Game BoyAdvance

Twelve years after the original Game Boy, Nintendo finally replaced it. The Game Boy Advance arrived in North America in June 2001 at $99.99 with a 32-bit ARM processor, shoulder buttons and a wide screen that was, famously, not lit — you played it under a lamp or not at all. It still sold about 81 million units across three models, played every Game Boy and Game Boy Color cart ever made, and gave Nintendo somewhere to publish Metroid Fusion, Golden Sun, Fire Emblem and Mario & Luigi while the GameCube struggled at home.

The GBA library is 2D games made by people who had spent a decade learning how: the Castlevania trilogy, Metroid Zero Mission, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Mega Man Zero, six Battle Networks and the Pokémon games that now make up most of the value on any shelf. Boxes were cardboard and got crushed, so complete copies are the hard part; loose carts are the norm. Check the label — Pokémon GBA cartridges are among the most frequently counterfeited retro games. Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald use internal batteries for clock-based events, but save files are stored separately in flash memory. A dry battery can interrupt time-based features without erasing your Pokémon progress. Check the listing for any available battery-condition and testing information. Every cart is photographed and tested.