What Made the GameBoy Advance So Special - A GBA Retrospective

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The Nintendo GameBoy Advance is a classic console we all know so well; backed by remakes, re-imaginings, classic games from the Super Nintendo and, of course, all new original titles.
Today I take a look at what made the console so important, as well as some of the games that might have flown under your radar.

[@SQGReviewShow]

The GBA came to me much later than most people. I got it in high school used for 30 bucks and it came with Sonic Advance 3, and from that point on I collected for it. I played through all Mario Advance games, the DKC Remakes, the Klonoa games (actually my first exposure to the series), the Metroid titles, the Sonic Advance 1 and 2 games, and then I played the Classic NES series Zelda 1 and 2 on it and it was such a great handheld for me. It was everything I ever wanted in retro gaming and then some. They got me through a lot.

[@chevyfan7930]

I know i got mine in middle school for 50 bucks with tetris. Then i got pokemon fire red and gold

[@Mackenzie_EV]

I just got a GBA a few months ago, and i already love it. Having a new Wario Land game, a great Mario & Luigi RPG (and shitloads of RPGs in general), a portable version of A Link to the Past, a remake of Kirby's Adventure, and one of the best Castlevania games in Aria of Sorrow, along with hundreds of other great games, makes the GBA one of the best handheld systems ever made in my opinion.

[@Mian98]

SeaBear Yes! Finally, someone is mentioning AoS :) Such a perfect portable Castlevania Game.

[@Mackenzie_EV]

It's SOOO good. I fuckin love it. Probably one of my favorite games of all time, all things considered!

[@IndohNintendo]

GBA is one of my all time favorites as well. TONS of nostalgia for it. I was heading into 9th grade and all I wanted was a glacier GBA. Stalked the Nintendo website (which let you view a 360 image of the unit) for months before it's release. It reminds me of the last innocent childhood phase of my life. You know, before you start worrying about girls, plans for college and transitioning into young adulthood. In that sense, it was the last console I was 100% invested in without any other care in the world. Some standouts for me would be Zelda: Minish Cap, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, Sonic Advance etc.

[@surigaoarchivesozark8747]

Awesome content, GBA will blow up in the future. . It's like a Savepoint of the first half of the gaming industry.

[@DurradonXylles]

The GBA is also one of my favorite consoles of all time. The biggest thing I adore about it looking back is how it helped bridged the 8- and 16-bit eras with modern gaming. The system helped keep many older games, as well as the systems they came out on, fresh in the backs of people's minds. The NES Classics Collection was one of the bigger examples of that, I myself actually got into Zelda II because of it.

[@TheRyanSucksAtGames]

Well shoot, I completely forgot about the NES Classics on the GBA. And those weird cartridges that had episodes of Spongebob and Sonic X.

[@DurradonXylles]

Oh, the GBA Video carts? Yeah, I vaguely remember those, mainly because they were made to directly compete with the VideoNow line of portable video players.

[@MusicianNrd]

Some of my favorite GBA games are Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, 3, and Wario Land 4.

[@JebZone]

Now, listen.... I stand by what I said.

[@arcaedonluminos666]

The GBA was my first handheld and the Super Mario World remaster was one of the first games I ever played. I loved that game along with the Pokemon games, especially Emerald and I liked Yoshi's Island too. Didn't have many games for it, but definitely a key component of my gaming life.

[@GottaBeFrank]

Pokemon, Mega Man Battle Network 3, The best version of Super Mario Bros 3, Metroid. Shit! There's so much I can say that it would take too long and would be redundant as hell, but I love the GBA! This was a great look back at it. Also repping that Golden Sun. ISSAC IN SMASH?! WEN DAT?!

[@yehaamedia3336]

sonic advanced 2 is easily my favorite GBA game, btw great video!=)

[@FernaMedel]

Thank you for the Golden Sun love, never forget

[@lethargicramblings9225]

Incredible video dude! The GBA is also one of my all-time favourite consoles and this Retrospective brought back so many memories! I'd personally love to see you cover other consoles in a similar format in the future. Keep doing what you're doing!

[@exzisd]

Fantastic video a nice trip down memory lane with some humor as well. Subbed.

[@ahbeef]

one aspect of the gba i find interesting is just how many 3d platformers or other 3d games were scaled down or completely changed for gba versions. it was so common, especially with b-grade and licensed games, and they were almost always made as a cheap cash grab. in fact, the system has a lot of shovelware in general. like, over 1000 games for a system that had around a 6 year lifespan? that's like one game every 2 days almost, that's insane. despite that, i did have a lot of fun with the gba as a kid, it was my first nintendo system. i grew up with metroid zero mission of all things, but no other first party nintendo IPs. most of the other games i had on it were licensed games like scooby doo and rescue heroes. going back to zero mission when i was in high school was a really interesting and nostalgic experience for me, though. i've been playing a lot more gba games recently like the spyro games, both metroid games, wario land 4, mother 3, and the mostly pretty bad pac-man demakes (i.e. world 1, world 2, and ms. pac-man maze madness). it's definitely got a good amount of strong titles in its library but i missed out on a lot of them even when i had one as a kid

[@user-gj3iy2re7o]

the GBA was a very simple console to program for, especially being in the 2000s, thus games could get churned out very easily

[@jojobod]

3:39 i love how despite the awful compression you can still make out a heavy accent

[@Eric-ff7mu]

Man after the recent years of AAA releases, I’ve fallen back into old reliables, been reliving my childhood with the delta emulator on iOS

[@amesoeurs]

hey mate, great vid! i really enjoyed it and i'm going to watch your DS video next.

[@Rayjpop]

Golden Sun has to be the best series on the GBA, as I remember when that game came out I played it repeatedly for weeks. I lost my original GBA SP but I do still have the classic GBA. I will say that the music from Golden Sun is stellar as I used to listen to it with the game closed on the bus rides home from school. I would like to see more videos like this, especially your thoughts on he DS.

[@spiritwet]

I grew up with Pokémon Emerald but not on GBA. My childhood was playing GBA4iOS on my iTouch.

[@Haedox]

Beat content creator on the site

[@SpectreOfTheWired]

Every time I watch one of your videos, I'm always like "How the hell does this only have 1k views." Great stuff, as always

[@shadowzk40]

Seriously one of my favorite gba vidéo of all KZbin, I only wish it could be longer cause it was so good XD so much games to talk about that you didnt it could even a be whole other episode !

[@thepositiver9977]

GBA is one of my favorite consoles, so many great games ^_^ some of my favorite games include: Tales of Phantasia, Sonic advance trilogy, Riviera (which is the prequel game to Yggdra union), Dragon ball advance and the list goes on. Great video! you put so a lot of effort in the editing and it adds a lot :)

[@salamandar259]

Nice retrospective there, what a nostalgia trip, the GBA was great ! Loved your video, keep going ! The fact that you can use the GBA with some games on the NGC too was so damn cool too. Oh here are a game that isn't very well known i think, it's called Boktai, a game where you have to hunt vampires and undead using the power of the sun ! A solar detection device was on the cartridge, it was so dope

[@wispe1]

great video! I would love to see more videos like this for the ds, 3ds, gamecube etc.

[@FullmetalSonic260]

I loved the GBA, it was the first video game system I ever owned. My favorites are Sonic Advance/Advance 2, Metroid Fusion, Gunstar Super Heroes, Dragon Ball Z: SuperSonic Warriors, Sonic Battle, F-Zero GP Legend, SMA4: Super Mario Bros. 3, Spyro 2: Season of Flame, Astro Boy: Omega Factor, the list goes on.

[@TheRyanSucksAtGames]

Astro Boy was the shit my dude. There were a lot of weirdly good licensed games on the GBA come to think of it.

[@ShadowSneak.]

In the part of the GBA SP, you got the models wrong. The frontlit screen is the AGS-001 while the backlit screen is the AGS-101

[@nathanbouquin9640]

Five years later, even I was gonna say sum, but had to check the comments first 😉

[@PumpkinSwag]

Do a Nintendo DS video!

[@SoulfulZane]

I, too, had some nice memories with the GBA, though not to the extent as yours unfortunately. Pretty nice video, being the only one I've seen from ya so far. I should really re-pick up Golden Sun again if I ever get the motivation.

[@ninjay345]

Good video. Would love to watch you do this for the DS.

[@SonicLink125]

The GBA was my favorite handheld! Had a Navy Blue GBA SP at the time. My favorite games I played on it were Golden Sun and The Lost Age, Sonic Advance 2 & 3, Yu-Gi-Oh Worldwide Edition and Dungeon Dice Monsters, DBZ: The Legacy of Goku trilogy, Kingdom Hearts: CoM, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. And even though I got the DS when it first came out, I only ever had like 3 games for the DS (Golden Sun Dark Dawn, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and the Metroid Prime Hunters Demo) and just used it as a GBA SP. These videos are great and I know you'll keep getting better at them. Would love more of these. And also what you think about Isaac's chances of getting into Smash now? He's the only character I want and after the Direct, I'm more hopeful for his inclusion more than ever.

[@Bob_Beaky]

Dude, I feel sorry for that poor wee spider! Other than that, great video. I would love to see more GBA coverage, in general. It's one of the greatest systems ever made and it gets very little quality content made about it and its library. So, yeah, that would be lovely. :)

[@nickalexander3755]

yaaaaaaas Golden Sun love!

[@ThisIsCasioman]

The original GBA has aged like fine wine. When I was younger, the SP was supposed to be the super deluxe, fancy console. The original looks so neat and aesthetically pleasing to me now, whereas the SP sort of looks off.

[@catiloh6086]

SP was more about function than form although the form is a marvel itself nothing beats the Chonky GBA

[@polycube868]

IPS screen seems to be the best of both worlds.

[@weston407]

if the screen would have had a light it would have been perfect - i remember when i bought mine when it first came out, i bought Castlevania CotM and asked the guy at the game store (might have been Electronics Boutique, I can't really remember) if there was something wrong with my screen because it was so dark and he said nope, it just is what it is

[@guyudontno7689]

Hey Ryan, nice to see another video from you. To address your interest in Kirby Star Allies, I would suggest you hold off on getting it until playing some of the other installments. I think a good starting point would be either Kirby: Triple Deluxe or Kirby's Return to Dreamland. I believe both games do a good job of bringing the Kirby series up to modern standards. From there, I'd suggest playing Kirby: Planet Robobot next, as it does a wonderful job of expanding on the concepts and mechanics of its predecessors. I hope this helps, and again, it's good to see you back on KZbin.

[@pixelpenguin0732]

First time viewer and I thought this video was pretty well done. The GBA was my first console but I never had too many games for it and when I did they were mostly Movie tie-in games like the Spongebob Movie game and a Shark Tales game I owned for some weird reason, But there was always one game that i liked over the rest and that game was ALTTP that might be cheating but it is easily my favourite GBA game without question

[@cecillewolters1995]

I'm down if you get into the nitty gritty of consoles, your content is awesome :) I personally got familiar with Super Monkey Ball and F-Zero GX last year and oh my god, thoes titles are amazing, but also really hard. You might like them, I dunno. Good luck anyway and have a nice day

[@Mian98]

This was a fantastic video, in terms of humor and analysis! I'd love, to see more videos, about other consoles😍 I also like, how you structured this video, in your own unique way :) In short: Do your thing and make us proud :))) Your videos about Golden Sun, brought me to this channel, and it definitly wasn't a bad idea, to stay for a while :) I think, you forgot a very important game. You mentioned Castlevania, in terms of good music, but you didn't show us one. Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, is by far one of the best and (if i remember correctly) the best rated game, on the GBA! It is an awesome platformer and one of my favourite games, of all time. It has a very unique concept, not many Castlevania Games have (one other).

[@Mian98]

Oh, and btw: My favourite Games, from 1 to I don't know yet XD, are: Golden Sun 1 and 2 (as one Game), Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, Zelda The Minish Cap, Mother 3, DKC (all 3), and the 3rd Gen of Pokemon :)

[@wesleybcrowen]

My cousin was pissed off I chose SP over original GBA just because of the screen. And I have no regrets. GBA SP still has fantastic ergonomics despite being a smaller smoothed rectangle.

[@portalstrike1500]

Yay he finally made another video, loved it.

[@kirbogames9664]

this video comes out halfway through playing the gba golden sun games, its an omen, Sakurai will put Isaac in smash. I can feel it.

[@jamiemorgan3649]

The GBA at its release felt like a technical marvel. It was the cool gadget around when arcades were popular. Every time when i was like 7 or 8 when I seen somebody playing the original GBA I was like "whoa...what's that so cool, I want one"

[@777superlightwater]

Nice video

[@astarum349]

The Megaman Zero series was also so much fun to play and I love the way Zero looks.

[@awkndr1524]

I miss Golden Sun. ;-;

[@MMLCommentaries]

Great video man! This is the first one of yours I've watched and it's real solid. Don't get Star Allies, it's not too good. Play Amazing Mirror on the GBA or Planet Robobot on the 3DS instead!

[@TXFDA]

GB, GBC, and GBA are still some of my favorite games to play. In fact, I just bought a replacement case for my mildly beat up GBA SP, now it's gold and Zelda themed. And I also bought myself an EZ Flash Omega. I'd love to have an entire collection of physical Gameboy games (I have a handful from my childhood), but I can't afford it. I spent about $65 to get a new GBA SP case, the flash cart, and a 32gb micro sd card. My GBA feels like new, and I can play literally every GB, GBC, GBA, and even NES game on my handheld. Including rom hacks and fancy translations (like Mother 3). Again, I'd love to get real carts, but for $65, what am I realistically gonna get? A small handful of GBA games if I go for specific ones? Maybe a bit more of I bought a random lot on eBay, but I'd probably get a lot of crap in with it. Flash Cart just seemed like the best choice in this situation. Boy is it way nicer playing these games on a real console as opposed to emulation. ___ As for favorite games, I've always been into racing games. And weirdly enough, I wouldn't claim the obvious games as my favorites. I much prefer the GT Advance series, Colin McRae 2, V-Rally 3. I also like fighting, so naturally Street Fighter 2, Alpha 3, Tekken Advance, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance, King of Fighters EX, and even Guilty Gear X. All great fun. Then pretty much any SNES port. And finally, pinball! Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire, Mario Pinball Land, Muppet Pinball Mayhem, Pac-Man Pinball, Pinball Advance, Pinball of the Dead, and Sonic Pinball Party.

[@sebastianwardana1527]

I wish I knew all the games shown in this video!

[@exzisd]

Sonic Battle was a described to me as Smash Bros on the GBA and although it’s not quite accurate I loved that game. Maybe the only Sonic game I ever liked aside from Sonic Racing. It would be cool if they could make a new minimstic Power Stone type fighter like that again with that cool comic art style and soundtrack. They could make it just like Power Stone but with Sonic characters and evolving the style in Sonic Battle. It was an easy game to learn on GBA but it was limited by the lack of controls and moves on the GBA. With a full modern controller they could make it have more of a Smash Bros control method; simple to learn fun to master.

[@cholo21491]

Let's start a drinking game!!! Every time he says "if I'm being honest" take a shot 🍺

[@TheRyanSucksAtGames]

If I'm being honest that sounds like a great idea

[@fizzie6902]

The OG GBA with an ips screen mod and rechargeable AAs is better than an SP. The way it fits in the hands is more comfortable

[@hawk6901]

We all know what made the GBA special. GOLDEN SUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNN

[@christiancorriveau5069]

Just picked up my first gba. I picked up a unit with the ips mod so id have a backlight and ive b3en having fun playing harry potter and spyro.

[@Dj_Exo1]

That was a good laugh with the gba voice

[@decadentgamer3108]

The GBA was an awesome handheld, that's for sure. It really felt like Nintendo put all they had to make it successful and they certainly did what with how big the library was and most of the games being good. The only GBA games I experienced during my childhood were Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, Sonic Advance 1-3 + Battle, Mega Man Battle Network Red Sun, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Fire Emblem, Golden Sun (I remember trying to talk my friends into getting it but they never did lol), Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland, Mario Kart GBA, and Super Mario Advance. I remember wanting to play Metroid Zero Mission and Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past but I didn't get around to thos until much later in life but yeah, the GBA was a great handheld for sure. :)

[@trickyjrmjrm5252]

@ryrule I named my kids Isaac and Garrett and when my wife found out what I had actually done she was pissed. Lol

[@kirbogames9664]

gotem

[@beetle5525]

Fortunately I had a Gameboy Advance when I was younger but unfortunately I didn't have many games for it since I played on it while the DS was going full force with GBA games starting to fade out. I remember playing Drill Dozer a lot though and man is that game fun and nostalgic for me. It still kinda surprises me that Game Freak made a platformer that was that good, I thought all they made was Pokemon. haha And oddly enough later when I bought and played Platinum version for the first time its music reminded me of Drill Dozer a lot (not sure if it's just me or what but try listening to the Galactic Hideout theme and Drill Dozer music and maybe you'll hear what I mean). More recently I have played Leaf Green and Emerald and really enjoyed/appreciated them. And for some reason I feel some familiarity with Metroid Fusion and Mega Man X even though I've never played them before. Not sure if it's because of the similar graphic style + my memories with Drill Dozer? Anyways, GBA was definitely a great system. :) Hope Nintendo starts highlighting its games more in the future like they've been doing with NES and SNES.

[@SpaceyMcSpacer]

Yes cover more systems! Also I love the GBA and many games are fun. I find the most underrated one to be Robots (also on DS) which has the most impressive GBA music

[@Azel98]

you should do a Remake or Rebreak on Shining Force 1 and Tells us why you prefer that Verison over the Original Sega Mega Drive/Genesis Verison Please.

[@Azel98]

Also I Didn't Really play alot of Original GBA Games Expect of Sonic Advance 3. I most Play the SNES Remakes like the All Star Mario games and World,Metroid Mission Zero and the DKC Trilogy and Zelda A link to the Past wait can I Remember as a kid. But I do have Breath of Fire 1 and 2 GBA Remake on a Emulator . I hope the GBA Remakes of the First Two Breath of Fire Game are better then the SNES games.

[@katchereye]

At exactly 10:00 it looks like the Kirby is about to swallow the bomb

[@NoNamE-jk9pn]

We don't deserve another Golden sun we *NEED* another golden sun

[@davidsalas9755]

When I first bought one I got the incredible hulk with it

[@NCozy]

I used to have a GBA but my parents forced me to sell it along with all my games. I wish I didn't have to, I don't think I got a good deal on it. I had a copy of Pokemon Blue that probably would've been worth a lot more if it was sold individually.

[@UnicyclesGameRoom]

Damn this is some good shit

[@everygamersdream72]

How would you play GBA on a CRT with a Super Nintendo controller?

[@ScottRobRubin]

Max Payne for GBA has fully voiced cutscenes and they sound pretty good Oh and Max and enemies are 3D models (while the rest of the game is 2D) Then there's some fully textured 3D games such as Smashing Drive and Colin McRae 2.0 Oh and even a 3D platformer! It's called Asterix & Obelix XXL. The GBA had a TON of great and impressive titles in my honest opinion

[@zetsun0]

If you've never played Megaman Zero, do yourself a favour. One of the best megaman franchises to come out ever and it's a great platformer.

[@bosgotnojams]

Really wanna play Golden Sun and Final Fantasy VI but ugh time

[@julianx2rl]

6:55 - Cool, but you can do even better, with an IPS screen!

[@pralenkaman8105]

I liked this style of video and would like to see you ramble about other consoles as for my favourite gba games there are the obvious choices like pokemon emerald or zelda minish cap fire emblem sacred stones was my first fire emblem that I was able to beat and fire emblem 7 is still a game that everybody says it's easy but I haven't beaten my first exposition to the final fantasy series was through FF4 which is my favourite final fantasy but hey I haven't played many and tales of phantasia while not the best port or the first tales of game that I ever played was pretty fun though I replaced it with the ps1 version through emulation but I have the gba copy so don't hate me ok I own the game golden sun is another good one even though I haven't completed the first or the secound game I have completed dark dawn at least 3 times not and yes that was my exposition to the golden sun series the "worst" golden sun but I like it a lot even though I haven't finished the first game I'm some hours in and am quite liking the experience there are many many games I love on the gba metroid 4 and zero mission are 2 others but I've rambled enought so I'll leave it at that

[@Dalvory]

Exo will get a kick out of this.

[@rockpapersniper5105]

I have a backlit screen in mine

[@hazel2302]

Can anyone tell me what the game at 5:30 is?

[@TheRyanSucksAtGames]

That is Final Fantasy 6.

[@hazel2302]

@@TheRyanSucksAtGames thank you! great video btw.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

Never show a picture of a AT Games Genesis clone and say that's the original. Jkn

[@wannabe6583]

now can i play pokemon red and blue on gba?

[@petskington7182]

Yeah. You can

[@mikesantini65]

Yea but the shape of original was so good

[@TheMissSerena]

mike santini I love the sp I always loved the clam shell design of Nintendo’s consoles

[@mikesantini65]

@@TheMissSerena the so was good and better design for a portable but the original shape was like the same shape as a controller wojuld be with a screen in the middle the extra space meant my hands never feel cramped like on sp but damn that screen light sp is better just because of that

[@xshadowxless8906]

Kingdom hearts gba came out 1st The ps3 was the remake

[@alchemistofsteel8099]

The PS3 had no original Kingdom Hearts games

[@nickjohnson2726]

Zoids legacy

[@JEFFALITY]

If your not modding your GBAs then your still doing it wrong

[@jupiterivan3433]

Hmmmm I wonder what my favorite game on the GBA could be??? It’s totally not Golden Sun. Hate that fuckin game.

[@JGSMusic]

I'll never understand this. I never thought the GBA was good. I never wanted it. I mean the games looked terrible and the design of the GBA console was super cheap compared to the original Gameboy. The PSP was 500 times better so I never cared for the GBA. Don't get me wrong, if the GBA had have came out in 1991 I would have been super impressed

[@user-gj3iy2re7o]

the hardware was scale back to make it less costly, it sold for only 100 dollars and took only 2 AA batteries to run

[@user-gj3iy2re7o]

the GBA wasn't meant to be particularly technically impressive, it was just meant to go beyond the 8-bit era while being as ergonomic as possible

[@adrian_veidt]

I keep hearing this overrated garbage that is advance wars when GBA housed the better strategy games in Super Robot wars Advance, D, R, OG 1, OG2 and J!