Collection essentials #536: Sonic Advance (GBA)

Sonic the Hedgehog was, of course, one of the most successful and recognizable icons that emerged in gaming in the early ‘90s. He helped propel the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive to relevance, making incredible gains in popularity compared to where Sega had been in the previous decade. He was seen as a rival to Nintendo’s Mario, since they served similar roles as mascots for their companies, and represented different interpretations of the platformer genre. Sonic surprisingly didn’t have a big presence on the Sega Saturn, but Sonic Adventure was the best-selling title on the Sega Dreamcast which appeared to give Sega new life at the end of the decade.


But of course, if you’re a gamer my age or if you’ve been reading my blog this whole time, you know that things didn’t end well for the Dreamcast. As the PlayStation 2 threatened to plunge it into irrelevance, Sega made the major decision to abandon the console-making business and immediately start making games for consoles that their now-former competitors made. And so, before very long, the unthinkable happened: we started getting Sonic games made for Nintendo systems. Such a concept would have seemed like sacrilege just a short time before, but sometimes reality is strange. Sonic Advance is the first completely original Sonic game on Nintendo hardware, hitting shelves at the end of 2001 in Japan and in early 2002 in the West.


Sonic Team didn’t develop this game themselves, as the lead developer was actually a fairly new company called Dimps, composed of employees who had experience in other big-name companies. And this game would be designed in the style of the original Sega Genesis games which have always been highly revered, with a new graphical style.


The gameplay is pretty true to classic Sonic. You’ve got large levels with multiple paths, and plenty of secrets to find, and Chaos Emeralds to collect by conquering the special stages, which you’ll need in order to truly complete the game. Like Sonic 3 & Knuckles, you can play as Sonic, Tails or Knuckles, each with their own unique abilities, plus this game makes Amy Rose playable in a 2D Sonic game for the first time ever for a total of four playable characters. 


I had played and liked the old school Sonic games when I was a kid, and when this game came out I thought it was cool that the GBA was getting a brand new Sonic game. However, it was one of those new games that fell on the back burner as I was only able to buy so many games as a preteen. Many years went by as I only gave Sonic Advance the minimum consideration thinking that “I’ll get around to it at some point.” And I did, nearly 20 years later! And when I finally played it, I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. This game really seems to understand what made the original Sonic games fun, and it’s a delight to play. I only played through the game with Knuckles, but if I didn’t have a zillion other games to play I certainly would enjoy going back and playing it with the other three characters too. The only real complaint I had was the music, which was quite lackluster, which is rather unusual as Sonic music tends to be really good.


Sonic Advance was a success, and spawned two GBA sequels, Sonic Advance 2 and Sonic Advance 3. I was excited to play 2 and 3 after seeing how good the first one was. So I tried them, and…wow, those games are disappointing. Neither one of them, for me at least, captures the delight of old school Sonic in the way Sonic Advance 1 does. So 2 and 3 won’t be showing up on this list.


Unfortunately, this isn’t one of the GBA titles currently available on the Switch Online Expansion Pack, and there’s no modern rerelease. However, if you have a device that can play GBA cartridges, this one is reasonably priced on the secondhand market in modern times. If you love the original Sonic games and are hungry for more, you really ought to at least try Sonic Advance. To me, it’s one of the best Sonic games outside of the legendary Genesis titles, and for that it deserves to be an essential in my collection.

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