What do you think?
Rate this book
The GBA Pixel Book
When the Game Boy Advance debuted in 2001, the game industry was supposed to have moved on. In the years before, systems like Sony’s PlayStation had asserted that the future of games had three dimensions. The new millennium, many agreed, would be a place of polygons, not pixels.
And then – as told in The GBA Pixel Book – the Game Boy Advance landed on shelves, dazzling fans as it put 2D worlds front and centre of its offering. Nintendo’s compact pixel art powerhouse quickly established a stunning software library that remains influential almost quarter of a century on, with games like Fire Emblem, The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Metroid Fusion, Metal Slug Advance, Gunstar Future Heroes, and Mother 3.
All those releases and many, many more are included in The GBA Pixel Book, which Bitmap Books is proud to bring to English-language readers in partnership with German publisher Elektrospieler. The book, which has been meticulously translated from the German original, features a bounty of articles that delve deep into the GBA’s magnificent game portfolio, spotlighting over 240 titles. It also brings together almost 4,000 screenshots from the games included, each of which has been especially composed and captured for this book. They are presented across 300-pages along with pixel art cut-outs, sprite work, vast montages, and immense level maps.
In grouping its contents by genre, The GBA Pixel Book also presents a fascinating look at the Game Boy Advance’s key role in evolving so many popular gaming forms, while charting the design trends that kept pixel art alive until it was embraced by today’s indie development movement. The GBA Pixel Book also continues the series established by Bitmap Books Elektrospieler with The SNES Pixel Book.
With the two publishers working together once more, you can also expect ambitious, eye-catching design, high quality printing on heavy gloss paper, and a sturdy, beautiful slipcase to protect the book.
And then – as told in The GBA Pixel Book – the Game Boy Advance landed on shelves, dazzling fans as it put 2D worlds front and centre of its offering. Nintendo’s compact pixel art powerhouse quickly established a stunning software library that remains influential almost quarter of a century on, with games like Fire Emblem, The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, Advance Wars, Final Fantasy Tactics, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Metroid Fusion, Metal Slug Advance, Gunstar Future Heroes, and Mother 3.
All those releases and many, many more are included in The GBA Pixel Book, which Bitmap Books is proud to bring to English-language readers in partnership with German publisher Elektrospieler. The book, which has been meticulously translated from the German original, features a bounty of articles that delve deep into the GBA’s magnificent game portfolio, spotlighting over 240 titles. It also brings together almost 4,000 screenshots from the games included, each of which has been especially composed and captured for this book. They are presented across 300-pages along with pixel art cut-outs, sprite work, vast montages, and immense level maps.
In grouping its contents by genre, The GBA Pixel Book also presents a fascinating look at the Game Boy Advance’s key role in evolving so many popular gaming forms, while charting the design trends that kept pixel art alive until it was embraced by today’s indie development movement. The GBA Pixel Book also continues the series established by Bitmap Books Elektrospieler with The SNES Pixel Book.
With the two publishers working together once more, you can also expect ambitious, eye-catching design, high quality printing on heavy gloss paper, and a sturdy, beautiful slipcase to protect the book.
- GenresGaming
300 pages, Hardcover
4 people are currently reading
21 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 5, 2025
A very fun trip through the life of the Gameboy Advance. The book is gorgeous in its use of pixel artwork, although the paragraphs aren't always formatted to naturally guide the reader's eye, and it can be a bit overwhelming. I do wish there was a more in depth analysis of the pixel art through an artistic lens (discussing use of color, how certain visual effects are created, etc.). At the end of the day, though, I cannot deny that I simply had a good time reading and taking a trip down memory lane.
March 24, 2025
the good:
+covers a vast number of GBA games, and even introduced me to a bunch of GBA games I'd never heard of. excited to play them!
+was fun to read at times, lots of pictures (often pretty but this also features ugly games)
the bad:
- went into it thinking it was going to mostly be about showing off the best pixel art the GBA had to offer, but there was a whole lot of text about the games themselves, their gameplay, and the context around which they were released. now, this WOULD have been fine, but the way it's laid out means your eyes are jumping all over the spread, skipping over things to try and find the continuation of the paragraph that just got cut off abruptly, sometimes even having to turn a page without looking at everything just to not lose that thought. even the images themselves are often laid out in a hectic way with arrows pointing all over the place trying to tell you how to read it, and sometimes that can be very confusing as well. the main text, captions and images all compete for your attention at the same time and it just doesn't flow well.
- from time to time i'd have to reread a sentence because it just didn't make sense the first time around. not a huge fan of the way these guys write.
- while i have not played most of the games in this book, when it came to the ones i have played, i'd have preferred if they had shown off more of the game rather than focusing in very deeply on one specific area. for example, slateport city from pokemon rse was explored in detail, but we didn't get to see the likes of fortree or pacifidlog or route 113, which were all visually memorable areas. it would have been cooler to show a wider variety of interesting areas rather than just a couple of areas in-depth. makes me wonder what other pretty game art they decided not to show?
- zero love for nightmare in dreamland, barely a mention of amazing mirror and the hamtaro games. would've been better to skip over all the titles that didn't age well graphically and feature more of the more eye-pealing games that people really love.
+covers a vast number of GBA games, and even introduced me to a bunch of GBA games I'd never heard of. excited to play them!
+was fun to read at times, lots of pictures (often pretty but this also features ugly games)
the bad:
- went into it thinking it was going to mostly be about showing off the best pixel art the GBA had to offer, but there was a whole lot of text about the games themselves, their gameplay, and the context around which they were released. now, this WOULD have been fine, but the way it's laid out means your eyes are jumping all over the spread, skipping over things to try and find the continuation of the paragraph that just got cut off abruptly, sometimes even having to turn a page without looking at everything just to not lose that thought. even the images themselves are often laid out in a hectic way with arrows pointing all over the place trying to tell you how to read it, and sometimes that can be very confusing as well. the main text, captions and images all compete for your attention at the same time and it just doesn't flow well.
- from time to time i'd have to reread a sentence because it just didn't make sense the first time around. not a huge fan of the way these guys write.
- while i have not played most of the games in this book, when it came to the ones i have played, i'd have preferred if they had shown off more of the game rather than focusing in very deeply on one specific area. for example, slateport city from pokemon rse was explored in detail, but we didn't get to see the likes of fortree or pacifidlog or route 113, which were all visually memorable areas. it would have been cooler to show a wider variety of interesting areas rather than just a couple of areas in-depth. makes me wonder what other pretty game art they decided not to show?
- zero love for nightmare in dreamland, barely a mention of amazing mirror and the hamtaro games. would've been better to skip over all the titles that didn't age well graphically and feature more of the more eye-pealing games that people really love.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews