Sonic is back again! Yup, this is his third adventure on the GBA and boy is it good! With every new Sonic Advance game, the fun just seems to improve in linear progression and get better every time! This time around, the game has a brand new exciting twist to it which I shall describe in a ... Read review
Advantages: A great game with new concepts and ideas. Disadvantages: None i can think of at the moment.
Sonic is back again! Yup, this is his third adventure on the GBA and boy is it good! With every new Sonic Advance game, the fun just seems to improve in linear progression and get better every time! This time around, the game has a brand new exciting twist to it which I shall describe in a moment so read on!
Story
Ho hum, what’s new? The Megalomaniac Dr.Eggman aka Robotnik is back again and he is intent on taking over ... ...fighting robot.
Sonic and Tails, who have been separated from their friends must put a stop to Dr.Eggman’s plot. The only way they can achieve this is to find all seven Chaos emeralds in order to undo the evil of Dr.Eggman’s plans.
Characters
Sonic the Hedgehog: Our speed loving hero is friendly, peace loving and willing to help everyone. He hates Dr.Eggman and will stop at nothing to wreck his plans and ... more
Sonic is back again! Yup, this is his third adventure on the GBA and boy is it good! With every new Sonic Advance game, the fun just seems to improve in linear progression and get better every time! This time around, the game has a brand new exciting twist to it which I shall describe in a moment so read on!
Story
Ho hum, what’s new? The Megalomaniac Dr.Eggman aka Robotnik is back again and he is intent on taking over the world (as usual). This time, Eggman has used chaos control to break the world into 7 parts. Although he’s a maniac, Dr.Eggman is a genius and has used his engineering talent to perfect the ultimate fighting robot.
Sonic and Tails, who have been separated from their friends must put a stop to Dr.Eggman’s plot. The only way they can achieve this is to find all seven Chaos emeralds in order to undo the evil of Dr.Eggman’s plans.
Characters
Sonic the Hedgehog: Our speed loving hero is friendly, peace loving and willing to help everyone. He hates Dr.Eggman and will stop at nothing to wreck his plans and humiliate him. Sonic is cheeky and short tempered but this never seems to work to his disadvantage as far as Eggman is concerned.
Tails the fox: Tails is a young, mild-mannered double-tailed fox who adores Sonic and is only to ready to follow him on a new adventure. He is also a genius with an engineering talent to rival Dr.Eggman’s. His favourite machine is his super-fast X-wing tornado plane.
Knuckles the Echidna: Knuckles is a powerful, spiky fisted echidna. He has a very short temper and is rather gullible but he is ready to give his help where it is needed (rather like Sonic). Although he is Sonic’s best friend, he is also his biggest rival and will compete with Sonic whenever he can.
Amy Rose the Hedgehog: A pretty pink hedgehog who sees herself as Sonic’s girlfriend. She is slightly eccentric and is prepared to let nothing stand between herself and her ‘love’ Sonic. Rather worryingly, she never goes anywhere without her Piko Piko Hammer (a giant, deadly looking hammer which she wields with great accuracy). It’s obvious that Sonic only obeys her (and runs away from her when he gets the chance) because she has used the hammer on him before!
Cream the Rabbit: A sweet, polite little rabbit who is accompanied by her pet Chao (a mysterious little being) Cheese wherever she goes. She is a good friend of Sonic and co and is ready to help whenever she can.
Dr.Eggman: The crazy scientist who hates little animals (especially the blue hedgehog Sonic). He is a megalomaniac and like every megalomaniac he craves world domination. He makes destructive robots (called badniks) which exist for the sole purpose of destroying Sonic and co.
????: The mysterious, ultimate fighting robot that was created by Eggman in order to destroy Sonic. It doesn’t seem to have a name (hence the question marks) and plays a very interesting role in the story.
Game-play
All Sonic games (apart form the pinball ones) follow a general formula. Speed through the levels collecting rings while avoiding badniks, pitfalls and traps then fight Eggman when you have to. You may also have to find things and discover new areas. It’s fairly simple and anyone of any age can pick it up.
In all previous Sonic games, the characters were usually silent and never said anything. In this game, they now talk! Not talk as in babbling out endless sentences but talk as in saying one word or phrase now and then which I think is pretty cool!
Now here are the new, exciting twists I mentioned earlier:
In previous Sonic games, you usually control one character at a time. Of course, there were one or two games where Tails would accompany Sonic but you couldn’t really make him do much accept lift Sonic to a high ledge or something. This time, you control two characters. The character you choose as leader can perform different tag actions with their partner enabling them reach normally inaccessible areas or break things they wouldn’t of been able to break on their own. For example, if you choose Sonic as leader and Tails as partner, Sonic will be able to perform a super high jump with Tails. On the other hand, if you choose Tails as leader and Sonic as partner, Tails would be able to run super fast with Sonic.
This idea is great as you can mix and match characters however you like with different results each time. No two games are ever the same and you get to enjoy this for quite a while.
Badniks: In previous Sonic Advance games, the badniks, when smashed open would release a small animal which Eggman placed earlier in order to power his machine. In Sonic Advance 3, instead of liberated animals, desperately needed rings are revealed instead. This is a good thing as you never know when there might be some emergency when you desperately need a ring to protect your character from harm.
Levels: Now this is really interesting, the previous Sonic Advance games just had zones, each with two acts and a fight with Eggman at the end of the second act. This time, there are seven zones. Each zone has three acts and one boss level. For each zone there is a general map area. From here, you access the acts by jumping through numbered rings, the boss levels by jumping into special transporters, the ‘Sonic Factory’ where you access other zones and the Chao playground, the mini-games by entering transporters and finally, the Special Stage by jumping on a special spring.
Chao Playground and the Special Stage: In the first Sonic Advance game, you had to find a hidden special spring and jump on it in order to get to the Special Stage where you needed to find a specified number of rings while avoiding mines in order to win a chaos emerald. In the second game, you had to find seven special rings to gain access. In Sonic Advance 3, there are 10 Chao hidden in each zone throughout the acts. Once you find all ten Chao, you need to play the acts again in order to obtain golden keys. The golden keys enable you to unlock a special spring (found in the map area) and access the Special Stage. You can play the Special stage for each zone as many times as you like, it all depends on how many keys you collect.
The Chao Playground is found in the Sonic Factory. Here, you can keep a check on how many Chao you’ve collected in each zone. It also has a Chao ‘map’ which gives you hints on where to find them.
Mini-Games The mini-games enable you to collect extra lives without actually playing an act (HOORAY!!!). All you have to do is perform a task within the time limit. You don’t lose any lives, lose any rings or get hurt during this, it’s great!
Multi-player
Single pak mode: Here, you use one game cartridge to play with 1-3 friends. The aim of the game is to find and keep a chao for the longest amount of time. whoever has hold of the chao when the time runs out wins.
Multi-pak mode: Here, each player needs to have their own cartridge. You get to race up to three friends through different acts or better still, you get to play cooperatively in the main game with a friend with you as the leading character while your friend is the partner character or vice versa.
Graphics
The graphics are brilliant! In fact, they are the best graphics to be seen in any Sonic Advance game yet. The zones are set in the usual 2-D format but the life given to characters and moving objects is simply wonderful. There are a few ‘movie’ scenes that are in 3-D format and these are also great. The game always runs smoothly and there is never any stalling. I’ll have to give this aspect 10/10.
Music and Sound Effects
Brilliant! Just as good as before, the music and sound effects always match the mood. I’ll have to give it 9/10. When you complete the game with any character as leader, you unlock the Sound Test option in the menu which lets you listen to any of the music that featured in the game. The character's voices are pretty good quality too.
Overall, this game beats the previous two instalments, Sonic Advance and Sonic Advance 2 (I’m not including Sonic battle as I haven’t played it). The new ideas and concepts in the game are refreshing especially since the format of the Sonic games were beginning to get a little repetitive to me. I’d advise Sonic fans and non Sonic fans alike to buy this game as it’s exciting and lasts quite awhile.
Advantages: Replayability, you will be playing this for months Disadvantages: Not much really, though the story is a bit of a let down
...I felt let down by Sonic Advance 2, but I had high hopes for this one. I was not disappointed.
Gameplay - 9/10
This is definitely better than Sonic Advance 2. The game goes fast, but not too fast, and the levels are still very big, but are rarely dull. The only exception I found to the rule was Toy Kingdom, about half way through the game, which seems repetitive in the extreme. The boss fights are a huge improvement, as rather than chasing Eggman ... ...actually allows you to have Sonic follow other characters around the levels). The partner system includes a number of unique actions and "tag" actions for the specific characters, and fortunately you often won't need to use these to actually beat the levels. There are a few annoyances, such as the fact that using Amy as your partner often stops you from being able to spin attack, but it does make for a number of different playing experiences. Also, ...
GavLuvsGA 17.07.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sonic Advance 3 (GBA)
Advantages: Fun game. Great Graphics. Good Characters. Disadvantages: Very fast and hard to look at at times
This game was bought for my son's 6th Birthday. The game states it is for ages 3+ but to be honest it is quite difficult to complete the levels at times especially for the younger kids. Parents should beware that they will probably be called on frequently as I was in the early days of owning this game. As you can imagine the game gets harder as you progress but the player can go back to any zone at any time to replay the zone. Great if there is a ...
averagejoan 22.04.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Sonic Advance 3 (GBA)
Advantages: great graphics Disadvantages: addictive
Sonic Advance 1 and 2 were both solid games, but the latter came out a little too quickly and was a "more of the same" cash-in sequel. Sega and Dimps took a little more time making the third installment, and the results are ... mixed. While developing a Sonic game longer allows for better, more involved levels designs, it also loads you down with more unnecessary characters, apparently. That evil genius, Dr. Eggman is at it again, and, of course, ... ...can only be stopped by Sonic and his increasingly cumbersome menagerie of friends, and so all ... I dunno, twelve of them set out to stop him. Sega has yet again mandated extraneous characters to burden down Sonic Advance 3 -- while I would usually say that more characters might be more depth, that's never been Sonic's forte and Sega's still intent on missing the point by trying to subject him to it. This problem is made worse by the character cooperation ...
benny445 24.02.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: not helpful Review of Sonic Advance 3 (GBA)
