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Sega’s little blue mascot finally gets down and dirty with one of the company’s former enemies in the impending release of Sonic the Hedgehog Advance for Nintendo’s GameBoy Advance. Formally unveiled at E3, I now have a good idea of what the game’s going to look and play like, as well as the basic framework of the story. The plot is straightforward enough and you could probably guess it if you know anything about Sonic games – the evil Dr. Robotnik is up to no good once again, and you’ll need to stop him by collecting Chaos Emeralds. You’ll play as Amy, Knuckles, Sonic or Tails in this all-new adventure that features the same speed and graphical look of the hugely popular 2D Sonic games on the Sega Genesis. These are some of the features:
Four characters
More than twelve levels
Chao Garden Mini-games
Link Cable support for four players (single/multiple cartridge support)
Battery Save
GameCube interface with Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
Only for Game Boy Advance
Sonic Advance is also jam-packed with other goodies that increase the playtime and worth. The rings you earn can be converted into goodies used in the Tiny Chao Garden. See, you can care for these cute blue critters on your Game Boy Advance, feeding and petting them as if they're a pet...a "virtual pet" so to speak. The cool thing here is, if find yourself a GameCube with Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and a GameCube Game Boy Advance cable, you can send your little buddy to the system and onto the Chao Races. The mini-games in the Tiny Chao Garden are also deceptively fun, too...they're honestly not much more than a simple game of Memory and Rock/Paper/Scissors, but they're designed in such a way that you may find yourself playing them over and over and over...I know I did. The Tiny Chao Garden is what's sent to the Game Boy Advance from the GameCube if you don't have Sonic Advance, but believe me...you want the cartridge if you're planning on a Sonic Adventure 2 Battle purchase, since the cartridge actually saves your Chao's progress to the battery backed RAM.
And one more thing: the link play in Sonic Advance is outstanding. If you only have one cartridge you can play a game of "Get the most rings" on a single map against three other people...and it's worth it right there. But if everyone's got a cartridge, then you and your buddies can leap right into any unlocked level in other modes of play: Race, a self-explained mode where it's first to the end of the round; and Chao Hunt, a cool little game of tag where everyone tries to stake a claim on a lost little blue creature.
There will be two multi-player modes, which Sega is calling “Chaos Emerald” mode along with the simply-titled “Battle” mode – but I did not get a chance to see these or try them out at E3. You can see by the screenshots that on the surface, at least, the graphics are even better than those of the last Genesis release, and they’ll probably improve even further before the game’s release date. Those of you who never picked up a Neo Geo Pocket Color will finally get to take Sonic on the go when the game hits streets this November. -- Anonym. Contributor, PGNx Media
---- May 15, 2002
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