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In retrospect, the GBA wasn't really that good.

Robin64 said:
I think a lack of a new Mario platformer on a Nintendo machine is a pretty big problem, yes.
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Mario vs. DONKEY KONG

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GBA had a bunch of awesome Mega Man games and thats enough for me.

The rest of the gems like Mario & Luigi 1, the metroids, fire emblem, etc made it even better.

So no, it was a great handheld.
 
Shikamaru Ninja said:
2 real Metroid games. Fire Emblem and Advance Wars finally came to America. The final Wario Land ever made. WarioWare and Rhythm Tengoku. Golden Sun. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

I'll take those over an original New Super Mario Bros. Advance.
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Final Wario Land? Nah son.
 
I get the surfing complaints, nobody wants to fight constant Tentecruels, but RSE are not the worst Pokemon games, no way. They introduced a ton of stuff that is now standard in the series.

I liked the GBA, but it definitely pales in comparison to the DS/3DS.
 
Robin64 said:
(I expect people to list off the awesome original non-remake non-port games on the GBA to counter this, so I'll save them the trouble: Advance Wars, Wario Ware, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Golden Sun, F-Zero GP Legend, Mario & Luigi, Wario Land 4. Done.)
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But F-Zero Maximum Velocity is superior to F-Zero GP Legend. Why?
Because it had atmosphere, listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQWF9Qrrq_A

I love that Nintendo decided to introduce new tracks/worlds, which are mostly awesome. (Beacon Port, Ancient Mesa, Stark Farm, Cloud Carpet, Synobazz (!!)) I mean I look at the background of the tracks and I think: "Wow, the music blends in well with the look of the track" and this is what I want from a F-Zero game.

Furthermore the handling is awesome, because it follows the handling of the SNES F-Zero.
 
Nah. I mean it wasn't the DS or anything but still had a great library. Mother 3 is one of my favorite games ever made.
 
R/S/E was definitely better than Gen IV imo. In fact, I think R/S/E has some of the best side quests in the series
 
Robin64 said:
But at least we can rely on Pokemon, right? Not really. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald is definitely the worst mainline Pokemon game there is. Admittedly that bar is pretty high as the Pokemon games are usually great, but RSE just feels rushed. Half the world is water, which means surfing happens a lot. Just far too much. Surfing isn’t that fun! Plus the game has an odd soundtrack with instrument choices not used in Pokemon before or since. The music composition is pretty good, but it feels like it belongs to another series (sans the battle tunes). It took FireRed/LeafGreen to give us a great Pokemon on the system, but they were just remakes anyway.
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Pokémon Emerald is arguably the best game in the Series and hands down has the most post-game content. Having a distinct sound is hardly a negative, especially when it still remains identifiable as part of the Pokémon series, unlike some of the X/Y OST.
 
OP forgot or missed like a million games. I see a lot have been brought up already. Did someone mention Rhythm Tengoku? Hajime no Ippo? Astro Boy? It seriously goes on and on.

The GBA is pretty great.
 
It's my most favourite handheld with my favourite library for handhelds of all time. So I don't agree. It also introduced backlighting on Nintendo handhelds.

It also has my most favourite handheld game of all time, Drill Dozer.
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The Castlevanias, Wariowares, Metroids, Golden Suns, Minish Cap, Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, and that's just scratching the surface. GBA was so good.
 
In retrospect the GBA was even better than I remember it being. There are many games on the thing worth owning and several greats. It helps that I'm fine with the SNES ports too.

I'd argue it's the weakest Nintendo handheld for Pokemon though. RSE are some of the weaker Pokemon games IMO and I don't care for FR/LG at all.
 
Sonic advance 1 and 3 are great though. sonic battle was.... interesting for what it was. And then we have the introduction to Rhythm heaven. Yeah, there were a lot of ports though, I agree.
 
OldKingDoran said:
Good thing there were many other first party franchises that more than made up for the omission of a new mario platformer
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Nevermind the fact that the system had a healthy selection of ports from older Mario games too. The GBA version of Super Mario World took up much of my teenage years completing it over and over. >_>;

The lack of a new Mario platformer does not mean much when you consider what else Nintendo did on it.
 
It was more or less a portable SNES and the SP version had a light so that I didn't need to use a worm light.

It wasn't good... it was awesome.
 
I think the SP was maybe the best handheld hardware ever. But I agree the library is by far the weakest of any Nintendo handheld. Still well worth the low, low asking price, but can't hold a candle to GB (if you count GBC in with it) or DS. Even 3DS has far surpassed it by now. Overall still a good library, but it seemed liked Nintendo itself had much less of a focus on their handheld games in that generation.
 
I loved my GBA SP. So many child hood memories playing Pokemon Blue and Emerald. Played my first Mario game on it too. (3 I think)
 
The GBA SP was the last handheld I used extensively. The form factor was perfect. There have already been more than enough original games mentioned in this thread to make up a healthy exclusive library and being able to play classic SNES games on a handheld was kind of amazing; not something I would have had a problem with while play Link to the Past on a car trip.
 
I loved it then and still do now, in fact I just beat Minish Cap for the first time on it yesterday. I think it probably could have just as good or better than the DS had it had as much time.
 
While I'll agree the audio was lacking, the GBA has a great library and it would have only gotten better had it's life not been cut short thanks to the DS.

Remember, it really only lasted for 3 years.
 
I think the exact opposite. I can't think of a better handheld than the GBA. The games the OP has listed alone are more than enough reason to call it good, and there's shittons of others. Helps that each iteration was super well designed with the exception of no backlight on the OG, but we have modding for that.
 
Robin64 said:
But at least we can rely on Pokemon, right? Not really. Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald is definitely the worst mainline Pokemon game there is. Admittedly that bar is pretty high as the Pokemon games are usually great, but RSE just feels rushed. Half the world is water, which means surfing happens a lot. Just far too much. Surfing isn’t that fun! Plus the game has an odd soundtrack with instrument choices not used in Pokemon before or since. The music composition is pretty good, but it feels like it belongs to another series (sans the battle tunes). It took FireRed/LeafGreen to give us a great Pokemon on the system, but they were just remakes anyway.
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I strongly disagree. I spent 500h+ just offline playing Sapphire and Emerald. Hoenn was really well built, great story/legendaries, surfing and diving were fun, cities had identities, the OST had a Pokemon vibe and a great identity (#trumpets), great new Pokemon, pokemon contests, of course amazing graphics, huge content (especially Emerald)...Best gen in my heart with Silver/SoulSilver and White/White2.

FR/LG were good, maybe great, but just remakes.
 
Robin64 said:
In Europe, where I live, Mario 3 had no new levels. That was a disappointment.
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It was Nintendo's last fully region-free portable generation*. Let that sink in. You could've bought the game from the U.S. and all the cards and played it on your own system with no hassle.

* DSi had some region-locked games, and it was part of the DS generation.
 
The GBA had an amazing library, citing an original Mario game as the bar for a system's success doesn't make for a very strong argument.

Nintendo put out amazing entires in the Advance Wars, Golden Sun, Pokemon, Mario & Luigi, Metroid, Fire Emblem, and Zelda (Capcom developed) series. Not to mention the ridiculously good third party support.

I personally love the Super Mario Advance 1 & 3 ports as they take the NES versions and just add so much to them, definitive way to experience those titles.

One thing I will concede, the audio was garbage. I wish Nintendo had invested a bit more money into the device and lost some profit on the backend for better audio hardware. It would have been relatively cheap per unit cost and would have made the experience so much better.
 
I've never thought it was that great. Even with all the games mentioned in this thread I still personally own a larger number of worthwhile titles for DS.

The DS and Wii pretty much invented the "shovelware" term and market, but I think GBA had a higher ratio of shit to great software than DS.
 
It had a few good games here and there. The problem is, a fair number of the major titles on the system were either bad ports of SNES games, or games that were mediocre, but kind of novel because they were portable (read: Golden Sun.)
 
GBA was the last time me and my brother were into handhelds. Now, I'm the only one. :(

In retrospect though, the audio does suck but it had Mega Man Zero, Sonic Advance and Advance Wars. Tony Hawk was also really good on it.

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First time I took the systems out of their box in years.
 
GBA had plenty going for it if you looked further than just the obvious Nintendo IP's. Drill Dozer's fantastic and the Mega Man Zero series is my favourite Mega Man franchise. Then, there's the Sonic Advance games, Astro Boy - Omega Factor, the Stafy trilogy (if you're lucky enough to be Japanese) and this bizarre 2D platformer starring David Beckham.
 
CSX said:
It brought Fire Emblem to the west. That's what mattered
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Right here. The first GBA release is one of my top 5 games of all time. Had plenty of good times with my GBA(SP).

Edit: Have to add Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga to the list of truly amazing games. So good. Still pisses me off someone stole my copy.
 
Sorry, but Metroid: Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, and Casltevania: Aria of Sorrow alone make the GBA the best handheld I've ever owned (and I've owned plenty). On top of those games you had games like WarioWare, Mario & Luigi, Advance Wars, Golden Sun, and Minnish Cap. It had probably the most "complete" library of games I've ever seen.
 
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