Sonic Advance - The Triumphant Debut of Sonic on the GameBoy Advance
Written: Dec 23 '02 (Updated Aug 04 '04)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: great grahics, 39 songs, classic Sonic gameplay with a new twist, great multi-player
Cons: only 12 levels, Tiny Chao Garden is a bit pointless
The Bottom Line: Sonic and his pals go from the Sega systems to the GBA. They have never looked better and this is one of the best portable Sonic games of all-time.
|
|
|
| vadimio's Full Review: Sonic Advance for Game Boy Advance |
With the arrival of Sonic Advance 2 in Japan last week, I have decided to review the first Sonic game for a Nintendo hand-held console, the GameBoy Advance. Sonic Advance is developed by Dimps and published by THQ and Sega. Some old-timers get goosebumps when the see Sega, written on their Nintendo GC and GBA games, but you should get over it by now.
Sonic is known by many as the unofficial mascot of Sega, and everyone is familiar with his trademark fast-paced adventures. Well, this game is no exception.
Story: This is a platform game, therefore you do not expect for a great plot. This game is just like any other.
Dr. Eggman (a.k.a. Robotnik) has stolen the Chaos Emeralds and it is up to Sonic and his pals to annihilate Eggman, find the Emeralds and save some animals along the way. Not very stimulating, but atleast the intro, which reveals the plot, had nice graphics.
Gameplay: The key to this game is gameplay and as you probably know, Sonic is all about pure gameplay. In Sonic Advance, you can play as either Sonic the hedgehog, or one of his three acquaintances, Tails, Knuckles or Amy. Each character has their own unique ability. Sonic can do what he was always capable of doing, curling into a ball and flying past everything with blazing speed. Tails, the coolest other than to Sonic, can use his two tails to use them as propellers and fly for a short time, thus going places where you could not before. Amy has a huge hammer, which can do a lot of damage, but she is the slowest of all the characters. Finally, there’s Knuckles, who can cling to walls and go up or down them. As you can see, each character has their own abilities, which make the game really fun.
A great thing about this game is that all of the levels are brand new, even though some locations are familiar, and this is good because one can get tired with too many ports. There are six zones in this game, and each zone consists of two acts, therefore there are 12 acts overall. An act is a level, and 12 levels isn’t much. But each zone has each own design and look to it, thus making them unique. I will talk about these zones in the graphics section.
The point of the game is to complete the levels. It is possible to beat the levels by taking a boring route and finishing as fast as you can, but then you won’t experience all of the fun. If you explore the levels, you will find a lot of interesting things. The first things to collect are the golden rings. The more rings you have when you complete a level, the higher your score. You might thing that is easy, but if you get hit by enemy or touch a spike, all of your rings ‘fly’ out into every possible direction. This is extremely annoying if you just collecting 100 coins, but if you don’t have any coins and you get attacked, you will lose a life and start the level over. If you have atleast 1 coin, you will be fine.
You can collect more than just coins in this game. There are several power-ups to obtain if you look for them. These goodies are usually shaped like bubbles or hexagons, and you must jump on them (just like you would to kill an enemy) to get them. The different power-ups include bonus lives (always handy), some extra rings for you, invincibility for a few seconds and a bubble, that only disappears if you get hit by an enemy, which pulls in all of the rings to you if you are nearby. That is a cool thing.
But the hardest thing to collect is the Chaos Emeralds. Within each zone, if you are really lucky, you will find a large spring, and if you jump on it, you are taken to an extremely difficult mini-game. This mini-game is like a 3D Star Wars game, because you go down a tunnel and must collect a certain amount of rings, without bumping into the walls; otherwise, you lose your rings. This game is a great way to earn rings but if you get the certain amount, you receive a Chaos Emerald and if you collect all 7, you will unlock something. I have not collected all 7 emeralds; therefore, I am not sure what to expect.
At the end of the Second Act of each Zone, you must face the boss- Dr. Eggman. Each time he has some new machinery, which you must overcome by dodging his attack while attacking him. These can be very easy but they can be very hard. In the first level, for example, he in some tank-like device with a big hammer, and you must run away from the hits and while the hammer is raised, hit him. This is fairly easy but in the Ice Mountain Zone, you are underwater, and he is shooting icicles at you. You must climb up these icicles to get some air, or else you will faint and die and then hit Eggman, no easy task. It is easy with Tails because you just fly up and hit him, but very difficult with the other characters.
I also found a cool code, not really a cheat, which helps you a lot. If you want to, you can have Tails aid Sonic. According to the gamefaq guide: “Sonic Advance has a hidden mode which will allow you to play as Sonic while Tails tags along behind you! First, start the game normally until you reach the Character select screen. Highlight Sonic and press Up. Next, go to Tails and press Down. Then, go to Knuckles and press the L Shoulder Button and finally Amy and press R Shoulder Button. Go back to Sonic and select him. If you did it correctly, you will hear a ''Ring'' sound before you reach the Stage Select screen. Have Fun!” This code really works but you can only control Sonic and this code cannot be used with any other characters.
But if you think that this is where the fun stops, then you are gravely mistaken my friend. That is only the first mode of play! Another mode that is included in this game is Time Attack, and the objective is to complete the level as fast as you can. You select your character and level and try to improve your timer. This mode is very addicting and you are satisfied even if you only shaved off a few hundredths of a second.
Then there is a VS mode, which is a multi-player function. You can play multi-player even if you only have 1 cartridge between you. If you have a cartridge and your friend doesn’t you can still link (with up to 3 other people) and play a simple level where the winner is the one who collects the most rings. This is one of the best single cartridge multi-player games I have played. But if everyone has a copy of this game, and they should because this is a great game, you can play two different great games. The first game is Race, where you pick any level and the person who finishes first, wins. The other game is Chao Hunt where you play tag and everyone attempts to wager to get the Chao. It is a little bit confusing, but really fun if you understand what you must do.
Finally, there is a mode called the Tiny Chao Garden. I do not like this feature but if you liked raising a “virtual pet”, then you will like this. I think it is a waste of time but many people seem to love it. You hatch a little pet from an egg, an look after it, buy it new toys, feed it by buying fruits, teach it to play the trumpet and play mini-games with it. The mini-games are rather dull: you can play Rock-Paper-Scissors or you can play a Memory game. What fun. If you are fortunate enough to own a GameCube and a copy of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, you can link up your GBA and GC and you can transport your Chao to the big screen. You can then use rings from the GBA game to buy some toys from ‘the black market’ or go to the Chao races.
Graphics/Sound: This year platform games on the GBA look great, especially SMA3, Kirby game and Sonic Advance. This game is a pleasure to look at. Each stage has its own design and they all look great. The backgrounds are awesome and the enemies are nice. One of the brightest stages is the very first, because you are on a beach, the ocean is in the background, and in the foreground there are palm trees, beautiful green plants and everything is bright and visually stimulating. The Ice Mountain Zone looks a lot like the setting in the new James Bond flick, Die Another Day. Everything is so little blue and white, with snow falling, water if you fall, and you are mesmerized by the translucent beauty of it all. Another zone, named Casino Paradise, is very interesting because there are bumpers and flippers everywhere, so you are sent flying in all different like a pinball, and the background looks like a carnival. One level is completely dark expect for a spotlight, which is on your character the entire time, which is really cool. There are other acts, where you are in the clouds and the clouds and sky are drawn exceptionally well. The characters themselves are very detailed, and you can clearly distinguish every characteristic on their body. If a character jump or shoots up after hitting a spring, you can actually see a clear difference in his body position. There are many great-looking platform games in 2002, and Sonic Advance is definitely one of them.
The sound is this game is awesome. There are 39 different songs in this game, which were present in other Sonic games, and you can listen to them in the sound test. Each song blends well with the levels. In the cheery beach levels, the music is very merry, in the spy levels you have creepy music while the Casino Paradise Zone has music that you would hear at the carnival. The actual in-games sounds are fairly nice, and the sound that you hear when Sonic or one of his pals collects a ring is just like the Sega Sonic games, so everything will be happy.
Overall, Sonic Advance is a great game. The main mode will takes you about 5-8 hours to beat with one character, but you will probably want to beat it with every character, so there is ever more gameplay. The Time Attack mode will keep you busy for hours and if even if you don’t have a friend with a copy of the game, you can still play multi-player for hours on end. Finally, for those who like “virtual pets” and/or have a GameCube who can play with your little Chao until you get brainwashed.
Sonic Advance is definitely one of the best games of the year, and is just as fun as the Mario and Kirby games that came out. Any Sega fan, Sonic fan, platform game person should definitely but this game, and if you have never played a Sonic game, I recommend it.
Sonic Advance 2 was released in Japan last week and I have seen some screenshots. I am really looking forward to that game and even though there has yet to be an official release date, I think it will the shelves in the USA sometime around May or June. But some impatient people might consider importing it, because it is a very import friendly game. This is because in the Japanese game, when you start the game, you can choose to play in English rather than Japanese. But even if it is in Japanese, there was nearly no dialogue in Sonic Advance and you can figure out what you need to do by yourself.
Thanks for reading,
V
Related Reviews:
Sonic Advance 2
Sonic Advance 3
Sonic Battle
Sonic Heroes
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
vadimio
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Location: DC
Reviews written: 140
Trusted by: 204 members
About Me:
About to reach 250,000 visits - shortly followed by a return to this site!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.