The Game Boy Advance was everywhere in the early 2000s, and Nintendo's biggest games on it sold in the millions. That is good news today, because a loose cart of a big hit is still easy to find. The bad news is that a few favourites, the main Pokémon games among them, now cost far more than the rest of the library. Nintendo also filled the system with ports of its SNES classics, and those carts turn up everywhere.
We checked recent sold prices for loose carts and kept only the games that go for a typical price under $25. That still leaves room for three Mario platformers and a Kingdom Hearts you play with a deck of cards. Here are the 10 best cheap GBA games.
10. Mega Man Battle Network 2 (2001)
Battle Network 2 picks up three months after the first game. The peace does not last, because a new NetMafia organization called Gospel is behind a rise in NetCrime. The fights still run on Battle Chips picked from a folder, and this time you can keep alternate folders and swap them to suit the fight in front of you. There are now 250 Battle Chips in single player. A new style system replaced the old armor, and it changes your attack damage as well as what MegaMan looks like.
Critics liked it, and many said it improved on the first game. Loose carts sold for a typical $20 between September 2024 and January 2025. It is the least known game here, and the players who name it tend to be the ones who dug deep into the GBA library. If the first Battle Network felt a little rough, this is where the series found its feet.
9. Donkey Kong Country (2003)
Donkey Kong Country came out on the SNES in November 1994, made by Rare. The British studio bought Silicon Graphics workstations and found a way to turn 3D models into SNES sprites with little loss of detail, which made it one of the first home console games with pre-rendered graphics. Rare put 12 developers on it for 18 months. Critics hailed the visuals as groundbreaking. With 9.3 million copies sold, it is the bestselling Donkey Kong game, and Nintendo later rereleased it on the Game Boy Color and the Game Boy Advance.
The GBA cart is the cheap way to own it today, with loose copies selling for a typical $19 in summer 2025. Players who bring it up rarely stop at the first game. They recommend the whole Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the GBA, so this may not be the last cart you buy.
8. Super Mario World (2001)
Super Mario World was the first Mario game for the SNES, directed by Takashi Tezuka with Shigeru Miyamoto as producer. It is the game that introduced Yoshi, a dinosaur Mario can ride who can eat most enemies. Yoshi was dreamed up back in the NES years, but he had to wait for better hardware. Super Mario World sold more than twenty million copies, making it the best-selling SNES game, and it is often considered one of the best games in the series. Its GBA version is Super Mario Advance 2, and both versions were later rereleased on the Nintendo Switch through Nintendo Classics.
A loose cart sold for a typical $20 in September 2026. Players recommend it alongside the other SNES classics the GBA repackaged. Few platformers this good have ever cost this little, and it plays just as well on a small screen.
7. Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2004)
Mario vs. Donkey Kong is a puzzle-platform game made by Nintendo Software Technology, and it is the spiritual successor to the 1994 Game Boy Donkey Kong. The story is simple. Donkey Kong sees a TV ad for the Mini-Mario toys, falls in love with them and runs to the toy store, only to find they are sold out.
You can guess what happens next.
The game grew out of Donkey Kong Plus, which was on display at E3 2002, and it got positive reviews for its gameplay and graphics. It also started a whole series, beginning with March of the Minis on the DS in 2006, and the Switch got a remake in February 2024. The original GBA cart sold for a typical $19 in spring 2025. Players keep it on their short lists of GBA games to own, and it is a great pick if you like your platformers with a puzzle in every room.
6. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (2004)
Chain of Memories is the second Kingdom Hearts game, a direct sequel to the first, and its ending is set about a year before Kingdom Hearts II. Sora and his friends explore Castle Oblivion and battle Organization XIII, a new group of villains, while the Disney worlds come back as versions built from memory. Instead of real-time combat, you fight with cards. It was one of the first GBA games with full-motion video, and in Japan it sold over 100,000 units in 48 hours.
Critics praised the story and the FMVs but were not fans of the card-based battle system. Players are kinder to it. Loose carts sold for a typical $16 in fall 2025, the lowest price on this list. Those who name it put it next to the GBA's big RPGs, and one player summed up the fights: "the card based battle system was really well done". If you want the whole Kingdom Hearts story, this is the piece that leads into Kingdom Hearts II.
5. Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (2003)
Super Mario Advance 4 is an enhanced remake of the 1988 NES Super Mario Bros. 3, based on the Super Mario All-Stars version for the SNES rather than the original. Charles Martinet added Mario and Luigi's voices, and there is a multiplayer mode based on the arcade Mario Bros. The big new feature was the e-Reader, which let you scan e-Cards to add content. The e-Reader itself was a failure, so two of the four e-Reader card series were only released in Japan.
Critics found the e-Reader setup clumsy but liked the levels it unlocked. The game was critically acclaimed and sold 2.88 million copies in North America, which helps explain why a loose cart sold for a typical $18 in late summer 2025. Players name it among the best GBA games again and again. If you only want one 2D Mario on the system, this is the one to get.
4. Sonic Advance 3 (2004)
Sonic Advance 3 is the sequel to Sonic Advance 2. It is a fast-paced 2D platformer that takes place across seven zones, each divided into three acts and a boss fight. Its big idea is the team-up, with two heroes running the zones together. Eggman has a new robot called Gemerl, and the ending changes if you have all seven Chaos Emeralds when you beat him. Japan got it again on the Wii U Virtual Console in May 2016.
It sold quickly upon release and reviewed well, though critics were divided on the team-up. Loose carts sold for a typical $22 in summer 2025, a little less than Sonic Advance 2. Players name it among their favourite GBA games. Playing as Cream and Knuckles at full speed is still a strange and happy sight on a handheld.
3. Super Mario Advance (2001)
Super Mario Advance began development in response to the success of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe on the Game Boy Color. It adds voice clips for all playable characters, with Charles Martinet and Jen Taylor back as the voices, and giant versions of objects. It also comes with a multiplayer mode based on the original Mario Bros. arcade game, which started as a separate project at Nintendo before the two were merged. It was first revealed at a Japanese retail conference in January 2001.
Critics liked the presentation and the gameplay changes, though some felt it offered less than Deluxe. Nintendo made three more Super Mario Advance games, and those ports led to New Super Mario Bros. A loose cart sold for a typical $18 in May 2025. Players often recommend the whole Super Mario Advance series, and this is the one that started it.
2. Mario Kart: Super Circuit (2001)
Super Circuit is the third Mario Kart game and the first one released on a handheld. It was developed by Intelligent Systems, the only game in the series they made. Nintendo revealed it alongside the GBA in 2000 and released it in mid-2001, months after the console's launch. Its look changed a lot from the early demos, and the final release resembles Super Mario Kart. You race Mario characters around tracks based on places from the Mario games, and in battle mode you are out once you lose all your balloons.
Super Circuit sold 5.91 million copies, the fourth-bestselling GBA game, and all those carts keep the price down: a loose one sold for a typical $19 in May 2025. Critics now rank it as one of the best GBA games but one of the lesser Mario Kart games. Players do not seem to mind. It keeps turning up on their lists of GBA games to own, and it came very close to first place here.
1. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (2001)
Circle of the Moon was a launch title for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Kobe as a stand-alone Castlevania. It is set in 1830, in an old castle on the outskirts of the Austrian Empire, and most of the cast is new, starting with the hero, Nathan Graves. It sold 500,000 units worldwide and received critical acclaim. One Electronic Gaming Monthly critic gave it a perfect 10. Game Informer later called it the first game to imitate the style of Symphony of the Night.
The big complaint was the dark look of the graphics on the original GBA, one of the flaws the follow-up, Harmony of Dissonance, set out to fix. Loose carts sold for a typical $23 in late 2025. Players recommend it more than any other cheap game on this list, and they usually name it together with the other two GBA Castlevanias.
Which one to play
There you have it, the best cheap GBA games, every one of them under $25 for a loose cart. Not one of them feels like settling.
If you only buy one, make it Circle of the Moon. For racing with friends, Mario Kart: Super Circuit is the pick. Fans of classic 2D Mario should start with Super Mario Advance 4. RPG players can go with Chain of Memories, or Mega Man Battle Network 2 if they want something stranger. And if you like a puzzle with your platforming, Mario vs. Donkey Kong is the hidden pick.
