The Best GBA Strategy Games I Have Ever Played
Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration. GBA itself is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed by nintendo.
All of the GBA mentioned here is turn based, here is 9 of the best that I have played.
Advance Wars Series
When most of GBA turn based strategy game genre carry medieval kingdom fantasy theme, Advance Wars can be refreshing for gamer such as myself.
Advance Wars came with a military theme tactical game where you act as a CO (Commanding Officer) assigned to defend your country from the attack of the invading Black Hole Army trying to conquer the world.
Although the story plot is quite simple this game is great for the complexities of the strategy, where every unit-even the weakest one-has their own role unreplaceable by other units.
Some of the units in Advance Wars are Infantry, Tank, Subs, Frigate, Battleship, AA, Helicopter, Jet, Bomber and many more, each with their own strength and weaknesses. So you will need to be able to make decisions on managing fund, producing which unit, capturing which city, and where to place your unit.
Other than that, you will also need to consider other factor like terrain, weather, Fog of War, and the ability of each CO since every CO have their own specialty.
And if you are bored fighting computer AI, you can try battling your friend via versus or link mode (in versus mode you can battle with your friend using only one GBA handheld while in link mode you will need to link up with other GBA handheld), you can also create your own map to maximize the fun.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is an RPG strategy game where player gets to battle against computer in a turn based mode. You play as Marche, a new boy who just move in to a modern city called Ivalice where he and his 3 friends accidentally turn Ivalice into a new different world similar to the world in the game Final Fantasy, where magic and moogle exists, there Marche gain new friends and act as a clan leader.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance tells the story of how Marche and his clan strugle to change Ivalice back to what it was before.
Some noticeable features in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance include the job system and the law system. The job system will make your character stat distribution get influenced by which job you choose.
Also every job has their own unique skill, and mastering these skills will let you use the skill even when you are currently choosing other job.
What makes Final Fantasy Tactics Advance differs from similar strategy genre is the law system, where in each battle there will always a judge who will set a certain law which forbide or recommend certain actions.
Failure to obey the law will make the unit who broke the law receive a yellow card as a warning, but if the same unit broke the law twice, or knock out an opponent using weapon or skill that currently forbide by the law, then the unit will be given a red card and put into prison.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance gave birth to a sequel for Nintendo DS titled: Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift.
Fire Emblem Series
Fire Emblem is a turn based tactical RPG and was developed by the same developer as Advance War, so you may see some similar element between both game, but even though they shared some strategic element, Fire Emblem is completely different to Advance War.
Where in Advance War your unit are expendable and can be rebuilt, every unit in Fire Emblem has its own background story and carry its own class, so if a unit dies in battle, that unit will be marked as wounded and would not be able to participate in future battle permanently.
Setting up in a fantasy medieval world, Fire Emblem offers some strategic element including terrain understanding, weather, fog of war, weapon and magic triangle system, weapon durability, and support character.
Onimusha Tactics
Take setting in Feudal Japan, Genma, a group of underworld monster is trying to ransack the upperworld by killing up humans, until they attack a village called Iga where there live a boy who is a descendant of the oni clan, a clan who fought the genma in the past.
Onimaru was destined to be the Onimusha, the only one who can stand against the genma king Nobunaga Oda.
Onimusha Tactics gameplay is very similar to Tactic Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactic Advance, but much more simple, in Onimusha Tactics, we dont have to bother where our unit is facing, in this game also there are no weapon shop, new weapon are made throug crafting but you will need to collect the ingredient first from loot drops.
Or you can upgrade your existing weapon using soul point which you will get everytime you slay a Genma.
If you are a fans of the Onimusha series, this game is prettiy much reccomended, but if you are looking for a more complex strategy game, I would recommend you to choose Tactics Ogre, or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.
Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon
Once a great turn based rpg strategy game developed for sega console, now remade for GBA handheld with a couple of addition like graphic and new characters titled Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon. Beside the new addition they also done some rebalancing through out the game, which make the GBA version more stable in term of challenges.
Since Shining Force is a remake game, the story plot and the gameplay is quite simple if compared to other similar genre, what make shining force worth playing is its classical value and the quality of the game still has not decline.
Rebelstar: Tactical Command
Another turn based tactical game, being in the same strategy-RPG genre Rebelstar is a bit different in term of gameplay if compared to Final Fantasy Tactics Advance or Tactics Ogre.
In this game you will be given a squad team to complete each mission with weapons ranging from sniper rifle to heavy artilery and grenade, what makes this different game different from the other is you can not always see your enemy unit, you can only see them if they're inside your LoS (line of sight), same rules apply to the enemy.
This game also using the AP(Action Point) system rather than your regular Move ane Attack command, with action point you can move, attack, then attack or move again if you still have enough AP. With that in mind you can attack and then hide from your enemy LoS to protect your unit from taking damage. Although the enemy would be able to do that too.
Super Robot War / Super Robot Taisen Series
Super Robot Wars (SRW) series is a turn based tactical game produced by Banpresto, this game is famous because most of the unit in the game comes from many type of mecha anime/manga which are popular in Japan, like Getter Robo, Mazinger Z, Gundam, Macross, and much more.
Although not all, some of the unit were developed by the game developer itself, this kind of unit usually called Banpresto Originals.
Although this game has launched several title for GBA handheld which are: SRW A, SRW D, SRW J, SRW OG, and SRW OG2 (seques from SRW OG), only the OG series were released outside Japan and has its language translated.
OG series is a bit different in term of the characters than most of the SRW series, where all unit in OG(Original Generations) were Banpresto Originals.
Every unit in SRW consists of 2 elements (pilot and mecha) where you can freely put which pilot in which mecha to have the best effect, although not all pilot can be moved, but most are.
Other than great music and animation (especially for J and OG2) SRW story plot is most interesting, there are many political intrigue, romance and even comedy in it. Overall from all GBA turn based tactical genre, this one would be the most recommended by me, unless ofcourse if you don not like anime and futuristic warfare.
Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis
A must have game for all turn based tactical RPG fans, in Tactics Ogre Knight of Lodis you will take the role of Alphonse Loeher a knight of the Order of the Sacred Flame.
He was sent to Ovis under Rictor Lasanti\ is military unit, later on he got separated from the main unit, because of that he began to learn the truth, and must choose separate path which will affect the story plot and will lead you to one of the five possible endings.
Aside from the great story plot Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis also offers nice tactical elements like controling a high terrain will make your archer take more advantage to shoot further. or pushing an enemy from a cliff will severely damage him/her if not instantly killed.
The weather itself can make a nice addition, for example is when weather change to raining, the water level can go up, drowning all heavy unit like knight in the process.
This game also quite complex in class changing system, there are a couple consideration if want to changing class, like you must have the necessary emblem which you will get by meeting a certain condition in battle, then there is the alignment system, which will affect / restrict some unit to change into certain class.
Yggdra Union: We’ll Never Fight Alone
A game from Sting Entertainment the developer who develop Riviera: the promised land (see my post: The Best GBA RPG Games I Have Ever Played for brief info for riviera), They never fail to amuse me on their unique yet refreshing gameplay for similar genre.
Yggdra Union combine a turn base strategy game with card battle game, where each card chosen during a turn will determine how much move the entire army will have as well as to give advantage to certain or all of your unit.
The weapon type in Yggdra Union are sword axe and lance that works in a paper/rock/scissor manner. This game also using morale system to replace HP for each unit which increase the difficulty in the game since morale is always carry to the next stage.
You will also be introduced to the union system, where each unit can support the attacking/defending unit if they are put aligned with the corresponding unit. Since you can only attack once in every turn, you will be using the union system alot, along with your ability to put the right weapon type to efficiently destroy your enemy without taking to much damage to yourself.
The quality of graphic and animation is superb, every battle is fully animated, where you must give command to your unit in a semi active way.