Gaming

Buncha youngins with your GBAs.

My favourite OG gameboy game was Kirby's Dream Land. Played and replayed it many times. Even had one of those attachments to magnify it and light up the screen when it got dark :)

The Megaman Battle Network series on GBA is awesome. Replayed a few of them last year and they are still great.

The non-pokemon ones I played the most were:

DMG: Kirby's Dreamland 2

GBC: Shante

GBA: Drilldozer

Platformers to me always felt like the best suited games to handheld games, and I love the bright colorful art styles. Drilldozer is definitely my all time favorite. If you can find a copy, I'd highly recommend it! The rumble pack cartridge is so cool.

Tetris change my mind

I will never not shill advance wars 1 and 2 Great gameplay, great artstyle, great everyting

I was also going to say MMBN, but since that's been said, I'll say Golden Sun. Loved both of those games to death.

Breath of Fire 1 and 2 are also great (although technically SNES ports).

I really enjoyed Kirby and the Amazing Mirror

If you're playing Gameboy specifically, and not including Advanced, then I played a ton of Marble Madness. I never beat it, but it is pretty fun physics-y platformer.

If you are including Advanced, then Metroid Fusion is a classic. Atmospheric, and beautiful sprite work. Genuinely scary in parts, and leads right into Dread if you like the gameplay.

Never sleep on Wario land

Advance Wars

I know you mentioned Zelda, but there were actually a ton of pretty good Zelda games like Oracle of Ages/Seasons. Advance Wars was pretty fun. Golden Sun too. I also have to agree with MMBN from the other commenters.

Wario land, Metroid 2, Donkey Kong 94 are all great

I played thru Kirby about 3 times I. A road trip from California to Texas so I'll go with that

Does Yoshi's Island count? I loved that game to death and it's ending makes me tear up as well.

I would recommend that you check out Golden Sun.

Dragon Warrior Monsters for the Gameboy Color was fantastic. It was somewhat similar to pokemon, but had some features that pokemon didn't get for several iterations, like having your monsters follow you around, monster breeding, and multi-monster fighting.

Magi Nation was also good, similar vein to both of them, but felt darker in tone. Although maybe that's just how it seemed to a much younger me.

Metroid 2, because there's a reason there have been so many fanmade remakes of it...

But I also dug Ultima Runes of Virtue 2... If you ignore the canon. Superior to the SNES version IMO.

Mysterium was also nifty.

Advance Wars for GBA was up there for me (below any Zelda game). I've got my eyes on the Switch remake, but holding until I can find it on sale.

@NoHardshipInPancakes Link's Awakening is still my favorite game of all time. I got stuck on the second dungeon for literal years because I didn't put together that you had to defeat enemies in a specific order to get the boss key. That was way before the Internet had every answer to every question. 😋

One game I never see get talked about it daedalian opus on the original game boy, I used to love that little puzzle game when I was young. I wonder if it would hold up haha.

Metroid II: Samus Returns & Gargoyles Quest (such a bloody hard game) on the OG GameBoy were my favs. I played a lot of *Battletoads *on it too but that game was so bloody frustratingly difficult, especially for a kid, so played it mostly out of spite to get past the stupid brain ball chasing you level. Also loved Parodius (parody side scrolling SHUMP from Konami) but never owned it, so borrowed it from friends to play. Naturally I also played Tetris to the point that the music still haunts my dreams. There was also a pretty decent Spider-Man game for it, but can't remember it's name & it's not showing up on lists.

The OG GB also had a lot of bog awful licensed property (movie/tv/cartoon) tie in games too, as well as generally terrible releases. To see them all, check this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_games

I unfortunately never owned an Advance, so only got into games on it later via official emulators (the Wii U control pad was the best GB Advance out there), so got to play Golden Sun later but enjoyed it as a fairly unique take on the J-RPG genre. The releases of Breath of Fire 1 & 2 on the Advance was also a great thing, since they were my favourite SNES games.

For GBA games, here's a list but so many shitty licensed games there too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Advance_games

Monster Max. It's an isometric exploration platformer/puzzle game with a rock'n'roll theme that I absolutely adored as a kid. It was only released in Europe, so it might be interesting to all you US guys 😁

Tail 'Gator is my hidden gem OG GB game, fun platformer with a great soundtrack.

Golden Sun GBA. GBC, Wacky Racers and GB it was Tetris because I had nothing else, lol.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance GBA, Links Awakening OG Gameboy

Golden Sun and its sequel, Golden Sun: The Lost Age. Easily my two GBA favourites.

Advance Wars.

So I grew up playing James Bond 007 on my OG Game Boy. It wasn't the greatest game in the world but it provided hours of fun on car trips when I was a kid.

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. Has to be one of the best GBA games made

• Metroid II is one of my favorite games of all time.
• Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge and Operation C are both highly polished and fun, but quite challenging.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan is a relatively easy, short, polished action game.
• Kirby's Dream Land is my favorite game in the series. And if you think it's too easy, turn on Extra Game mode. It will wreck you, I promise. ;)
• Ninja Gaiden Shadow and Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge are amazingly polished challenging but fair action games.

Every game I mentioned has excellent music, is an original game (not a port), and I have played in their entirety again and again throughout the years.

Let me know if you're looking for a genre other than an action game. XD

Kirby's block ball was a great Gameboy game. I remember one I liked a lot called lock n' chase, name could be wrong but I'm sure it's close