15 Best Game Boy Advance Games Of All Time

The Game Boy Advance was a landmark achievement for Nintendo when it first released in 2001. As the successor to the wildly popular Game Boy Color, it had big shoes to fill, but its release heralded a few major design changes that would inform the future of Nintendo's handheld launches. Its adoption of a landscape presentation that moved buttons and the D-Pad to the side of the screen became stock for the release of the DS, 3DS, and Switch, and its backward compatibility helped push the notion that it was an evolution of a larger family of handhelds that would be worthy investments for years to come.

The Game Boy Advance wasn't just a major hardware upgrade, however. It also pushed handheld gaming towards greater heights. Whether it was the adaptation of something old or the innovation of something new, the Game Boy Advance game library was deep by the end of its life cycle, with a number of contenders for some of the best Nintendo games ever made. With so many options to choose from and a number of ways to play them today, they're still relevant and engaging, too. These games are the best GBA games ever made, and well worth checking out in 2024 with the right hardware.

is a prequel to, detailing how the titular sword came to be and providing backstory for main villain Vaati. As a top-down game, it's reminiscent of many of its earlier efforts that were adapted to handheld, such as. It was well-received upon release, and has since gone on to be considered one of the best GBA games ever made, having won an award for GBA Game of the Year in 2005 and remaining relevant to the series ever since.

The main twist on standard gameplay involves the Minish Cap, which allows Link to shrink in size. This change in scale also changes how Link can interact with the game world; some entrances or portals are too small for a normal-sized Link, but shrinking down can create obstacles out of every day items and environments, like puddles that suddenly become too deep and large to