27. Mega Man III (GB)

Offering gorgeous visuals, a great soundtrack, an excellent new boss, a fun new weapon, and some surprising improvements on the NES originals, Mega Man III is a solid outing. The difficulty might be a bit high, but E-Tanks cushion the blow for all but the most masochistic Mega Man fans.

While Dr. Wily's Revenge and Mega Man II were limited, they had their respective merits; this, however, is the first of the portable series that was a great game in its own right. Fortunately, it wasn't the last.

26. Metroid II: Return of Samus (GB)

Metroid II: Return of Samus expands on the original NES title nicely. There's still no map for the game's giant world, which isn’t necessarily a problem due to this game’s linearity, although it can be an issue if you put it down for a while and don’t remember where you got to. There's a decent amount of exploration and hidden items to find, and the hunt to find and kill the 39 Metroids is fairly fun.

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Although nowhere near as refined as the 2D masterpiece that is Super Metroid, Metroid II arguably holds up better than the original NES game and is still worth playing. Of course, the 3DS remake is arguably the best way to play the first return of Samus these days, but the original still has a lo-fi charm of its own.

25. Game & Watch Gallery 3 (GBC)

Game & Watch Gallery 3 mostly sticks to the formula of its predecessors, and it does a fine job of offering up some simple handheld gaming classics in a more convenient form, with a large number of games and a good, varied selection to boot.

There are a lot of things to unlock for those willing to put the time in, and if you manage to get everything, you can always revisit any of the titles to improve your scores. Definitely worth a look for G&W fans.

24. Mega Man IV (GB)

Mega Man IV improves on its source material to an unbelievable degree considering the hardware it's running on. Alternate routes, optional pickups, a store system, completely redesigned levels, and the meatiest Wily experience yet in the handheld series make this an overlooked outing.

This was the last of the Mega Man handheld entries to remix stages and elements from the NES titles, but it was a brilliant end to that run before the following game branched out into something new altogether.

23. Dr. Mario (GB)

The Game Boy port of this pill-dropping puzzler offers a decent game, although it probably isn't top of the must-have puzzler list. Unlike Tetris, where the colours of the blocks are irrelevant, Dr. Mario’s pills are a little more challenging to keep track of, especially on the original system’s blurry screen.

Still, if you’re a prolific puzzle practitioner, you could do much worse than this falling-block title with a twist.

22. Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (GB)

If you're a fan of Kid Icarus on the NES, you owe it to yourself to pick up the sequel. Not only does it capture the same magic, but it builds on many of the great gameplay ideas featured in the original.

The difficulty has been toned down to make it a bit more approachable, but there's still plenty of challenge to be found and a fairly lengthy adventure. Some fantastic boss fights make for particular highlights, and Kid Icarus: Of Myths & Monsters is a great prelude to Kid Icarus: Uprising.

If only we could get the latter on Switch, we'd have the full set playable on the current console.

21. Super Mario Land (GB)

Super Mario Land was an impressive accomplishment in 1989. The sequel might have made this first shot at translating the plumber's platforming to the overworked, underpowered handheld seem quaint by comparison, but it's still a fun Super Mario experience, albeit a short one.

Crafted by Gunpei Yokoi's R&D1 rather than Shigeru Miyamoto's team, it's a surreal yet compelling take on the template which takes some adjusting to nowadays. And just when things are really getting good, the credits roll.

If you haven't played Super Mario Land before, you owe it to yourself to try this — it's worth playing through at least once to see where Mario's portable adventures began. Cracking music, too.

20. Bionic Commando (GB)

Because of its complete break from genre convention by emphasising swinging over jumping, Bionic Commando is one of those games that you either love or hate. Nothing else plays quite like it, and this portable adaptation is a surprisingly robust and polished entry in the series.

It might take some time getting used to the mechanics, but once your brain has rewired to Bionic Commando's method of madness, you'll find a real Game Boy gem.

19. Donkey Kong Land (GB)

We remember the first time we saw Donkey Kong Country on the SNES and wondering how a 16-bit machine could pull off its 'amazing' graphics — those pre-rendered sprites felt pretty special at the time. Seeing them approximated on the lowly Game Boy hardware in Donkey Kong Land felt like actual dark magic, though.

With impressive animation and detailed backgrounds, sometimes you could get disorientated for a moment as enemies blended into the backdrop, but the way DKL managed to capture the essence of its 16-bit brethren makes it a fascinating and worthy entry in the Kongpendium.

18. Donkey Kong Land III (GB)

Donkey Kong Land III is a handsome Game Boy title which also sounds particularly lovely and caps off the Donkey Kong Land GB trilogy in fine fashion — it's arguably the pick of the portable bunch. Lucky Japanese gamers even got a version enhanced for the Game Boy Color which looked even lovelier.

This was to be Rare's final 2D platformer featuring the DK clan and Twycross' custodians of Kong certainly went out on a high.

17. Tetris DX (GBC)

It's Tetris, in colour — what's not to like? The colour helped differentiate the pieces and a couple of new modes were added, plus a save feature, but this was really just the original Game Boy entry with added hues.

In any other case that might feel like a disappointment, but a quick bash on Tetris DX is enough to make you forget you've played it for hundreds of hours before in black and white green.

16. Mario Golf (GBC)

Much like Mario Tennis on GBC, Mario Golf is another game revolving entirely around human characters (Kid, Sherry, Joe, and Grace). In fact, there's a total of eight playable humans and only three Mario characters.

This is a story-heavy adventure where you can freely move your character around an overworld and rounds of golf take the place of traditional RPG battles. You can level up your golfer to enhance their stats and even transfer them to the also-excellent N64 version using the Transfer Pak.

It may not mirror the scope or ambition of Dragon Quest or Pokémon, but this is a compelling little clubhouse treat which stands proud among the Mario Golf series.

15. Donkey Kong Land 2 (GB)

It might have his name on the box, but Donkey Kong is barely in this one! Donkey Kong Land 2 has Diddy and Dixie rescuing the captured DK from the clutches of vile crocodile Kaptain K. Rool.

By simplifying background elements in comparison to the original Game Boy rendition, it's a little easier to see what you're doing here and, as with all the DKL games, the way it captures the look and feel of the SNES DKC games on such modest hardware is impressive to this day.

14. Kirby's Dream Land (GB)

Kirby’s Dream Land was and remains an exceptionally charming platformer, although you might find that the pink puff’s debut Game Boy adventure feels a bit too elementary these days.

Many years' worth of nostalgia gives us huge affection for Kirby, but looking over the top of those rose-tinted glasses for a moment reveals a slightly pedestrian title being carried by that charm - a game that was outpaced by its descendants in virtually every way.

Kirby’s genesis is still strong, especially considering the hardware, but he's done better since. Naturally.