The game's primary design is not at all different from other 2D Sonic games; you guide your chosen character through each Zone of two Acts each, waste the boss at the end on the second act and move on to the next Zone. There are seven Zones in all. The simplicity of that layout belies a much deeper game, however. Sonic Advance 2 marks the introduction of quite a few tweaks to the tried-and-true Sonic gameplay formula that make the staid primary layout of older Sonic games look like child's play. The level design is a return to the excellent designs of those halcyon Genesis days, with many paths through each stage and tons of ingeniously placed springs, dash panels, bumpers, grinding rails, ramps and more all set up to send you hurtling towards the goal. This time around however, the game has a bit more of an emphasis on exploring. No, they didn't exactly get any Zelda in your Sonic, don't worry; but with the multi-tiered nature of the stages, there's a lot of places to hide powerups, secret paths and most noticeably, the seven Special Rings placed strategically throughout each Act. To collect all the Chaos Emeralds, you need to enter the bonus stages, and to do that, you'll need to collect all seven Special Rings in an Act. Of course, this isn't a cakewalk for anyone, because of the giant size of each Act! They go out in all different directions and have all manner of devious jumps, traps and whathaveyou required to get to these Rings. On top of that, we all know that Sonic isn't really designed for exploration as much as he is for shredding badniks at high speed, so what's a gamer to do? That's where this game actually outshines its predecessors: in replay. The other playable characters - Knuckles with his gliding and climbing powers, and Tails and Cream's flying ability - make it much easier to collect the Special Rings and subsequently the Emeralds, so you're encouraged to make good use of them and complete the game with them all. And in order to unlock these characters to play with, you'll need to save them by beating bosses with Sonic. See, it's like a cycle; a cycle of replayability! Sweet. Now, you might be thinking "Geez, not again...why does the focus have to be taken off of Sonic so much?" Fear not, hedgehog fans; in this game, as opposed to say, Sonic Adventure 2 for example, the other characters are fun to play. Furthermore, Sonic himself is even more fun to play as than ever in 2D. Developer Dimps revamped the movesets of each character, adding special midair "tricks" that they can do off of ramps and springs. These tricks aren't just for show, however; whirlwind speed boosts, flying tackles, double jumps, backflips, hover moves and more allow Sonic and company to reach out of the way places, maintain high speeds over dangerous loops, rails and ground hazards, destroy blocks below them, and generally enhance the characters' capabilities. As if that wasn't enough, each character has the capability to activate a sort of "hyper-speed" mode. Initiated by running at maximum speed without stopping or slowing down for a short period of time, your character will explode forward in a blue aura, complete with trails. When you're in hyper-speed, kiss your retinas goodbye. Blazing through loops and such at this speed is absolutely exhilarating and it'll make you think, if only for one second, that "blast processing" wasn't a joke. Of course, this isn't all for show either; in hyper-speed, each character gains extra powerful ground attack moves as well, making it a lot safer to take a speedy approach to the Acts. Given all of the new stuff that's in this Sonic title, you'll be glad that the game controls as tight as it does. An extremely simple three-button control scheme, hearkening back yet again to those Genesis days, reinforces the excellent gameplay. With plenty of new moves, more speed, better-designed levels that have better layouts and more devious twists, turns and jumps and tons of replayability - not to mention a bevy of multiplayer options and the return of the Tiny Chao Garden GameCube-GBA linkup mode. No doubt about it, Sonic Advance 2 is Sega's highest gameplay achievement on the Game Boy Advance to date.
The graphics are classic 2D Sonic, only on steroids. Quality animations are found in every single moving sprite, and the characters themselves are animated even more exquisitely. The levels have some unique styles to them, despite some of them falling in their requisite styles (a "Green Hill" style grass level, an ice level, a hidden base level, etc.). Some of them even interact with other aspects of the presentation, like the Music Plant Zone; in this zone, every object you bounce on plays a unique musical note that almost dynamically meshes with the music, and perfectly to boot! Every special effect the GBA can handle, save for polygons, are used in the visuals with great effect; transparencies, Mode 7 scaling and rotation. It’s all there and it's all good. To top it off, the framerate absolutely never slows down or sputters, keeping the experience silky smooth and lightning quick-just the way Sonic fans like it. The music is very good as well, sounding exactly like a Sonic game should be, both upbeat and uptempo. Each Zone has a unique theme and the Acts within each Zone have their own unique mix of that theme, which is a nice touch. The sound effects are classic Sonic fare, I mean, what would a Sonic game be without the classic sounds, like the ring, skid, jump, and "box open" sounds? Soundwise, it's business as usual for a Sonic game, which means audio quality abounds.
Sonic Advance was a pretty decent game, but it wasn't the best Sonic game it could have been. With Sonic Advance 2, the little blue dude with 'tude gets quite the shot in the arm. Great gameplay, great sound, great graphics and great replayability make this game shine bright; it's easily the best original platformer on GameBoy Advance, no question. But more importantly, it might even be the best 2D Sonic game ever, and that's saying a lot, especially because the game manages to stay awesome even though Tails is still the most annoying video game sidekick ever. GBA gamers everywhere: run to your stores and buy Sonic Advance 2 now! And do it fast, we all know Sonic would want it that way.
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