Best Adventure Games on the GBA

The adventure games worth playing on the Game Boy Advance start with Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap, Metroid Fusion.

The GBA and Adventure Games

A portable SNES with a better colour palette, and the last great 2D library before handhelds went 3D.

Adventure Games are a solid rather than a defining part of this library — worth knowing, but not the reason anybody owns the machine.

Filtering to adventure means the place and the story are what you want back, not the challenge. It is the right filter when the thing you remember is where you were rather than what you did.

The Adventure Games Worth Playing

  1. 1. Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  2. 2. The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  3. 3. Metroid Fusion

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  4. 4. Metroid Zero Mission

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  5. 5. Golden Sun

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  6. 6. Castlevania Aria of Sorrow

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  7. 7. Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  8. 8. Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  9. 9. Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  10. 10. Mother 3

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

  11. 11. Pokemon Emerald

    Follow the link for hand-written recommendations if you want more like it.

What Makes a Good Adventure Game

A world with a reason to wander it, and writing that survives being read rather than skipped.

Mechanical depth. Several of the best adventure games have combat that is deliberately unsatisfying, because they want your attention somewhere else.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best adventure game on the GBA?

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire is the usual first answer, and there are 11 in the library we cover.

Was the GBA good at adventure games?

It is a solid rather than a defining part of the library.

What counts as an adventure game?

Anywhere the story and the place matter more than the skill ceiling — point-and-click, walking sims, narrative thrillers and most open worlds. The label alone tells you very little, which is why each pick here says what it actually is.

Are adventure games long?

They split hard. Open-world adventures run to a hundred hours; the narrative ones are often finishable in an evening, and the short ones are usually the better written.

How is this list put together?

From the games this site covers on the Game Boy Advance, matched against hand-mapped gameplay categories rather than a storefront's genre tag. A page only exists where there are at least four, which is why some console and genre combinations have no page at all.

Adventure Games on Other Consoles

More From the GBA

Or browse the whole Game Boy Advance library.