Sonic Advance 3

"One of the best Sonic games out there. A must have if you have a GBA."

Sonic Advance 3 is a really great game on the GameBoy Advance. It's a game that can come close to Sonic 3 and Knuckles, and a lot new stuff was added to this game.

Story
Dr. Robotnik (Eggman) has found the remains of Emerl and the chaos emeralds, he has used Chaos Control (Controls time and space) to separate Sonic's world and enhance the powers of the machines that he has created. Probably another "old" Sonic story. Robotnik also captures innocent little animals and turns them into robots and you must stop him from doing things like taking over the world.

Graphics: 9/10
There's been no real improvement on the graphics over Sonic Advance 2, but the graphics still look really nice. They're colorful and many areas are easy to see. Most backgrounds in the levels look really nice such as a Toy Kingdom level. The characters look nice, some of the enemies, and a lot more other stuff in the game. No real changes here.

Gameplay: 10/10
Here is where the real fun of this game comes in. There have been a lot of changes and additions to this game since Sonic Advance 2 and many of them are great. First, you pick a character and you can pick your partner. You only have Sonic and Tails at first but as you progress through the game you can unlock the other characters. You can pair up ANYONE. The first character to select is the leader and the second is your partner. You gain extra powers depending on your parters, like if you have Sonic/Tails, Tails can fly Sonic and toss him in the air REALLY high.

Also, there are 7 zones in the game. There are 3 levels in each zone and you have to beat all 3 to fight the boss. You can also jump through a giant ring on the zone's map to change your leader/partner, go to a different zone, and to see your "Chao room", where you see all the Chaos you've obtained through the levels. And these levels aren't Sonic Advance 2 style. You don't run through the levels and jump over a few things here and there. The levels and bosses have a lot more challenge into them now, especially into the later levels.

And in each of the 7 zones there are 10 chaos. Collect all 10 in a zone and a key will appear in a random location in 1 of the 3 levels. Collect the key, finish the level, and then use it on the locked spring in a zone map to go to the special stage. The special stage has been changed too. It is almost like Sonic 2's special stages where you would have to get the required amount of rings before you got to the "goal". This game by far has the hardest special stages in my opinion.

If you have a friend nearby with this game and you both have a link cable, you can play mulitplayer, where both of you can pick a character and race to the end of any level in the game that you've played. Also, for single pak mode (you need two GameBoy Advances, a link cable, and 1 game pak, you can have a race to find chao and whoever has the most wins. Really fun games.

Sound Effects: 9/10
There has been quite a few and nice additions to the sound effects. When you select their character they now talk (their voices sound quite good too), and when you hit Robotnik, he'll say something like "OW!" or "You little...". Also, the other sound effects in this game are fairly decent too.

Music: 9/10
Of course, like all Sonic games, there is new music in this game. Most of the music in this game is great, especially the music in the "Chaos Angel" zone. Also, if you loved Sonic 1 there is a remix of the first level "Green Hill Zone" music in this game.

Controls: 5/10
One of the only few bad parts about the game. Like all Sonic games the controls are the same thing and the "standard controls" (jumping, spin dashing, etc) are still the same buttons but the bad part is getting used to using your partner's special abilities. This took me a while to figure out and now I have the hang of it. It's also hard to make good use of some of the character's abilities because of the controls too. So the bad part is getting used to them.

Replayability: 8/10
It's great playing this game again, because once you beat it, you could hunt for the Chaos and get the Chaos Emeralds, become a better player, play for fun, unlock more stuff, or beat the game using the same characters. This game is nowhere near boring.

Rent or Buy?
Buy this game. I wanted it since I've heard of it and I like it a lot. You'll love it too.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/05/04