Opinions on the Sonic GBA/DS games

[JRedmond3]

Just wondering what the consensus on the GBA and DS Sonic games is. I've played a couple of them and for the most part it just seemed like the level design was a bit uninspired.

[jerry coeurl]

I would agree with that assessment. The problem (at least in my experience) with the Sonic games for GBA/DS is that they encourage you to blast through the levels at top speed, but the stages themselves are designed poorly to that end. Bottomless pits, spikes, and badly placed enemies abound, and for the most part the levels themselves just aren't that interesting.

I dunno, whenever I tried to play the GBA/DS games I would just get frustrated and return to one of the first 4 games (typically Sonic 2). Sonic Rush does have a soundtrack from the guy responsible for JGR/JSRF's tunes, but honestly the game is so bland that I really can't justify playing it just for some (kinda) cool tunes.

My 2 cents.

[K.K.]

I hate them. I feel that people who praise them just doesn't seem to get the point of the original games.
That was plattforming with a speed element.
Now it's reversed, it's speed with plattforming(although, very little).
The levels are designed to just show of Sonic's running, you run in loops, grind on rails, fly through air and run on plain ground. You don't have to do shit other than holding right, but then an unsuspected enemy or cliff appears out of nothing and you die.
Now, the thing is. If you just run along the levels, watching Sonic run at extreme speeds, you are NOT prepared for gameplay. The game should not catch you offguard with hours of doing nothing, then just throwing me some shit that I appearently have to jump over in the wink of an eye.

That's just bad design, it ruins the whole games.

[Kogen]

They are very different games, so I suppose it depends on what you like.

Sonic Advance is more similar to the older games, but the quality is simply not there. I think it is more fair to compare this game to Sonic2/Chaos/Triple on Game Gear/SMS. If you like those games, then this should be enjoyable.

Sonic Advance 3 is a bit weird and has a lot of 'fetch' stuff. I kind of feel it is more similar to Chaotix. And since most people tend to dislike that (I enjoy it), then it is probably not considered too good outside the Sonic fanbase.

Sonic Advance 2/Rush/Rush Adventure all feel very similar to me. Jerry basically described them and I agree for the most part. Good music, inferior gameplay, and too many dull levels. Sadly... most people like these games the most, but outside kids and Sonic weirdos, they are probably the least liked. If I were to rate them, I would say Rush Adventure > Advance 2 > Rush. Mainly due to holes being more common in Rush and Advance 2 feels longer; Rush Adventure barely has any holes and it really helps.

Sonic Genesis is below cell phone quality, so uh... yeah.

The pinball game is pinball. I am not good at it, so I do not like it.

Battle is a dull fighter but it is long and has a lot of content, so Sonic fans might like it for the sake of the franchise. Otherwise it is probably boring for other people. The DS RPG is the same way.

Mario and Sonic I have not played, but it seems really popular. I assume it plays like the Crash NES game based on River City Ransom.

Overall I do like the games, but they are not the same quality as the Sonic games you get on SEGA hardware. They are better than the console games post-DC.

[jerry coeurl]

Battle is a dull fighter but it is long and has a lot of content, so Sonic fans might like it for the sake of the franchise.

Haha, this game is so dull I completely forgot about it! Yeah, it's just a thousand and one fights with a shitty combat system. There is a LOT of content, but as this game so ably demonstrates, that's not always a good thing.

For me, the absolute best handheld Sonic game is Sonic Pocket Adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. It's basically all of the best aspects of Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles smushed into one game, and for me it's the only post Knuckles game that not only retains the feel of the first few titles, but can actually hold its own against them. It's a shame the the NGPC died so quickly, it would have been nice to see a sequel.

[j_factor]

I liked Sonic Advance 2 quite a bit. It's pretty fast, quite nice visually, and the levels are quite good. The first one was kind of bland, and the third was a bit weird. Pinball Party was fun, but rather basic. Battle was just mediocre, and Sonic Genesis was a travesty. Rush was a lot of fun, I only wish the air tricks didn't have voice samples to them, because the (excellent) music tends to get drowned out in a sea of "hey! whoa!" type crap. Rush Adventure was more of the same, except padded out with unnecessary, boring sea travels/battles. I still haven't played Chronicles or the Olympics game, but I doubt I've missed much.

I can't fathom why everyone complains about the supposed pits in Sonic Rush. I only had a problem in one level. I will say that I didn't like the mid-level autoscrolling segments, they really broke the flow of the game and didn't make sense.

[Kogen]

Haha, this game is so dull I completely forgot about it! Yeah, it's just a thousand and one fights with a shitty combat system. There is a LOT of content, but as this game so ably demonstrates, that's not always a good thing.

For me, the absolute best handheld Sonic game is Sonic Pocket Adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket Color. It's basically all of the best aspects of Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles smushed into one game, and for me it's the only post Knuckles game that not only retains the feel of the first few titles, but can actually hold its own against them. It's a shame the the NGPC died so quickly, it would have been nice to see a sequel.

Well DIMPS made that along with all the other platformers. Advance is basically the sequel.

It only seemed like the older games because all the art/music was taken from them. After that, they decided to make their own style, which basically amounts to 'fagging it up' for a Nintendo console.

[jerry coeurl]

Interesting. I dunno what happened, but SPA has the elusive "fun factor" that the games that followed are sorely lacking in. And it's been a very long while since I've played it (don't own a NGPC, unfortunately), but I remember thinking that the level design was excellent. At least in comparison to Advance/2/3/Rush/what have you.

[JRedmond3]

How's Sonic Chronicles(I think that's the name)? I don't mind RPGs but I dunno about a Sonic one.

[Kogen]

How's Sonic Chronicles(I think that's the name)? I don't mind RPGs but I dunno about a Sonic one.

It is like the Mario ones, basically. But it has some dumb technical issues which show Bioware has no idea how to develop properly on DS.

[Lightningrodc]

I like these games. The added speed of them makes them more appealing and more challenging for me, and they also have cool elements that make them unique from older 2D sonic games. I agree that they did reverse platforming and speed for these. But hey, as long as they still have them both, doesn't bother me. It's personal preference really, and I respect if you think the opposite of what I think.

I wasn't a huge fan of Sonic Advance 1, because I thought it was very bland. I liked the others however. Sonic Advance 2 was probably the hardest of the three, it being the fastest. And I do agree some levels were bland in that game, but it didn't really matter to me when you're moving through the level at breakneck speed. This game had my favorite bosses of the Sonic Advance series. You just can't resist all running bosses, and a huge boss rush mode at the end of the game.

Sonic Advance 3 is probably my favorite game in the SA series. I thought the whole partner thing was unique, and didn't get in the way of the game. Some levels, like Sonic Advance 2, were interrupting, but not nearly as many. Overall, I like the Sonic Advance games. They could be better, but they work.

Sonic Rush is like Sonic Advance 2, only add a boost feature, more bottomless pits, and an unexpected (but good) soundtrack. I wasn't a big fan of Sonic Rush.

Sonic Rush Adventure is to me, a great 2D Sonic sidescroller. It's fast, not too cheap, and it offers just the right chemistry of both enemies and bottomless pits. The graphical effects were well handled, and it showed off the DS's graphical potential nicely. Tricks were handled by pressing the shoulder buttons and the B button. These added points and made you go faster if you were on rails. I agree with one poster in which they should have removed some voice samples from the tricks. He should have only done one when you executed the trick, and had none when you did a chain of others from it. That's just a minor quibble though. The boating sequences I thought were pretty different (in the good way), and were a nice change of pace from just blazing through levels. They're not perfect, but they were a good addition to the game. Blaze plays just like she did in the first Sonic Rush, as well as Sonic. Bosses were handled well in this game, and were always fun to play against just for the hell of it. And to fit one more thing in here, the sound quality of the game is some of the best for DS, on par for Elite Beat Agents, play with headphones whenever possible. I'm probably typing a bit too much about this particular game, so... Overall, I think this is my favorite of these five games, and I would recommend it to any DS owner who wants a 2D sidescroller.

For the rest of the handheld Sonic's, never played chronicles yet, and battle I thought was bland due to the fact that Emerl was the only viable fighter due to the fact you could put any move on him.

[MrMatthews]

I bought the original Sonic Advance when it first came out, expecting some glorious return to the style of the original Genesis games. While the game had nice graphics and decent replay value, I thought the music, level design, and general gameplay was boring and uninspired, not unlike all those Game Gear Sonic titles that had disappointed me years before.

Because of this, I haven't bothered with any of the other Sonic Advance or DS titles.

[Alianger]

Advance 1 - Boring and easy.

Advance 2 - Over before it started and the on rails boss fights sucked. I didn't feel motivated to go back and collect the emeralds, so I actually returned this the same day I bought it.

Advance 3 - Haven't played it yet but it seems fairly interesting.

Battle - Might be more fun in multiplayer.

[Joe Redifer]

I did not care for Sonic Rush. It was dogshit. I've never played any of the GBA Sonic games I don't think and don't really want to.

[jerry coeurl]

Think of the dog shit that was Sonic Rush, and apply it to a gaming system that only has one screen. There! Now you have the Sonic games for GBA!

[Karakasa-Obake]

I'm kinda indifferent about the advanced games. They were just sort of mediocre. Sonic Rush was balls. Just went by too fast.

[Kogen]

I think some of these people here are a bit confused. You have to play the games to know anything about them...

But Jerry takes it to a new level! He makes up stuff about the games just to look like a moron. :)

[jerry coeurl]

I don't know what you think I'm making up. The games are dull at best, and offensively boring at worst. They aren't the worst games I've ever played but they are poor enough to never be worth playing if you have access to Sonic 1 - 3, Knuckles, or even Sonic CD. I have played them, I know what I'm talking about.

[The Coop]

Well, by the sounds of it, I'm in the minority on this one. I enjoyed all three 'Advance" games. 1 was good, 2 was the best of the series, and 3 was good (but not quite as good as 1). They don't play like the Genesis games, but I don't think they were ever supposed to. They're their own entity, and their own take on the franchise. They're a different beast with a few similarities... but as Sonic 3D Blast showed, different doesn't necessarily mean bad. I felt they all looked good, sounded good, and controlled fine. They might bump up the number of pits o'death and spike traps a little, but it's not like Sonic series didn't already have them all over the place from the beginning, so...

Don't jump into them expecting to be playing a continuation of the Genesis games, and I think you'll enjoy yourself.


Edit: Oops. Forgot the other GBA games. I was never thrilled with Sonic Spinball, so I've yet to touch the GBA game. The port of Sonic the Hedgehog was handled... badly, and Sonic Battle gets old very quickly. So I'd just stick with the three "Advance" games.

[Diosoth]

I swear, many levels from Sonic Advance are taken straight from the old Gamegear titles.

Sonic Battle is poor. It lasts forever, the story makes no sense, your enemies have no health bars... oh, and Rouge the Bat won't shut up about "jewels and boys!" She hits on Tails in an almost sexual manner and he's 8 years old.

Sonic Chronicles... a typical boring RPG. Most of the plot is stolen from Twilight Princess and Metroid Prime, the fucking ECHIDNA race gets the spotlight again despite the fact almost no one cares(warmongers got themselves wiped out but everyone pretends they were honorable people). Oh, and it's a sequel to Sonic Battle, so every LINE of dialog is complete and utter shit.

Don't believe me? This is basiclaly the first 10 minutes of the game-

Sonic is at home. Phone rings...

Tails: The Chaos emeralds were taken. The Master emerald is gone and Knuckles was kidnapped!

Sonic: Wonderful...

Amy shows up...

Amy: SONIC! Since you hate me, I have a boyfriend now! I'm here to rub it in.

Sonic: I don't care!

Rouge shows up...

Rouge: I'm ordered to get the Chaos emeralds back. See, I'm a secret agent even though I'm also a criminal and my role as a government agent is almost completely ignored! Oh, and Knuckles, I have to save him, he's a boy, tee hee! Hey, Sonic, wanna bend me over and nail me right here?

Amy: Back of, ho, he's mine!

Sonic: I thought you have a boyfriend?

Amy: SHUT UP!

Sonic: Whatever. I'm gay and Knuckles loves ME!


Amy is Kathy Bates from Misery. Now I understand her hammer weapon. Oh, and for end spoilers, she admits her "boyfriend" was made up to make Sonic jealous. It didn't work.

But I don't expect Bioware to put effort into their games, when they have a NAME they can throw around.

[cj iwakura]

One huge benefit to Sonic Rush: Hideki Naganuma(Jet Set Radiooooo) did the score.

[jesus.arnold]

Anyone played the LCD Sonic games?

[Flygon]

I thought Sonic Rush was decent, but lacked some of the platforming elements I would like, it was all speed and no substance.

Boss battles were good though.

[Kogen]

I don't know what you think I'm making up. The games are dull at best, and offensively boring at worst. They aren't the worst games I've ever played but they are poor enough to never be worth playing if you have access to Sonic 1 - 3, Knuckles, or even Sonic CD. I have played them, I know what I'm talking about.

I do not mean your liking of them. I mean you say the Advance games and Rush are the same when they play entirely differently with a another engine.

At least use valid reasons for why Dimps cannot make good games.

[jerry coeurl]

I didn't say Dimps can't make good games, as I already mentioned I found Sonic Pocket Adventure to be quite enjoyable. But any of their other games I find to be quite tepid. Sonic Advance 3 literally almost put me to sleep. Maybe they just decided that it was easier to make crappy games because the fan base is so stupid it will buy them regardless! That seems to be the route that Sonic Team has taken, at least.

For practical purposes, Rush plays exactly the same as the Advance titles. You hold right, go stupid fast, and then run into an enemy/spike strip/fall into a bottomless pit due to shitty level design. I was just trying to tell Joe that if he didn't like Rush there was little chance that he would find the Advance titles any more palatable. That's all.

[Phexar]

Ah, now let me see...

Sonic Advance was okay enough, it was a pleasant surprise to me to have Sonic back once again, although the game does overall feel somewhat undercooked and I particularly hate -that- jump at the end of Egg Rocket (though Tails can bypass it) AND the special stage. 6.8/10

Sonic Advance 2 I skipped getting initially because I didn't like the look of it; my thoughts didn't change later when I eventually played it through. It epitomises the "Hold Right to Win" gameplay more than any other 2D Sonic, and Rush would do it better later. Also, Sky Canyon is a stupidly annoying zone with a stupidly annoying boss that repeatedly attacks you with the "Bitchslap-of-Death"(as someone on Sonic Retro put it) and the nearly transparent "Laser-of-Doom" that have a habit of nailing you when you're trying to get close or run out of rings. (typically, I hated the Canyon stages more than any other's in Sonic Heroes too) Similarly, getting to the special stages was very irritating even if they were rather easy. And you had to run through them with ALL of the characters separately to unlock the true final boss. 5/10

I liked Sonic Advance 3. Yes, it did feel a little odd, and there were a few glitches and cheap shots in it, but it felt solid and enjoyable enough, and the team gimmick didn't get in the way of the gameplay, either. Sunset Hill's music was a nostalgic remix, and Chaos Angel was a nice final zone, not being set in space for once. Finding the Chao for the special stage would probably be annoying, but I circumvented it by using a guide (and Advance 2's method was annoying even WITH a guide), and getting the keys and getting through the stages are easy enough anyway. 7.9/10

I hated Sonic Rush initially, it looked and sounded very nice, but it was rather difficult with an irritating first boss and bottomless pits spammed everywhere. Also, the Dead Line boss battle had a heavy button mashing section, which I utterly despise. When I played through it as Blaze though, I enjoyed it a bit more, due to Blaze's higher jumping and 'flame-jet-hover' ability which made getting through it considerably easier. I now enjoy the game quite a lot(and worked out the secret to that blasted button-mashing-fight), though my points about the difficulty still stand. Great special stages and true-final boss battle too. It's debatable whether Blaze playing so similar to Sonic is a good or bad thing. 8/10.

Sonic Rush Adventure is easily my favourite of the GBA/DS games, as it fixed the problems of Sonic Rush's difficulty. No bottomless pit spamming, no button mashing. The island searching didn't bother me much, and once you've gotten through the game you can play it through like a classic Sonic game anyway. Neither did the material gathering, since replaying a zone is what you'd do anyway. As for water travel, I found the hovercraft to be the best since it went far enough to reach almost everything, went over shallows, and was extremely easy to control. Captain Whisker was an entertainingly hammy villain too. 8.5/10.

Sonic Battle was okay enough, I just thought of it as sort of being a Sonic version of Smash Brothers for the GBA. I got lucky with Emerl initially as the first move I copied was one of the best moves in the game (Shadow's Chaos Nightmare), so it made the beginning smoother. Since Emerl basically starts as a very poor version of Sonic move-wise before you copy anything, it makes the beginning and much of the game quite a grind. That said, (highlight for spoilers) Emerl turning on you in the end because of Eggman's haxing gave me a real "OH SHIT" moment since I now had to fight my own extremely efficient super-death-robot with Sonic in the last fight- and it was made super fast. X_X I'm surprised I scraped through in one go, though it did involve mainly running for my life and dropping bombs.
On the downside, the plots very "ehh", and it's music is generally quite bad. 7/10.

I haven't played Sonic Chronicles, and I haven't really played Sonic Pocket Adventure enough to form an opinion on it, though it seemed nice enough even if it's extremely similar to Sonic 2. I'd give it a 7.5/10 from memory.

[Kogen]

I didn't say Dimps can't make good games, as I already mentioned I found Sonic Pocket Adventure to be quite enjoyable. But any of their other games I find to be quite tepid. Sonic Advance 3 literally almost put me to sleep. Maybe they just decided that it was easier to make crappy games because the fan base is so stupid it will buy them regardless! That seems to be the route that Sonic Team has taken, at least.

For practical purposes, Rush plays exactly the same as the Advance titles. You hold right, go stupid fast, and then run into an enemy/spike strip/fall into a bottomless pit due to shitty level design. I was just trying to tell Joe that if he didn't like Rush there was little chance that he would find the Advance titles any more palatable. That's all.

My point is that your description is false. Advance 1/3 do not play like Rush. You do not hold right and go really fast. They are heavy on platforming.

[jerry coeurl]

I went back and played Advance 2 for as long as I could stand (about 5 minutes), and I guess you're right. That title is at least fairly heavy on platforming.

But I was right too. The game is not fun to play, and in that sense it is just like Sonic Rush. The Advance titles may be heavy on platforming, and Rush may be heavy on 'hold right to win' "gameplay" but they are ALL heavy on one thing: being shitty games. Definite pass if you've got the 16-bit titles.

Also, Sonic Advance 3's pastel color scheme is seriously bad, somehow it makes the game even worse than the first two.

[j_factor]

You're just being silly.

[Kogen]

I went back and played Advance 2 for as long as I could stand (about 5 minutes), and I guess you're right. That title is at least fairly heavy on platforming.

But I was right too. The game is not fun to play, and in that sense it is just like Sonic Rush. The Advance titles may be heavy on platforming, and Rush may be heavy on 'hold right to win' "gameplay" but they are ALL heavy on one thing: being shitty games. Definite pass if you've got the 16-bit titles.

Also, Sonic Advance 3's pastel color scheme is seriously bad, somehow it makes the game even worse than the first two.

Still sort of missing my point... I said 1/3 because I mean just Advance 1 and 3. Advance 2 is a lot more similar to Rush.

[jerry coeurl]

Well then why are we still arguing about this. That is what I was trying to say originally, that the Advance game I had put the most time into (Advance 2) seemed to me to play like Sonic Rush. Perhaps I should have specified that one in particular.

Anyway I will just leave it at this: In my opinion there has not been a Sonic game worth playing since 1999 saw the release of Sonic Pocket Adventure. Ok? I will concede that Sonic Adventure 2 had its' moments but they were too few and far in between, and that's when things started going downhill in a noticeable fashion.

e:


You're just being silly.

I think I am being reasonable. Why would I play a game that bores the shit out of me?

I think the people who still give their money to SEGA for mediocre-at-best Sonic games are being silly.