10 Best GBA Multiplayer Games

Bomberman Tournament was developed by Hudson Soft, and in Japan it is called Bomberman Story. The story mode sends Bomberman to the planet Phantarion to find his friend Max. The battle mode is where the link cable comes in. You and up to three others can compete in any of the game's eight battle arenas, and each arena has its own twist. You lay time bombs to trap everyone else, and the last player alive wins.

It sits at the bottom of this list, but nothing here is easier to explain to a friend who has never played it. Drop a bomb and get away from it. GamePro gave it 4.5 out of 5 for fun factor. That sounds right for a game whose whole plan is to ruin four friendships at a time.

Shining Soul is a reboot of the Shining series. A creature named Dark Dragon has gathered an army of Darkness in the land of Rune, and you join the last stage of the war as one of four classes: fighter, wizard, archer or dragonute. You can change your character's colors, weapons and armor. Then you explore the world alone or with three of your friends.

Critics were not kind. One review said it "singularly fails to live up to anything that's come before it", and GamePro gave it 3 out of 5 for fun factor. Played solo, that is fair. With a full party it feels like a different game, because everyone is too busy grabbing loot to care about the story. The sequel came out in 2003 and is the better place to start.

Four Swords came on the same cartridge as A Link to the Past, and it was the first multiplayer Zelda. It needs at least two people to play, and the dungeons are randomly generated. You share the work of solving puzzles and beating enemies, but you also race each other for Rupees. Collect enough and the Great Fairy gives you a key to the next level, and whoever grabbed the most Rupees at the end wins.

So the teamwork lasts right up until somebody spots a big Rupee. That tension is the fun of it. Finish both games on the cartridge, and a new dungeon, the Palace of the Four Sword, opens in A Link to the Past. It was a Zelda for kids whose friends had a GBA too, and those kids still talk about it.

Doom is the game that has been called the "father" of first-person shooters, and it took until October 24, 2001 to reach the GBA in North America. The engine is based on the Atari Jaguar port, so some of the original levels are missing. It was the last version of Doom built on that engine. In return, it has Link Cable support.

The small screen turns the demons into brown smudges, and you will lose your friend in a dark corridor more than once. It does not matter. Ask what to play on the GBA and Doom fans get the same answer: this one is a must. Doom was one of the first ten games the Library of Congress picked for preservation in 2007, and here it was in your pocket.

Final Fight began as a sequel to Street Fighter, under the working title Street Fighter '89, and it became a beat 'em up after Double Dragon took off. Sun-Tec's Final Fight One put it on the GBA in 2001. The Super NES port had removed the two-player co-op. This version brings it back over a link cable, and the plot is pure arcade: the Mad Gear Gang has kidnapped Jessica, the mayor's daughter, and Cody and Guy have to clean up Metro City to bring her back.

That co-op mode is why it is on this list. Two players can even use the same character, which settles a lot of arguments before they start. Players often list it next to a Street Fighter game on the GBA, and the two make a good pair.

Duke Nukem Advance is a first-person shooter with many of its graphics and sounds taken from Duke Nukem 3D, but the story and levels are its own. Alien scientists have plotted to take over the Earth, and Duke teleports to locations around the world with his full arsenal to stop them. Along the way he rescues the clones of Jenny, an undercover agent, one by one.

Multiplayer works with up to four players, as long as each one has a copy. That was a big ask in 2002. The game received mostly positive reviews, and the friends who did own it got a real handheld deathmatch. Players who name it tend to put it right next to Astro Boy: Omega Factor and Iridion 2, which is very good company for a game this easy to miss.

Double Dragon Advance is an enhanced remake of the original arcade game, developed by Million and published by Atlus in 2003. Billy and Jimmy Lee are out to rescue Marian again, and this time they bring pieces of the whole series with them. There is a Chinatown stage and a fight on top of a moving truck, both inspired by Super Double Dragon. It was designed by Muneki Ebinuma, a former Technōs employee who had worked on Super Double Dragon.

You can play it alone or with another player over a Game Link Cable, and the second brother is the whole point. As one fan put it, "For fans of Double Dragon, it pretty much gives us everything we could want." Players who love brawlers keep putting it on their GBA lists. The Japanese version came out four months later, and its end credits thank Bruce Lee.

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror is the seventh mainline Kirby game and the first in the series with four-player co-op. Dark Meta Knight traps Meta Knight inside the Dimension Mirror, cuts it into eight pieces and scatters them across the Mirror World. The map branches out in several directions, and with the right power Kirby can go almost anywhere in almost any order. It plays more like a Metroidvania than any Kirby before it.

The best idea is a cell phone. Kirby can use it to call other players or CPU Kirbys to where he is, so nobody stays lost for long. There are side games too, like Speed Eaters, where four Kirbys sit around a covered platter. It sold 620,000 copies in the United States by August 2006, and players put it among the best games on the GBA.

Shining Soul II was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture as the sequel to Shining Soul. Monsters have started appearing in the kingdom of Klantol, so King Marcel holds a grand tournament at the coliseum to find a hero. You play as a Brawler, Priestess, Dark Wizard or Ninja, alone or in cooperative multiplayer.

The multiplayer is very similar to Diablo, with one detail that makes it chaos. Opening the inventory does not pause the game, so one player can sort out their bag while the others are mid-fight. Some classes, like the priestess or the archer, are more useful in a group. The party can only move to the next area when every player has passed the exit or died. Nobody gets left behind, one way or another.

Super Circuit is the third Mario Kart game and the first one made for a handheld. It is also the only one in the series developed by Intelligent Systems. Nintendo revealed it alongside the GBA in 2000 and released it in mid-2001, months after the console's launch. It has 40 tracks, old and new, plus a battle mode where you are knocked out if you lose all your balloons.

Four players can race using only one Game Pak, and if everyone has a copy, more modes open up. Responses to the multiplayer were mixed back then, but it sold 5.91 million copies and is the fourth-best-selling GBA game. It still turns up on players' lists of GBA must-plays. Players recommend it more than any other game on this list.