Reviews

Sonic Advance

By Corey

It seems awkward reviewing a Sonic the Hedgehog title for a Nintendo site. It wasn't all that long ago I was playing the first Sonic game on the Genesis. How times have changed.

Graphics: 9

Sonic Advance is easily the best looking of the 2D Sonic games, as it should be. The characters are modeled after their Sonic Adventure designs and this is for the better. The animation is smooth and the levels have nice detail. My only complaint here is that the it is almost impossible to see anything in the beginning of the Secret Base Zone because of the GBA's transparency capabilities being put into use, but since this only lasts for a few seconds this isn't really a problem.

Gameplay: 9

The familiar fast paced action of Sonic games is back here. The goal is speed through levels collecting rings, which serve the purpose of keeping your character alive. As long as you have at least one ring, you cannot be killed by an enemy's attack. At the end of each stage's second act, you will fight Dr. Eggman (more commonly known as Dr. Robotnik). There are total of six stages.

The four playable characters - Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy - all have different abilities. Sonic is the fastest and can grind on rails. Tails can fly to higher platforms. Knuckles can climb walls and glide. These three characters all use a spin attack and a unique second move to dispose of enemies. Amy needs to use her hammer to kill her enemies. The difficulty of the game varies depends on who is being used. To completely beat the game, you must beat it with all four characters. Because of their abilities, all of the characters can take different paths through the levels. Beating the game four separate times doesn't seem like a chore because of this.

Hidden in each stage is a special springboard, which will take you to a 3D-bonus stage. Here you can collect the game's chaos emeralds. The problem is that the bonus stages can be unnecessarily hard because it is difficult to tell where exactly the rings and obstacles are. This leads to much frustration until the course is memorized.

After completing a stage in the main game, it can be tried in time attack. The only goal is to get through the stage as fast as possible. There is also a Tiny Chao Garden where you can raise a Chao on the GBA and transfer it to Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for GameCube. The Garden contains two mini-games, versions of Rock-Paper-Scissors and Memory. They are amusing for a little while but quickly become repetitive.

There are multiplayer options, but since no one I know currently owns a GBA yet I cannot comment on them.

Sound: 8

The music and sound effects are both very good. The new music tracks that maintain the Sonic feel. Some classic songs can be heard and a re-done very well. Sadly there is no familiar "SEGA!" voice when the system is turned on, but I cannot take points off for that.

Lasting Value: 5

Beating the game 100% will probably only take up to 10 hours. It could be slightly longer depending on how much trouble the bonus stages are. The Chao raising is only interesting if you have Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. The time attack may make playing the levels again more interesting. I cannot comment on any of the link or multiplayer capabilities. Those may very well bring the replay up a couple of notches if you have the means to use them.

Bottom Line

This is a very solid game while it lasts. It may not last very long, however. Unless you have people to play multiplayer with, have Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, or plan on replaying the single player mode many times it probably isn't worth the $40 asking price.

Final Score: 7.5 out of 10