All Mario GBA games

Super Mario Advance (2001)

A European Game Boy Advance launch title, and the odd one of the four Advance ports: it is Super Mario Bros. 2 — the one with the vegetables, four playable characters and no Bowser — plus the arcade Mario Bros. as a multiplayer extra. Voices were added, which people either remember fondly or not at all.

Mario Kart: Super Circuit (2001)

Twenty new tracks plus all twenty from Super Mario Kart on the SNES, which makes forty in a cartridge the size of a stamp. Still the only handheld Mario Kart with the SNES-style flat road, and the one that made single-cartridge multiplayer normal.

Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 (2002)

Super Mario World with Luigi playable from the start and a save system that keeps every level. The screen is cropped compared to the SNES, which is the trade-off for having it in a pocket. The most common Mario cartridge on the system and usually the cheapest.

Yoshi's Island: Super Mario Advance 3 (2002)

The 1995 SNES game with six extra levels, and the port that survives the transfer best — the crayon art was never dependent on screen size. If you want one Advance port, this is the one that still feels new.

Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 (2003)

Super Mario Bros. 3 with the e-Reader levels attached — cards Europe never got, so the European cartridge has the base game only. Scarcer and pricier than Advance 2 or 3, partly because collectors chase the complete set of four.

Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (2003)

The game that started the Mario & Luigi line: one button per brother, timed hits, and a script that is genuinely funny. Later remade on the 3DS, but the GBA original is the one with the sprite work people still copy.

Mario Golf: Advance Tour (2004)

Half golf game, half role-playing game — you make a character, level up their stats and work through a club. Camelot did the same trick with tennis. The RPG half is why it holds up; the golf on its own would not have.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2004)

A direct descendant of Donkey Kong on the Game Boy: reach the key, then reach the Mini Mario, in a hundred short puzzle levels. The start of a series that ran to the Switch, and the last one where you actually play as Mario the whole way.

NES Classics: Super Mario Bros. (2004)

The 1985 original, unaltered, in a plain white box. In Europe the line is branded NES Classics — the same cartridge is Classic NES Series in America and Famicom Mini in Japan, so an American listing will not match a European one. Twelve titles came out here in two waves.

Super Mario Ball (2004)

Sold as Mario Pinball Land in America; the European cartridge says Super Mario Ball. Mario is the ball, the flippers are yours, and progress is a board-to-board journey rather than a high score. Short, strange, and cheap.

NES Classics: Dr. Mario (2005)

The 1990 puzzler as it was, from the second European NES Classics wave in January 2005. Scarcer than the Super Mario Bros. cartridge from the first wave, and the pill-matching still works better than it has any right to.

Yoshi's Universal Gravitation (2005)

Called Yoshi Topsy-Turvy in America. The cartridge has a tilt sensor inside, so you steer by turning the console — which means it is heavier than a normal GBA cartridge and will not work properly lying flat on a table. A genuine copy is noticeably chunky; that weight is itself an authenticity check.

Mario Power Tennis (2005)

Careful here: in Europe this GBA cartridge carries the same name as the 2004 GameCube game, which is a different game entirely. America called it Mario Tennis: Power Tour and Japan Mario Tennis Advance. It is the tennis counterpart to Mario Golf: Advance Tour — a full RPG with a tennis academy — and worth far more than its box suggests.

Mario Party Advance (2005)

The Mario Party that is barely a party game: the board is a single-player quest and the minigames are unlocked one at a time. Multiplayer is limited to passing one console around. Cheap, and the one Mario Party to buy last.