Going to china in a few weeks. I have Castlevainia and Doom which both are good but I was thinking of some kind of game that would be good for hours at one time. Kind of like Pokemon was when it first came out.

?

Golden Sun is pretty good, but it would only last you one way. I haven't played Advance Wars yet, but by all accounts it's addictive and very long.

Both Advance Wars and Golden Sun kept me entertained for hours at a time. It all depends on your tastes but I suggest you try those.

I played Super-Bust-A-Move for the entire flight to Hong Kong last time, Advance Wars involves too much thinking!!

I would recommend Advance Wars or Tactics Ogre. Both are great and also fairly long.

If you like classic gaming, might want to try out Namco Museum.
Includes:

Mrs. Pac-Man
Galaga
Dig Dug
Pole Position (Racing)
Galaxian (space invaders clone)

Switching games is a necessity for long plane fights, and this game has 5 different cool games for around $20.

If you didn't play the SNES version, Breath of Fire would be a great one to go with. And BoF II

I just started BoF II - that was going to be my recommendation. Very fun game. Advance Wars is also fun, but can get frustrating and you'll want a break. For truly mindless amusement, try Puyo Pop. It's a puzzle game in the same vein as Tetris.

I'm going to the Philippines in a couple of days, so I went out and bought Mario Advance2, Mario Kart, and Golden Sun. I saw that NEW Castlevania, but it's in Japanese, so I passed.

Oh I'm also bringing a Harry Potter book. (The 2nd one)

bfrank, just curious, what airline are you taking? I took Continental to / from Hong Kong last time, they have pretty good entertainment on the flight... with a lot of movies and games to choose from.

Tactics Ogre

If you can find it get Tactics Ogre. If not Breath of Fire 1 or 2 would be good game to pass the time with.

That is, in fact, why I'm playing BoF II right now. Can't find TO ANYWHERE. I can't understand that!

Super Mario Advance 2

Warning if you get advance wars be sure to take a look around once in a while just in case you arrive during the intense battle. Its a great addicting game!

also for Namco museum

Every game listed above is good, however, almost all of them suffer from the problem that if you get stuck, it's game over. Golden Sun is the best example- not necessarily a hard game, but I got stuck at one point and basically spent an entire train ride home wandering aimlessly (checked the net for a hint after a day or two of that). If I was on a plane I would have been ready to commit a federal offense. Some of the others are no better- I got killed about 40 times by that football throwing turtle or whatever in Super Mario World on a flight to Hawai'i and I just couldn't take it anymore.

My advice- bring a few different games in any case, but definitely make one of them Advance Wars. Even if you get stuck in a battle, there are (no joke) like 100 other things to do on that cart. Stuck in the campaign mode? go to skirmish mode. Map getting you down? Change map. Skirmish mode getting unchallenging? try the predeployed battles or change some game settings around. If I had only one GBA game for the rest of my life, that would be it. And no regrets.

If you're stuck on a plane with just one game, make sure you find and print out a walkthrough strategy guide from a place like gamefaqs.com before you set out on the trip. Could save mucho frustration.

I thought you can save the game at anytime, right?

Just got back from China a month ago and I took "Tetris", "Sonic Advance", "Super Mario Advance 2", and "F-Zero"...

... while I was there I picked up "Advance Wars", "Super Mario Cart" and "MK Advance"...

So I would suggest watching movies (I flew American Airlines and All Nippon Airlines, and they had great movies), but I found myself playing SMA2 on the way there and Advance Wars on the way back...

So my 2 would be those...

If you're limited to just one game, Advance Wars easily.

If you're still looking, and you can wait for it to arrive, Amazon has gotten Tactics Ogre back in stock. (I think I DVDTalkified this properly...mods feel free to edit if it's wrong!)