Here’s to 25 years of the Game Boy Advance, the handheld that changed my life
I don’t recall much from 25 years ago. I can’t remember my first day at school, where I went on vacation that summer, or my sixth birthday party. What I do remember, though, as if it were yesterday, is tearing the gift wrapping off an unassuming box under the Christmas tree and finding a Nintendo Game Boy Advance inside. My Game Boy Advance. That, dear readers, was the moment that started it all, my love of handheld gaming, and two-and-a-half decades later, I’m looking back to see what makes the GBA one of the very best retro handhelds of all time.
First, though, a bit of context. The Game Boy Advance launched in Japan on March 21, 2001, before arriving in North America, Europe, and Australia in June of that year. It was the follow-up to the Game Boy Color, going from the relatively limited 8-bit gameplay to 32-bit gameplay. Over the next decade, the handheld would go on to sell over 80 million copies before Nintendo discontinued it globally in 2010. That makes it the 11th best-selling console of all time, at the time of writing, beating out the PSP, 3DS, and Xbox One.
While it arrived in 2001, work on the handheld technically started years earlier, in the early 1990s, under the guise of ‘Project Atlantis.’ That prototype featured a color screen and a 32-bit processor, but the team behind it, led by Satoru Okada, one of the creators of the Game Boy, shelved the idea in 1997. Instead, Nintendo implemented the color screen in the Game Boy Color. While it might be viewed as a classic handheld now, the GBC wasn’t exactly a massive success for the company, so the Japanese giant went back to the drawing board, using Project Atlantis’ 32-bit chip as a basis for what would become the Game Boy Advance.
The first thing most people noticed about the Game Boy Advance was that it didn’t look like the Game Boy or Game Boy Color. Rather than long, the GBA was wide, with a 4:3 display and buttons on either side. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s now the default handheld form factor, with a pretty clear through line from the GBA to the PSP, Nintendo Switch, and Steam Deck OLED. While it wasn’t the first to adopt this horizontal orientation, I’d argue that it made it more mainstream than some of its contemporaries, including the Neo Geo Pocket Color, Atari Lynx, and the Sega Game Gear.
On the topic of design, another thing the Game Boy Advance had going for it was the sheer number of colorways it was available in. I had the classic Indigo version, but I remember feeling just a bit jealous that my step-brother ended up with the semi-transparent Glacier model, which, back in 2001, looked like something sent back in time from the future. Again, this abundance of options helped differentiate the GBA from its contemporaries and has, in the years since, made collecting them all, Pokémon-style, a rite of passage for retro game enthusiasts.
Kids born in the 2010s would likely look at a GBA and wonder how you could even play games on a console with so few buttons. It had a d-pad, A, B, Start, Select, and power buttons, and a shoulder bumper on each side. You want to move diagonally? Well, you technically can, but good luck finding that sweet spot between two directions. This hardware limitation, combined with the GBA’s limited processing power, dictated the sort of games that arrived on the console, so we ended up with a lot of platformers, puzzlers, and RPGs. Not too many FPS games, though.
Speaking of games, the Game Boy Advance had no shortage of options, with over 1,500 titles launching during its lifespan. The best-sellers by far, though, were Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, shifting sixteen million units combined, with Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green in second place with twelve million in sales, and Pokémon Emerald in third to the tune of over six million sales. Looking back now, it’s almost unbelievable to think how we got some of the best Pokémon games ever in such a short time.
While the likes of Pokémon and Mario were already very popular before the GBA’s launch, the handheld did serve as a way of introducing the world to some new IP. Golden Sun and its sequel were both Game Boy Advance exclusives and went a long way to proving that GBA games could offer just as much depth and gameplay nuance as any home console game. Then, there was Advance Wars, the series that first made me fall in love with tactical gameplay, which still feels fresh all these years later.
You can’t talk about the best GBA games without highlighting the fantastic third-party support Nintendo received from countless developers. Sega chipped in with the Sonic Advance trilogy; Square Enix brought genre-defining Final Fantasy VI Advance and Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories to the handheld; and my personal gaming icon, Spyro, even got a taste of the action in the form of five different games over the GBA’s lifespan. That’s not to mention Rayman, Mega Man, and countless others.
It’s also worth highlighting, while we’re feeling nostalgic, that it was during the height of the GBA’s popularity that Nintendo started looking back on its own history, resulting in the Classic NES Series. This line of games felt like a collection of gaming history lessons for those of us born after the NES’ heyday, serving as an introduction to the origins of some of Nintendo’s most iconic characters, including Mario, Link, and Samus. This approach to honoring the past turned into a trend for Nintendo over the years, eventually evolving into the massive collection of GBA games you can access on Nintendo Switch 2 via Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.
Accessories were also a big part of the Game Boy Advance era, most notably the link cable, the very thing that made it possible for nine-year-old me to fool my naive childhood best friend into swapping me his shiny Whiscash for a run-of-the-mill Dustox on the playground. Sorry, Daniel. Plus, there was the Game Boy Player for GameCube, which, technically, wasn’t a GBA accessory, but as Advance games stored save data on the cartridge, not the console, it expanded the ways you could play your favorite games.
All this isn’t to say the Game Boy Advance was perfect. The lack of any sort of backlight made it almost impossible to play in the dark, forcing seven-year-old me to contort and twist my days away trying to make out what was going on in WarioWare before the timer ran out. It also relied on AA batteries, which were the standard at the time. However, that didn’t make me feel any better when the battery light started flickering from green to red halfway through a long journey while I sat in the back of my dad’s car trying to beat Wario Land 4 again.
As has become the norm in the years since its arrival, Nintendo introduced some variations on the GBA throughout the ’00s, including the Game Boy Advance SP, a clamshell handheld with a backlight, and the Game Boy Advance Micro, which, as its name implies, was an even more compact version of the device. I’ll be honest, I was one of many who upgraded to the GBA SP and never looked back, mainly because it didn’t rely on batteries and its backlit screen made it easier to play in any environment.
Ultimately, it’s hard to separate the cultural legacy from the place it holds in my heart. In both instances, though, you can’t say that it wasn’t a game-changer for the industry. It solidified Nintendo as a leader in the handheld arena, a position it’s hardly faltered from ever since, leaving Sega, SNK, and others in its wake. It also served as a way to guide the brand’s IP to new heights, most notably Pokémon, but also Zelda, Kirby, and, of course, Mario.
Still, to me, the Game Boy Advance will always be the handheld that started it all. I wouldn’t be here today, writing this article, without its influence. I didn’t fully realize it until now, but it was an intrinsic part of my childhood. As a child of divorce, I spent each weekend going back and forth from my mom’s place to my dad’s, and throughout, the GBA was my only constant. If, on that glorious Christmas morning, I’d have been greeted by a pair of football boots or a new bike instead, I don’t know who I’d be today. And, despite my self-deprecating nature, I quite like who and where I am.
So, there you have it, my tribute to the Nintendo Game Boy Advance on its 25th anniversary. If you’re still feeling nostalgic, we’ve also got a Nintendo DS retrospective you can check out, plus guides to the best PSP games and the best PS Vita games. Or, if you’d rather live in the future, see our list of the best Switch games.
