Game Boy Advance | Immersive New Worlds in a Perfect, Pocket-Sized Handheld
My personal gaming experiences of the Game Boy Advance! Plus, taking a look at five amazing games that I loved from this perfect, pocket-sized handheld!
The Power of a Handheld
When I was watching YouTube on my phone the other day, I started to think about how incredible it is that we have these smartphones with so much power in them compared to older days when technology was in a more primitive state.
This led me to start thinking about the times I grew up in the early 2000s, and some of the tech I had back then!
One of the quirkier devices I used to mess around with was an old PalmPilot someone had given to me! It had no color, and was horribly slow. However, I remember having fun using the stylus with it, and being able to do pretty rudimentary tasks on it for fun! Of course, I also had various older game systems, such as my original PlayStation, Nintendo GameCube, and more that I loved too during that time period, all of which I played on my old 13” Panasonic CRT/VHS player combo!
However, one of my gaming handhelds that kept me blissfully occupied for many years was my Nintendo Game Boy Advance!
Back when I first got it as a gift, I remember thinking about how powerful it was, and how much it could do! It felt like I had my own full-size game system that I could keep in my pocket at all times, filled with immersive worlds to explore at any time! It didn’t feel cheap, as some knock-off handhelds felt back then. I felt like I was holding a piece of futuristic tech in my hands with its transparent shell and with the amazing display it had!
I didn’t feel locked into the routine of turning on a separate game console, tuning the TV to the right source channel, and sitting down in one location to play a game. No, I felt like the gaming world could come with me wherever I went! This was a shocking revelation when I was a kid!
For today, we’re going to go back in time a bit and reflect some on the Game Boy Advance! I usually just write about games specifically, but this handheld meant so much to me growing up, that I felt like it deserved its own write-up!
Oh yeah, we’ll talk about games too! In fact, we’re taking a look at five games that I loved for this handheld!
Let’s dive in!
Welcome to The Saved Game
First off though, I want to extend my warmest welcome and send my thanks to you for the privilege and honor of your time!
My name is Joe, and The Saved Game is a gaming newsletter about nostalgia, new and old favorites, and finding ways to rekindle your love for why you played video games in the first place! Read more here about my Substack page and content!
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Many Long Trips and Dim Screens with the GBA
As I mentioned in my article on Dragon’s Crown, I would often travel on long road trips with my family growing up. These would take many long hours and span days sometimes going all over the United States, and it was remarkably boring for the most part! In that article, I wrote about playing Dragon’s Crown on my PS Vita back in 2014, and how much that game meant to me and how much fun it was on the Vita, especially on that specific road trip!
Of course, way before the PS Vita even existed and back in the early 2000s, I would still be stuck in the rear seat of the car and had to find something else to do besides counting the number of cars passing by!
Fortunately for me, I had my Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA) for many of those years!
The GBA was special and pretty much perfect to me, in that, it felt like a familiar controller when it was in my hands. Some of my friends and extended family had Game Boy Colors, and while it was a really cool handheld (so much so that I picked up one years later), my hands always felt very squished together when using it! The GBA felt durable when holding it, and it reminded me of holding a powerful gaming console in my hands with its beautiful screen. I had no problems with longer gaming sessions because it was so comfortable to hold! The transparent shell style I got was brilliant as well, and I loved the way mine looks!
As soon as I would slide a cartridge into the port on the back, I knew that I was going to be in for a fun time ahead! The buttons on the front of the GBA were satisfying to press, and were durable enough to withstand the brunt of use over the time I used it. The L1 and R1 buttons had a soft, tactile ‘click’ to them, and I never had any issues with them.
The sound though…yeah, the sound… The sound quality from the speaker was not great, especially if there was any background noise. If you were using it while riding in a car, then good luck hearing much of anything from your game! Because of this, headphones were often a must, and I prayed that I would remember to bring them with me for longer road trips!
Likewise, one other accessory that might’ve been a bit more important, especially on the longer car trips, was an external light! For those that had a GBA or similar handheld from back then, you will know the pain of forgetting a light and having to pretty much quit gaming as soon as the sun went down due to the lack of a backlight on the GBA! I loved the external light I got for my GBA, since it firmly clasped into place, and I was able to fold it up while it was still attached without having to take it off, which made it far more likely that I wouldn’t forget it!
Lastly, I also had a wonderful blue carrying case for it and some games! I’ve hung onto this case for a long time, and I honestly don’t know why I still have it — sentimental reasons I suppose. However, it was a great way back then to safely carry my GBA, spare batteries, and some games too!
The games are what pulled the experience all together for me, whether it was playing my GBA in the car, or gaming on it while waiting at a doctor’s office, or just casually lounging around and playing it at home! The games were incredibly special, and made for the most cherished memories I have of this handheld because they offered splendidly-made immersive worlds that could travel with me anywhere!
The Best GBA Games from My Memory
There’s a decent number of Game Boy Advance games that I played over the years, but also a LOT that I missed out on. I remember going to a local Toys-R-Us often to check out the latest GBA games, and that’s where I remember picking most of them up! The ones I did play as a kid meant a lot to me, and I have my top five that I want to briefly talk about here! These aren’t in any particular order, and of course, they are just based on the ones I’ve personally played!
What was your favorite Game Boy Advance game? Leave a comment below, and share it as a Note about what GBA game meant a lot to you!
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
This game needs no introduction! Mario Kart: Super Circuit was one of my favorite games I ever played on my GBA! More so, out of all of the Mario Kart games, I may very well have the most hours logged into this version!
As soon as you start it up, you are greeted by an amazing intro with fast-paced music, fitting for the theme of this game! In fact, I implore you to check out the full soundtrack, there are many tracks that are absolutely insane and match the quirky tones perfectly for each level! I think the music for the Sky Garden level was my favorite, and Sunset Wilds was a close second!
Beyond the music, this game was packed with action, it was competitive, and always thrilling! I remember being able to play multiplayer and having a cable linked up to a family member and friend’s GBA, and that was a blast! This was my second Mario Kart game I ever remember playing, with the first one being Mario Kart 64, but I honestly didn’t mind the graphics going from 3D to the GBA. It was just so much fun, that I didn’t notice the graphical “downgrade” as a kid!
If you have never tried this game before, I highly recommend you do so that you don’t miss out on a classic part of Mario Kart history!
Dinotopia: The Timestone Pirates
Dinosaurs, magic, and a helluva lot of pirates!
I was probably the target audience with the mix of those features for this game! I absolutely loved Dinotopia: The Timestone Pirates, and despite not knowing anything about the Dinotopia franchise, the title itself was right up my alley when I was a kid with a love I had for anything related to dinosaurs!
This was a 2D side-scrolling game, where your character has to go searching for tyrannosaurus eggs that were stolen by pirates and return them to their nesting areas — all while another plot is brewing in the background with an artifact that the pirates are really after! When I was growing up, however, I really didn’t pay much attention to the story even though I enjoyed it. I was just fascinated by the dino gameplay, the Sunstone Prod weapon your character used (kind of like a magical staff), and advancing through each mission!
The gameplay was fun, but nothing that truly stands the test of time. When I was a kid though, I had a blast working through the levels, and I loved various gameplay mechanics throughout this game! Some of the levels were hilariously fun, such as riding on a flying dinosaur, or even diving into an underwater level in a submarine. It wasn’t a long game either, which was probably a good thing!
Is Dinotopia: The Timestone Pirates an amazing game by today’s standards? Probably not, but I had a blast with it when I was growing up and I definitely think it’s worth giving a try if you feel like a short, fun 2D side-scrolling experience!
Spiderman (2002 Game)
While not exclusive to the Game Boy Advance, Spiderman was one of my favorite games I played on this handheld!
I loved the Spiderman movies that came out in the early 2000s as a kid, and I was particularly fond of this game too. It was amazing to me that I could play a version of this game on my PlayStation 2, and then play this one on my GBA! As a fan of anything related to Spiderman, it was clear that this 2D side-scroller was something I was going to spend a lot of time on! I loved being able to attack enemies by shooting webs at them or hitting them with the comic book-style of effects, and crawling up or on walls was a lot of fun! The enemies were shockingly tough, and while I did play a ton of this game, I can’t fully remember if I ever finished it!
What I do remember though was the fun I had with it, and how much time I put into this game! It’s absolutely worth checking out if you enjoy Spiderman or want to dive into some challenging, fast-paced action!
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
What a beast this game was!
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the Game Boy Advance was a treat! I rarely played the console versions of these games until the recent remakes, but the GBA version was phenomenal!
The graphics were absolutely insane for this game being on a GBA! It had a sort of isometric perspective with the camera angle that made it a bit of a unique twist on a THPS game, with the camera following you around while you skated. There were so many details throughout the menus, and even the classic THPS mechanics worked super well in this ported version! While it was on a GBA, you would easily be able to tell that the actual game was the same as the one on the PlayStation.
The controls might have been slightly limiting from what I remember, but I don’t recall having any major issues with them overall. The music was really well done, given that it was on a GBA. Likewise, I remember it being pretty fast with the load times and the performance was beyond amazing!
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 on the GBA is absolutely a game worth checking out! Even if you have played the recent remakes or the older editions on other consoles, this version would be worth experiencing for the unique blend of the isometric perspective mixed with THPS!
Lego Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge
Yeah… this game was pretty weird! But, it was weird in a fun, whimsical, Lego-like way 😆
As a bit of background — before I had a Game Boy Advance, I had played the original Lego Island on an older PC, and it was an absolute blast! I remember my mind being blown with the open-world concept, and that was likely my first taste of having that much freedom in a game! So, after that, I remember seeing this sequel on the Game Boy Advance and I knew that I wanted it!
In Lego Island 2: The Brickster’s Revenge, you play as the skateboarding, pizza-throwing character named Pepper! It’s a top-down perspective game in this version, but it maintains a lot of the free-roaming gameplay that the first game had. There are mini games to complete, and a story that takes Pepper on a journey to capture the devious, but really dumb Brickster!
I’ll be the first to admit that this game wasn’t good on various levels! Even as a kid, I remember the dialogue being very corny, and navigating around the map was a pain in the ass that often annoyed me! Likewise, even though it was a Lego game, I don’t remember being able to do much with Legos outside of them being used as the general theme that this title was built around!
Why did I enjoy it then enough to include in this list? I liked it because I loved the imagination it captured in my mind growing up! It wasn’t a perfect game, and it didn’t have to be to instill a sense of immersive wander in my eyes as a kid! I really think that these early Lego games were the first video games I played that gave me a clear idea of what future games were going to look like!
It was a fun and weird game when I played it way back then! But… am I going to pick it up nowadays to ever battle it out against the Brickster again? No, probably not 😆
Reflecting on a Great Handheld
The form factor that fit really well into my hands, the transparent style that gave it a unique life, the often-quirky accessories, and the amazing games all combined to make the Game Boy Advance an incredibly fun, perfect, and wonderful handheld! It did everything a handheld gaming device needed to do, and it did it damn well!
There were still many games that I always wanted to play, and still have on my backlog to give a try at some point in the future. These include Yoshi’s Island, some of the Legend of Zelda games, the Mario games I never got around to getting, and more! I also, at some point in the future, want to pick up a Game Boy Micro, or just a GBA with a backlight modded into it!
However, for me, the memories are what make this gaming handheld an amazing part of my life when I was growing up in the early-2000s! I would always bring it with me if I knew I needed a distraction, or for a long road trip with family, or if I just wanted to kick back and spend some time in Mario Kart!
The GBA lasted me for several years of use, until eventually I stopped using it. The games got a bit repetitive, stores stopped carrying new games and accessories, and I picked up my DS Lite in the mid-2000s that was my next go-to handheld for many years! The fact that the DS could also play GBA games was fantastic too, especially with the bright backlight 😉
I’ll always hold the Game Boy Advance in a special place in my heart, as well as the games that meant a lot to me! The memories I have thinking back on all the wonderful times I had with it were special, and I hope that you have a console or handheld that also gives you similar feelings!
Thank you for the honor and privilege of your time! It means a lot that you’re here, and I appreciate your readership!
See you all next time,
Joe
What are Your Thoughts
I want to hear from you!
Did you ever have a Game Boy Advance? How did you like it if you did? Did you have another handheld system that meant a lot to you?
If you did have one, what games were your favorite?
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I had so much fun playing my GBA back in the day. Reading this was a nice nostalgia moment for me. I started my GBA gaming journey with Golden Sun and totally loved it from front to back.
If you thought the original GBA screen was bad in the back of the car, I grew up with the original Game Boy, and had an even chunkier combination magnifying glass and light attachment that kind of clamped on over the top of it. I remember when we went on the class trip to D.C. Pokemon had just come out and all the boys made inventories of who had link cables and lights and who would bring batteries.
As for my favorite GBA game, owing a lot to how much I played Metroid II on the original GB, and the fact that I missed out on playing Super Metroid, it's definitely Zero Mission, still in my opinion better than SM and just as good as Prime. Finally playing Super Metroid after Zero Mission, all I could think of was how relatively sluggish it felt. Zero Mission is exactly what I'd imagined an updated 2D Metroid game to be, and they never outdid it afterwards.