[Ashram]

Yeah, I'm truly shocked that Nintendo or Sega hasn't tried to port the Advance games over to another system. I'm sure they're old enough to not have to worry about being "delisted" and I remember them doing at least fairly well, ratings wise.

[SomeSortOfRobot]

You think we'll ever see the Advance games again?

Do you think we'll ever see Game Boy Advance games again?

Probably in Virtual Console form.

and I'm sure there are a few ports of GBA games on DS... coughphoenixwrightcough

[Overlord]

But game boy was supposed to be Nintendo's third tier! Anybody remember that?

Did anybody even believe that when they said it?

No, it was utter bollocks intended to keep the Game Boy line alive as an abort option in case DS crashed and burned horribly. Nothing more.

[Hayate]

Sonic Advance is Sonic 4. And is awesome.

That over-hyped downloadable game doesn't exist, they repeated the same mistake they made when they called the 2006 game "Sonic the Hedgehog".

/flamebait

[Zephyr]

Sonic Advance 1 is more Sonic 4 to me than Dimps' nice little $15 flash game will ever be.

But really, I love the first Advance game. After a few years of not playing Sonic at all, due to our Sega Genesis being lost in storage and me not being able to afford a Dreamcast, Advance 1 is actually the game that got me back into the series back in 2002. It really feels like the next logical step in 2D Sonic evolution to me (save for the absence of Elemental Shields and Super Forms); special moves, added an innovative fourth playable character, new depth to Tails' and Knuckles' abilities (IE Tails actually swimming while "flying" underwater, and Knux's ability to tread water), and of course the ricochet-off-of-an-enemy-and-gain-massive-air physics. Didn't mind the grinding so much in this game, and I kind of liked how it was limited to Sonic and Amy. Mecha Knuckles fight was probably my favorite boss fight. This was the only Advance game where I actually hunted for Emeralds, and the most I've ever acquired was 4.

In my opinion the series gradually dropped in quality with every entry. I liked Advance 2, but it was meh enough to me to not think twice about giving it to my niece as a birthday present. It could be fun, but got boring to me after 10 minutes or so. Sky Canyon is the bane of my existence. It really ticked me off to learn that you had to get ALL of the Chaos Emeralds with EVERY character to unlock Amy and the Chao Garden, especially considering how difficult it was to even ENTER the damn Special Stages...

Advance 3 never really grew on me. One thing that still irks me to this day is that I never managed to unlock Cream. I did what I was supposed to do to unlock her, but it just never worked for me.

[Dark Sonic]

Advance 3 never really grew on me. One thing that still irks me to this day is that I never managed to unlock Cream. I did what I was supposed to do to unlock her, but it just never worked for me.

You have to beat the level with Sonic as the lead to unlock Cream. I think the level was the 3rd act of that cyber zone

[E-122-Psi]

Sonic Advance 1 is more Sonic 4 to me than Dimps' nice little $15 flash game will ever be.

But really, I love the first Advance game. After a few years of not playing Sonic at all, due to our Sega Genesis being lost in storage and me not being able to afford a Dreamcast, Advance 1 is actually the game that got me back into the series back in 2002. It really feels like the next logical step in 2D Sonic evolution to me (save for the absence of Elemental Shields and Super Forms); special moves, added an innovative fourth playable character, new depth to Tails' and Knuckles' abilities (IE Tails actually swimming while "flying" underwater, and Knux's ability to tread water), and of course the ricochet-off-of-an-enemy-and-gain-massive-air physics. Didn't mind the grinding so much in this game, and I kind of liked how it was limited to Sonic and Amy. Mecha Knuckles fight was probably my favorite boss fight. This was the only Advance game where I actually hunted for Emeralds, and the most I've ever acquired was 4.

In my opinion the series gradually dropped in quality with every entry. I liked Advance 2, but it was meh enough to me to not think twice about giving it to my niece as a birthday present. It could be fun, but got boring to me after 10 minutes or so. Sky Canyon is the bane of my existence. It really ticked me off to learn that you had to get ALL of the Chaos Emeralds with EVERY character to unlock Amy and the Chao Garden, especially considering how difficult it was to even ENTER the damn Special Stages...

Advance 3 never really grew on me. One thing that still irks me to this day is that I never managed to unlock Cream. I did what I was supposed to do to unlock her, but it just never worked for me.

The fact that Knuckles and Tails got further expansion to their abilities while Sonic's were actually downgraded (no elemental shields and I don't think the insta shield makes him invincible either) kinda bugged me. His unique abilities in all three titles seemed kinda meek and overspecific (eg. grind and ground pound you can use in all of a handful of areas, an extremely low radius homing attack that was useless at high speeds and ineffective on too many objects, in comparison to Cream's game breaking homing chao attack). One of my biggest peeves with the 2D games was how they seemed to discourage you from playing as the weaker title character (ironic considering all the flak the 3D ones get for doing similar things, at least he has homing attack to balance it off in those).

This post has been edited by E-122-Psi: 01 November 2010 - 09:47 PM

[Zephyr]

Advance 3 never really grew on me. One thing that still irks me to this day is that I never managed to unlock Cream. I did what I was supposed to do to unlock her, but it just never worked for me.

You have to beat the level with Sonic as the lead to unlock Cream. I think the level was the 3rd act of that cyber zone

That's the thing though - I beat every level with Sonic in the lead, unless I'm simply mistaken (which certainly isn't outside the realm of possibility).

[Sparks]

I think it has to be Sonic + Tails specifically.

[Spatula]

I wouldn't call Sonic Advance 1 the real 'Sonic 4'. It's the best game they came out with in the 15 years following Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It's a decent 2D platformer that holds its own against the 8 and 16 bit games. It's still a handheld though and it feels like a mini-sonic game rather than a full fledged title.

Sonic Adventure 1 was the only game that ever felt like a real genuine effort to try to top S3&K, and that's why I think of it as Sonic 4. Of course, the effort failed and it's a game full of boring levels and bad camera shenanigans. Still, after that it felt like they weren't even trying and I still don't think they are.

[MarkoMan]

The fact that Knuckles and Tails got further expansion to their abilities while Sonic's were actually downgraded (no elemental shields and I don't think the insta shield makes him invincible either) kinda bugged me. His unique abilities in all three titles seemed kinda meek and overspecific (eg. grind and ground pound you can use in all of a handful of areas, an extremely low radius homing attack that was useless at high speeds and ineffective on too many objects, in comparison to Cream's game breaking homing chao attack). One of my biggest peeves with the 2D games was how they seemed to discourage you from playing as the weaker title character (ironic considering all the flak the 3D ones get for doing similar things, at least he has homing attack to balance it off in those).

In Sonic Advance 2, Sonic had the fastest tricks. That, combined with his air dash, made him the fastest character to play with if I'm not mistaken.

In Sonic Advance 3... well, yeah, Sonic kinda sorta got the short end of the stick, but I actually play Sonic + Cream the most.

[Volpino]

In Sonic Advance 3... well, yeah, Sonic kinda sorta got the short end of the stick, but I actually play Sonic + Cream the most.

Gotta love that bubble shield she gives Sonic.

Advance 3 is my favorite out of the GBA games, the character abilities were awesome and I liked the emerald gimmick. I'm still looking for them all, but I've managed to find one, and once you do, the special stages are a cakewalk compared to SA1 which was just cheap with special stages. I know I got those rings, but it didn't always register so I thought that part of the game was broken. Plus, if you fail, which I did a lot, you had to go find the spring again, one of which is impossible to get to as anyone but Tails (the one in the first level) and the only other one I found was in the sky level by accident and I could never relocate it, and after a while, I gave up.

I do like Advance 1 for its levels and characters though, that code to have Tails follow Sonic was a nice touch, too bad you couldn't make him pick you up. I never experienced multiplayer but it was one thing I really wanted to do in either Advance 1 and 3. The chao garden is one reason I still own the original cartridge (and my SP), it being the best way to fatten up the little bastards before they turn 2 and evolve on me.

Advance 2 just sucks, period. I put it down at the canyon level. I hated the boss fights because I thought they were all too hard and repetitive, I couldn't figure out how to get the emeralds, and I had to beat the game with Sonic just to unlock the chao garden. That canyon level is impossible as Sonic. And the characters were just unbalanced. Obviously Sonic wouldn't be anyone's first choice, but then again, he never was for me, but why be Tails when Cream can fly for longer and why even try to unlock Knuckles? He can't climb anymore so that's a - and you're better off with either Cream or Tails Cream. The only balance is that the easiest character gives you the worst reward and the hardest gives you the best, and that's a horrible balance considering you have to beat the game with all the emeralds with each character. They even messed up Tails and Knuckles in favor of Cream, Tails only flew for five seconds instead of 9/10 and I've already covered Knuckles.

But all three games have awesome art and music, I used to pop in a cart just to listen to the sound test on the bus or on long car rides.

There's that Flash game everyone loves called Ultimate Flash Sonic, which is popular as I understand it, but I think it's a piece of shit for the sheer fact that it's made off Advance 2 except more broken and only containing 2 levels (last time I played anyway), so I don't think anything even made off Advance 2 is enjoyable.

I think Dimps should use the character sprites from Advance 3 in Sonic 4. I said Advance 3 specifically because they're less sloppy than the last two games. I'm not saying the other two sprites were bad, but the art quality only improved as the games went on, and from my time with messing with sprites, I remember a lot of strange deformations in Advance 1's sprites. (Such as one of Sonic's snowboard poses looking warped by how he's bending or the fact that Tails' tails don't spin when he's at full speed) but of course, this will never happen, as it's probably faster and cheaper to render from horrible models.

This makes me want to go dig around for a Gameboy pallet...

[Ashram]

Well, technically, you don't HAVE to beat Advance 2 with all of the Chaos Emeralds for each character, only if you want the extra stuff.

Beat the game with all Chaos Emeralds once: Unlock Chao Garden
Twice: Sound Test
Thrice: Boss Time Attack
Four times: Unlock Amy
Five times: Nothing! Bragging rights.

[Volpino]

Well, technically, you don't HAVE to beat Advance 2 with all of the Chaos Emeralds for each character, only if you want the extra stuff.

Beat the game with all Chaos Emeralds once: Unlock Chao Garden
Twice: Sound Test
Thrice: Boss Time Attack
Four times: Unlock Amy
Five times: Nothing! Bragging rights.

That was what I meant; the unlockables. Besides, whatever happened to "OMG getting all teh emroldz = SUPAR SAWNIK! (and co.?)" I would think beating the game once with each character would have been sufficient.

[Ashram]

Well, technically, you don't HAVE to beat Advance 2 with all of the Chaos Emeralds for each character, only if you want the extra stuff.

Beat the game with all Chaos Emeralds once: Unlock Chao Garden
Twice: Sound Test
Thrice: Boss Time Attack
Four times: Unlock Amy
Five times: Nothing! Bragging rights.

That was what I meant; the unlockables. Besides, whatever happened to "OMG getting all teh emroldz = SUPAR SAWNIK! (and co.?)" I would think beating the game once with each character would have been sufficient.

That's typically only if the Emeralds are already plot devices. They aren't in Advance 2 since you have to collect them, so it makes sense that you don't get Super Sonic until you collect them with Sonic.