By 2001 Nintendo owned the handheld market. Atari and Sega's attempts to topple the mighty Game Boy with Lynx and Game Gear had failed and until Sony's PSP launched in 2005, Nintendo had no serious competition. Unless you count Nokia's N-Gage and Neo-Geo's Pocket Color. We don't.
As you may have learnt by reading our Game Boy and Game Boy Color retrospectives, the reason for Nintendo's supremacy was simple. Nintendo could offer great games for low cost handhelds that didn't drain battery life. And if anything, Nintendo would fall back on their library of great games even more that ever with Game Boy Advance.
Nintendo were dominant but they weren't complacent and set about making a new handheld console which could handle the visuals displayed by the Super Nintendo. The new handheld was rumoured to be in development as early as 1996 with old Future magazine Total reporting on Project Atlantis, a 32-bit handheld with SNES standard games. Yet we'd have to wait another five years for this to come about as Nintendo concentrated their efforts on Game Boy Color.
Nintendo didn't need to make a new handheld. Game Boy Color was still popular and prior to GBA's launch in Japan, four out of the top six best selling games in the country were on Game Boy. Yet Nintendo were intent on making the most powerful handheld console ever.
Hero To Zero The console launched in the UK on 22 June and the game that really showed off the new handheld's power was F-Zero. Originally released for the SNES in 1990, this future racer had wowed gamers with its awesome speed and ten years later, new Nintendo audiences would be gripped once again on the new Game Boy's LCD colour screen. Pin-sharp and colourful, F-Zero looked great on the cool-new handheld but there was one small problem. In an attempt to preserve that oh-so precious battery life, Nintendo hadn't considered a back light so you couldn't play in the dark - something that would be rectified with GBA SP.
F-Zero was the highlight of the launch line-up which included Rayman Advance Konami Krazy Racers (like Mario Kart but with Konami characters), Castlevania: Circle Of The Moon and, of course, a Mario game. However, rather than launching with a remake of one of the plumber's best adventures, Nintendo chose to bring out Super Mario Bros. 2 under the name Super Mario Advance. A redesign of the Japanese Famicom game Yume Kôjô: Doki Doki Panic, this was the Mario game that wasn't meant to be a Mario game yet thanks to the similarities with the Mario series, Nintendo plonked the plumber in as a main character and called it Super Mario Bros. 2.
More Mario platformers would be resurrected for GBA with Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Yoshi's Island all being re-released under the Advance label but the plumber wasn't the only returning hero on GBA. In fact, Nintendo relied heavily on remakes of old classics for GBA with Zelda: A Link To The Past, Metroid Zero Mission and Donkey Kong Country all being remade for the console.
Best Handheld Ever? Yet, GBA could boast some brilliant original games Capcom made Zelda: The Minish Cap, Samus returned in an all-new 2D adventure in Metroid Fusion while Golden Sun was a big favourite with RPG fans. The Mario & Luigi series also started out on GBA with the hilarious Superstar Saga and of course the Pokémon series continued in style with Ruby & Sapphire. This era also saw Sega's rival mascot gearing up for his first outing on a Nintendo console as Sonic The Hedgehog rushed onto the GBA with the excellent Sonic Advance.
You could make a case for GBA having the greatest collection of games of any Nintendo handheld yet you could also argue that there wasn't a game that really appealed to the masses. Game Boy Advance didn't have a Tetris, a Nintendogs or a Brain Training - titles that would bring new audiences to handheld gaming. Of course that would all change with DS.
If GBA was Nintendo's attempt at making a handheld SNES, DS was viewed as the handheld N64 but this time Nintendo had to launch it. Why? Because Sony, the company who had beaten Nintendo in the PlayStation Vs N64 console wars of the late 1990s, were now aiming for handheld supremacy with PSP. Nintendo had to react and they did so with the strange-looking DS - a handheld that harked back to the Game & Watch designs but could handle N64-style visuals as seen in Super Mario 64 DS. At the time, everyone assumed that Sony would be victorious with its more powerful, sexier machine but once again, Nintendo proved that it was all about making an affordable console with high quality games. A lesson they have learnt in over 20 years of making handheld machines.
And Then There Was Light A new GBA arrives Two years after GBA launched, Nintendo responded to grumbles from gamers that the console was too dark and released the Game Boy Advance SP. Boasting brighter screens, it could be seen as a forerunner to the DS as it flipped open like a little laptop and Nintendo overcame their concerns about battery life with a rechargeable battery. Later on Nintendo would release a backlit SP and downsize with the Game Boy Micro.
Cable Guy A link to the future The Game Boy Advance was Nintendo's first handheld that could be linked up to a home console. Using a special cable you could link up the two machines for use in games such as The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles where the Game Boys were used as controllers. Then there was the wireless adaptor which eschewed cables in order for players to link together to play games such as Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen.
High Five Five landmark Game Boy Advance Games
1. Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past A simple conversion of the classic SNES adventure would have kept most fans happy but then Nintendo tacked on a brilliant multiplayer adventure called Four Swords. Capcom's Minish Cap was also a great game but it was a touch short.
2. Metroid Fusion At the time, Nintendo hadn't released a Metroid game for eight years so it was great to see Samus back in another great side-scrolling adventure that mixed platforming and puzzling.
3. Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire Ruby/Sapphire was the game that really started to test Pokémon player's ability to catch 'em all as the monster roster expanded by another 100. With sparkling new visuals it looked brilliant and featured doubles battles for the first time.
4. Advance Wars That a turn-based strategy game should be right up there with Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and Metroid speaks volumes. If may feature cartoon soldiers but these bit-sized battles are seriously addictive.
5. Mario Kart: Super Circuit Not only was this the first Mario Kart since N64 but Super Circuit was the plumber's first handheld racing game. Still, it looked back to the Super Nintendo original for inspiration with simple tracks and unlockable SNES circuits.
