Why the Game Boy Advance was THE Handheld I missed out on the GBA’s heyday, adopting the handheld right before the release of the Nintendo DS.  Going back to the system and its library years later, I have grown to appreciate how incredible a portable console it really was.  Here are a few reasons that the Game Boy Advance was a handheld worth playing back in the day, and worth collecting for now. Backwards Compatibility I know that the Game Boy Color was already backwards compatible with the Game Boy library, but the hardware was so similar. It would have been a complete disappointment if you couldn't play Super Mario Land 2 on your GBC.  The fact that the Game Boy Advance could play every previous handheld cartridge game that Nintendo released was such an amazing concept.  In 2001, to be able to play the latest games along with all the titles that were released for the past decade+ was quite the phenomenon! Upgrades  Nintendo has been infamous most of its gaming career for relea