Sonic Advance Moving At Sonic Speed 
On The Gameboy Advance!

Written By Scott Walker

Whoa. It seems just like yesterday that I walked into my cousin's house and first experienced the glory that is Sonic the Hedgehog.

     I'll never forget what happened after spending all day playing it, I ran to my mom and begged and pleaded for her to get me a Sega Genesis for Christmas. When that day came, I fell in love with Sonic and Sega in general. Now, here we are, Sonic is 10 years old and all grown up and moved out. Sonic Advance for the Nintendo Gameboy Advance is the blue blur's first venture to a Nintendo console, and the results are sweet indeed.

     So much can be said about this game. It totally eclipses any Sonic game on the Genesis in every possible way. He moves faster, looks better and plays like a dream. Most Sonic files will argue that Sonic CD, for Sega's ill-fated Sega CD, is the best Sonic game of all time. Up until playing this game I said the same thing. However, there is mo much more to this game. Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 were a nice change, but this game is pure run-really-fast-and-make-it-to-the-end-with-all-your-rings-action and I love it. The stages, enemies and bosses all borrow from past Sonic games, but are refreshed and made longer. The sense of speed blows away what was felt on Genesis and feels awesome on the GBA. Sonic also has tons of moves. The spin dash and insta-shield return from the 16-bit days and the rolling kick and pipe grinding return from SA2.

     The graphics are some of the best the GBA has ever seen. Some may say that it is not as lush as Rayman or as colorful as Mario...but the speed is what makes it so amazing. The sprites animate amazingly, much better than those of Mario and Rayman...like a tiny little cartoon. There is no slowdown when you loose your rings either, like on the Genesis. This is high quality stuff here.

      The music and sound effects are 100% Sonic. The ring "chings"and bounce noises are just ever present and so is the up-beat rhythm of the music. There is also great multi-player modes. One cart and some link cables let you and three friends race in time attack, search for Chao or allow for Chao hook-up. The tiny Chao garden lets you raise play games and buy items for the Chao using rings you win in the main game. They can later be transferred to SA2 Battle for the GCN using a special link cable.

     So, do I have any gripes with this game? Just one. I can't stand all these stupid extra characters! Playing as Knuckles once in a while is cool...but Tails and Amy? Come on. And at least in the Sonic Adventure series they had different, albeit crappy, play styles. The space used to play as the other characters should have been used to add more levels to the game, or maybe other multi-player modes. I am all for having these characters for multi-player games, but do you play as Peach or Toad in a main Mario game? NO!

     Aside from that, Sonic Advance is the best game since Sonic and Knuckles in this flagship Sega series. If you like platformers or are just a hardcore Sonic fan, this game is for you. If not, then buy it anyway and play it till' you learn to like it!

Publisher   Sega   Developer   Sonic Team   Platform   Gameboy Advance   Player   One Player

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