Sonic Advance 3

"2 is Better Than 1, and 3"

Introduction
Back in the Genesis days you had Sonic all alone. He's come along way and met a lot of chracters along the way. His first Companion was Tails. In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, he was Sonic's parner to deeat Eggman. Lots of other games followed including Sonic Adventure where you play as 1 character all alone. Recently also came Sonic Heroes, which you played as a team of 3 characters of 4 different teams. Sonic is about speed, and having to switch characters all the time slowed it dow alot. But now they've hit the target, back to having a team of 2. Here is why Sonic Team sucseeded this time round:

Gameplay: 9/10
The same old classic, brilliant Sonic, no battling (Sonic Battle) no Team switching (Sonic Heroes) just purely Sonic. But this time it's even better. You now have a partner which actually helps you, and depending on which characters you choose, you can do different things. (e.g. Pair up Sonic with Amy and Sonic attacks with a hammer. The only down point with gameplay is that rarely, you find yourself running into unfairly place spikes of blocks that squash you

Story: 7/10
Sonic have never being one for stories in their 2-D games, but this has speech, an introdustion, and the levels tie in very well with it. They could've added more though. A good thing about an open story is the optional paths you can choose. You can choose what levels to go on when and with what characters. An there is more than 5 ways through easch level

Sound: 9/10
The old classic music, but remixed, every level no has different music, not ANY of it annoys me like older Sonic Games (Sonic Battle). The characters also talk occaisionally and the sound effects are spot on. Keep up the good work Sonic Team

Graphics: 10/10
When I first played Sonic Advance 1 I was so amazed at the conversion to GBA. I expected little coloured blobs, I was wrong. They were very detailed. and as the Advacnce games progress they seemed to improve. Sonic Advance 3 has VERY detailed, character sprites and the backgrounds have improved EVEN more.

Characters: 8/10
5 playable characters and 20 different possible tag combinations the characters are brilliant. They even have a personality now. And not a stupid one (Sonic heroes/Adventure). What could've improved though is that they could have added Shadow, Rouge, Espio and other great characters like that. Still brilliant though

Originality: 10/10
The original Sonic game is all here. An original idea that nobody can top. And they haven't added any complicated stuff to it

Lifespan/Replay-Value: 9/10
You'll never get tired of it. You complete the game that has huge zones filled with entertaining Levels and Chaos Emeralds to collect after you collect all the chaos. Then there is time attack where yu can play all the level at your best times and keep trying to improve. Then if your mates own a GBA you can battle them and play co-oprativily with them, which never gets boring. Something they should've kept though is the Chao gardens... oh well...

Last though a car journey?
YES

Rent or buy?
Buy! if you rent the game, you'll want to buy the game straight after taking it back, ehrn you could've saved time by buying it in the 1st place

Pros:
-Some of the best graphics around on GBA
-Great remixes of original music
-Great Sonic gameplay
-Lots of characters to choose from
-Optional paths
-a new enemy (G-Mel)
-NO MORE RUNNING BOSSES (like SA2)
-will last for ages
-Simple, not to complicated
-made for ALL ages, not just for kids
-Tag actions

Cons:
-unfair sometimes
-unoriginal story
-no chao garden
-No shadow or Espio

Overall: 10/10
One of the best GBA games and Sonic games out there. Deffinently worth your money

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/24/04