GBA game recommendations

[BB]

Give me some please! Any and all genres welcome, popular and obscure titles welcome. Of particular note, I will probably enjoy metroidvanias, platformers, RPGs, and probably will not enjoy 1v1 fighters and racing games, but anything goes.

[Loyal]

Fire Emblem (not Sacred Stones unless you're already a fan of the series; it's alright and graphics are great, but SS is generally agreed upon as one of the weaker titles in the franchise), FF:TA for RPGs. FFVI as well, if for whatever reason you don't already have it elsewhere.

Metroid Zero Mission and Fusion are both great games, but if you're mostly familiar with Super Metroid you may find Fusion a bit stifling, for as far out-of-their-way they went to prevent sequence breaking.

The Advance Wars series is great. I'd recommend starting with #2, since that's about where they figured out what really worked and what didn't. Megaman Zero is also great. Super tight controls, very challenging.

[phil_]

I will probably enjoy metroidvaniasThere are three Castlevanias and they're all good (I like Aria of Sorrow the best).

There's a Puyopuyo game which runs on Tsu rules called "Puyo Pop." You get sound test cards for the characters by beating the story mode repeatedly, so you can listen to "Diacute-o!" whenever you want.

Drilldozer is wonderful, but the last missions have some very cheap, might not be avoidable hits.

The Summon Night games are fun action RPGs where you play a blacksmith and cook up your new weapons from recipes and stuff you smash out of the ground. I think the first one takes place largely in a randomized dungeon, with the second having fixed layouts. Also has some dating game elements, in that you choose an NPC to chat with every night (you can chat up your familiar, too (you have a familiar because you're a magic blacksmith)). I beat both favoring drill weapons, which is my way of saying you can fight with drills.

If you can play Japanese stuff, there's Rhythm Tengoku, which mostly consists of tapping the A button with precise timing to make stuff happen. Weird stuff.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

I would actively avoid Final Fantasy Advanced Remakes of the SNES games.

Games I would suggest:

Sonic Advance (not Sonic Genesis)
Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town
Legend of Zelda: LTTP + 4 Swords
Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland
FF: Tactics Advance
Golden Sun
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Zero Mission

[akaSM]

I would actively avoid Final Fantasy Advanced Remakes of the SNES games.

Huh, why?

If it's about FF6's music, there's a restoration patch which puts the sound quality back to not-terrible.

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

No its not the music. At least with 4 the game has all sorts of nasty glitches.

[BB]

Fire Emblem
Metroid Zero Mission and Fusion
The Advance Wars series
Megaman Zero

Big fan of both Fire Emblems and both Metroids!
Advance Wars is by the same peeps as FE right?
Do the Megamans (Megamen?) need to be played in any kind of order or are they interchangeable?

There are three Castlevanias and they're all good (I like Aria of Sorrow the best).
There's a Puyopuyo game which runs on Tsu rules called "Puyo Pop."
Drilldozer is wonderful.
The Summon Night games. I beat both favoring drill weapons, which is my way of saying you can fight with drills.
If you can play Japanese stuff, there's Rhythm Tengoku.

All three are the metroidvania type and not the sidescroller whip-em-up like the SNES games?
No idea what Tsu rules are, sorry!
You seem to have a thing for drills.
Oh man, Rhythm Tengoku, I really liked the DS version, forgot it had a GBA cousin, definitely will look into that one.

I would actively avoid Final Fantasy Advanced Remakes of the SNES games.

Wasn't there a remake of FF1 for the GBA too? How does that one stack up?

Thanks for recs all!

[Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope]

Wasn't there a remake of FF1 for the GBA too? How does that one stack up?

Thanks for recs all!

Never played that one.

[Loyal]

Do the Megamans (Megamen?) need to be played in any kind of order or are they interchangeable?There's pretty strong continuity in the Zero games. Gameplay wise each one's arguably better than the last. Would recommend doing them in order.

All three are the metroidvania type and not the sidescroller whip-em-up like the SNES games?Aria of Sorrow is straight Metroidvania. The other two are kinda in between that and classic. You got levels, powerups, and explorable nonlinear maps, but the controls are "stiff" and closer to classic than the much freer movement of SotN style games.

Wasn't there a remake of FF1 for the GBA too? How does that one stack up?FF1 and 2 were combined into a single cartridge, which also includes endgame bonus modes for FF1 and a separate endgame story for FF2 concerning the characters who died storyline deaths. Not bad overall. It's basically a port of the same thing on the PS1, but I'm not sure if the PS1 version included the bonus content.

[akaSM]

Circle of the moon is the closest you'll get to the classic Castlevanias, including the difficulty.

[shiney]

Super Mario Superstar Saga was pretty good, but that might have been a DS game. I don't recall. There was a Mario & Luigi RPG though that was pretty fun.

[BB]

Super Mario Superstar Saga was pretty good, but that might have been a DS game. I don't recall. There was a Mario & Luigi RPG though that was pretty fun.

Oh, yeah, there was one on each system, I've played the DS one and it was a good time, I'll check that out too.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I would actively avoid Final Fantasy Advanced Remakes of the SNES games.

Games I would suggest:

Sonic Advance (not Sonic Genesis)
Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town
Legend of Zelda: LTTP + 4 Swords
Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap
Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland
FF: Tactics Advance
Golden Sun
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Zero Mission

I back up essentially all of these.

Its technically older, but Super Mario Bros 2 is also excellent. Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga is as well.

[phil_]

No idea what Tsu rules are, sorry!Tsu rules are the rules established in Puyopuyo 2 where you can reverse garbage puyo by chaining before the garbage drops. Before that, you could guarantee a win by, like, a six chain, which is boring. The major rules change after that (Fever rules) introduce a Fever mode that you enter by countering garbage that sets up pre-made chains for you to use. I get kinda annoyed by Fever because I need more practice building chains and being interrupted messes up my groove.

Really, I mentioned it because if you like Puyopuyo already you'd probably understood what I meant, and if you don't already like Puyopuyo then it doesn't matter. I haven't actually met anyone who likes Puyopuyo, so it's not my strongest recommendation unless you already like stacking puyos.

On a different note, I'm going to disagree with Loyal's statement that Harmony of Dissonance has stiff controls on the basis that you can front- and back-dash from the start.