Which Flash Cartridge Should You Choose for the Game Boy Advance?

The Game Boy Advance Family

The Game Boy Advance family includes four models:

1. Game Boy Advance;

2. Game Boy Advance SP AGS-001;

3. Game Boy Micro;

4. Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101.

Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite also support GBA cartridges.

But they’re different mechanically. On the Nintendo DS, a standard GBA cartridge slides all the way in and doesn’t stick out. On the Nintendo DS Lite, the slot was made smaller, so a normal cartridge only goes in halfway — it noticeably sticks out of the console.

When the Nintendo DS Lite launched, many flash-cartridge makers started shrinking their carts so they would sit flush and not protrude from the case. It made sense: the DS Lite was compact and neat, and a cartridge sticking out looked чужеродно.

But the last representative of that tradition — the EZ-Flash Omega — was recently discontinued. As a result, there are currently no widely available GBA flash cartridges that sit fully flush in a DS Lite.

So let’s see what’s actually left on the market today.

Which One to Choose?

The Game Boy Advance era was the real boom time for flash cartridges — there were tons of them, and at one point the market was absolutely buzzing.

This is one of those cases where you can’t say old retro flash carts are worse than modern ones in every way. Some of them were genuinely strong — for example, M3 or G6 can still provide a comfortable experience today. The problem is different: buying those devices now is almost impossible. So from here on it only makes sense to talk about models you can realistically buy today — even if there are caveats.

If you look at the current market, three main families remain:

The EZ-Flash family: Definitive Edition, Omega, Air, IV.

The SuperCard family: SuperCard, SuperChis.

The Everdrive family: GBA Mini, GBA Pro, GBA X5.

All of these flash cartridges (except the GBA Pro, which is brand new and still effectively not available for general purchase) can be found either new or on used marketplaces.

Since there are quite a few options, it makes sense to split them into three categories:

- Budget cartridge;

- Best price / quality flash cartridge;

- Best overall flash cartridge.

1. Let’s go in order and start with the budget segment.

Until January 2026, the only truly budget option was the SuperCard — with all its issues. It wouldn’t run some games, required old memory cards, ROM files had to be patched on a PC, and many games also ran noticeably slower during play. The only serious advantage was the price: you could really buy a SuperCard for 1300–1700 rubles.

But in early 2026 a new flash cartridge appeared — SuperChis.

This cartridge is interesting primarily because of its story. Two developers came together on the project: ChisBread — the author of ChisFlash, and Davidgf — the creator of the SuperFW firmware for SuperCard.

SuperFW was a solid firmware in its own right, but even it couldn’t fix SuperCard’s fundamental limitations. On the other hand, ChisFlash cartridges are reliable, but strictly “one game per cart,” without a полноценного menu.

At some point, объединение efforts was the obvious next step. ChisBread recreated the SuperCard architecture, and Davidgf adapted and reworked the firmware for the new device.

In practice, the SuperCard design was reproduced and the CPLD code was reworked, but with important changes: more modern and cheaper chips were used, a larger NOR chip was installed, and compatibility was improved. As a result, the key shortcomings of the original SuperCard were addressed.

And the price is around two thousand rubles.

So we now have a new leader in the “budget cartridge” category. If we were talking about the domestic Chinese market, its direct competitor would also be the EZ-Flash Air — there it costs about the same. But on AliExpress its price starts around three thousand rubles, which pushes it out of the budget segment and puts it in direct competition with the EZ-Flash Omega.

2. Best price / quality flash cartridge.

Surprisingly, just a year ago this category had one obvious leader — the EZ-Flash Omega. It launched games instantly, had near-100% compatibility, flexible settings, savestates, and a whole набор of extra features.

However, in mid-2025 the EZ-Flash Omega was discontinued and effectively replaced with the EZ-Flash Air.

If we talk about Omega’s direct competitors, they were the Everdrive GBA Mini, Everdrive GBA X5, and the EZ-Flash IV.

The problem is that each of them falls noticeably short of the Omega — and in a pretty serious way.

The Everdrive GBA Mini costs more than even the EZ-Flash Definitive Edition (around $100), but it doesn’t support basic features like savestates or exiting from a game back to the menu.

The Everdrive GBA X5 has the same limitations as the Mini, but it’s also physically larger than a standard GBA cartridge. And its used-market price is usually not much lower.

The EZ-Flash Air was designed as a more affordable alternative to the Omega, but it lost its RAM. Games are launched via NOR, savestates are absent, and the save system is based on an SRAM chip — meaning it uses a battery.

The EZ-Flash IV is frankly an outdated solution. It has long been discontinued, but it regularly shows up on used marketplaces, often at inflated prices. The first revision is around twenty years old, and you can feel it: slow game loading, no RTC, and no savestate. Essentially, it just runs ROM files — without the extra conveniences.

So what do we get in the end? If the EZ-Flash Omega is unavailable, the most balanced option in terms of price / quality is the EZ-Flash Air.

And there’s an important nuance here. If you look strictly at Game Boy Advance features, the SuperChis is in some ways even more interesting: it has savestates and it can exit a game back to the menu. But it’s noticeably harder for a typical user.

With the EZ-Flash Air everything is максимально simple: copy games to the memory card, write one to NOR — and play. You can be confident the game will launch and run stably. With SuperChis, you often have to pick modes and experiment with settings, and that’s not for everyone.

Maybe if the developers bring SuperChis and its firmware to a true “everything works out of the box” state, this category will get a new leader. But right now the choice is pretty clear — EZ-Flash Air. It doesn’t lose to Everdrive solutions (except for power consumption), it’s far more convenient than the EZ-Flash IV, and it costs two to three times less.

3. Best overall flash cartridge.

As in the previous category, until recently there was one obvious leader here — the EZ-Flash Definitive Edition. This cartridge essentially removed Omega’s key drawbacks and added new features: full Mode-B, improved NOR handling, stable savestates, and expanded settings.

But in 2026 it should get two serious competitors at once.

1. SuperChis Max.

2. Everdrive GBA Pro.

1. SuperChis Max — ChisBread has said that in the second half of 2026 an updated version of SuperChis will be released with support for additional sensors: gyroscope, light sensor, and other hardware features. On paper it looks interesting, especially given the already implemented savestate and menu-exit features. But for now the project exists only as statements. There are no exact dates, no final spec, and no confirmation the device will actually ship as announced.

2. Everdrive GBA Pro — this situation is different. Krikzz has already collected money for pre-orders and announced that the first batches will start shipping at the end of February. By the stated specs, this is the most technologically advanced Everdrive for GBA: savestates appear for the first time, all sensors are supported (solar, tilt, gyroscope), there’s a mode that looks a lot like Mode-B from the EZ-Flash DE, and there’s also expanded menu customization.

At the moment, you can only buy the Everdrive GBA Pro in the official Krikzz store. It’s not yet available in other online shops.

At the same time, there are already reports of serious issues with early batches of the device. This isn’t just “raw” firmware — these are critical errors that make some cartridges unstable or behave incorrectly.

Judging by the specs, for Game Boy Advance games this is potentially the most feature-rich flash cartridge on the market.

But there’s one major problem — the price. You’ll most likely have to order through US forwarders, and by current estimates the final cost can be around 20,000 rubles. That’s roughly four times more than the EZ-Flash Definitive Edition, which today is usually in the 5–6k range.

In practice, you’re paying extra for three additional sensors and deeper menu customization. Whether that’s worth it is an open question.

Epilogue

So, what do we have in the end?

With the release of SuperChis, the SuperCard era has effectively ended. At a comparable price, SuperChis fixes the predecessor’s key problems, and feature-wise it can even be more interesting than the EZ-Flash Air.

EZ-Flash Air remains the sensible choice for those who don’t want to deal with modes and settings. Copy games to the memory card, write them to NOR — and you can play without experiments and config-hunting.

If you manage to find an EZ-Flash Omega at a reasonable price around 4000 rubles, it’s still an excellent option. But if the price is noticeably higher, it makes more sense to look straight at the EZ-Flash Definitive Edition.

As of today, the EZ-Flash Definitive Edition remains the most balanced and technically strong solution for the Game Boy Advance. Even the release of the Everdrive GBA Pro is unlikely to change the situation dramatically — not only in our market, but also in the West, where Krikzz products traditionally have high demand.

In the end, it all comes down to price: the difference is too large to ignore.