When the Game Boy Advance hit shelves in Japan on March 21, 2001, Nintendo was still riding the incredible success of the original Game Boy. After more than a decade of the Game Boy’s handheld dominance, though, gamers eagerly awaited the next evolution in portable gaming. The Gba delivered that evolution.

In fact, many features we now take for granted in portables like the Switch can be traced back to the Gba. The addition of shoulder buttons, full 32-bit color graphics, and eventually even built-in backlighting with the 2003 release of the Game Boy Advance Sp were all lauded as welcome innovations and improvements. Sadly, the Gba’s time in the sun was remarkably short. Pressured by the upcoming release of the Sony PSP, Nintendo released the Gba’s successor, the Nintendo DS, less than four years after the launch of the Gba.

Yet, Gba games continued to be released all the...