SonicN

"An OK Port, still could be improved"

I played Sonic Advanced on my GBA before I finally gave the GBA away (as I wanted to see what it was like). Then when I got the N-Gage I finally thought I'd be able to play it again... Although I was partly right, there were some things takes from the game as well. There were originally 2 extra levels for it as well. Why didn't they keep them in there? They should have delayed the game for it to be released in my opinion.

Graphics: 7

Same as GBA. But because of the backlit screen, its much easier to play. I've used Sonic Advanced on an emulator and I can tell that the N-Gage version has improved color depth. Enemies and characters are nicely drawn and animated...Nothing much else really.

Sound: 7

They sound the same to me, nothing really added, not improved or anything. I think they could have made it louder though, or the option to turn the music / sound effects on/off separately, rather than just having a volume control. And even then the loudest isn't really that loud even on the headset.

Music: 7

Some catchy tunes, some horrible ones as well. But they sound the same as the GBA version. Although I do find that the music occasionally pauses every so often (could it be my copy of the game?), which does get annoying after a while.

Gameplay: 6

Although you can switch from a 'wide-screen' view to a full screen view, none are really that easy to play with. When in 'wide-screen' view, it basically puts 2 borders on the top and bottom of the screen, which makes it smaller - meaning harder to see the character/enemies/traps. In full screen view, you see the characters/enemies/traps clearly, but because its a vertical display, you cant really see that far ahead. So you may end up running into enemies or traps or off cliffs because you don't have a lot of time to react(which DOES get annoying).

Replay Value: 8

If you've played/completed the GBA version, then don't expect anything new on this. Actually don't expect the 2-player/Chao garden on this either. They probably removed the Chao garden as there was no use for it (cant be connected to the Game Cube), but why the 2-player? They could have kept that as I have seen several multi-players on the N-gage.

Overall: 7

There are definitely better, more playable games on/coming to the N-gage. If you haven't yet played Sonic Advance, and you own an N-gage, then I recommend you buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/10/03