Adventure games were never a big genre on the Game Boy Advance. The great point-and-click games lived on PCs with a mouse, and most publishers did not try to squeeze them onto a cartridge. The few that made the trip are worth the hunt. One of the most loved PC adventures of the 90s got a GBA port, and a licensed hamster game turned out to be one of the cleverest games on the system.
Most of this list plays with a d-pad instead of a cursor. You walk your character around a town, talk to everyone and fix problems one errand at a time. Here are the 5 best Game Boy Advance adventure games.
5. The Sims 2 (2005)
The Sims 2 on the GBA shares a name with the PC game and very little else. It is a linear game with 2D isometric graphics, set in a town called Strangetown. The Sims who live there have no idea they are part of a reality show and that all their actions are being filmed. Daddy Bigbucks, the villain of The Urbz, runs the show and guides you through each scenario through an earpiece.
You still look after food, toilet, hygiene and sleep, and you pick an aspiration such as wealth or popularity. Most of your time goes to walking around town and solving problems for the locals. At the end of each episode, critics judge how well you played the story and how many secret easter eggs you found. The writers were left alone and went for strange plot twists. Players who found it remember it as a lot of fun.
4. Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (2002)
Broken Sword was a critical and commercial success on PC and PlayStation before it came to the GBA, with around one million copies sold by 2001. You play George Stobbart, an American tourist in Paris. On holiday he sees an assassin dressed as a clown steal an old man's briefcase in a café and kill him with a bomb. George teams up with photo-journalist Nicole Collard, and the trail leads to the Knights Templar and to places across Europe and the Middle East.
Charles Cecil co-wrote and directed it. The story has a serious tone, but the humor and the look of classic animated films keep it from getting heavy. It has topped several lists of the best adventure games ever made. The GBA port came out in 2002, and owners remember it as a great port.
3. Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak (2002)
Ham-Ham Heartbreak is a licensed kids' game that turned out to be a proper adventure game. You play Hamtaro, and this time Bijou, a friend who has a crush on him, comes along as your partner. Spat, a hamster in a black devil costume holding a trident, is going around destroying the other hamsters' relationships. The two of you have to stop him and fix the mess.
The clever part is the Ham-Chats. Early on, Hamtaro makes almost all the Ham-Chats in his Ham-Ham Dictionary vanish, and each one you win back is both a word and an action. You need new ones to open up conversations and get another Ham-Ham to do or give something, and you combine them with items to move forward. Could a game about hamster small talk be this good? Players say it is cute and charming.
2. The Sims Bustin' Out (2003)
The GBA version of Bustin' Out has its own story, separate from the home console game. Your Sim goes to SimValley for a summer holiday. Every earlier Sims game used point-and-click menus, but here you control your Sim directly with the GBA's d-pad. The game is built on objectives, and each series of tasks you finish moves the story along.
Griptonite Games started on it in March 2003. Jobs are mini-games that unlock as you finish tasks, and the producer said the team wanted close-up social interactions and a stores and auction system. Fans still talk about it with real love. One player described the GBA Sims games as "hilariously well written and unexpectedly wacky", which is a fair warning about what you are getting into.
1. The Urbz: Sims in the City (2004)
The Urbz is a sequel to the handheld Bustin' Out. Your character arrives in the city from SimValley by rocket and gets fired right away, after the old boss sells King Tower to Daddy Bigbucks. Things get odd fast. You end up on probation, wash up in the Bayou where twins mistake you for a vampire, and find out Bigbucks has built a time machine to claim land in the past.
Like Bustin' Out, it plays as an adventure game with direct control of your Urb. The goal is to complete five missions while keeping your Urb's eight basic needs high and steady. The DS version has one extra mission and location that the GBA game lacks. Players recommend it more than any other GBA adventure game, and many say it never got the attention it deserves.
Which one to play
There you have it, the whole list of the best Game Boy Advance adventure games. It is a short list, and every game on it is worth tracking down.
If you are not sure where to start, play The Urbz and then go back to Bustin' Out. If you want a classic point-and-click mystery, Broken Sword is the one. For something cute and cozy, play Ham-Ham Heartbreak. And for a hidden pick with a strange sense of humor, try The Sims 2.
