Sonic Advance 3 review (Game Boy Advance)

Compared to Sonic Advance 2, this latest game is a bit on the easy side. There are tricky jumps and surprise spike pits in some levels, but you always have the option of going back to previous worlds to gain more extra lives. The attack patterns of the bosses--Dr. Eggman's giant robot contraptions--aren't always clear-cut, but again, extra lives are plentiful. You also don't have to worry about running after bosses before fighting them, which was one of the most irksome things about Sonic Advance 2. For a tougher challenge, you can try to complete the optional chaos emerald quest. As is the case in every Sonic game, if you grab the chaos emerald hidden in each world, you can unlock a tougher final boss, view an extended ending, and play briefly as Super Sonic--the beefy gold-tinted hedgehog. Grabbing all seven emeralds is grueling, mainly because the method of collecting them is so convoluted. First, you have to find the chao pets hidden in each level of the world you're in (there are 10 in each world). Then, you have to go back into the levels and get keys that aren't visible until after the chaos are found. And finally, you have to use those keys to gain access to a ring-collecting minigame. After all that, you still need to collect the necessary number of rings in the minigame in order to earn the chaos emerald.

Besides the main adventure mode, there's also a time attack mode that lets you practice speed runs through the levels that you've already completed. That's pretty much it for solo play options. The adventure mode and the time attack mode do support linked play between two copies of the game, which is great, because it means that a friend can play through the adventure mode with you by taking control of the partner character that's normally controlled by the CPU. If your friend has a GBA but doesn't have his or her own copy of the game, there are team races and "find the chao" minigames available that only require a single cartridge.

In terms of graphics and sound, Sonic Advance 3 is on par with the best that companies like Nintendo and Konami have had to offer this year. The character animation is great--each character has multiple sprite sequences and facial reactions for running, jumping, and dashing, as well as for interactions with objects like enemy projectiles and spike traps. The backgrounds are colorful and use many of the same scrolling effects that you've no doubt seen in other 2D sprite-based action games, and there are a few CPU-intensive background effects that haven't really been overdone in other games yet. The wave motion in underwater sections is particularly impressive. The music isn't as identifiable as the themes that originated in the classic Sega Genesis Sonic games, but the background tracks do fit the levels nicely--inasmuch as you can relate a tune to a physical environment like a forest, snow pack, or underwater cave. The game also has a few voice snippets in the form of character yells and countdowns.

Whether you've played the other two Sonic Advance games to death or whether you've held off in favor of Mario, Castlevania, or Metroid, you owe it to yourself to add Sonic Advance 3 to your collection if you consider yourself a fan of fast-paced platform games.