11 Best GBA Strategy Games

The second Original Generation game came out in Japan on February 3, 2005, and reached North America on November 21, 2006. Super Robot Wars games are usually crossovers full of licensed anime robots, and licensing kept almost all of them in Japan. Like the first OG game, this one avoids the problem. The two OG games were the first of the series ever released in English, and they arrived a few months apart.

Japan later got both OG games remade together on the PlayStation 2 as Super Robot Wars: Original Generations, which says a lot about how much the pair meant there. On this list it places last, three spots below the first OG game. If you finished that one and still wanted more robots, this is where you go next.

Onimusha Tactics turns the Onimusha series into a turn-based strategy game. You bring a squad of no more than 10 people into each level, and there are no items to buy or sell. Instead, you upgrade weapons and armor with the souls of defeated enemies, which get absorbed into the Oni Gauntlet. New gear comes from fusing Genma Stones, once you have found the recipe for each item.

One reviewer at the time disliked the cartoonish graphics, which clash with the dark story. That is fair, and it is also part of the appeal. Chunky little fighters in a grim story is a look nobody else on this list has. It is a good pick for someone who has finished the bigger names here and wants one more campaign.

The Fist of Mars is based on the popular PlayStation 2 game, but on the GBA it became a 2D, turn-based strategy game. You command an army of trucks, tanks, fighters and giant anime-styled robots called LEVs, fighting for the Mars underground resistance. Battle experience makes your side more powerful, and you can upgrade your units as you go.

It is also kind to busy players. There is a directory of terms and characters for when the story gets dense. You can save at any point during combat and skip story scenes completely. The mix of robot tactics and a rail shooting part is an odd one, and one player summed it up as "just weird and i love it". That is the best review it could ask for.

Super Robot Wars games are known for crossover battles, with robots from many anime series fighting side by side. Original Generation features no licensed mecha or characters at all. It uses only Banpresto's own creations, which made it the first game in the series ever released overseas: there were no legal entanglements to sort out. It reached the United States on August 8, 2006, almost four years after its Japanese release.

You pick one of two heroes at the start, and both parties eventually join up into one large cast. It was also the first game in the series to let you equip or remove weapons on mechs, though only the real-type robots can do it. Players who love Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and the Summon Night games often list this one right beside them.

Yggdra Union is the second game in the Dept. Heaven series. Yggdra lost her family and her kingdom to the Bronquia empire, and she has to recruit the best warriors in the land to take it back from the Emperor of Carnage, Gulcasa. Its big idea is the union. Line your units up the right way and more than one of them joins a fight, so a single battle can involve as many as eighty soldiers.

Atlus USA brought it to North America, and it was made by a small team of fewer than 25 people. The players who found it are its loudest fans, and they tend to say nobody else talks about it. It came out on Windows in 2023 and on Switch in the West the same year, so it is much easier to play now.

The Sacred Stones started as a side project, made by Intelligent Systems alongside Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on the GameCube. The staff thought they would not be making another GBA entry at all. You protect the nation of Renais from the invading Grado Empire, and this time your soldiers can also gain experience by fighting monsters in the Tower of Valni. Weapons still break after a set number of uses, so you plan around them.

It sold over 230,000 units during 2004, with a further 90,000 after its North American debut. Critics liked its story and characters, though many said it was too similar to its predecessor. That is not much of a complaint when the predecessor is this good. Players who love Fire Emblem on the GBA tend to play every one of them.

Quest started making The Knight of Lodis when it heard about the GBA, with the idea of a portable successor to Tactics Ogre. It is a prequel to the rest of the Ogre Battle series. You follow Alphonse Loeher, a Lodis soldier who learns how his country oppresses the neighbouring land of Ovis and turns against his former comrades. Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata came back to write the music.

You start with only six units, and the questions you answer at the beginning decide their classes. Later the army can grow to as many as 32. Maps have different heights, and an attacker has to stand right next to the target, so moving well is half the game. Players keep naming it alongside the bigger series on this list.

Black Hole Rising came out in North America and PAL regions in 2003, after Intelligent Systems followed up on the first game's success. The core game is nearly identical, with a small change in graphical style and some added content. Most of what is new sits in the campaign, where special Black Hole buildings give missions new goals, such as destroying or capturing one of them.

The original Japanese release was canceled. Japan got it later, on a 2004 cartridge with the first game called Game Boy Wars Advance 1+2. In 2023 both games were remade together for the Switch as Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. Players almost always name the two GBA games together, as if they were one long game, and honestly that is how they play.

A young boy named Marche is magically pulled from his sleepy modern home into Ivalice, where his first ally is Montblanc, a Moogle clan leader. Several staff came back from Final Fantasy Tactics, including Matsuno as producer and Hitoshi Sakimoto as lead composer, but the story and art were made for a younger audience. Your troops each take a job class for fighting, healing, magic or archery, and placing them well on the map is how you win.

It sold over one million copies worldwide, and its Japanese release was one of the last from Square before the merger with Enix. Parts of it went into Final Fantasy XII, and a DS sequel, Grimoire of the Rift, followed in 2008. It shows up again and again on players' shortest lists of GBA favorites.

This is the seventh Fire Emblem, and the first one released in both North America and Europe. Marth and Roy being playable in Super Smash Bros. Melee is one reason it came West. A prologue teaches newcomers the tactical basics, a smart move for a series most Western players had never touched. Each character has their own stats, and every level up hands out new points at random.

The story is a prequel to The Binding Blade, which is set twenty years later. The West knew it simply as Fire Emblem until Fire Emblem Heroes came out and the game was renamed The Blazing Blade. It ranks among the ten GBA games players recommend most, and that is counting every genre.

Advance Wars is the seventh game in the Wars series and the first in the Advance Wars sub-series. It was released in America and Europe, but not Japan. You command an army on a grid, and moving units is like moving chess pieces on a board. Terrain changes how far a unit can move and see, and it changes its defense too. Every unit burns fuel each turn, and air and naval units that run dry are destroyed even when they sit still.

Each commanding officer has a CO Power that charges during battle. Nell gets a Critical Strike bonus, and Olaf makes it snow. There are more than 115 maps plus a map editor, and Versus mode needs only one GBA. It received critical acclaim and has been called one of the greatest video games ever made. Players recommend it more than any other GBA strategy game.