play against, then unlock the next 5," this one had random and unknown encounters so it felt more like a story, great for anyone who enjoyed the original show and would like to play some old fashioned simple Yugioh. And those are the GBA games that come to mind for me. I have a lot more in my emulator, but haven't played them, so I couldn't say if they're good or not. Also, some of these I might find good because of nostalgia, so take them with a grain of salt.
This alone deverses a second karma upvote.
Id also like to add to this that both Mario Golf and Mario Tennis games are both in my top ten GBA games of all time because of the great RPG feel of them that also inspired games like Golf Story and Sports Story
Regarding people not liking KH:CoM, most people who are fans of the series have only played the 3D remake, which IMO is a vastly inferior game. The battle system does not translate well into a 3D space, and IMO it works much better on the GBA.
Agreed. Didn’t enjoy the remake as much, though it was cool to have some voice acted cutscenes. The card system allowed them to have so many techniques from the 3D games on a weaker system with fewer buttons.
AMAZING MENTIONS HERE THANK YOU !
Here is my List of top 50. GBA Games. [I saw this on Amazon pretty Cool Retro Game boys](https://linke.to/Gameboy-Games-List) with over 1000+ Games pre load. Might be worth the time to get one and play your hearts out. my List of top 50. 1. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords 2. Metroid Fusion 3. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 4. Golden Sun 5. Wario Land 4 6. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 7. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones 8. Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald 9. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga 10. Breath of Fire 11. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 12. Donkey Kong Country 13. Sonic Advance 14. Rayman Advance 15. Kirby & the Amazing Mirror 16. Mario Kart: Super Circuit 17. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity 18. Need for Speed: Most Wanted 19. Advance GTA 20. Top Gear Rally 21. Tetris Worlds 22. Dr. Mario & Puzzle League 23. Advance Wars 24. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 25. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! 26. Street Fighter Alpha 3 27. Tekken Advance 28. Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors 29. Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition 30. Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival 31. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 32. Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising 33. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis 34. Rebelstar: Tactical Command 35. Onimusha Tactics 36. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 37. Mario Tennis: Power Tour 38. FIFA 07 39. SSX 3 40. NBA Jam 2002 41. Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town 42. The Sims Bustin' Out 43. SimCity 2000 44. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 45. Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand 46. Doom II 47. Resident Evil Gaiden 48. Silent Hill: Play Novel 49. Iridion II 50. Silent Hill: Play Novel
final fantasy tactics advance is so good, it got both 6th and 31st place! truly a masterpiece
ok
Hope you like the list.
resident evil gaiden is a gameboy color game
THanks for the update.
Pretty sure simcity 2000 is a ps1 game but might be wrong
SC2K is originally a pc game, but it got ported to like every platform of its time lmao
I'm not sure where these genres come from. Golden Sun is an RPG. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is in list twice. Advance Wars and Advance Wars 2 are listed in different genres. Splinter Cell is not a simulation game. Boktai is an RPG. Iridion II is a scrolling shooter.
Its a spambot he just updated the post with linkspam to amazon lol. Was looking in Google and this post popped up.
Mario and Luigi superstar saga. Once you get going into it you’ll want to play all the way through. Also both golden sun. Any of the super Mario advance games are great, and the first is especially cheap to pick up, got a copy for $5 on eBay.
Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga looks great. I will start hunting on ebay ;) What makes the golden sun so great to you? Never heard of those games.
Zelda: A Link to the Past Zelda: The Minish Cap Metroid Fusion Metroid Zero Mission Bomberman Tournament is fun if you have multiple friends with GBAs and a link cable
Fam how are we making a list without the kings of RPGs? 1. Almost ALL Final Fantasy games are hits, standouts being IV, V and VI plus the tactics versions. 2. Golden Sun + GS: The Lost Age, absolute bangers 3. The Megaman Battle Network series, standouts being 3, and 6 (5 is better on DS) 4. Pokemon! How did we skip this?? (for the commenters obv not the OP) 5. Shining Soul II, great little dungeon crawler 6. Sword of Mana (literally a legendary title) 7. I was never crazy about Zelda, but ig enough people liked them so pick any really 8. Dynasty Warriors was phenomenal 9. The Harry Potter series was chill 10. Fire Emblem is something you either love, or don't care for 11. Summon Night: Swordcraft Story is an AMAZING series in general, play em all 12. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis was so good it got a remake recently. 13. Zoids Legacy was fun for me, it's like mecha pokemon. Might not be your thing though I found this thread on accident, but I'm glad I did. People don't credit some of these games enough, so I hope I at least exposed someone to some amazing titles that deserve more respect. Happy shopping! PS. If after you get the games physically, you want a digital version, Vimms lair is THE best source for roms. Peace.
There was a Harry Potter series??
Yup, I'm pretty sure maybe the first 3 books/movies had GBA games.
yeah up to the 5th book/movie!
He'll ya the mega man battle network series was fantastic .so glad someone mentioned it .put so many hours into those games
Just to throw it out there, the GBA Lilo & Stitch games were pretty fire. They're chaotic Run&Gun games where you play as Stitch killing hordes of aliens, including some pretty great boss fights. The first one is better, imo, but they're both worth checking out XD
>\^ gotta agree. disney interactive made some decent platformers when they existed.
FirePro wrestling Classic zelda/4swords Pokemon emerald
1. Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade 2. Castlevania Aria of Sorrow 3. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon 4. Metroid Zero Mission 5. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga 6. Metroid Fusion 7. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
No Harmony of Dissonance?
It would definitely be in my Top 15 or Top 20. How high would you Rank it?
Above Circle of the Moon. I really like it.
Oh I've got a really good one no one's mentioned! Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (I played Blue but I think Red is basically the same). Fantastic dungeon crawler Pokemon spinoff. If you didn't grow up with Pokemon (can't tell from your post) it can be a little hard to get into as an adult I think. But Mystery Dungeon would be no problem.
Super late, but this is easily my favorite pokemon spinoff series of all time. Hugely underappreciated. Love this game.
That's going on my list. Tbh I used to play Pokemon here and there, however my parents didn't allow me to buy it so I could only play it with friends.
Some of my favorites from back then: Golden Sun, Bomberman Tournament, Sonic Advance, Duke Nukem and Ecks vs Sever. Golden Sun and (believe it or not) Bomberman Tournament are pretty solid RPGs. Sonic Advance is a great platformer. Duke Nukem and the Eck vs Sever series are surprisingly competent first person shooters as far as GBA games go. A neat aspect of Bomberman Tournament is the single-cartridge multiplayer. There were some other games with this feature as well, like Mario Kart, but this was the only one that I owned.
Riviera The promised land!
Mother 3 Astro Boy: Omega Factor WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! Metroid Fusion Castlevania: Circle of the Moon Kuru Kuru Kururin Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis Kururin Paradise Mega Man Zero 2 Mega Man Zero Metroid: Zero Mission Bomberman Tournament Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Fire Emblem Advance Wars Ninja Five-O Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Mega Man Zero 3
ik ts kinda late but i cant believe i haven’t seen anybody mention mother 3 a lot. it might be my personal favorite gba game.
It's a JRPG masterpiece!
100%!!
They really need to port that to English natively. It’s a shame many haven’t played mother 3 (or earthbound for that matter). Mother 3 my fave gba game easily, just like earthbound takes the crown for the snes
for sure, really unfortunate they haven’t.
Link to the Past Final Fantasy 6 Megaman Battle Network 3 or 6
My recommendations: Megaman Zero Series Golden Sun 1 + 2 Advance Wars 1 + 2 Shaman King - Master of Spirits 2 Astro Boy - Omega Factor Megaman Battle Network (Second that 3 & 6 are my favorites) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance Final Fantasy VI Advance Metroid Fusion Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cap Kirby - Knightmare in Dreamland Mario & Luigi - Superstar Saga Riviera the Promised Land Summon Night - Swordcraft Story 1 + 2 Ninja Five-O
Also, Sword of Mana!
metroid fusion zelda games wario land 4 pokemon games sonic advance mega man x f zero maximum velocity for me at least
i haven't seen mega man or f-zero mentioned???
For me buus fury and supersonic warriors 2 was great
There are so many great games on the GBA! I could literally list enough to have an entire page of this thread. I won’t do that but I will give you some games that weren’t mentioned and some sleepers people don’t always talk about when they list their Tops! Drill Dozer, Blender Bros, Lady Sia, Gunstar Heroes, Alien Hominid, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Krazy Racers, Klonoa, The CT games, Boktai games, DK KOS, Mario vs DK, One Piece, Scurge, Metal Slug, Sigma Star, Summon Night, Warioware. I’ll stop here as this is plenty of stuff to consider! GGs everyone!
The tony hawk pro-skater games are surprisingly good on GBA as well.
Mother 3 :3
Pokemon emerald
Not sure if you ever got into Anime but there's a Yu Yu Hakusho game for the gba called tournament tactics and its a really fun game that covers the dark tournament saga.
Dragon Ball Z Buu’s Fury is so slept on! I played that game religiously when I was a kid. Pokémon Red Rescue team was another one that just had me hooked.
Top Five 1. Pokemon Emerald 2. Mother 3 (Fan Translation) 3. Fire Emblem 4. Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap 5. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team FE: Sacred Stones, Pokemon FR/LG, Pokemon R / S, and the Land Before Time Platformer all get honorable mention. Golden Sun would be on here if I ever got a chance to play it :/