Sonic Advance: A Look Back at the GBA Trilogy

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was one of the first video games I ever played, and man, it was great. Ever since, I’ve enjoyed almost every Sonic game I’ve gotten my hands on. Sure, I’ve missed a few, like the later 3D titles and at time of release, the Sonic Advance trilogy. But after picking up the Anbernic RG CubeXX, a dedicated device for older retro systems, I figured now was the perfect time to finally give the Sonic Advance trilogy a crack. While the RG CubeXX may not be the best device for Game Boy Advance, I’ve still been having a blast with the system on it. It also reminded me that I still had my original GBA sitting at my parents’ place, so I recently headed over there and dug it out. Firing it up for the first time in years, the first thing I noticed was the screen. How the fuck did anyone see what they were playing? The lack of backlight made for a truly miserable experience compared to everything that came after. Ahem, anyway.. with that nostalgia trip out of the way, I started my run into the Sonic Advance trilogy.

The original Sonic Advance honestly just feels like a natural extension of the Mega Drive classics. The graphical style is a touch different, but the format and presentation are spot on. Each zone is familiarly split into two acts with the second act capped off with a boss fight. This is the same tried and true formula as the originals, just running on a newer engine. It even kinda resembles the older Game Gear releases. If you’ve played the earlier games, you’ll feel right at home here. There isn’t much of a story, as per usual. Once again, you’re up against Dr. Robotnik and his many creations as he tries to turn animals into badniks and take over the world. You work through each zone for a final showdown with Robotnik in yet another out-there contraption. The stages look great, they’re well designed and are a breeze to run through just like the originals. It’s a bit on the shorter side, but really not too far off the length of the classics. Sonic Advance is, at its core, a return to a familiar style in a slightly shinier shell and I thoroughly enjoyed playing through it. The special stages though, they’re kinda rough to find and harsh to play. Still, it definitely scratched that Sonic itch and scratched it well. Continuing that momentum, I jumped straight into Sonic Advance 2 with much anticipation.

Firing up Sonic Advance 2, I started off with mixed emotions at the character select screen. It was a little baffling that I couldn’t start as Knuckles as I did in the first game, but I figured maybe it would encourage replayability once I unlocked him. The first game was a banger, so I assumed the sequel would be more of the same. I can confirm: it’s not. The story is basically the same, Robotnik kidnapping animals, including Sonic’s friends, to takeover the world. Sonic Advance 2 stumbles hard by shifting the focus almost entirely to speed and taking the right path. Hint: go high and go fast. I think the zones look decent enough, but the method is always the same: hold right on the d-pad, stick to the high ground and blast forward. If you try the lower paths, the game seems to punish you. You can work your way back by backtracking, provided you’re in the right spot. But you’ll usually hit a dead end, or a pit of death. Probably throw any ideas about replayability out the window. Boss fights have been changed, each boss is now a standalone act instead of capping off act two. The boss fights themselves aren’t overly enjoyable either. Each fight plays out the exact same way: chase the boss, dodge its attacks and try to land a hit. They’re not difficult, just tedious. Then you’re forced to run through all of them again enroute to the final boss. It’s a major swing and a miss. I can appreciate wanting to change things up, but it’s really a case of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Sonic Advance 2 is a longer game than the first, I’d say purely due to what they’ve done with the boss fights. I really enjoyed the first game, but diving blindly into the second just left me feeling flat. It’s quite disappointing to see such a dull entry in the Sonic series. But being a sucker for punishment, I pressed on to finish the trilogy.

Sonic Advance 3 runs about four hours. I just spent 2-3 hours grinding through Sonic Advance 2, but I figured if I’ve come this far I may as well finish the job. My disappointment at the character select screen was back again. This time, you’re also forced into having a companion character, a mechanic that doesn’t seem to serve any real purpose other than extra sprites. There are even more changes here and again, they’ve dropped the ball. Each zone is now self-contained in its own hub area and you have to track down a floating ring to jump into each act. While it’s less of a hold right on the d-pad slog than the previous entry, it’s still pretty dull and drawn-out compared to the first Sonic Advance. Taking the low path in this one penalises you less, but it’s a slower run to the finish than going high. Credit where credit’s due, the bosses are a step up from Sonic Advance 2 and are actually pretty enjoyable. But unfortunately, to reach the boss, you have to slog through three acts and then track down the boss act within the zone’s hub. The additional padding really undercuts the fun of the boss fights, offsetting any positive they brought into the game. I’m definitely no purist and I’m not against changing up or updating a classic formula. Provided that the changes are intuitive and implemented well. But, the changes in Sonic Advance 3 just come off feeling misguided and bloated. Sonic Advance 3 isn’t just a weak sequel, it somehow manages to be an even bigger letdown than Sonic Advance 2.

The Sonic Advance trilogy is unfortunately a real mixed bag. Looking back at the Mega Drive classics, the first game nails what made those games so good and feels like a proper continuation. But the sequels? They lose that spark and drift way off base. Sonic Advance 2 strips away the balance of speed, patience and platforming for a repetitive uphill sprint, while Sonic Advance 3 adds features that arbitrarily slow the whole thing down. It feels like they were caught with their pants down trying to reinvent the wheel and ended up making it square. Playing all three back-to-back really highlighted how quickly the trilogy went from promising to frustrating. As a fan of the originals and some of the later Sonic games, the latter entries in the Sonic Advance trilogy are just plain disappointing. If nothing else, I at least managed to cross them off my backlog. But I just can’t shake the feeling that they could have, and should have been so much better.