GBA IPS Mod & Games
Image: Nintendo Life

Update: All games suggested in the comments (and more besides) have been added to our GBA database and should now appear below. Get rating your favourites if you'd like to see them in the top 50!


It's nearly twenty years since Nintendo launched it's successor to the all-conquering granddaddy of handheld video game consoles. The Game Boy Color might have added, well, colour, but it wasn't until 2001 that Nintendo delivered a generational leap forward — from 8-bit to 32-bit — with the mighty Game Boy Advance.

Switching orientation from vertical to horizontal made space for a wider screen and a more comfortable grip, and the power boost made it possible to play games with SNES-quality visuals on-the-go. The dim screen of the original model was eventually addressed with the clamshell Game Boy Advance SP update, and the final iteration of the GBA hardware is perhaps the most desirable piece of kit Nintendo has ever produced — the totally impractical and undeniably sexy Game Boy Micro.

GBA Worm Light
Image: Nintendo Life

With the console's 20th anniversary on the horizon, what better time to look back its impressive library? We're asking you rate your favourite GBA games out of 10 to help compile our reader-ranked list of the top 50 GBA games ever. Much like many of our system and series lists, this will feature a dynamic ranking based on the User Ratings of the games in our game database and will therefore be subject to fluctuations even after publication.

To rate any GBA game in our database, simply start typing the title into the handy search bar below, click the star to bring up a rating of 1-10, and click the score you feel it deserves — job done! If you need a reminder on a particular game, feel free to click the game title and check out our review and screenshots (if they exist). You can also scroll through the pages picking games out as you go, although the search bar is a lot more convenient!

Hang on! Game X is missing! How could you?! Yes, it's true that our GBA database doesn't feature every single GBA game released, but you'll find the majority of the biggest titles below. If there's an incredible game missing that you feel is a genuine top 50 contender, though, feel free to nominate it in the comments and we'll see about adding it as an option.

Go GBA, it's your birthday! It sure is one heck of a system — strip out all the SNES ports and you've still got one of the finest console libraries ever. Let us know your thoughts on the two-decade-old console below, and feel free to nominate missing games, too. We'll see you again for the results soon...