I heard earlier this evening that there was an offer on all Android games bought through the mobile version of the Gameloft website at the moment, (All games 99p) so I thought I would check it out. During my search of the catalogue I came across Sonic Advance and discovered that it was also listed as compatible with my Xperia Arc S! I bought it and discovered that is actually an awful port of the original game. There is no multi-touch support, so you have to press diagonal direction arrows to jump and spindash. There is a seperate attack button available, (for things like Sonic's somersault attack) but it only works if you let go of the directional arrows. All music sounds much worse than the original, and the game has a tendancy to turn the volume up to full whenever a new audio track starts. Eventually I muted it and this has prevented that problem. My phone also has a particularly wide screen, and this means that bosses act odd when they reach the area where on the GBA they would no longer be visible. I seem to remember that there was a Sega Cafe version of Sonic Advance released a couple of years back for Android phones, and was wondering whether this was just an English port of that. Although, I find it hard to believe that a couple of years ago an android game would be released without mult-touch support. Especially when it would have greatly improved the gameplay! Here is a link to the listing on the Gameloft website, although you will have to go there on your Android if you want to take advantage of the 99p deal that's on at the moment. I don't know if a similar deal is available in the US: http://www.gameloft.co.uk/mobile-games/sonic-advance/?adid=27351 EDIT: In fact, on the title screen it says "2012 Gameloft", so it definately was created this year. Also, I forgot to mention that there are also no sound effects in the game. The options menu has a toggle to turn them on, but it doesn't actually do so because it doesn't remember your selection.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason Gameloft's version is so bad on your device is that it's a port of their older J2ME version, rather than of the Japanese Android port. That you say that you have to press a diagonal to jump and spindash and Gameloft's previous history with ports gives me reason to believe this.
Just get a GBA emulator for Android and put Sonic Advance on it. Boom, instant better Sonic Advance (1, 2, and 3, and any other GBA game you want) on your Android. I don't do it because I cba to do touchscreen controls.
Based on videos I have just looked at of the J2ME version, I would say that you are absolutely correct. I didn't know previously that there was a J2ME version available, or that Gameloft ported J2ME games to Android. Here is a video I discovered on YouTube of the port if anyone is curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_gHslPso4
The fact that Gameloft did the port is enough alone to make me lose faith in this port. But having the screen in a vertical aspect ratio? Who the hell thought that would be a good idea?
I like how their description gives Metal Knuckles full-on subvillain billing. Was it like that for any other version of Sonic Advance?
