[Lord British]

I played the second for about 30 minutes and turned it off in disgust.

Because you finished it?

[dhatt1]

SA 1: Very Good.

SA 2: Not so Good.

SA 3: Very Bad :(

[Diablohead]

I quite liked one and even beat it fully with super sonic and stuff on my GBA back at release.

I disliked the second due to the game turning into a run forward and don't stop game, plus the method of getting to the special stages was borderline broken as shit.

the third one was alright but I never played it more then 2 weeks before selling all 3 games, I mostly played advance 3 on my gamecube gba player.

[KevinCow]

The first was fun, and I thought pretty close to the Genesis games in terms of gameplay.

The second one moves more in the HOLD FORWARD TO GO FAST Sonic Rush direction, but it can still be pretty fun.

The third is basically the second but less polished and with a pointless dual character gimmick. It's easily the least fun of the three, but not terrible.


I feel like a lot of the hate these games get is unfair, just because they released in the same era as the Adventures and Heroes and Shadow.

I really like the sprite work, and the music can be pretty nice too. The only real complaint I have with the series is that the whole, "Hey we see you're going fast, that's cool, so we're gonna throw some spikes or an enemy or a bottomless pit at you that you couldn't possibly react to in time," bullshit isn't exactly uncommon.

[MMaRsu]

Only played the first one that one was ok, not a lot of platforming but ok

[Pietepiet]

I think I'm the only one who really loved Sonic Advance 2. It's one of my favourite Sonic games :\

Overall, the GBA Sonic games (Battle and Pinball Party included) are pretty good. The sprite work especially is excellent. Battle has some of the best sprites and animations on the system.

[Lord British]

I think I'm the only one who really loved Sonic Advance 2. It's one of my favourite Sonic games :\

It's brilliant, I love it. The pumping music helps. One of my favourite Sonics to time attack, it just flows so well when you're good at it. Fuck the special stage requirements, but True Area 53 is sooo cool.

[NTom64]

I've played all 3, and honestly I'd have to say 2 is my favourite.

The first game is actually very fun, but the slow-pace combined with a dull selection of levels really dragged things down for me. On the plus side though, it's the one game in the Advance trilogy where you can easily get into the Special Stages (granted you need an FAQ to find some of the Springs, but it's better than 2 and 3 by a long shot).

Advance 2 had a great selection of levels, some decent music and I feel the focus on speed as opposed to classic stop-and-go platforming actually works in the game's favour for once. I'll agree that, at times, it does feel very "hold right to win", but it was a refreshing change of pace from the first game and it's the only game in the trilogy I ever felt like going back and playing again after I had completed it. Plus it's fun using Cream to absolutely cheese the hell out of the bosses!

Advance 3 takes the issues I had in the first game and magnifies them by ten. Clunky platforming, an awkward team-up mechanic that isn't really needed (it seems more like an effort to streamline the game's story as opposed to having you complete the game with all characters like in 1 and 2). some of the most boring hubs and music I've ever encountered in a Sonic game and some really dickish boss fights. I won't lie and say there wasn't any redeeming qualities about the game (I really enjoyed Cyber Track and Chaos Angel Zones, for example), but man you really need to push yourself to get that far. To this day Advance 3 remains the only Advance game where I haven't gotten all the Chaos Emeralds due to the absurd amount of collecting you have to do to get into the Special Stages.


Overall though the Advance trilogy is one of the better side-series in the Sonic franchise, and all of the games (yes, even 3) are worth playing. They're dead cheap now too, which is always a good thing haha.

[dark10x]

A trilogy of diminishing returns that featured some nice ideas, but could never bring itself to get everything right from a team whose best job remains a altered version of Sonic The Hedgehog 2 on Neo Geo Pocket Color. I can enjoy them for novelty, but I wish they were better made so I can enjoy to play through them all the way through. I also wish I could feel it's worth it to even bother for the special stages, but getting to them or bothering with Chaos just makes me sad.

I actually just added a Neo Pocket to my handheld collection recently with Sonic Pocket Adventure in tow. I was pretty disappointed in Sonic. It's still a solid little game, but man, the framerate is really awful. The game runs at 30 fps but with significant slow down all the time. It also lacks parallax scrolling of any sort.

There is a great base for a Sonic game in there, but it just wasn't technically competent.

I actually think Sonic Advance 1 is a better game all around though the rest of the series went downhill fast.

[Pietepiet]

It's brilliant, I love it. The pumping music helps. One of my favourite Sonics to time attack, it just flows so well when you're good at it. Fuck the special stage requirements, but True Area 53 is sooo cool.

Yup :) Also the reason I prefer Modern of Classic in Generations.

[RagnarokX]

Sonic Advance preserves the Genesis games' physics, but has awful, bland levels. Very boring game.

Sonic Advance 2: Speed! Speed! Speed! Level design gets even worse as all levels are designed to be downhill races. Rail grinding becomes too prominent and character choice is mostly pointless. Bosses are fought while running.

Sonic Advance 3: Remember how Knuckles Chaotix sucked? Well they tried it again! And then again with Sonic 4 Ep 2!

[Xav]

Sonic Advance: Solid but a little slow & bland.
Sonic Advance 2: Hold right to win.
Sonic Advance 3: Good, my favourite of the three games.

Sonic Pocket Adventure on the NeoGeo Pocket I remember being very good, want to give a shout out to this game because no one really played it.

Sonic Rush: Great
Sonic Rush Adventure: Less great than Sonic Rush, good overall.
Sonic Colours: Pretty good.

[Sciz]

Advance 1 is surprisingly decent until the level design drops off a cliff from Angel Island on and never looks back. In an odd twist it's most fun playing as Amy, since her mechanics force her to play much more cautiously and thereby gives the player more time to dodge Dimps' usual array of cheap shots.

Advance 2 is an idea that didn't get quite enough iteration before heading off into full development. The levels flow too well and largely feel the same. Not much difference between playing as one character over another aside from Cream wrecking bosses. Oh yeah, a whole game full of chase bosses? Bad idea.

Advance 3, in turn, is the definition of overdesigned. Sprawling levels that just aren't any fun and lack direction, an unbalanced character team-up idea that doesn't really add much and makes it difficult to actually play as any one character with all the abilities you expect, and the most unwieldy hub system they've ever managed to come up with. Much better music than the first two, though.

[Jazzem]

I actually really loved the first one, definitely one of my favourite non-Mega Drive Sonic games. 2 and 3 I liked but the level design changed to a more rampant pace which I wasn't as fond of. Still liked all three though, plus they have great visuals and music.

[Psxphile]

I remember not being too found of Sonic Advance 1. It was the first traditional-style Sonic game since Sonic & Knuckles so I was looking forward to it. Didn't quite 'wow' me, though. I'm not sure how to explain it.

Sonic Advance 2, design-wise, seems to have been a racing-type game through and through. Each act started with the characters 'getting on their marks' and taking off, each ended with a checkered flag... and the stages seemed designed to be time-trial friendly. I actually liked the idea of more rolling bosses (after S3K's Mushroom Hill boss) but some of them were pretty annoying (1HKO glove ranks among one of the cheapest boss attacks I've yet to see in any game ever... I can't even see how it was intentional, it seems more like a nasty glitch). Anyways, I liked the game for what it was... although what it was wasn't quite Mega Drive Sonic. Special Stages were definitely a pain to get in... so much so that I made myself a guide for my own use, and on a whim uploaded it to GameFAQs.

It's not very good, but for a while it was all we had.


Sonic Advance 3 seemed like a copy-paste job of Sonic Advance 2 (another Techno level?) but it incorporated a partner dynamic which was a nice idea but some combinations were just terrible (if Amy was your partner, you lost the ability to Spin Jump... waaaaaat). Finding chao was fun if a little aggravating, but at least you didn't have to do it in one go. Bosses were back to stationary... and it was at this point I was getting a little peeved about the 'wait for it to attack and expose weak-point -> get in one hit -> wait for weak-point -> one hit' boss style.

All the Advance games had decent, GBA-quality music. I think my favorite is still Chaos Angel Act 1 from Sonic Advance 3... I get a Phantom Menace's 'Duel of the Fates' vibe from it. You probably won't notice it if you're not wearing headphones.

Chaos Angel Act 1 Original

Chaos Angel Act 1 Arranged (orchestrated my ass)

Chaos Angel Act 1 Re-mastered