2002 was the best year for Nintendo-fans (GBA Edition)

If you haven't read why 2002 was the best year for Nintendo-fans because of the awesome Gamecube, go read it now. Now it is time for the Game Boy Advance to shine.

In 2002, Nintendo was still foolishly dividing their fanbase into two camps: one for portables, and one for home-consoles. Of course, there was overlap between the two, and their "connectivity" gimmick between Gamecube and Game Boy Advance was designed to aid that goal, but GBA sold 81 million while GC sold 21 million. The strategy did not work.

2002 saw the release of the e-Reader, which functioned a lot like amiibo on NFC-readers do today. You could scan a card in and get extra little content: physical DLC, which is much worse than digital DLC.

There were a lot of great games ported from the Super Nintendo like Breath of Fire II, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, and Earthworm Jim 2. It was not a bad thing, however, because the Super Nintendo was two generations removed from the Game Boy Advance. There was a period of time to breathe in between, and to miss those games. Porting a game from the directly previous generation is too early.

Tekken Advance was the first Tekken-game on a Nintendo-system.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance was another Metroid-systle Castlevania.

There were even new IPs like Densetsu no Stafy (The Legendary Starfy). This game never came out in North America.

There was a new Fire Emblem in Japan. It featured Roy, and we never got this game in North America, either.

There was Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, a remake of Kirby's Adventure.

We got Mega Man Zero, a brand-new Mega Man series starring Zero. It was gritty, had a grim storyline, and had striking art-direction.

Not to be outdone by Metroid Prime on Gamecube, Metroid Fusion released on the same day, and it was awesome. It had better controls than Super Metroid, was very creative and colorful, and featured fast action.

In Japan, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire came out in 2002.

Sonic Advance debuted in 2002 in North America. Although it wasn't as good as the Genesis-games, it was decent.

With the combined might of Gamecube and Game Boy Advance, there is no question that 2002 was the best year for Nintendo-fans.

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