Dragon Tales: Dragon Adventures on the GBA is one of those games that feels like it was made for lazy afternoons with your Game Boy tucked under the covers. You start off picking your dragon—I went with the blue one because, well, it looked fast—and then you're immediately tossed into this colorful world where everything wants to either help you or roast you.

The controls are simple enough: fly around, collect gems (because apparently dragons love shiny things), and occasionally brawl with other dragons in mid-air. The battles are clunky in that nostalgic way where button-mashing actually works half the time. And yeah, the graphics are definitely "early 2000s handheld," but there's charm in those pixelated fireballs.

What surprised me was how much personality the NPCs have. There’s this one grumpy old dragon who sends you on fetch quests, and I swear he’s judging you every time you come back empty-handed. The music’s also weirdly catchy—I caught myself humming the forest theme for days.

It’s not perfect, but if you miss that era of straightforward, no-microtransaction adventures, this one’s a solid time capsule.