Sonic Advance
Score: 95% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: THQ Developer: Sonic Team Media: Cart/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: The GBA is quickly becoming my favorite system. Yeah, the bigger consoles have all the poly counts and fancy doo-dads and bullet-time effects; but in less than a year, I've played more enjoyable games on my little GBA that I have on my other 'bigger' consoles. I mean, no matter how much loyalty you have to one system or company, it is hard to argue that the GBA doesn't have an impressive line up of titles. It has two Mario games, a new Castlevania, F-Zero, Tony Hawk and now it gets to add one new banner name to its ranks: Sonic. Graphically, Sonic Advance doesn't take the GBA to new heights of graphical quality. But I'm not complaining and neither should you. Sonic is the same great looking 2D game it was on the Genesis, only now it has been kicked up a notch with all of the attitude and style seen in Sonic's 3D adventures. All of the character animations are excellently done - even the little movements such as getting too close to the edge of a ledge show character. You would expect that with a name like Sonic, the game would have good sound. Well, Sonic Advance doesn't disappoint. However, while the sound is top-notch, I didn't find the background music as catchy as previous titles. To this day, I can still hum the background music from Act 1 in the first Sonic, or the tune to the Casino Night zone - but for the life of me I can't recall even a note from any of the level music in Sonic Advance. But then again, you only need that familiar chime when you collect the rings, right?
Gameplay: Once again, the evil Eggman is at it again (apparently he hasn't been himself after the Walrus left), and it's up to Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy to stop him. Not exactly a gripping, movie of the week story - but I challenge anyone to show me a Sonic game with a deep, or at least coherent, plot. The one major thing I noticed about this Sonic more than any other I have played was that this one seemed to place more of an emphasis on exploration. Whereas the other games were all about running through the levels and never looking back, the level designs in Sonic Advance aren't designed to have too many areas for pure speed. In fact, if you want to collect the Chaos Emeralds, you had better get to searching, since finding the bonus levels are hard. Another interesting thing I noticed was how each of the different characters responds to obstacles in each level. For example, you may come across a wall that you can't jump over. If you are playing with Knuckle's, you can easily climb over the wall, however if you are playing with Sonic, you will have to find a springboard or find another way around it. As if the great single player mode wasn't enough - Sonic Advance packs in a whole slew of extras. There are multiplayer races to find Chaos hidden in various levels as well as the Chao Garden, which allows you to link up to your GameCube and play with your little bundle of joy wherever you go. The link feature was probably the one feature about the game I was disappointed with. I'm sure raising digital pets is a fun hobby for some people - it just happens that I'm not one of those people. I would have liked to see a little more interaction between the two games - like maybe doing something in one game would unlock a level or mode in another, or have one of the enhancements (like Sonic's Light Shoes) transfer over. Hopefully, we'll see more interesting uses in the future.
Difficulty: Like every Sonic before it, this one is a nice blend of easy and difficult levels. Some boards were a breeze to whip through, while others took a little time to beat. As I mentioned before, trying to find all the bonus stages is a difficult task, but searching is still fun enough that you won't get frustrated and quit. I did find the bonus stages to be a bit of a challenge. Of course they weren't as frustrating as those 'pinball' like ones found in Sonic 1, but they are tough. The character you choose to play with also greatly effects the difficulty of some levels since some abilities lend themselves better to some situations than others.
Game Mechanics: Sonic has never been known to have a difficult control scheme to master, but over the years the little blue guy has picked up a few new moves. I do, however, suggest spending a few moments with the instruction manual since learning how to do some of the moves could mean life-or-death in some situations; such as Sonic's 'air-slide' maneuver. To be perfectly honest with you, Sega could have just pulled a 'Nintendo' and ported over an old Genesis Sonic game and I would have been just as happy with it. Instead they gave us a brand-new adventure which is completely worthy of its 2D legacy and one that every GBA owner should have in their library - regardless of whether you can take advantage of the GC link up or not. Well...what are you waiting for?
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
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