Poltergust
Member
Can't wait for your thread on Sonic Advance 3. It's my favorite of the trilogy, especially in the music department. =)
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Sonic Advance 2 - Gotta Go Fast!
- Thread starter RK128
- Start date
Thank you
! I enjoyed it a lot despite some issues I have with the level design . Its music is amazing and it has my favorite version of Green Hill Zone XD!
twothunder
Member
Was always fond of Sonic advance 2 despite it's flaws.
really like the music too
that theme naming
As much as a pain as collecting all the rings was. True Area 53 was worth it for me.
One of my favorite Super sonic fights
How could anyone forget the Egg Saucer with the one hit kill slap
really like the music too
and she is named Vanilla
that theme naming
? You do get super sonic
It's a pretty badass fight. I still feel proud for wasting all my time collecting all the emeralds with every character to get everything. Never doing it again though
As much as a pain as collecting all the rings was. True Area 53 was worth it for me.
One of my favorite Super sonic fights
Fair way to look at it, nailing the timing on some of these bosses is a massive pain! Especially the one that Knuckles pilots for whatever reason
How could anyone forget the Egg Saucer with the one hit kill slap
Wow, I never thought of this and now it makes so much sense I can't believe I never thought of or encountered this thought before. Nice.
The Advance games all had a really interesting presentation and some cool ideas but I think at the time, I was still totally enamored with Genesis era sprite work despite the personality shining through with the Advance era sprites and animations. This thread is making me want to revisit SAdv2 now.
Yeah that was the one thing I missed when Dimps moved to 3D for the Sonic Rush series, a lot of the charm was lost during the transition.
That's not strange, unlike SAdv 1 and 2, the music of Sadv3 was composed by the regular mainline Sonic composers (Ohtani, Kumatani, etc). And yes, SAdv3 music was the best by far of the Advance series. Chaos Angel and Ocean Base was my shit!
Ocean Base was like
Seriously, I kind of hate Adv3 too, but DAT music.
BodiesWithoutOrgans
Member
Cream is my favourite Sonic Character
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Pretty sure you only need to collect emeralds with Sonic and Cream to unlock True Area 53 and the game's real ending. The rest are needed to unlock Amy, though. Amy's emeralds... do nothing, ha ha.
Sonic Advance 2's motif seemed to be about mimicking a marathon race, much like SMB3's is a stage play:
This and the rolling bosses seem to support this.
Also I've always been enamored with the zone title graphics in Advance 2. I love it when games get fancy with text and graphics when starting a stage.
Not just the rolling bosses. Don't forget that the cutscenes you see after unlocking a new character amount to basically Sonic running off the moment they're free
The entire game is basically about Tails, Knuckles and Cream trying to chase down Sonic, who never stands still for more than a few minutes at a time
SigmasonicX
Member
I haven't played the Sonic Advance games in many years, but I'm surprised to see several people say that the first one was better than this. I only had the first two games, but I recalled preferring the second, BS moments aside. There was a better sense of speed, especially with the running start and running bosses, and I felt like the stages were more interesting.
I remember back in the day that people got really upset about Cream, particularly in that (1) Amy wasn't playable (except as a super-difficult unlockable), (2) she had the same skills as Tails and additional unique ones, (3) she was a little kid character. I also recall several "Cream the rabbit? OK!" jokes. I was fine with her, though. As mentioned, her animations were more fun and detailed than the other characters, and later games and stories downplayed Cream. Other than Sonic X, which actually had Cream fly more than Tails somehow, and had Cream defeat Emerl during the show's Sonic Battle arc when no one else could.
I never bothered with all of the bonuses. They made unlocking things way too cumbersome. I don't believe I even reached the final boss.
I remember back in the day that people got really upset about Cream, particularly in that (1) Amy wasn't playable (except as a super-difficult unlockable), (2) she had the same skills as Tails and additional unique ones, (3) she was a little kid character. I also recall several "Cream the rabbit? OK!" jokes. I was fine with her, though. As mentioned, her animations were more fun and detailed than the other characters, and later games and stories downplayed Cream. Other than Sonic X, which actually had Cream fly more than Tails somehow, and had Cream defeat Emerl during the show's Sonic Battle arc when no one else could.
I never bothered with all of the bonuses. They made unlocking things way too cumbersome. I don't believe I even reached the final boss.
Indigo Rush
Neo Member
Man, I love Advance 2. It took the Classic formula and pushed it in a new direction that I was hoping to see more of. It's a bit too... automated at times, and some design decisions are annoying (Sonic uncurling, no bounce when rebounding off an enemy, the unreasonable Chaos Emerald requirements) and the bottomless pits are all too plentiful, but the boost mechanic is fantastic in this game, and I am frustrated that they haven't gone back to this design, instead favoring an overpowered boost meter mechanic.
All the same, I think Advance 2 is great. It's just a little rough around the edges. It has potential.
All the same, I think Advance 2 is great. It's just a little rough around the edges. It has potential.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Sonic Advance 2 sucks.
It's a game about going fast, and Sonic's physics favor running down hill as a good way to gain speed. I think it's actually really smart that the levels would be so focused on going down hill.
Complaints like these feel more like the person making them is more offended that Sonic would dare stray from the Sega Genesis formula, regardless of whether or not it was successful.
Ryouji Gunblade
Member
I second this. 2 just wasn't as great as the first one, and I preferred pretty much everything in 3.
Sonic Advance 2 sucks.
That image makes no sense as all Sonic games are going in a straight line, heck even Mario goes in a straight line.
It's a game about going fast, and Sonic's physics favor running down hill as a good way to gain speed. I think it's actually really smart that the levels would be so focused on going down hill.
Complaints like these feel more like the person making them is more offended that Sonic would dare stray from the Sega Genesis formula, regardless of whether or not it was successful.
Agreed, I really enjoyed Sonic Advance 2 as I felt pumped blazing the level as breakneck speed and doing the tricks.
The music also help as well as they set the tone perfectly.
ColtraineGF
Member
I'd also say that it's reductionist to draw a line from start to finish, right through walls/sections/etc. and say "this is a slope and slopes are bad", as if that was an actual argument against the game. It's a poor attempt at making an argument into an memetic image macro.
Straying from the Genesis formula is fine. The DS games have nothing to do with the Genesis games and they're varying degrees of good fun while being a much more elegant execution of Advance 2's ideas, aside from Rush 1 having lingering level design issues.
What isn't fine is implementing mechanics that reward the player for going fast and then making it nigh impossible to do anything but. This is the game where the "hold right to win" jokes are almost literal truth. Speed isn't a reward, it just is.
And that's boring. The fundamental left to right gameplay - under all the flash and sizzle - is boring.
If you want to sniff out the optimal path and figure out exactly when to do which tricks where, it gets more involved, but I've already wearied of that argument from talking to Sonic CD speedrunners.
The walls don't matter. In the vast majority of cases the game's designed such that there are rails and level gimmicks in place to launch you in the right direction to get around them, or it launches you straight into them on purpose so that you'll land on some slope or booster beneath them.
ColtraineGF
Member
If you're going to drop an image and a single line retort instead of actually explaining yourself, expect to get called on it.
In any case, one could only make use of speed boosting features (ramps, stretches of unbroken land, fans, etc.) if they managed to find the optimal path of the stage - you wouldn't be able to run straight through if you dropped onto the lower path of the first level for instance. The presence of rails and such doesn't imply that the entire game is a downhill hold left fest, because you have to work to maintain that momentum.
whiterabbit
Member
This is the only Sonic Advance game I have. I don't remember much about it... I'll give it another shot sometime later.
No, that's fair.
For the sake of strictly arguing the facts, I gave the first level a quick run. If you consistently hold right, it requires only five other inputs to clear, four of which are just to interact with level gimmicks. There's one real jump. There are zero badniks that will hit you on the way. And that's all with dropping down to the water level.
The second level hits the same numbers except for one monkey that could maybe peg you with a coconut depending on how quickly you get off a bouncer.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
As somebody who played Sonic Advance 2 almost to completion literally three hours ago, I'm afraid I don't agree with that at all.
The examples you're giving are being hyperbolic. What you describe would be more applicable to, say, Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal's "race" levels for the 3DS, where you are literally, actually watching the game play itself. We're talking minutes of gameplay at a time where the game straight up turns your controls off because it's showing you a cutscene of Sonic running through loops, only to give you control back just long enough to push the jump button every now and then.
Sonic Advance 2 is constantly inundating you with tons of alternate paths, and grind rails, and spikes, and pits, and trick ramps, and enemies that you're almost spoiled for choice. The more common complaint I hear about Sonic Advance 2 is that it's actually too much to deal with and the game is cheap with its difficulty.
It's the same principals that are behind games like Sonic Rush, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Generations: it's about twitch reaction timing, about hitting a sequence of cool events with accuracy and being able to execute with precision under pressure.
Except, in some ways, in Sonic Advance 2 it's even better because there's less linearity than you get in the games I just mentioned. Like, here, let's look at the very start of Leaf Forest Act 1, the very first level in the game
Now, let's trace all of the paths.
I mean, jeeze, isn't that just so boring looking? I mean, all of those choices you could make, all of the alternate routes that are available by doing this thing instead of that thing. You're right, all you do is just go fast without any substance or complexity to back it up.
Shadow Hog
Member
Honestly, I think the issues with Advance 2's level design stem less from the downward slants of the levels and more with the lack of feasible backtracking in the stage. It's all designed to keep you going forward; if you slow down to look around for hidden goodies, more often than not, you ain't findin' jack. This is somewhat antithetical to its methodology of getting to the special stages, which actually do require you to explore, in spite of the game's typical lack of good means of doing so. Missed the jump that'd have led to a Special Stage ring? Tough shit, you'll have to restart the whole stage to get a good angle for that jump again.
It's pretty good for casually speedrunning, though, once you memorize where the slip-ups are (even if, I swear to God, you're more likely to encounter said slip-ups than you are in the Genesis games, if only because the Genesis games accommodate players moving around at a slower pace and Advance 2 really doesn't). I don't think I was enamored enough with the game to reach that point, though I know I have friends here who have.
It's pretty good for casually speedrunning, though, once you memorize where the slip-ups are (even if, I swear to God, you're more likely to encounter said slip-ups than you are in the Genesis games, if only because the Genesis games accommodate players moving around at a slower pace and Advance 2 really doesn't). I don't think I was enamored enough with the game to reach that point, though I know I have friends here who have.
Sonic Advance 2 sucks.
That's such a lazy evaluation of level design. You can draw a straight line between the start and finish points of virtually any game, and doing so doesn't say much of anything about its merits. When applied to Sonic Advance 2, it's ignoring the multitude of pathways that could be potentially taken by jumping off a slope at the right time or by using tricks to reach higher or distant platforms. Despite the largely downhill design you can still usually backtrack for special rings, sometimes in unintended ways, if you use the physics properly.
Sonic Advance 2 sucks.
Gotta say I disagree buddy
. Sure, the game is very tunnel focused but you DO have higher/lower paths to explore if you want to get better times.
I enjoyed the fast-focused level design a lot honestly and while I see issues (as its different from the Genesis games), its strong enough to be a lot of fun.
It's the lack of gameplay variety that bothers me. I feel best 2D Sonic's mix up the gameplay with fast running portions and slower platforming sections with some cool stage specific gimmicks. Advance 2 just felt too repetitive as it's all run run run.
I was never into Sonic as a speed run game so this just wasn't for me.
I was never into Sonic as a speed run game so this just wasn't for me.
It was Sonic X that originally revealed her name as Vanilla, and in a bumper of all things. I don't believe it was ever actually publicized by Sega in other media (though I readily admit I'm not up-to-date with Sonic trivia for the last few years)? Hell, later in the show they have a sign outside their house that says "CREAM'S MOTHER'S HOUSE" or some shit.
I like these sketches. I miss Uekawa's drawn art style, it's all CG now.
Sonic Advance 2 sucks.
I agree with everyone else that this image is an unfair evaluation of the game, but I found it interesting in a different way. It certainly explains why Sky Canyon feels so disorienting compared to every other level.
I only wish. Like, I can provide video if I really need to, but that is Leaf Forest in a nutshell. The entire first half of the game barely gives a shit about making the player actively engage it, bosses aside. I don't reach a double digit count for required inputs until Music Plant, and the game doesn't regularly punish you for not paying attention to it until Sky Canyon, and the two zones after that regress somewhat. Not coincidentally, Sky Canyon is the only zone that isn't a perpetual downhill stretch, and it still finds space for twenty seconds of dead time on occasion.
The key difference between Advance 2 and these games is that those games demand regular input from the player even when you aren't speedrunning them. Advance 2 doesn't. It is designed to be a roller coaster no matter what you do, with only some token snags to make sure you're awake. The levels do branch quite a bit, but there isn't much design or aesthetic variance between the routes. Running along the bottom is generally a slightly slower coaster with more springs and less favorable grind rails.
When your only options are success and faster success, then aiming for faster success is the only way that the game is engaging. And if that's the case, then fuck it, stop beating around the bush and just make faster success the explicit goal.
It IS a transitional game in many respects; shifting away from the Classic style into the Modern 2D Boost Style, so the game being so tunnel focused makes sense.
I will agree the level design has issue and its a shame that some levels like Sky Canyon can be really damn cheap X(. But its just fun to run fast sometimes
. Even if platforming is sorta out of the picture, at least the game does SPEED right if they ditch platforming as a focus. ......Will touch on that element when I get to Advance 3, as I have a lot to say about its level design :l.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
I'll go ahead and record the video for you:
Here's 8:23 of me playing the first two levels of Sonic Advance 2. (Somewhat poorly, but I am out of practice)
And, for the sake of comparison, here's 5:59 of me playing two and a half levels of Sonic Rush. (Pretty well, but not S-Rank worthy)
You claim that Sonic Rush is fine and Sonic Advance 2 is too boring and straightforward, but honestly, I don't see much of a difference here (outside of the obvious mechanical things, but we're talking general gameplay flow here and how much time you spend running without stopping).
If anything, I'd say Sonic Advance 2 looks more complex, because there's a much greater focus on building up and maintaining speed (as opposed to just jamming on the boost button) and using its trick system for traversal rather than getting meter. Even the levels seem more intricately designed.