I think the number of games ported over from the 16 bit era gives that impression. GBA didn’t even get it’s own Mario game, they just released the All-Stars versions of classic games, which I get was super cool at the time but still.

But yes, GBA was a very capable machine. GBA could run Doom with a smooth framerate, SNES couldn’t. Not to mention the stuff like Driv3r, Asterix or even GTA Advance.