Final Fantasy is the port GBA players recommend most, named about five times as often as Super Mario World, the next one down. Dawn of Souls puts the first two Final Fantasy games on one cartridge, and English players had both on the PlayStation in 2003.
The GBA got a lot of its best games secondhand. Nintendo sold its old Mario games again as the Super Mario Advance series, while other studios squeezed PC and PlayStation games onto a cartridge.
We started from the 153 games players named when we surveyed what GBA fans recommend, where a pick other players backed counted a little extra. Then we kept only the ports, meaning games that came out in arcades or on another machine at least 60 days before the GBA got them. Remakes don't count, and neither does a game English players first got on the GBA, so Tales of Phantasia stays on the main list. Each series gets one slot, so Final Fantasy IV to VI live inside the Final Fantasy entry.
12. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (2001)
The PlayStation game came out in 2000, and Vicarious Visions proposed the creation of a GBA version. To fit the tricks in, the studio built a 3D engine with polygonal skaters, and the levels, taken from the console game and modified, are seen from an isometric angle. It was a launch title for the GBA in North America and Europe in June 2001.
Some critics had trouble with the angle and the controls, but it has been called an exemplar of how to port a console game to a handheld. Players agree it kept the feel of the console game, given everything the GBA had to give up.
11. Super Street Fighter II Turbo: Revival (2001)
Capcom's 1994 arcade fighter reached the GBA in Japan on July 13, 2001, with new character illustrations and a new title screen. The GBA only has four buttons for attacks, though you can set them up however you like. It came second in one site's Best Fighting Game award for consoles, losing to Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
Most of the sprites came from the Super Nintendo's Super Street Fighter II, but the moves Super Turbo added use the bigger arcade ones, so Guile suddenly grows for a moment whenever he throws his standing heavy kick. Nobody tells him. Ken's and M. Bison's stages are completely new, and fighting game fans still keep it on their GBA lists.
10. Final Fight One (2001)
Final Fight is a 1989 Capcom arcade game, and the Super Nintendo port that followed dropped Guy and the Industrial Area level, and lost two-player co-op on top of that. Sun-Tec's Final Fight One put things right on the GBA in 2001: it has all three characters and the missing stage, and two players can team up over the link cable.
It adds dialogue scenes before each boss, and the Street Fighter Alpha 3 versions of Cody and Guy are hidden in it as extra characters. If you like a brawler, players say this is the one to grab on the GBA.
9. Doom (2001)
Doom came out on DOS in 1993, and it took until October 24, 2001 to reach the GBA in North America. It runs on the engine of the Atari Jaguar version, and it was the last version to use that engine. Some of the original levels are missing, but you can play over the link cable.
Ask what to play on the GBA and Doom fans get the same answer: this one is a must.
8. Max Payne (2003)
Max Payne came out on PC in 2001, and the GBA version was released on 16 December 2003. Möbius Entertainment, later Rockstar Leeds, made it, and instead of a 3D shooter it uses sprite graphics shown from an isometric angle. The story is the same as on PC and consoles, though some levels from the original are left out.
It still has many of the graphic novel panels, complete with some of the voice-overs, and the voice acting won praise because few GBA games had any. It has fans, too, and they still name it among their GBA favourites.
7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2002)
A Link to the Past started on the Super Nintendo in 1991, and Nintendo and Capcom made the GBA cartridge together in 2002. It pairs the old game with Four Swords, a new Zelda in which two to four players work through dungeons together. Finish both and a new dungeon, the Palace of the Four Sword, opens in A Link to the Past.
The port reuses the Super Nintendo art on a smaller view of the screen. It also adds voice samples from Ocarina of Time, and one reviewer called Link's voice "contemptible", which is a lot of feeling to aim at a boy shouting. When players pick the best Super Nintendo ports on the system, it sits next to Super Mario World.
6. Donkey Kong Country (2003)
Rare's 1994 Super Nintendo game came to the GBA in June 2003, ported by Rare itself. Microsoft owned Rare by then, but it kept making GBA games because Microsoft did not have a handheld of its own.
The GBA version adds a new animated intro, the ability to save anywhere, minigames and a time trial mode. The graphics and sound were downgraded, the graphics because the GBA had no backlit screen, and it still sold 1.82 million copies. Donkey Kong Country 3 made the same trip and shares this entry, and the whole trilogy is a fixture on players' lists of good Super Nintendo ports.
5. Breath of Fire (2001)
Capcom's first Breath of Fire came out on the Super Famicom in 1993, and English players got it on the SNES in August 1994 from Square Soft, which handled the localization. The GBA version of 2001 redraws the character portraits and redesigns the menus to look like Breath of Fire II. It also adds a quick save at any point and a dash button for getting around faster.
Reviews split over the screen. One magazine called the port "flawed in execution", pointing at the high color saturation and lower sound quality, while another found it faithful apart from the "tinny" music. Players usually recommend it together with Breath of Fire II, which was later ported to the GBA as well.
4. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2004)
Dark Alliance came out on the PlayStation 2 in 2001, and Magic Pockets developed the GBA version, released on February 10, 2004. It follows the same story, but character creation is cut down to a human male, though you still pick a class. Finish the game and a fourth class, the Elven Fighter, opens up for the next run.
There is no multiplayer or co-operative mode, so you play alone, and you can't jump. The players who know it still recommend it.
3. Yoshi's Island (2002)
Yoshi's Island came out on the Super Famicom in 1995, and Super Mario Advance 3 brought it to the GBA in North America on September 23, 2002. The cartridge did not need an extra microchip for the special effects this time. The GBA version adds Kazumi Totaka's voice as Yoshi and six new levels, one bonus level for each world you finish at 100%.
The visible area shrank to fit the handheld's lower resolution. Four players can link up, but only to play Mario Bros. (it came with every Super Mario Advance game, so anyone with the whole series owns it four times). Players still speak of it as one of the GBA's great platformers.
2. Super Mario World (2001)
Super Mario World was first released in Japan on 21 November 1990 as one of the Super Famicom's two launch games, and it came to the GBA as Super Mario Advance 2 between 2001 and 2002. It has the same number of levels, and Luigi is playable in single player, with the look and the moves he had in Super Mario Bros. 2.
It's also easier. Getting hit no longer takes away all your power-ups, and you can save anywhere, not just after beating a Ghost House or a castle. One site named it the best video game of February 2002. Players tend to say get all four Super Mario Advance games.
1. Final Fantasy (2004)
Final Fantasy is a 1987 NES game, and Dawn of Souls, like Final Fantasy Origins on the PlayStation, is a port of the first two games in the series. The GBA got it in 2004 with four additional dungeons and an updated bestiary. Final Fantasy II gets an extra story too, in which the spirits of four fallen heroes arrive in Arubboth, the palace of Heaven.
The Advance versions of Final Fantasy IV to VI share this slot, since each came out on the Super Nintendo first. When players recommend one of the GBA Final Fantasy games, they usually recommend the lot.
