20 Best Game Boy Advance Games Of All Time

The Game Boy Advance is rarely talked about nowadays. It makes sense as the system was released in 2001, only for the far more successful DS to be released only a few years afterwards in 2004.

That's not to say the Game Boy Advance wasn't popular though - the GBA is the tenth best selling video game console of all time, it's just that the handheld is sandwiched between the Game Boy, which is the third-best, and the DS, which is the second-best.

The thing is though, the console still lived a long life albeit one in the DS's shadow only being officially discontinued in 2010.

The different iterations of the handheld definitely helped it live this long. The first revision was the Game Boy Advance SP which added a front-light because it appears that Nintendo finally had the bright idea that players probably need to see their games. A later version of the SP even added a back-light. Later the Game Boy Advance got another revision, the Game Boy Micro, the whole gimmick of this iteration was its small size.

The different versions aren't what makes the system great though, that's the games, let's look at the best the system has to offer.

Should you play Mario Kart: Super Circuit today?

No.

It's not like the game is too unpleasant to go back to nowadays. The title has colourful courses which are so good that they were updated and put into future titles, did you know that Cheese Land from Mario Kart 8 is originally from here? Unlike Super Mario Kart the courses here have personality, there's a haunted pier, a world made out of toys, and a park that contains an erupting volcano.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit is fully deserving of being called one of the best GBA games of all time, the game just hasn't aged too well but that doesn't mean it's not worthy of respect. Super Circuit gave us Mario Kart on the go, yeah that's not impressive by today's standards but the idea of playing the series portably in 2001 was mesmerising.

There was a novelty to it all, and it's easy to look at the game as nothing more than a novelty nowadays but Mario Kart: Super Circuit is an integral part of the series' evolution, introducing the concept of retro courses by having every course from the original Super Mario Kart playable.