GBA RPGs You Might’ve Missed

The GBA probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when you think of RPGs, but it does have plenty of all-time bangers. You know, your Final Fantasies, Golden Suns, and so on. But it does have a few more notable RPGs than you might realise in general.

 

CIMA: The Enemy

Compared to some of those bigger hitters I mentioned earlier, CIMA: The Enemy isn’t exactly filled to the brim with RPG mechanics and the like. There’s no experience points, skill trees or levelling up to speak of, but you do get to control a huge party of characters, each with their own personality and abilities, as you try to achieve a common purpose. It just so happens to be that the common purpose is CIMA: The Enemy isn’t to kill god, or stop a civil war between two rival nations (by killing god), like other great RPGs. Instead, CIMA: The Enemy is about a group of humans simply trying to survive as they’re dragged into a battle with a hostile enemy lifeform that feeds on hope.

The game opens with a train of survivors and Gate Guardians, the main characters and protectors of this herd of humans, being dragged into an alien world by a force known as the CIMA. Instead of just killing everyone outright, the CIMA force the survivors into elaborate mazes with little to no hope of escape, purely so they can feast on the human’s sorrow. It’s pretty grim stuff, but you’ve got a team of people with all kinds of skills so you better put them to use.

CIMA: The Enemy uses a blend of action-RPG, strategy and puzzler to create a game unlike many others, either on the GBA or in general, but critics at the time seemed divided on whether or not it was a blend that actually came together, but Joe on, give it a go yourself.

 

Car Battler Joe

Sometimes it’s just good to appreciate a simple title that gives you all of a game’s relevant information instead of something clever. Take Milk Inside a Bag of Milk Inside a Bag of Milk for instance. There’s not much milk in it, and there’s no Joseph Gordon Levitt popping up and chatting about some Inception kinda thing. Confusing! Meanwhile, we have Car Battler Joe, where you play Joe who goes around battling in his special car. Simple, effective, 10/10 name. It’s a shame then that despite some decent reviews for the game, Car Battler Joe didn’t quite get the respect and recognition that it deserves when it launched in 2002 for the United States.

Set in a world where cars are treated like ancient, treasured relics and the battling of them is the most celebrated aspect of the world’s culture, you control 16-year-old Joe as he tries to become the greatest car battler the world has ever seen. Think Pokemon mixed with Mad Max Fury Road and you’re about there I suppose. Alongside car combat that utilises Mode 7 style graphics to simulate 3D arenas, players are given full control of the customisation of their chosen car, making Car Battler Joe a pretty deep game if you want to get into the nitty gritty of it all.

If you want a game that explores the space between an RPG and a destruction derby game, Car Battler Joe is pretty dem good.

 

Demikids: Light & Dark Version

Buckle up, buckaroos, it’s time to learn about yet another spin-off series to the Shin Megami Tensei series.

Seriously, there’s more branches on the Megami Tensei franchise than there is on the Samoan Bloodline.

One part of the overall franchise that’s been forgotten though is the Devil Children series, known as Demikids when it finally came to North America. Originally released on the Game Boy Colour, the series follows a conveyor belt of human and demon hybrids known as the Devil Children as they travel from the Demon World to Tokyo, battling and working with monsters in the process. Following from the Pokemon playbook, and not just with capturing monsters, Devil Children would drop multiple versions during one release. Think Red and Blue, but the differences between them was more than just colour.

Take the Game Boy Advance release of SMT: Devil Children – Light Book and Dark Book, which were released in North America as DemiKids: Light Version and Dark Version. The Light Version follows Jin as he’s forced to fight with rebel forces in Valhalla against a tyrannical force, while the Dark Version is about Akira, someone summoned by Lucifer to a land called Dem. Both stories are completely different, but intersect at key points, meaning to get the full story, you need to play both. Expensive? Sure, but Google is free.

As for the gameplay, the Children can’t fight for themselves, but send out their captured demons to fight for them, so if you want a darker take on Pokemon, this forgotten SMT spin-off is here waiting for you.

 

Back To Stone

The sentence that every Minecraft player utters whenever they lose all the “netherite” weapons and pickaxe in lava or something, Back To Stone is a pretty hardcore RPG for the GBA that asked a lot of patience from its player base. Despite the fact that the standard for GBA games by the time 2006 rolled around was for some kind of memory on the cartridge to allow for save slots, Back To Stone offered no save data whatsoever. Instead, Back To Stone offered a password style system, reminiscent of old NES and SNES games, which was a nightmare for anyone who doesn’t like to use a notepad while they’re gaming. Hope you’ve got a photographic memory for all those passwords you’d need to remember.

In Back To Stone, players control an amnesiac human who’s been experimented on by demons. Said demons are now running the world, and have given this human the ability to transform into one himself, so now he’s going to take the fight to the demonic hordes. Admittedly more of an action RPG than a game that requires huge skill trees, Back To Stone’s combat has you turning demons to stone once you’ve defeated them. You can then use these petrified monsters to solve puzzles, and if you’re struggling in combat and take enough damage, you’ll transform into a demon and deal massive damage.

It’s a bit of a flawed RPG, but Back To Stone has some novel ideas when it comes to GBA RPGs. It’s not a-maze-ing, but it deserves a slightly better fate. .

 

Mazes Of Fate

A few GBA games managed to get some kind of re-release, port or conversion for Nintendo’s next handheld, the Nintendo DS. Mazes of Fate was one such game, with the DS version of the game being considered a giant leap backwards from the original work, despite adding new character classes, a fully 3D graphical overhaul and a redesign of the in-game dungeons to include actual secret areas. It sounds like it should be the definitive Mazes of Fate experience, but according to the IGN review of the game, the enemy AI was broken in such a way that you could just move and attack in such an easily abusable way where enemies could never touch you. You were basically putting a hand on a small person’s head and watching them swing with futility, while using your much bigger limbs to kick them in the bollocks.

We’ve got a bit ahead of ourselves though, so let’s talk about what the original Mazes of Fate is all about. An old school first person dungeon crawler very much inspired by a lot of early juggernauts of the genre, you’re put in the shoes of either a warrior, a rogue or a mage and must set out to prevent the Gods from destroying all of humanity and replacing them with a race of subservient goat people. Players can recruit up to six allies and delve into various dungeons, fighting monsters and levelling up to unlock new skills throughout the 20 or so hours of playtime.

Granted, there isn’t much evolution throughout the runtime, so it might be a bit repetitive for some, but as far as forgotten RPGs on the GBA go, Mazes of Fate is a bit of a winner.

 

Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone

We couldn’t talk about RPGs on the GBA without touching on the Dept. Heaven series in some form or another. Developed by Sting, not the musician or the wrestler, the series started out life on the GBA before transitioning over to the DS and even PSP. There were four games in total, with plans for a fifth that reportedly would have been an MMORPG, but what was remarkable about Dept. Heaven games compared to something like Final Fantasy was how varied the games themselves were. Dating sim RPGs, Tactical RPGs, and some kind of Chess meets a shoot ‘em up silliness that’s also a bit of a tactical RPG, the Dept. Heaven games are nothing if not varied, making them quite easy to recommend to people looking for their next favourite GBA RPG.

While the series kicked off with Riviera: The Promised Land, which is also pretty good and deserves its own focus, today we’re giving the spotlight to Dept Heaven’s second release, Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone. A tactical RPG that blends turn-based strategy with real-time combat and action as you control how your unit fights against the other unit, Yggdra Union sees the Princess of Fantasinia, Yggdra, fleeing from her home kingdom with a powerful sword. From here, you need to form “unions” of units in different formations, fighting against the threat of the Bronquian Empire.

It’s always a bloody Empire in these kinds of games, but if you’re looking for a slice of underrated tactical strategy, Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone should be at the top of your “play legally” list, matey.

 

Magical Vacation

Are you ready for the standard “Japan-only” release entry that we try to sneak into every episode? Of course you are.

Brownie Brown was founded by a group of former Square staffers, including Shinichi Kameoka and Kouji Tsuda, two legends who worked on the Mana series, who wanted to create their own original games. Of course, Brownie Brown would then immediately collaborate with Square to work on more entries in the Mana series, so a change in studio name is as good as a break I suppose. Still, Brownie Brown managed to work on some of their own work too.

Before going back to the Mana series, Magical Vacation was Brownie Brown’s first ever game, releasing on the Game Boy Advance in 2001 in Japan-only. Set across various planes of existence, you control someone who’s attending a magical school that’s taking a beach vacation, if you can believe that. The gameplay is your standard turn-based RPG, albeit with a complex elemental system and a Spirit Combo system that lets you really break your damage limits on spells. Then you’ve got the Amigo System, which used the GBA Link Cable to allow players to trade spells and become infinitely stronger like a precursor to Nintendo’s own StreetPass systems during the DS era. Probably not a surprise then that Brownie Brown became a Nintendo support studio called 1-Up Studios then, eh?

 

Onimusha: Tactics

Quick, name the tactical RPG based on a popular franchise that launched on the GBA that we’re thinking of. If you said Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, you’d be wrong. However, if you said Onimusha: Tactics, then congratulations: you’ve been paying attention during the title cards. Before Capcom started porting the old PS2 releases to the Nintendo Switch (and we’re still waiting for Onimusha 3 there, lads), Onimusha: Tactics was the first and only Onimusha game to be developed specifically for Nintendo consoles. Released in 2003 across all regions, it feels like Tactics is now the de facto forgotten Onimusha game. Yes, it’s more forgotten than both Blade Warriors and Dawn of Dreams. At least Dawn of Dreams has some potential likelihood of being ported. Maybe. Possibly.

A spin-off of the mainline series, Onimusha Tactics tells a brand new story following a whole new protagonist, Onimaru. Former lead characters Samanosuke Akechi and Jubei Yagyu are nowhere to be found, though supporting characters from Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny can be recruited to Onimaru’s cause. We’re also taking the war to Nobunaga Oda, much like other Onimusha games, so it’s got the main hallmark of an Onimusha game. Instead of a character action/survival horror blend, you’ve got a tactical RPG with multiple characters in your party, experience points to earn and new weapons to unlock. Reviews were decent if unspectacular, but for tactics lovers, what are you saiyan?

 

Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy Of Goku II

If you’re a Dragon Ball fan who’s interested in RPGs on the Game Boy Advance, there’s a more than small chance that you’re already well aware of The Legacy of Goku.

Developed by Webfoot Technologies, Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku was a trilogy of side-scrolling action RPGs that chronicled the story of Goku, along with the rest of the Z Fighters, throughout the different arcs of DBZ. The first game, which launched in 2002, followed Goku and the gang from the start of the series with the Saiyan Saga, all the way up to Goku’s final battle with Frieza on Planet Namek. It was a good blueprint, as even though reviews weren’t great, The Legacy of Goku ended up becoming one of the highest selling games throughout the entirety of the GBA’s lifespan.

It’s the sequel, the aptly named The Legacy of Goku II, where Webfoot Technologies really decided to lock the hell in. Granted, the Dragon Ball Z itself gave them the best material to work with for the sequel, as the second part of the trilogy focuses on the entire Cell Saga. New to this version of the game is transformations, giving players the ability to fill a Rage Meter and unleash their Super Saiyan forms, along with a host of playable characters alongside Goku to really flesh out all aspects of the Cell Saga storyline. You can even unlock Mr Satan as the final playable character which leads to a whole other alternate ending, so Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy Of Goku II is incredible for that alone. Mr Satan hive, arise.

 

 

Kien

For a long time, Kien was the definition of a forgotten GBA RPG, but not because it launched and was immediately overshadowed by another, much bigger release. In fact, Kien never launched at all, at least during the GBA’s normal lifespan.

Announced in 2002, Kien was due to be the first GBA game to be developed by an indie Italian company, but due to a variety of unforeseen issues and publishers backing out of the project, Kien would end up in development hell for a whopping 22 years. The game had been basically finished, but developers AgeOfGames, formerly known as PMStudios, couldn’t get a publisher to invest in a physical launch of a GBA game, especially years after people had moved on from the console.

Fast forward to a post pandemic, always online world, and people were really getting back into retro gaming, leading publisher Incube8 to agree to create a physical print of Kien for the GBA in 2024. Of course, if you want a digital version for emulation purposes, you can get that for much cheaper too, but either way, Kien destroyed the Duke Nukem Forever record of most delayed game to finally launch.

As for the game itself, it’s described by lead game designer Fabio Belsanti as “a pre Souls-like” platformer, with RPG elements as players explore the game’s 20+ levels. It’s a challenging game, but arguably not as challenging as the journey it took to get released, making it incredibly worthy of praise for finally making it over the finish line.

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