Sonic Advance Trilogy: Difference between revisions

The ''Sonic Advance'' trilogy is a trio of games in the [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] series for the [[Nintendo]] [[Game Boy Advance]].

 

 

 

In ''Sonic Advance 2'' (2002), Cream the Rabbit and her chao companion Cheese join Sonic and friends in the battle against Eggman after he abducts her mother and Tails. The gameplay is definitely the most extreme in the trilogy; the focus on speed is greater (to the point of making all but one boss a running battle), all of the characters now have the ability to grind on rails, and they can perform tricks with a press of the R-trigger after going off a ramp/spring to gain more momentum.

 

 

 

Although the [[Unpleasable Fanbase]] often reared its ugly head, the trilogy as a whole was very well-received.

 

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* [[Back From the Dead]] - {{spoiler|Emerl, who was rebuilt as Gemerl by Eggman, then reprogrammed by Tails back into his Emerl personality}} in 3, cheering up everyone after [[Downer Ending|the ending]] of ''[[Sonic Battle]]''.

* [[Back That Light Up]] - The third game had different color settings to suit different [[Game Boy Advance]] backlight arrangements.

** Also from Sonic Advance 2, there is Amy, who is unlocked after the game is 100% completed. She (who in the first game was slow and couldn't roll, but had her own advantages) is little more than an alternate skin of Sonic.

** A glitch in Sonic Advance makes rings not transfer to the Tiny Chao Garden from the main game if the save data is deleted. Fortunately, Sonic Pinball Party, which is in a [[Compilation Rerelease]] with this game, does not have this glitch.

* [[Bottomless Pits]] - Present in all of the regular levels of these games (the only exceptions being Neo Green Hill Zone in the first one, Leaf Forest in the second and Ocean Base in the third), though they are more common in the second and third games (looking at you Sky Canyon).

** Did we mention that these bottomless pits are insanely long? You find yourself falling for quite a while.

** The rabbit that sometimes pops out of badniks is an expy of Pocky, one of the animals from the Genesis games. See [[Furry Confusion]] below.

* [[Furry Confusion]] - Cream the Rabbit is a playable character in the second game. When the badniks are defeated, the animal used to power it pops out. One of the animals that can pop out is a significantly less anthropomorphic rabbit.

* [[Green Hill Zone]] - Leaf Forest in the second game and Sunset Hill (which doubles as a [[Nostalgia Level]]) in the third. Oddly enough, Neo Green Hill from the first is less like this and more like [[Palmtree Panic]].

* [[Guide Dang It]] - Some Special Springs in 1 (protip: Ice Mountain has two), Special Rings in 2 (''especially'' them) and the Chao in 3 might be very difficult for the player to locate. Bottomless pits, pesky speed boosters and [[Back Tracking|unbacktrackable]] areas tend to make exploration even more difficult.

** Sonic Advance 3, on the other hand, had you searching for ''ten'' well hidden Chao spread between the three zones and the area map. Fortunately, the Chao garden will tell you the number of Chao in each zone and the map. ''Un''fortunately, there was no official strategy guide for this game, unlike the other two, meaning you had to look online or explore almost every path to find them all. You permanently collect a Chao once getting it, which is fortunate, because some require specific teams or multiple playthroughs. When you have all 10, you have to find a key hidden ''somewhere'' in that game's considerably expansive levels and finish the stage with it (losing it if you die). They were mercifully often out in the open, they also had multiple locations within a stage making dying not as much of a problem (although you could only collect one per run through a stage), and you could have up to nine at once (nine separate tries).

** Sonic Advance 2 may have had the hardest activation of the special stages, but their stages were '''much''' easier than the ones in Sonic Advance 1 or 3. 3's stages were incredibly difficult compared to the previous game, especially the last one, and unlike the second game which had a strategy guide to walk you through the locations of everything important, the third game didn't have one to help you out, so you were completely on your own.

** Sunset Hill in Advance 3 is what Green Hill became after Eggman's reality warping experiments at the beginning of the game.

* [[Not the Fall That Kills You]] - {{spoiler|If the Sonic 2-like rescue scene in Advance 1's ending wasn't enough, Advance 2's first ending shows the player character falling from space to the ground without any injuries.}}

* [[Platform Battle]] - Goddamn it, Twinkle Snow Eggman.

* [[Power of Friendship]] - The gimmick of the third game.

** It also applies across the games themselves: The boss of Cosmic Angel from the first is slightly altered and appears as Chaos Angel's boss from the 3rd. Ocean Base's boss feels like a [[X Meets Y|cross]] between the bosses of Secret Base in the first game and Egg Utopia in the second game.

* [[Ring Out Boss]] - The boss in the third game's Toy Kingdom Zone.

* [[Robotic Reveal]] - Metal Knuckles in the first game, halfway through the fight.

* [[Shout-Out]] - In ''Sonic Advance 2'', [[Sonic the Hedgehog 2|Tails is kidnapped by Eggman]]! Now where have we heard this before?

** For ''no particular reason'', characters '''must'' stay paired in Sonic Advance 3, which combined with the other gimmick of changeable movesets makes this game a spiritual successor to ''[[Knuckles Chaotix]]''. Not to mention [[Mecha Mook|badniks]] are powered by rings.

** It is much closer to the Sonic and Tails mode seen in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3.

* [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]] - All three games feature this kind of zone, the one in the first (Ice Mountain Zone) doubling as a water level.

* [[Sublime Rhyme|Sublime]]/PainfulRhyme - Ice Paradise in the second game.