Favorite Gameboy Advance Games of Eclipsmon

A lot of games that came out on the Gameboy Advance are rather overlooked. And that's a shame, because if you ask to me, the Gameboy Advance has one of the best library of games of any consoles ever. It is full of the best games you never played, and I think people should try to give those games a shot. And I decided to rank my 10 favorites of them! And I also decided to have a maximum of two games per franchise for the sake of variety.

1. Megaman Zero 3

   

   I mean, come on. If you know me, you surely predicted this game to show up. It's Megaman Zero 3, my favorite video game of all time, with only Celeste coming close to beating it for that title.

   The fact this masterpiece managed to exist despite the GBA's limitations shows that gaming can create amazing experiences. The game looks and sounds amazing. Despite the considerable focus on the gameplay, it still doesn't put story aside and tells an amazing narrative.

   The top tier controls of the previous Megaman Zero games are back, and they're accompanied by some of the best level design in any game, as well as an endless amount of customization and weapons to use. It's clear that one day I'll review this game in depth to explain why it's so amazing, and it's almost as clear that it might be saved for a special occasion.

2. Wario Land 4

   

   When you make a sequel to game or a movie, you often expect or at least, hope that it will be as good, if not better than the original. But then, it happens that a movie or game is so good that it is near impossible to do better than it. When it happens, you might sometime be disappointed, even if on its own, it is better than most movies or games you saw. And I would lie if I said this never happened to me before. In fact, a video game just like this is literally on this list later. But sometime you may get something like Kung Fu Panda 2, a sequel which despite the first movie being much better, didn't disappoint me in the slightest. In fact, I probably like Kung Fu Panda 2 more than any movie sequels ever made! Basically, Wario Land 4 for me is the Kung Fu Panda 2 of gaming. Like sure, Wario Land 3 is in my opinion better, and is in contention for the title of best game Nintendo has ever made, but never was I disappointed by the fact Wario Land 4 wasn't as good. This game is delightfully weird in terms of esthetics and story, that gives it a super unique feel over most other games. And not only does the game has a super unique gimmick of having to find items in a stage, and then open a portal to go outside the level which causes a countdown to start, and then you need to escape the level before the end of the countdown, but also the games were almost perfectly designed around this mechanic. Like when going through the level for the first time, you might do some super tight platforming to get through it, and then when you start the countdown, that super tight platforming section suddenly becomes ideal for going through at full speed! Like, it must have been super hard to design all of that, and I respect the level designers for that. And this game came out during the GBA's first year! Usually, due to my one per franchise rule for other lists, I don't get as much occasion to talk about Wario Land 4, as with Wario Land 3, so I am really happy to talk about it here!

3. Metroid Zero Mission

   

   The Gameboy Advance had multiple remakes, and while the quality of those remakes varies a lot, it does have the remake that managed to turn my least favorite video game I've played, into one of my favorite games ever. And it is an amazing games for very similar reasons to why Super Metroid and Dread are amazing as well. Great level design with some great exploration, amazing controls, a great atmosphere, and of course, the sequence breaks that were added intentionally into the game to add an endless amout of depth. I do think Dread surpassed it, and Super Metroid is a very good opponent for the spot of second place in my ranking of favorite Metroid game, but if anything, it just shows how amazing the Metroid franchise is, when a game as masterfully made as Zero Mission is only the second or third best of its franchise.

4. Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament

   

   Ok, here we have the game that made me decide to make this list. At the moment I'm writing this, I played the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series, which recently came out and let me discover the amazing classics Klonoa Door to Phantomile and Klonoa 2 Lunatea's Veil. I loved those games so much that I decided to take a look at the two GBA platforming titles for Klonoa as well.

   And even though those handheld titles aren't as well revered as the home console games, I not only liked Empire of Dreams a lot and would say it came really close to being on the list, but more importantly, Klonoa 2 Dream Champ Tournament really is my favorite entry in the Klonoa franchise right now. I'm not kidding, and since the GBA has given me some of my favorite video games of all time out of nowhere, I honestly kind of expected this to happen.

   The aesthetics are pretty good for a GBA title, and I like little details like Moos getting different outfits depending on the world. You could say that compared to other Klonoa games, especially Lunatea's Veil, this game doesn't take its story as seriously. That's true because of the premise of a tournament to determine who is the best hero and because of some continuity problems here and there. But I still really liked the story, and near the end especially, the stakes became really high and it really motivated me to win this tournament.

   I also really liked the characters for the small amount of screen time most of them got. This is probably my favorite cast of characters in any Klonoa game.... read more

5. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow

   

   I will say, I am not the biggest fan of the other Castlevania GBA games, but Aria of Sorrow is such an amazing game, and my personal favorite Castlevania game right now! Amazing visual, and a great soundtrack! The story is quite compelling, with Soma Cruz probably being my favorite protagonist in all of gaming! Should I mention how cool it is that this game takes place in 2035, which at the time the game came out, as well as right now, was the future. Like when you think of Castlevania, you usually think of older times, but this game is like "Castlevania isn't just that, so we are going to play with your expectations!" And the level design is excellent for a Metroidvania, and there are so many weapons to experiment with. I love getting to use a big ass sword bigger than me by the end of the game. It's really fun! Honestly, if it wasn't for quite big issues of this game, it could have been one of, if not my favorite video game of all time! Sadly, it isn't, but it's still such an awesome game!

6. Megaman Zero 4

   

   Am I disapointed that this game isn't nearly as good as Megaman Zero 3? Yes! Do I dislike this game? Hell nah! It still has the big strenghts of the Megaman Zero franchise, like great visuals, music, and controls. The level design and bosses are generally great. The experimentation isn't nearly as good as Zero 3, but is still decent on that front. But the best part of that game, is that it has the best story of any Megaman games ever made. It's the first game that actually does something constructive about the relation between humans and reploids for its story, the characters are nice, and being the grand finale of the Zero saga, it has many great emotional moments, and the ending of that game is one of my favorite moments in game history. It could have been way better, but I still love it.

7. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

   

   This is the first game of the Mario and Luigi series, and what a great way to start off. We already have great cartoony visuals and a great soundtrack.

   The story is refreshing for letting the plumbers explore a kingdom that isn't the Mushroom Kingdom and is overall hilarious. The battle system, while improved in later entries including its remake, is still amazing with some great bosses. Even the exploration of the overworld is great.

   But the best thing about this game is that it introduced the absolutely goated character Popple, the greatest character Nintendo has ever made. So yeah, nice game.

8. Metroid Fusion

   

   Now, this Metroid game is more linear than Zero Mission, and therefore allows for less sequence breaks, which for me is almost enough to make it worse, on top of other aspects. However, it is still an amazing game for the Metroid franchise! The kind of ambiance this game is able to do, most notably with the SA-X, is legendary, and the story is quite creepy as well. And as a result of being more linear, it is one of the more challenging games in the franchise, which does give it some value. Props for this game for being the point where the Metroid franchise started to have really amazing controls by the way!

9. The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap

   

   I am not the biggest Zelda fan, but Zelda the Minish Cap certainly is a very solid Zelda game! Cool exploration, cool dungeons, cool bosses, some cool items, cool visuals, and even a cool soundtrack. The story could have been better, but it's far from bad too. Nothing else to say really, it is just a really good Zelda game. Go check my review of it if you want more in depth thoughts!

10. Mario Kart Super Circuit

    

    Like I said, we could have had Klonoa Empire of Dreams in that spot instead. However, due to Super Circuit having a somewhat unfair reputation, and the fact that my explanation for Empire of Dreams being good would have amounted to "It's Dream Champ Tournament, but worse in a few aspect, but it still has a lot of the great stuff, so it is still really good!", so I am a lot more interested in talking about Mario Kart Super Circuit. So first, Mario Kart is generally not the best in terms of esthetics, but Super Circuit is one of the exceptions, since it has amazingly colorful visuals, accompanied with a greatly energetic soundtrack! As for the gameplay itself, it isn't like amazing for the franchise or anything, but what I admire the most about this game is the fact that Mario Kart is a franchise that almost was made to shine in a 3D environment, and yet Super Circuit does the damn best it can to be the best Mario Kart it can despite the GBA's limitations, and does it pretty well, since while it got outshined by every Mario Kart games after it, it is in my opinion better than Super Mario Kart in every way, and even slightly better than 64. That's mostly due to how creative this game can get with tracks like Sky Garden, Yoshi Desert, Cheese Land, Ribbon Road, Lakeside Park, Sunset Wilds or its own version of Rainbow Road for example. There is a reason why it is so exciting to see those track brought back without the GBA's limitations nowadays! It's because this game was full of amazing ideas that would be really promising on better hardware!