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The Best GBA Titles You Aren't Playing

Need handheld guidance? Find out which GBA titles you SHOULD be playing, and why...

The GBA may be on its way out, but there are still quality games you could be playing on it. It's a shame when these games go unnoticed because they get lost in the bustle of big-name releases or they just lack the PR power other games have. Even though they may not be the next Final Fantasy, these games deserve to be played at least once.

Kuru Kuru Kururin

If this game doesn't sound familiar, don't worry - it has only been released in Japan and Europe. Although the game has English in it, almost no reading is necessary. The game is similar to another one called Irritating Stick. The premise is the same, except the stick in Kururin is even more irritating. Players must use the d-pad to navigate a spinning stick through a maze. Littered throughout the maze are health regenerators and springs which reverse the spin of the stick.

The charming, colorful graphics are only a front for the frustration that lies ahead. Don't be dismayed though. Although there are hair-tearing parts of the game where you explain, "How the FRACK is the stick supposed to fit through THERE?" there's an incredible sense of accomplishment that rewards each completion of a stage. It also helps that the simplicity of the game is irresistible to anyone who sees it. They always exclaim, "You guide a stick through a maze. That's easy!" and then break down crying an hour later, sobbing, "Okay, one more try!"

Yggdra Union

Princess Yggdra's Kingdom gets invaded by the evil empire of Bronkia. She escapes and with the help of a boy named Milano, whom the player controls, swears to liberate her country from the empire's grasps. Now that we've got the cliched story out of the way, why should you play this recently released game on platform that's on its last breath? Because it comes from STING, the same developers who brought us Riviera.

The game is a mix between Advance Wars and Yugioh: strategy and card battles. The strategy comes from the grid movement as well as how to deal with the cards you are dealt. Almost everything is determined by cards: how far you can move, your attacks, and what you can change on your characters. Like Riviera, the visuals are full of anime character designs as well as over the top animation. If you liked what Riviera brought to the RPG genre, you won't be disappointed about what Yggdra Union brings to the SRPG genre.

Drill Dozer

It's a shame this game came out so late in the GBA's life, when people were already moving on to the DS. In this platformer, you play a girl, Jill, who has to save a red diamond from the Skullker gang. Yes, it sounds boring, but wait, there's more! The drilling control scheme is what sets this game apart from your average platformer.

Jill rides a drill dozer throughout the game which serves as a weapon (drilling at enemies) as well as a way to get through obstacles such as walls or rocks. The drill can be upgraded by picking up other drill bits, which will enable the drill to drill through more walls. Using the L and R buttons to shift gears feels like you're really shifting a gear instead of playing a game emulating a gear shift, thanks to the rumble in the cartridge. The drill may sound gimmicky, but it's a clever twist applied to an otherwise generic platformer.

It's Mr. Pants!

Maybe the game looks like some kid's crayon drawing on the sidewalk and that's why you never picked it up, but I'm here to tell you what a wrong you did to this game. I imagine some Rare designers sitting around the bar, half drunk when one of them shouts, "Hey! Let's make some game where you like...move blocks of the same color together and make them disappear." "What should we call it?" another designer asks. "It's Mr. Pants!" chimes in the drunkest of them all.

I basically just described the gameplay above. You move blocks of the same color together to make bigger shapes in order for them to be cleared off your screen. Pretty simple, but isn't that the magic of all great puzzle games? The addictive factor comes when you realize that blocks of different colors can be dropped on top of each other, which means it's possible to set up supreme chain reactions. However, don't misinterpret this as saying the game is a fast paced puzzler. The main puzzle mode actually requires a great deal of thinking ahead in order to clear the screen in the pre-determined number of moves.

Why would you play this over Tetris? Because it has a stick man in pants and funny voices.

Denki Blocks

Much like the "connect blocks of the same color" idea in It's Mr. Pants!, Denki Blocks also involves moving different colored blocks around. Blocks can be slid anywhere where there isn't a block of a different color or an edge of the playfield. This game is a puzzle of the mind-teaser sort, and not the fast falling objects sort that Tetris is.

Its graphics and gameplay may be simple, but Denki Blocks offers more challenge than the morning paper's sudoku. The challenge not only comes from completing the puzzle, which is possible, but from completing the puzzle in the suggested amount of moves, which I find to be pretty taxing. This is definitely the thinking man's puzzle game. Think of it as a Rubik's cube for your GBA. If you're tired of child's play like Sudoku, Denki Blocks wants to be your friend.