Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

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Retrology
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Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby Retrology » January 13th, 2017, 1:32 pm

Perhaps the greatest handheld ever made, the Game Boy Advance is over 15 years old. I have so many great memories with it, so it's hard to limit my favorite games to 5.

But I'll do it anyway.

5. Pokemon Emerald: Duh

4. Metroid Fusion: The ultimate Metroid game in my opinion. The levels are intense and fun and there's loads of secrets you'll miss the first time through.

3. Wario Land 4: One of the greatest platformers of all time to me. Every level was different, and the ability to backtrack to the entrance was surprisingly a lot of fun. Very balanced and full of hidden areas.

2. Wario Ware INC: Mega Microgames: I LOVE this game. Or games, so to speak. You basically have to figure out what you're doing in 5 seconds or less in the form of "drive by games", and it's incredible. The game is so hard to put down.

1. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga: The best GBA game in my opinion. Enticing story, enticing characters, memorable gameplay and creative environments/mechanics. Balanced difficulty as well. All around fantastic game. I have fury!

Thoughts?

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scotland
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby scotland » January 13th, 2017, 4:23 pm

Great library, and later handhelds could play those games with better lighting.

Advance Wars might be my favorite.

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AtariToday
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby AtariToday » January 14th, 2017, 9:01 am

Game Boy Advance has so many great titles! You've already listed some solid choices and here are a few of mine:

Mario Golf-Advance Tour - Everything I love in the Mario Golf games beautifully displayed in amazing pixel art with the addition of solid RPG gameplay. This is my favorite golf game of all time. If you enjoy Hot Shots golf, Mario golf, or oddball RPG's this one has to be in your collection.

Advance Wars - The gameplay of Advance Wars brings back solid memories of Military Madness on the TurboGrafx. Similar in style but with enough additions for it to take on a life of it's own, Advance Wars brings a unique experience to your handheld system. Don't skip this one!

Fire Pro Wrestling - The first port of Fire Pro to be released outside of the land of Japan! Fire Pro brings a lot of what Fire Pro Wrestling D offered on the Dreamcast and makes it work on the Game Boy. Pro Wrestling fans looking for something different will find this a must have. As always with Fire Pro games be prepared for a learning curve, but once you get past that (and get the timing down) you'll have a hard time going back to playing the standard American wrasslin' games.

Kirby-Nightmare in Dream Land - Everything I loved about Kirby's Adventure on the NES, now in handheld form.

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scotland
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby scotland » January 14th, 2017, 9:39 am

AtariToday wrote:Mario Golf-Advance Tour
Fire Pro Wrestling


Retrology wrote:5. Pokemon Emerald:
3. Wario Land 4:


Okay, a list to start filling for me.

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LS650
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby LS650 » January 14th, 2017, 12:26 pm

Since the Nintendo franchise games such as Mario/Wario/DK, etc are going to dominate any top 5 list for the GBA, how about listing the Top 5 Non-Nintendo games? Particularly the "hidden gems" that weren't big sellers and are not going to be familiar to many players...

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AtariToday
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby AtariToday » January 15th, 2017, 9:06 am

LS650 wrote:Since the Nintendo franchise games such as Mario/Wario/DK, etc are going to dominate any top 5 list for the GBA, how about listing the Top 5 Non-Nintendo games? Particularly the "hidden gems" that weren't big sellers and are not going to be familiar to many players...


I'm going to agree that the top 5 are going to have a lot of Nintendo created games. I don't think anyone can argue the fact that the big N makes solid creative titles. You don't want to skip out on those do you?

I get adding the hidden gems games as an added bonus to the list. Feel free to put your top 5 and then list your hidden gems picks (try Fire Pro Wrestling if you haven't yet! 8-) ).

On a somewhat related note it's worth mentioning that some larger game companies such as Konami and Sega that brought their A game and put out some amazing titles for the GBA. Castlevania, Gunstar Super Heroes, and Astro Boy come to mind off the top of my head.

What games you got LS650? :mrgreen:

CharlieR
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby CharlieR » January 24th, 2017, 12:32 pm

I don't necessarily have a top 5 list, but just wanted to say how great the system is. The GBA is such an awesome portable, and I could see it being preferred, at least among Nintendo fans as they might find game boy games to be a little basic, and might find it clumsy to use the stylus and focus on two screens with the ds/3ds.

I find the GBA awesome, in that some of the lesser known games are still worth checking out, as most of them are 2d sidescrollers. For example, a GBA version of a game could end up being a lot more fun that it's console counterpart due to it being in a different style. One game I bought based on a review here was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's chest. The console versions of Pirates games might not be so great, but the GBA game is awesome. Same thing with other games such as TMNT and spiderman. They play like old-school classics.

As far as great, non-Nintendo GBA Crash Bandicoot n-tranced and the huge adventure are both really good, and compared to the ps1 games.

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scotland
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby scotland » January 24th, 2017, 12:53 pm

CharlieR wrote:I don't necessarily have a top 5 list, but just wanted to say how great the system is. The GBA is such an awesome portable, and I could see it being preferred, at least among Nintendo fans as they might find game boy games to be a little basic, and might find it clumsy to use the stylus and focus on two screens with the ds/3ds.


I agree with you. If I recall, there were plans to make another unit in the Game Boy line, but somewhere along the way the dual screen/stylus thing was really pushed from the top. While the DS was a smashing success and went on to sell tens of millions of units, its debatable how much of its success was due to the dual screens and stylus.

I will say that as I explore more of the short lived Game Boy Color library, the system can be fun. Mario Golf, for instance, has my attention at the moment.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby Retro STrife » January 24th, 2017, 4:08 pm

I'll be watching this topic closely.... I've been setting up my new shelf of handheld systems in my gameroom and realized that I only own like 5 to 10 GBA games. So I'll try to pick up some more. Keep the list going!

The GBA was actually my first Nintendo handheld. I had no interest in the Game Boy or Pokemon craze before that, so I never owned one. (In fact, Christmas of 1997, I choose the newly-released Game.com over the Game Boy Pocket! Not very smart..I know.) Back then on the GBA, I recall owning and beating Golden Sun, Advance Wars, and Sonic Advance. I also used it to play some of the re-releases of SNES games that I had missed out on as a kid, like Yoshi's Island and Zelda: Link to the Past. In the past 5+ years, the only GBA game I've played and beaten was Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. But really, none of these mentioned games stick out as memorable to me, except Advance Wars, which was very good. I ended up playing the DS a lot more.

Wallyworld
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Re: Top 5 Game Boy Advance Games

Postby Wallyworld » January 26th, 2017, 1:48 am

I recent started sinking my teeth into the GBA for the first time and I'm berry impressed. I have played what seems like countless hours on only two games so far.

1. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

Great gameplay and graphics. Plays more like an action RPG which is why I chose this game. I've been on a hard core ARPG kick lately and this is probably the best one I've ever played.

2. Shining Soul II

This is another action rpg made by Atlus. It had an isometric view kind of like link to the past however the gameplay is straight up RPG. I'm currently level 46. Theven gear and equipment mostly come from chests while dungeon crawling. What I love about it is the loot from the chests is random. So every time you run a dungeon your going to get different gear. It feels like an mmo. I bet this game at some point had an online feature to do that. But either way is still a blast without it.


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