Sonic Advance



Sonic Advance was the first Sonic game for the Game Boy Advance. (And a Nintendo system, too.) Pretty much a sequel to Sonic Pocket Adventure, Sonic Advance followed the whole "less is more" formula by having the relatively simple gameplay of the Genesis titles we all know and love.

Story
The evil Dr. Eggman is trying to build his whole Eggman Empire thing again, except this time he has a new elaborate scheme to do so: capture the animals of the forest and turn them into robots to do his evil bidding. Sonic, feeling a sense of deja-vu, dashes off with his friends to save the day again.

Characters
Sonic- Sonic is Sonic. Srsly. His B button move is a somersault, which is actually pretty useless at first, but clever players can find useful purposes like slowly climbing steep inclines, or coming to an instant stop while running at top speed. His midair move is his temporary air shield from Sonic 3 (except it's completely useless now). Play as Sonic for a hard difficulty game.

Tails- Tails is Sonic's sidekick and a genius mechanic. His B button move is a useless tail-swipe move that can kill enemies. His midair move is, of course, his ability to fly. Keep pressing A to ascend until Tails gets tired and drops. Play as Tails for an easy game. (Since he can, you know, fly over pretty much everything.)

Knuckles- Sonic's resident gullible idiot and gangsta thug. His B button move is a 1-2-3 punch combo that can actually be pretty handy. His midair move is (obviously) his ability to glide. He can climb walls and all that good stuff to. He can even swim in water: land in water to float, and press down to drop to the bottom like normal. Play as Knuckles for a normal difficulty game.

Amy- Sonic's psycho stalker, self-proclaimed girlfriend, and official panty-shot provider. Amy's controls have always sucked, and this is no exception. She can't roll into a ball, she can't spindash, and she relies on her Piko-Piko Hammer to defend herself. Her hammer controls are a bit complex, so here's a brief summary.

B button- Swing the hammer directly in front of you.

Jump and press down and B- Amy's answer to the spin attack, this is the most useful move in her inventory. She'll spin her hammer downward in midair, attacking any enemy below her.

Hold down and press B- Useless hammer hop move.

Hold down and press A- Stupid hop move that replaces the spindash. Amy's only method of quick acceleration.

Press B in mid air during stupid hop- Really painful-looking slide move that skids you to a complete stop.

Play as Amy for a really freaking hard game.

Gameplay
Gameplay is standard Sonic jazz. Run from point A to point B, and that's about it. Just the way it should be.

Zones

 * Neo Green Hill Zone
 * Hidden Base Zone
 * Casino Paradise Zone
 * Ice Mountain Zone
 * Angel Island Zone
 * Egg Rocket Zone
 * Cosmic Angel Zone
 * X Zone
 * Moon Zone

Special Stages
To access a special stage, you must first find the act's special spring, then jump on it. This will take you to a very unplayable tube-like special stage where you're free-falling on a board. It's like a zero-gravity take on Sonic 2's collect the rings special stages from there. Press the B button to do a spinning flip trick (expanding your range of ring collecting, in exchange for mobility), and time these tricks as you go through bonus gates for extra rings.

Beat the special stage for a Chaos Emerald (obviously). Get all 7 emeralds and beat the X Zone again to access the super duper secret final boss fight, which takes place on the moon, which apparently got that missing chunk that was blown off back since the events of Sonic Adventure 2.

Tiny Chao Garden
Whiny annoying Chao are back again! In the Tiny Chao Garden, you play as a floating hand and do things such as pet your Chao, play minigames for rings, pull weeds, and buy fruits and things from the store. Fun, fun fun.

Minigames

 * Rock-Paper-Scissors- But with a twist:  you have three options of moves to play, and your opponent (the Chao, namely)'s moves are spinning on a wheel thingy.  You have to shoot them down before time runs out.


 * Card Matching- Standard for all Tiny Chao Gardens in the GBA Sonic games, you flip cards for rings.  Whee.