Category: Game Boy Advance

Sonic Advance 2 – In Retrospect

On By YunaNoireIn Game Boy Advance, In RetrospectLeave a comment

Back in October last year, I published an article about Sonic Advance, the first original Sonic title after Sega stepped away from the console market. Given its place as a cherished game from my childhood, I was always going to approach it with a more positive outlook than most; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played through that game or how much joy it has brought me since I unwrapped my copy on that fateful Christmas morning. Despite any flaws it might have when I separate it from my nostalgia, I earnestly believe it holds up incredibly well and it easily keeps pace with the original 16-bit trilogy.

Of course, Sonic Advance was just the beginning and almost immediately Sega set to work on a sequel. Using a modified version of the original engine, Dimps and Sonic Team released Sonic Advance 2 almost exactly a year later. The development team set out to make a game that was even faster than the original in every respect and while the first Sonic Advance felt like a merging of Sonic’s earliest games and the Adventure era, Sonic Advance 2 has its own identity in terms of gameplay and aesthetics, for better and for worse.

At a glance, the structure hasn’t changed that much; run, jump and spin dash through colourful zones and acts until you reach the end. However, as mentioned previously, the focus on speed here has been amped up tenfold; at the start of each act, your chosen character finds themself on a starting block, as if in a race, and whenever they reach a certain speed, they enter into a ‘Boost Mode’, which increases their velocity even further! Levels are much larger than before to accommodate for this extra speed, which is a good thing, otherwise stages would likely be over in just the blink of an eye.

This thrilling, dynamic sense of speed feels incredible and is a definite highlight of the game; keeping your flow going just feels so cool, slick and satisfying, better than any Sonic game before it in my mind. The additional movement techniques that Sonic & co. have (some of which are making their return from Sonic Advance) really enhance this too, as you can utilize them to keep yourself on the right track, if you know where to use them, or if you just trust your instincts from time to time. Grind rails have opened up to all characters now too and feature heavily. This kind of invigorating gameplay is felt strongest during the early zones and is where Sonic Advance 2 is at its very best. You truly feel like you are the fastest thing alive.

But unfortunately, things do start to get a little shaky once you hit Zone 4. To put it bluntly, the game has a bit of a problem with its level design. Early stages are pretty easy, some could even say too easy. But stages like Sky Canyon or Techno Base can get a bit insidious, with stage hazards that sit on the wrong side of challenging and are more like pranks set up by Dimps. So many moments will have you running headlong, at incredible speeds, into hazards that kill you instantly with little to no time to react. Many critics of the Advance games commonly bring up death pits and while I’d argue Sonic Advance 1 doesn’t really indulge in this design element as much, Sonic Advance 2 definitely does and it gets more than a little bothersome.

This doesn’t make Sonic Advance 2 impossible to beat, just frustrating in the wrong ways. The boss stages only seek to enhance this frustration as well; each boss is now an auto-runner stage, which sees you struggling against the tide just for the opportunity to land a hit on Eggman. Much like the levels themselves, these aren’t too bad at first, but get really annoying later on, mostly because of their auto-running nature and some really irritating design choices (instant death slaps from a giant robot hand for example). This assumes of course that you aren’t playing the game as Sonic series newcomer Cream the Rabbit, who absolutely demolishes the bosses thanks to her ability to launch Cheese the Chao into the face of a poor, unsuspecting scientist.

Cream was added to the game as sort of easy mode and growing up, she was actually the only character I managed to beat this game as, purely for her ability to decimate bosses without very little difficulty. Her ability to fly certainly helps when avoiding certain death from pits too in normal gameplay, although Knuckles and Tails have this advantage also. Trying to finish Sonic Advance 2 as Sonic the Hedgehog himself is genuinely a lot harder than it should ever have needed to be. It is very peculiar and it makes Sonic Advance 2 a bit of a weird duck when it comes to recommending it.

Even more egregious in terms of difficulty, is what you’re required to do to collect the Chaos emeralds. Each stage has seven rings you need to collect in a single run just to enter the Special Stage. With Tails and Cream, this is made easier by their ability to fly. Knuckles is a little more challenging, but still doable thanks to his gliding and climbing. Sonic though requires insane amounts of restarts and you might even find yourself having to look up stage maps just to chart an ideal course. You might wonder too why I didn’t mention Amy, and that’s because in order to play as Amy at all, you have to collect all of the emeralds with every single character. Absolute madness. If I don’t stop myself now I will talk about this one element for an entire article.

I don’t want to give off the impression that I dislike this game however because that is far from the truth. As replete with frustrations as it is, I adore how this game feels to play when it isn’t pulling the rug out from underneath you. It does suffer from being a bit simple and I feel like it is totally justified when people say that you just have to hold right to win in the early game. In Sonic Advance 1, level design felt a little bit more thoughtful, but that game wasn’t being made with the same sense of speed in mind. It is clear that they were trying to push in a new direction here, and it is something I really do applaud them for. I understand that I am somewhat biased though, having grown up with this game, having had a lifetime to get accustomed to its core mechanics.

Where this game definitely improves upon its predecessor however, is the visuals; it was already building off of the strong foundation built up by the original game of course, but Sonic Advance 2 completely kills it when it comes to visuals. The amazing character sprites are back and they honestly look even better now, with even more charm and expressiveness than before. It’s absolutely no wonder that these sprites would become the building blocks for so many flash animations, webcomics and original characters back in the 2000s. I remember my first attempt at creating a Sonic OC from these sprites… he was a grey Sonic called Demon Sonic… I was probably about ten or twelve!

Just as stunning though are the levels themselves; Sonic Advance 1 played it pretty safe with its level themes, but Sonic Advance 2 has some of the most colourful and creative levels in a Sonic game i’ve ever seen. Stages like Music Plant and Ice Paradise are dazzling, and even the more maligned levels like Sky Canyon and Techno Base have their charms thanks to unique obstacles that feel well tailored to each Zone. There’s much more of a distinct style to them, lots of angular, mechanical, industrial lines. It feels distinctly 2000s as a result of this and aligns so nicely with this era of Sonic. When I think about aesthetics of the Sonic Advance trilogy, I’m almost always going to think about Advance 2 over Advance 1.

And of course, the music is as great as you can expect and then some! It contains some of the best music in the franchise, with every stage having a new upbeat tune that’ll be stuck in your brain for a lifetime after you’ve listened to it. Much like the visuals, it has much more of an identity when compared to Sonic Advance 1, a personality of its very own. Music Plant is of course a highlight in this regard, but to me Techno Base and Ice Paradise are strong contenders in their own right.

I’ve done my best to seperate myself from my nostalgia in this article, to the point that in preparation for writing this, I asked on Bluesky what other people thought about this game. I also took a look at reviews on Backloggd, just to gauge what the general consensus was, as it has always been hard for me to do so. Despite my own love for Sonic Advance 2 I always assumed people leaned towards viewing this game in a negative light. But I saw plenty of people espouse their own adoration for this game despite its flaws. Many people were critical too, but seemed to agree that some frustrations were a result of the small screen size of the GBA.

Again, I did all this to paint a better picture in my mind regarding how people feel about this game overall, but also to try and decide how I personally felt about the game as well. While I can confidently say that I love this game and always have, my feelings on it have always been a bit more complicated. For a while I treated it like a bit of an awkward middle child in my mind, mostly because of its few foibles. I was content to put it as a comfortable third place in the Sonic Advance trilogy, with my feelings for Sonic Advance and Sonic Advance 3 being that much more powerful.

But I think it deserves better than that; Sonic Advance 2 is a great game, it is a great Sonic game. It sits amongst its siblings as a fantastic platformer on the GBA and it sought to do more with Sonic than just rest on what was built up in Sonic Advance. Dimps and Sonic Team set out to make one of the fastest Sonic games ever and they really did reach their goal for what it’s worth. Design issues and all, I love Sonic Advance 2, it’s a blindingly fast burst of adrenaline, that challenges you to think as fast as the blue blur himself. I completely understand, and in some places concur, with the detractors, the critiques, but it doesn’t dampen any of the thrills.

Thank you for reading! In Retrospect is where I talk about games that I find interesting, for one reason or another. It means a lot that you took the time to check out what I have to say. If you’re interested in supporting my work, then i’d appreciate a follow on my Bluesky.

I also have a Kofi so if you also want to support me, you can do so that way also!

Godzilla: Domination! – In Retrospect

On By YunaNoireIn Game Boy Advance, In RetrospectLeave a comment

Godzilla’s Flawed But Fun Handheld Fisticuffs

Godzilla, as both a movie franchise and as a character, has a decade spanning legacy that hardly needs to be introduced. The big guy hasn’t always been consistent when it comes to movies, but most will agree that the king of kaiju has left a mark on pop culture forever, one that is just as colossal as he is. I am certainly a Godzilla fan myself, having seen a decent handful of his movies (including the 1954 original and the more recent Godzilla Minus One), but I have also ventured into a realm where he has seen far less success; video games.

There have been a lot of Godzilla video games over the years, but arguably none have really hit the same heights as his films. You have entertaining, fanservice-laden slugfests like Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, frustrating action games like the NES’ Godzilla: King of the Monsters! and even a rail shooter, in the form of Godzilla Generations: Maximum Impact. I have yet to try every single one of them, and there are some interesting experiments in Godzilla’s back catalogue, but typically his games are the most palatable when they’re all about one thing: kaiju on kaiju combat!

One that often gets lost within that particular flavor of Godzilla games though, is Godzilla: Domination for the Game Boy Advance. Released in 2002 alongside the aforementioned Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, it most likely got lost in that games shadow. Handheld versions of console titles do often get overlooked, which in some circumstances is a real shame if the handheld version has had some serious effort poured into it. While it wouldn’t be super accurate to say that Domination is the one-to-one handheld equivalent of its bigger brother on the Gamecube, it was certainly running parallel to it given the shared genre and release period; it is still very much a condensed version of what was, at the time, a rather substantial brawler.

And when I say condensed, I mean considerably condensed. Destroy All Monsters Melee has a respectable roster of twelve monsters while Domination pares that back to six. They are all unlocked from the start as well, so there are no additional unlockables for you to discover like in the console release. There are some kaiju sized omissions too, as recognizable monsters like Anguirus and Gigan aren’t featured at all (despite what the european box art might have you believe). The six kaiju present are all fairly heavy hitters within the franchise though, plus it features a playable Mothra (Destroy All Monsters Melee only featured her in an NPC role), so that is also a point in its favor! And to me at least, a smaller roster doesn’t necessarily mean a worse game, it is all about how those characters are executed and designed.

In terms of gameplay, perhaps the clearest and most obvious point of comparison is to the King of the Monsters series from SNK. You fight one to three other monsters in a sizable arena which is typically filled with obstacles and structures that are destructible and sometimes even throwable! Combat is fairly simple with every character having two basic attacks, two charge attacks and then three different rage attacks. The movesets are well suited to each character and they all have moves that they typically do in the movies. Although ultimately certain characters (Megalon and Rodan especially) do end up becoming pretty imbalanced thanks to rage attacks that are much more devastating than others. To me though, that doesn’t really hamper the game at all; this is a pick up and play sort of game and it never becomes too challenging on the default settings.

A lack of complexity is what most gaming publications held against Godzilla: Domination! back when it was first released. In a way, I think this is justified; for extended play sessions you are going to get pretty burnt out. The game effectively only has a single core mode, the story mode, which is over in at least a half hour. Outside of this the options are pretty slim as you get the obligatory CPU VS mode as well as Multiplayer (which to the game’s credit, does support a single cart option). If you’re looking for variety or depth, then you are likely to be disappointed in what’s to offer here. There simply isn’t enough content if you are looking for something to enthrall you for hours at a time, playing under the blankets until the wee hours of the morning.

On a personal level though, I feel that the reviews are largely way too harsh on Godzilla: Domination! and most of them misunderstand the value of a game you can just pop on for a few minutes to have fun, smashing around as a powerful kaiju. It would be dishonest of me to suggest that this game is worth more than maybe a six or a seven out of ten. Even the five that ‘Nintendo Official Magazine’ gave it during issue 123 seems mostly fair. Godzilla: Domination! isn’t a great game, necessarily. But it is entertaining. You get exactly what you sign up for by picking up a Godzilla fighting game. Not to say such games can’t have depth or complexity, but there is a charm to playing a simple, uncomplicated rough and tumble brawler like this. There are no frills or extravigances here but that didn’t stop me from enjoying my time spent playing Godzilla: Domination!.

I imagine what concerned the reviewers of the day was making sure customers got their moneys worth. Perhaps at the £29.99 asking price for a new GBA game, Godzilla: Domination! was maybe not the ideal game to choose amongst many stellar titles that were already on the market. But now, it’s a much more affordable game, especially if you’re both a Godzilla fan, and a Game Boy Advance enthusiast. It has been a fun game to delve into, something suitably undemanding for short retro gaming sessions before bedtime. There definitely are better games out there, better fighting games even, and Godzilla: Domination! isn’t an essential purchase by any means, but I believe you need to make some room in your gaming collection for some uncomplicated entertainment. It is not as if the game isn’t well made either; the controls are fine and I didn’t encounter any major glitches or slowdown. Any issues are mostly at a design level and I think most of those issues are forgivable.

Plus that’s before you even discuss the Godzilla: Domination!’s strongest aspect; the visuals and the music. I’ve buried the lead a little, but the developer of Godzilla: Domination! is one that is quite a familiar name today; Wayforward Technologies. Released the same year as Shantae, the quality graphics and enjoyable soundtrack are very much in line with their reputation. Godzilla: Domination! is colourful and exceptionally well animated, with the kaiju characters showing a great deal of personality with their movements. It’s perhaps lacking in some additional flourish, but it’s certainly one of the more pleasant looking GBA titles out there and makes good use of the hardware.

This was one of many licensed games Wayforward developed in between their main projects and I do wonder if budget or time constraints placed on them prevented the game from having at least a few more modes and extras. Given the nature of licensed games and deadlines it wouldn’t surprise me, plus if they needed to release it alongside the Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee, I can only imagine the sort of pressures they were under. Needless to say though, one thing that the reviews almost all seemed to agree upon was the quality of the aesthetics, so at least their efforts there did not go unnoticed.

Here are some other additional facts you might find interesting; there are actually a few regional differences between the western releases and the japanese release! To tie-in with the then recent movie Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., they chose to recolour and even redraw some of the characters to match their appearance within that film: Godzilla, who is green in both America and Europe, is grey in Japan; Mechagodzilla has been redrawn to match his ‘Kiryu’ design; Mothra has also been recoloured and her design also altered. The japanese release also has two different options for story mode; aside from the default options, you can also choose to play survival mode or rage mode. In a way, this would make the japanese version the definitive version of the game! If you’re interested in learning more about these regional differences, you can read about them on The Cutting Room Floor!

All things considered, Godzilla: Domination! might not be at the peak when it comes to GBA fighting games, but it quite comfortably sits in a cave around the middle of the mountain instead. All you have to do is walk into that cave with the right expectations in mind and you could find yourself pleasantly surprised by it. These days it is more likely to be appreciated I believe, both for its affordability, its connections to a well-loved developer and its approachable gameplay. It won’t be for absolutely all tastes and I admit, my predilection for Godzilla means I am probably softer on it than most would be. But I stand by my belief, that if all you want is to have Godzilla beat the stuffing out of King Ghidorah on a handheld then you could do much worse than this.

Thank you for reading! In Retrospect is where I talk about games that I find interesting, for one reason or another. It means a lot that you took the time to check out what I have to say. If you’re interested in supporting my work, then i’d appreciate a follow on my Bluesky.

I also have a Kofi so if you also want to support me, you can do so that way also!

Sonic Advance – In Retrospect

On By YunaNoireIn Game Boy Advance, In Retrospect3 Comments

Sonic The Hedgehog’s New Handheld Legacy

To say that 2001 was a curious time to be a Sonic fan would be an understatement. Most of us familiar with Sega know the story very well; rather than accruing further losses in the console market, the once thriving company decided to divert its attention towards being a third party developer and publisher. This of course left the doors open for them to bring their beloved franchises to systems made by their erstwhile competitor, Nintendo. While many of their IP would find their way onto the newly released Gamecube and Game Boy Advance during the 2000s, it made sense to have their most iconic character be one of the first.

Enter, Sonic Advance. Released alongside Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, Sonic Advance holds the distinction of being the first original Sonic game to be released on a Nintendo system and it serves as a bit of a merging between the classic era and the, at the time, modern era of Sonic. Given the game was set to be released for Sonic’s tenth anniversary, it makes sense to take him back to his roots while also bridging the gap with his Sonic Adventure redesign. What this union results in is perhaps one of the finest platformers on the system, both for the time and in retrospect.

Sonic Advance mostly follows the same structure and gameplay laid out by its Mega Drive forebears. Across several zones, each with two acts, you speed along as either Sonic, Tails, Knuckles or Amy Rose. If you’ve played a Sonic game before, everything seems pretty familiar right out of the gate, and they do a wonderful job and the physics are a good approximation of those classic games as well. Controls are tight and momentum works the way you would expect. Members of Dimps, the developers, had previously cut their teeth on Sonic Pocket Adventure for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, so by this point they already had experience with Sega’s beloved speedster.

Adding an extra layer to the experience though is the enhanced movesets that have been given to each of the characters. While Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have moves previously seen in their classic outings, they each have new moves as well, mostly for movement, but they each have unique attacks as well, such as a slide move for Sonic. The movement techniques are the real star though, allowing you to speed through levels in new ways so long as you know how to perform them. Amy in particular, who plays much differently to the other three, pushes you to approach obstacles in a whole new way. She doesn’t have the spindash for example, so you have to apply some more vertical maneuvers to get up slopes or hills if you don’t have the required speed.

Tails and Knuckles are more limited in their new options, given their returning flight and glide abilities are already useful for a variety of situations. They do both get the ability to swim, which is a great tool for the more waterlogged stages in the game, and while that is admittedly very situational, the sheer utility of their other tech more than makese up for it. Stages don’t really become trivialised by their superior aerial maneuvers, but they do allow you to save yourself from traps and pitfalls with greater frequency (plus they also make searching for certain special stages a lot easier).

You can play this game without engaging with most of these new tools, but in repeat playthroughs they can be fun to mess around with to see what you can do with them. These moves would be expanded later on in the trilogy and here they are in a primordial form, but their simplicity is still executed excellently.

The levels make up one of the weaker aspects of the game though, at least for my personal taste. On a technical level, they are largely well designed and visually, they are stunning to look at. Detailed and colorful pixel art makes Sonic Advance one of the best looking GBA games, even to this day, they just lack a little in the theming. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they just feel somewhat lacking if you take the rest of the trilogy into consideration as well, as Dimps later found a much more unique and memorable style for the Advance series to call its own.

The OST is no slouch either, although the rest of the trilogy does tend to overpace it in this regard too. You still have some incredibly memorable songs though, each of them showing just what the GBA can do in terms of audio, even in its first year. And the crown jewel in terms of presentation has to be the character sprites themselves. There is so much personality to find here and each character is animated in a way that oozes quality and charm. So much love and care was put in to make sure these iconic characters were just as full of energy and charisma as their three dimensional counterparts. Ever since I first played this game, Sonic Advance has been at the peak in terms of style for 2D Sonic games, outmatched only by the rest of the trilogy.

To me, Sonic Advance stands out today as a classic. But I am admittedly a little biased; to be forthcoming with you all, this was the first Sonic game I ever owned and it was also my first Game Boy Advance game. I’ve probably played this game more than any other in my life and it took my budding love for Sonic games and made it blossom, turning me into the diehard fan I am today. But rationally, and separating all of that, I still believe that it deserves to be seen as one of the best platformers on the system, surpassing all of Mario’s efforts. Mario platformers played it rather safe during the GBA era in my opinion, while Sonic chose to do something that paid homage to days gone by, while still seeking new horizons.

Sonic Advance definitely is antiquated in comparison to the second or third game, but on it’s own, it is a strong entry regardless. It made impressive use of the handheld during its first year, showing that Dimps had the knowhow to squeeze the best out of the hardware. The reception at the time was pretty favorable too. Most praised its visuals and its traditional approach to gameplay, although it’s mentioned that it also doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

Weirdly enough though, Sega and Sonic Team seem less enthusiastic about the trilogy as a whole. None of the games have seen a modern re-release as of yet and is sparingly mentioned or referenced in the modern titles and for a milestone entry in the Sonic series, that feels like such a shame to me. This game represented a new beginning for the hedgehog and was the start of arguably one of the strongest runs of handheld Sonic titles ever.

It’s legacy should be more highly regarded, especially since it is among the best selling titles of the GBA era. It outsold many iconic games, including Kirby & The Amazing Mirror and even WarioWare. While he never reached the sales heights of Mario on the console, I ultimately think this game has aged wonderfully in comparison.

It has been ported to other systems, but very rarely and usually in less than ideal states. The ill-fated Ngage console recieved a port of the game, dubbed SonicN, but it was largely considered inferior thanks to the console’s own limitations, namely it’s rather peculiar screen size. Japan recieved an android port in 2011 and there was also a Java port by Gameloft, both of which are of questionable quality to say the least. Finally, the last proper rerelease of the game was the Japan only Wii U Virtual Console release, which is now, of course, gone. Unless you own the actual cartridge for the GBA (or happen to have an NGage lying around…?) there’s little chance to get to play Sonic Advance legitimately.

There’s a possibility that some of the difficulties with rereleasing it comes down to licensing. In the android port, the Egg Wrecker and Egg Drillster boss themes are replaced, as well as the invincibility music, all of which are arranged versions of songs by Masato Nakamura. He is credited in the original game for those songs, so there could be some licensing barrier preventing wider releases. But this is also just speculation, it just seems peculiar to me that so much of Sonic’s back catalogue has been made available for modern hardware, but the Advance games are left mostly untouched.

Sonic Advance is a game that is more than deserving of another chance in the spotlight. There definitely is a collective of fans out there who appreciate it and there’s likely a large number who would love the chance to try it out through legitimate means someday.

Since initially starting this article and after letting it sit for a while, Sonic Team lead, Takashi Iizuka actually commented on the prospect of a remaster or re-release in an interview with VGC.

“There’s currently no plans for the Sonic Advance series to be remade or remastered, but we don’t know what the future holds.

Katsuyuki Shigihara was a director on Sonic Origins, which took Sonic 1, 2, 3 and CD, and we remastered that and brought it out for fans to enjoy. And if we have the chance, if there’s an opportunity for the Advance series to also get that treatment, or whatever circumstances may pop up, we’d love to do it.”

For me, this doesn’t really confirm anything, obviously, but if there is enthusiasm for the trilogy at Sonic Team, then that does at least make me marginally more hopeful for the future! I just hope it doesn’t take another decade for such a thing to actually happen.

Thank you for reading! In Retrospect is where I talk about games that I find interesting, for one reason or another. It means a lot that you took the time to check out what I have to say. If you’re interested in supporting my work, then i’d appreciate a follow on my Bluesky.

I also have a Kofi so if you also want to support me, you can do so that way also!