20 Things You DIDN'T Know About the Game Boy Advance

20 Things You Didn’t Know About the Game Boy Advance

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re taking a look at 20 things about the Game Boy Advance that you may not have known about.

Project Atlantis

One of the most fascinating aspects of the GBA’s history is how we could have had the system way earlier than expected. Back in the early 1990s, shortly after the Game Boy launched, Nintendo began researching and developing a better version of the handheld. Known as “Project Atlantis”, this system would feature a 32-bit display and be able to render a multitude of colors more than the Game Boy. In short, it was a pocket-sized SNES made when the SNES was still a brand new machine. Unfortunately, the prototype did not meet Nintendo’s internal demands, and the company shelved the project for several years.

Satoru Okada

If there is anyone you should thank for the GBA, it’s this man and his team. Satoru Okada was a major player in establishing Nintendo’s dominance in handheld gaming, having designed the original Game Boy alongside Gunpei Yokoi. After Yokoi left Nintendo in 1996, Okada took over development for handhelds as General Manager and would lead teams into creating the Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance, the Game Boy Advance SP, and the Nintendo DS. Okada remained at Nintendo until his retirement in 2012.

Launch Lineup

The launch games available were a bit of an odd bunch not because of what games were there, but which games were available where. For instance, Japanese customers could buy from a pool of twenty-five games. North American customers could only purchase games from a pool of seventeen. European customers only saw fifteen games at launch. Of the twenty-five games available upon the GBA’s release, only seven were available across all three regions including “Castlevania: Circle of the Moon”, “F-Zero Maximum Velocity”, “Konami Krazy Racers”, and “Super Mario Advance”.

Back to the 90’s

Earlier, we mentioned how Project Atlantis was planned to have the same technical capabilities as the SNES. Though it may not have worked with the first prototype, they clearly achieved that technical prowess with the final iteration of the GBA. Those who grew up during this time will recall a lot–and I mean, A LOT–of GBA games were ports or remasters of SNES games, from “Super Mario World” and “Donkey Kong Country” to “Rock ‘n Roll Racing” and “Mega Man & Bass”. The reason why this was possible is because the GBA was made partially out of the same CPU parts that were used for the SNES. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color also used the same CPUs, but emulating SNES-level graphics was clearly not possible with the other parts used at the time.

Backlight Problems

A common problem with handheld consoles in the 90s and 2000s is that you could only play them when under decent lighting. If you were in a dark environment, playing your GBA was impossible. Your only means to enjoy your games was to get a shell attachment that came with a little lamp you could place above your screen. It wasn’t until the Game Boy Advance SP got its AGS-101 model in 2005 when gamers could finally play with a built-in backlight. Since then, console manufacturers have understood the importance of this feature when designing a console with portability in mind.

Movie Boy Advance

At one point, it was possible to use the Game Boy Advance to watch a handful of different movies and television shows. Most products under this line were a small collection of episodes from shows seen on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, and Disney Channel with a few outliers like “Pokemon” and “Sonic X”. As for movies, only three were shoved into tiny GBA carts, those being “Shark Tale”, “Shrek”, and “Shrek 2”. Ideally, these weren’t exactly the greatest releases of these movies and shows as the GBA could only render them at a severely low resolution, a drastically reduced frame rate, and suffered from heavy color bleeding. Game Boy Advance Video was only supported until 2007, a mere three years after its debut.

Gotta Pocket ‘Em All

Sure, the GBA Video line was a bit of a failure, but the GBA hype was not affected by this bump in the road in the slightest. During its journey to eighty-plus million units sold, the GBA saw a wide range of colors for gamers of all kinds to purchase. You could go with the classic indigo casing, the edgelord black shell, a bright Arctic white casing, fuschia, and even a light blue. Later variants would make the GBA red, platinum, and white, too. Throughout the years, Nintendo and its partners would even put out special editions of the handheld based on a variety of IPs such as “Hello Kitty”, “Pokemon”, and of course, Mario. To say you had options was almost an understatement.

Japan-Exclusive Variants

While just about all of those aforementioned variants were available across most regions, Japan saw a few more special variants of the GBA that other regions never knew about. For starters, there was a gold-colored GBA as well as an orange one available at a standard retail price. But the variants got more special beyond just exclusive colors. Pokemon Centers sold GBAs that came in a special shade of green similar to Celebi, the mythical Psychic/Grass-type Pokemon. Nintendo teamed up with Square Enix to launch GBA SPs themed around “Final Fantasy” and “Kingdom Hearts”. There was even a GBA variant with a clear blue casing that could only be purchased from Toys R Us stores located within Japan. Should we even mention the NES-styled SP system?

Best-Selling Game?

Whenever we’ve talked about the best-selling game on a Nintendo console, it has almost always been a “Mario Kart” game with very rare exceptions. Well, in the GBA’s case, “Mario Kart: Super Circuit” was only the fourth best-selling game for the system, and it was beaten by three games that hail from the same franchise. “Pokemon Emerald” was the third best-selling GBA game at 6.8 million copies sold. “Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen” sold a combined total of more than twelve million copies. As for “Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire”, those two games sold a combined grand total of 16.22 million copies.

Canceled Classics

Not only did the GBA see a number of SNES games get ported and remastered, it also saw a handful of NES and arcade classics get ported as well. For a time, Nintendo and its partners rereleased several games from the NES. It wasn’t just your usual gems like “Bomberman”, “Castlevania”, and “Super Mario Bros.” either. Some oddities like “Excitebike” and “Ice Climber” saw rereleases as well. Unfortunately, the prices were far from fair. Sure, they were cheaper than the majority of GBA games, which typically sold anywhere between thirty to fifty dollars per game. However, even at twenty bucks, most people did not see the value in buying an old NES game, especially when bargain bins were selling older yet bigger and arguably better games at the same price. It didn’t help that some of these classics were already playable on “Animal Crossing”.

Mario Kart XXL

Strangely enough, there was a brief moment where we almost saw two “Mario Kart” games made for the same console. Shortly after “Mario Kart: Super Circuit”, developer Intelligent Systems got to work on a potential sequel, only this time, they wanted to take things a step further with the GBA’s 3D capabilities. From what can be seen in the demo, “Mario Kart XXL” was going for a semi-top-down perspective with a camera and controls similar to slot car-style racing games. Nintendo shut down the project almost immediately; they were simply not interested in having yet another “Mario Kart” made for the GBA. Instead, they had Intelligent Systems begin work on a new “Mario Kart” specifically for the soon-to-be-released Nintendo DS.

Super Princess Peach

Speaking of games initially planned for the GBA, “Super Princess Peach” was a game that had players confused upon its reveal. The first batch of screenshots showing off the game gave no indication about a potential second screen. The UI and aspect ratio led many to assume this was going to be among Nintendo’s last GBA games. Nintendo gave no clarity as to whether it was being made for the GBA until it specified much later that the game was coming to the newly released Nintendo DS. Even to this day, Nintendo has not given a concrete answer as to whether the GBA was the initial targeted platform or not.

GTA: GBA Stories

For those who grew up with more aloof parents than some, you probably remember being able to play “Grand Theft Auto” on your Game Boy Advance. Yes, “Grand Theft Auto Advance” was shocking for several reasons given the series’ graphic and unadulterated demeanor. However, this was not the spin-off we were supposed to get originally. At first, Rockstar Games had been trying to release a GBA port of “Grand Theft Auto III”. The port was to be developed by Crawfish Interactive, a developer known for handheld titles like “Ed, Edd, n Eddy: Jawbreakers”, “Robot Wars: Advanced Destruction”, and the GBA version of “Nicktoons Racing”. Sadly, late payments from partners wound up forcing Crawfish to close, thus putting GTA III’s GBA version in jeopardy. Rockstar turned to Digital Eclipse to continue the project where it would instead become a prequel to GTA III.

Only 9 M-Rated Games

While we’re on the subject of adult-oriented games, did you know that the Game Boy Advance only saw a total of nine M-rated games released? “Grand Theft Auto Advance” was among them along with a GBA version of “Max Payne”. There was also a cleverly designed fighting game called “Dual Blades”, which we’ve talked about a number of times here on MojoPlays. But roughly half of these titles were mediocre at best, broken and unplayable at worst. If you want to see us go through them a bit more in-depth, be sure to check out our list of the 9 M-Rated GBA Games.

Limited Release

Earlier in the list, we mentioned how Japan, North America, and Europe saw pretty different launch lineups for the GBA. What’s even stranger is that these were the only three regions the handheld was ever released in. The reason for this is because of how certain governments treated video games in the early 2000s. Various forms of government located within South America, Africa, and many parts of Asia viewed video games as a threat to their respective cultures, religions, and/or their youth. Some countries imposed high import taxes while others banned video games from even being sold or traded. South Korea, for example, had a ban on Japanese goods entirely for several decades after Japan had turned Korea into a colony under its rule between 1910 and 1945. As a result, Nintendo simply did not bother trying to release the GBA in those territories.

Game Boy Micro, the Forgotten Child

Just as the Nintendo DS was taking off, the House That Mario Built eked out one final iteration of the Game Boy Advance, and it went largely unnoticed by the general public. In September 2005, the world was introduced to the Game Boy Micro, a GBA device shaped similar to the Game & Watch handhelds of yore before the NES came about. Again, it is worth mentioning that the Nintendo DS had just launched in November 2004. So, many were bewildered by Nintendo’s decision to release yet another GBA iteration when the DS was the hot thing to get. To no one’s surprise but Nintendo’s, the GBA Micro did not meet the company’s sales expectations, only ever reaching just a little over two million units sold. It was discontinued three years later.

e-Reader

Sit down, youngins, as I tell you the tale of an odd little device known as “the e-Reader”. Released in 2004, this was one of many failed GBA accessories where you would swipe cards that featured funny-looking barcodes on their sides. With this, you could do all sorts of fun stuff like play old NES games, fight unique trainers in “Pokemon”, get items and customizable UI in “Mega Man Battle Network”...unlock songs in “Animal Crossing”... Yeah, it kinda sucked. North American audiences abandoned it almost entirely as the e-Reader was discontinued less than two years after launch. Japan held onto it for a little while longer until it was discontinued entirely in 2008.

Discontinuation

Even with the e-Reader failing to catch on and some fumbles with the NES catalog, the GBA was a major powerhouse in the world of handheld gaming. Like we said earlier, this device wound up selling more than eighty million units. Little consoles CAN do big things! And what’s interesting is that it went on way longer than one might expect. The Game Boy Advance wasn’t discontinued entirely until 2010, a whole nine years since launch. What’s more is that this same year Nintendo had finally revealed the Nintendo 3DS. We were two handheld generations in at this point, and we had only just started moving on!

The Last GBA Game Ever?

Despite ending in 2010, the very last Game Boy Advance game ever made had already been released two years prior. In 2008, “Samurai Deeper Kyo” was released in North America, six years after its debut in Japan. At least, this WAS the last game made for the GBA at the time. Technically, WayForward Technologies took the title as the last GBA game in 2025 when it released “Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution”. This game was initially being developed when the GBA was relevant and selling like hotcakes. However, the first “Shantae” being a commercial failure caused many publishers to reject the game, eventually forcing WayForward to shelve it for over twenty years and begin taking contract work. When “Shantae Advance” finally released, WayForward teamed up with Limited Run Games to create special GBA cartridges so you could play the game on an actual GBA.

There Were Competitors

Now, we’ve mentioned how Nintendo had a foothold on handheld gaming with the GBA and its predecessors. That isn’t to say that there were never competitors. There were, but they did not survive long. Nokia and Bandai had attempted to break into the handheld market with their own pocket-sized consoles, the N-Gage and the WonderSwan respectively. Bandai had tried to capitalize on its relationship with license holders by making a litany of games based on various anime and manga. Nokia made the N-Gage operate similar to their cellphones. Not a hot idea in the grand scheme of things. Both handhelds sold a couple million units, but the sales were not enough for Bandai nor Nokia to pursue the video game market any further.

Did any of these facts surprise you? What color GBA did you get when you were a kid? Let us know down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe to MojoPlays.