Sonic Advance 2 is out now and I have it. When first playing the game you will notice that only sonic is available to play as, and eventually you will have to unlock all the other characters.

On the first level you'll notice straight away that this game is alot faster than the original Sonic Advance and at that time you will find it very hard to see what is coming at you next. However you will soon get used to this and it will not be a problem. So far, I have completed this game with Cream (new character), as it is VERY easy to do so with her. Infact you dont even have to get close to bosses to destroy them! With other characters though the game is hard.

To unlock certain things in the game you will have to collect the 7 chaos emeralds and complete the last level, sound easy? How about collecting 28! Yep, now each charecter has 7 emeralds to collect instead of 7 for all of them. To get into the 'special zone' in order to collect the chaos emeralds you must collect the 7 magic rings in the level and then finish the level. Sometimes you will be going to fast in a level and then suddenly a part where you need to jump will come but you don't have enough time to act upon this, so you'll plummet to your doom. This can become quite frustrating at times.

Also in the game each character has four new moves which are excuted by pressing R and right/left (which sends the character straight forward while attacking any enemy it reaches), R and up (which sends the character upwards which gives them that little extra hight in jumps), R and down (which makes the character go downwards and able to smash some floors underneath him/her in order to access more areas) and just pressing R (which makes the character go backwards which can come in handy when trying to dodge enemys attacks). These moves however can only be used when in the air and not in a ball-form (which can be achieved by running of ramps or bouncing on a spring).

Some complaints have been made about if you hold right you will make it to the end of the level, which does apply in the first levels, though later on the game this does not apply and this is why the game has such a steep lurning curve.

Verdict:
Controls: 8
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 9
Learning curve: 9
TOTAL: 7

pros:
+ incredible speed
+ lots to unlock
+ nice bosses
+ nice graphics
cons:
- can be frustrating at times
- steep lurning curve


Reviewed by: Owario