[ReL0aDed]

Sonic Advance 1 - I enjoyed this game quite a bit, but unfortunately the zones were way to short (not counting that big-ass zone with the spaceship, that's huuuge). The special stages were insanely difficult, and it took ages to find the special stage springs that were very well hidden. An enjoyable and short game overall, but not my favorite on the GBA.

Sonic Advance 2 - Even though this game is faster than your ass, it's a fun trip. Sky Canon Act 1 was painful at first, before I knew the special moves I could use to progress further. Techno Base was awesome, and the music in the Hot Crater Zone was pretty memorable and cheerful. I did however never manage to enter the Special Stages in this game, and that was no surprise after watching tutorials on YouTube. Talk about memorizing! I think this was a fun and fast game, and not as bad as people say it is.

Sonic Advance 3 - This game was AWESOME. I enjoyed pretty much everything about this game, the unique level-select stages, chao collecting (adds replay-value), the level layout, the music (Twinkle Snow sounds epic) and the design. I prefer collecting chao's or searching for giant rings a lot more than being forced to have 50 rings or more to enter the special stages (darn spikes and projectile-shooting enemies). This game was neither too fast or too slow being a Sonic game in my opinion, and the special stages were not as insanely difficult as in the first Sonic Advance game. My favorite in the Advance-series.

[DalekSam]

I fucking love Advance. It's the first 2D Sonic platformer I've played (yes, that says a lot about me), and I constantly find myself returning to it. I might find the game way too easy as I've beaten the game here and back again, and another time for kicks - with all the Chaos Emeralds every time. The special stages; at first, they seem impossible, but once you've figured out how they work, they're a walk in the park. Legit challenge for the emeralds - I love this game. It's a masterpiece, just like it's brother, Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Fun fact, by the way, I beat Sonic 3K 100% before I did Advance.

[SpeedStarTMQ]

I loved each and every Sonic Advance game. Sonic Advance 2 brought me back onto the Sonic scene at Christmas time '03, and it was in every way as perfect and as enjoyable as the classics. I found every single Advance game a pleasure to play, and it was also mega exciting to be able to play as Amy, who I had not really seen since playing Sonic CD on my PC back in 1996. It took ages to unlock her in Advance 2, but it was worth it.

When I decided to get Advance afterwards, I was also blown away by the use of the original theme, it was just really impressive.

I've actually got some really good times on Advance 2 since I bought it. Can any of you beat these?








There are things the Advance games have that Sonic 4 doesn't incorporate, like the ability to keep your score, and they're also a lot more challenging. I love these games, I really do. The music is just amazing, and the art for the characters is how Sonic should always be drawn, and how things should always look. Robotnik even looks classic with his new design! There was none of that 'play any level you want' rubbish. I remember at least 8 or so of my friends had Advance 2, as well as my younger brothers, and they just could not beat either Sky Canyon or Techno Base. Those were the days when you'd stay on a level until you manned up.

This post has been edited by SpeedStarTMQ: 17 October 2010 - 10:26 AM

[Sonicandtails]

Am I the only one sick of seeing these appreciation topics?

I liked Sonic Advance and 2 when I was young. 3 was the first Sonic game I ever got that I didn't beat.

[Player One]

Advance 1: This was a great game, but I somehow expected more from it. They levels were missing all those secret passages and things that I liked in the earlier games
Also, they could have made the way of getting to the Special Stages a bit easier; hunting through the levels for a damned easy-to-miss spring that you can only use ONCE...

Advance 2: I had to buy this one second-hand, because I came to the party late and could find this title absolutely nowhere brand-new. The previous owner of the game managed to get all of the other characters (except Amy), but didn't get ANY of the Chaos Emeralds. I had the same problem, and had to get one of those Prima guidebooks to finish off the job <shame>. I feel bad for the last person who owned it, though, because the Tiny Chao Garden turned out to have a five-figure ring tally when I unlocked it!

Advance 3: I liked the teaming-up - it seemed like a logical progression of the Chaotix-style of play, except the second character actually added something useful to the setup instead of just being ballast. I also liked hunting out the Chao and the Special Stage keys in each Zone - until I got down to the last Chao that I just couldn't find...
Otherwise, it was a weird chapter in the series, what with the hub-levels and unusual gameplay. And let's not forget you get to team up with Eggman in the final stage.

Battle: I've never really got into the battle-style of gaming, and though this was interesting enough for me to finish the whole game, having to grind through battle after battle just to try and get a rare attack-card is just a bridge too far for me. I think I only have about a fifth of the total list of attack moves.

Pinball Party: I really liked this one! It has three games in it, one based on Sonic Advance, one for Nights, and one for Samba De Amigo (which is a bit trickier than the other two). This game had enough replay value and sub-games to keep me occupied for much longer than the other titles did, but maybe I just like pinball sims that much.

By the way... did anyone else here use the GBA games to raise any Chao, and port them over to the GameCube for use in Sonic Adventure? It was an interesting idea, and gave the GBA games a bit of extra life (Rings you collect can be spent on food and toys for your very own pet Chao).

[SpeedStarTMQ]

By the way... did anyone else here use the GBA games to raise any Chao, and port them over to the GameCube for use in Sonic Adventure? It was an interesting idea, and gave the GBA games a bit of extra life (Rings you collect can be spent on food and toys for your very own pet Chao).

I did, and I loved the way you could have the chao on the go, then see them in full 3D. I had mates who would come over with memory cards to battle (Well, it happened once or twice), and it was awesome.

[MarkoMan]

*time attack pics*

You Wanna Be Starting Somethin'?



Although, sir, I have no idea how you beat Leaf Forest 2, in 40 seconds. lol
Also, I played it on an emulator. No cheatin, I promise.

Edit: I'm looking at your Boss times and I totally cannot grasp how your Sonic beats bosses faster than my Cream. wtflol

Edit 2: One more...



Now I'm hyped... we need a Sonic Advance 2 leader board.

This post has been edited by MarkoMan: 17 October 2010 - 12:14 PM

[SpeedStarTMQ]

*time attack pics*

You Wanna Be Starting Somethin'?



Although, sir, I have no idea how you beat Leaf Forest 2, in 40 seconds. lol
Also, I played it on an emulator. No cheatin, I promise.

Edit: I'm looking at your Boss times and I totally cannot grasp how your Sonic beats bosses faster than my Cream. wtflol

Edit 2: One more...



Now I'm hyped... we need a Sonic Advance 2 leader board.

How the hell did you get a faster time LF Act 1?

I'm awesome at LF Act 2, I used to spend hours on it when I got the game

I'm also remarkably good at bosses, and surprised even myself, hence why I put up my times in confidence! Bravo for beating my Act 1 score though And also, I'm loving your Hot Crater time, beaten me by a good few seconds on that!

I use my GBA, but I took photos on my GameBoy Player, as my TV is pretty photogenic

Yeah, we need a Sonic Advance 2 leaderboard.

This post has been edited by SpeedStarTMQ: 17 October 2010 - 12:26 PM

[Namo]

I never played Sonic Advance for a large amount of time. I got it for my birthday one year along with Sonic Pinball Party (it was one of those 2 in 1 carts), and I spent more time playing Pinball Party. I did play Sonic Advance long enough to finish it with Sonic. If that seems like a while, it's really not - I wasn't aware the game had special stages until five minutes ago.

I hear good things about it a lot though, but for the life of me I just can't play it for very long before I lose interest. Something about it just feels off to me.

Sonic Battle though... Goddamn, I play that shit for hours.

[Overlord]

Advance 1 - Easily the best title in everything but the special stages, this played great, had memorable levels, reachable special stages (though the stages themselves are annoying) and is my favourite of the whole set.

Advance 2 - Fucking horrible. From the running boss battles (OK, one or two are alright, but by and large...) to the level designs (oh god, don't even get me started on Sky Canyon), this game is dire. The Bitchslap Of Death meant it took me 20 or 30 attempts to beat that boss (and still did, the last time I tried it), and the fact the final boss is a boss rush of all the previous ones means I've only ever beaten this game as Cream. The special stages are near impossible to enter, due to having to memorise the placement of those 7 stupid emblem things (I have done so exactly ONCE, and that was using GameFAQs, and then I promptly died anyway), and the whole thing is just.... uuuurgh.

Advance 3 - MUCH better than the previous go. The team mechanic is an interesting new idea (albiet largely pointless - it takes away moves as often as it gives them. For the most part I only ever play as Sonic & Tails), the special stage entry requirements are more sane (though the hunt-down-the-7-things is still present, you only need to do it ONCE for each Chao, meaning no level memorisation), the special stages themselves are FANTASTIC (easily my favourite of the three), and though the levels aren't as good as the first game it still isn't a bad title.

[Mad Echidna]

I really enjoyed Sonic Advance 1 and 2, I especially like some of the music in Sonic Advance 2. However I think that one of the main hallmarks of DIMPS style Sonic is that the gameplay is reactive instead of proactive. When I play genuine Sonic Team games from the 90s I feel empowered by the level design. For the most part the zone are playgrounds for Sonic, and the action is player driven. On the other side of the coin is DIMPS style gameplay, which I also saw in some parts of Sonic 4: the levels dictate the action, not the player. Sonic is thrown about by level gimmick after gimmick and you don't really get that same feeling of being in control, you're just responding to random stuff that is involuntarily tossing you about the screen.

[The Game Collector]

I really enjoyed Sonic Advance 1 and beat it the day I got it. I even eventually got all the emeralds in that one although it was frustrating. I think I used Tails to fly to all of the hidden emerald locations. I thought it was awesome to see Sonic on a Nintendo system. I even raised a Chao in the Tiny Chao Garden to LV 99 all stats and used that one to earn the remaining emblems in Sonic Adventure DX. It easily won all of the competitions.

Sonic Advance 2 I thought was really fun. It had a few hard parts, but I was able to get past them. After getting Sonic Advance 2 I think I actually enjoyed being able to run through levels so fast in a sidescroller. Some of the bosses were frustrating though, and trying to find all the special rings in a level seemed to tedious. This was the first game where I decided not to even try to get all the Emeralds because once I did find a special stage I didn't like it or do well.

Sonic Advance 3 was just ok. It wasn't very memorable to me and I died a lot in comparison to the first two. Again I didn't try to go into all the special stages. I don't even remember what zones were in this game apart from the city stage in the beginning and the Green Hill Zone lookalike later in the game.

This post has been edited by The Game Collector: 17 October 2010 - 04:28 PM

[Maxd]

By the way... did anyone else here use the GBA games to raise any Chao, and port them over to the GameCube for use in Sonic Adventure? It was an interesting idea, and gave the GBA games a bit of extra life (Rings you collect can be spent on food and toys for your very own pet Chao).

I did, and I loved the way you could have the chao on the go, then see them in full 3D. I had mates who would come over with memory cards to battle (Well, it happened once or twice), and it was awesome.

For all of you pros out there:

Play Sonic Advance 2 as Sonic, and beat Hot Crater acts 1 and 2 and get all the special rings, beat the special stages. The rings you pick up in there go to the chao garden. I could easily get over 2000 rings in 15 minutes back when I had this game.

[Qjimbo]

Sonic Advance 1 is one of my favourite sonic games, I have memories associated with that game the same way I do with the original series, especially because I got a GBA to TV adaptor at the time.
I wasn't so impressed with the sequels though, as I talked about my reviews of the series.

[Diablohead]

I never used an advance chao garden since I never owned sonic adventure DX for long but I use to take my chao on a VMU to school, that shit was hot and battling friends chao was awesome, I also use to play a tetris clone on it, it was such a great handheld / memory card I miss those days.