God the Advance sprites are so cool, these games have such a great aesthetic. I would love to see the buddy system from 3 return in some way too, it was a really cool evolution of the 2D formula. Couldn't agree more that these games deserve a remaster collection like Origins, I'd love to see these games with a bigger screen size too.
I'd even argue they deserve a remaster even more than the classics, those already had the really good mobile ports recently, but the Advance series had literally nothing so far.
@Cybershell your videos be crackin me up🤣🤣 But anyways, Sonic Advance series needs to be re-released on mobile....but unfortunately Sega is just gonna keep recycling boost games, and Sonic 1 + 2.
Yuji's artwork was absolutely perfect for the GBA trilogy. The sprites they produced are so fluidly animated and they take full advantage of the color coding that each of the characters is known for.
@@slainredd4339 Even better would be a collection that includes the Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush games. (and maybe the Sonic Rivals games, even though those were on PSP and made by Backbone Entertainment and have nothing to do with Sonic Advance or Rush) Edit: Actually, Sonic Battle and Pinball Party would fit into such a collection more than the Rivals games.
the cutscene of sonic saving vanilla is one of my faves in the franchise. especially that little look he gave cream before turning super. He would have helped regardless because- he's Sonic- but he's doing it especially for her because she's a new friend and because she was determined to help her mother by tagging along- but he relaises she can only do so much, so he turned super to help. really like little character moments like this
I greatly miss Sonic's displays of humanity. Beneath the ever-present sneer and attitude is a genuinely down to earth individual who just wants to live in a free world. It's surprisingly feel-good!
@@megamillion5852 Sonic's writing was best in the era of Secret Rings, Unleashed, and Black Knight in my opinion. The writers weren't afraid to show off his more sentimental side in those games, and it really benefitted his character.
I'd actually say the Advance trilogy was a real triumph in demonstrating 2D Sonic could have an identity outside the classic titles, especially as the series went on. The 8 bit games had some solid entries, but often lacked consistency, and wavered between trying to emulate what the console titles were doing and their own original concepts. The GBA games ends up with different emphases than the Genesis titles, yeah, but they're distinct and end up experimenting in some fascinating areas that are worth doing again. Advance is long overdue for going back to, especially if a team could effectively pair its ideas with better level design (by far the trilogy's biggest weakness).
@@martyrking2288 I'm guessing you don't know gamegear was 8bit. gamegear was handheld, genesis was console. both had their own versions of the sonic games. thats obviously what they were talking about but you misinterpreted what they said.
@@infern209x Don't forget Master System! Everyone always does, but it has a full set of cool Sonic games. I "think" they're the same as the Game Gear games but not totally sure
@@svenbtb master system has most of the games from game gear, but they're either earlier, less polished revisions (1-2, Chaos) or bad ports (Blast). most of the people play MS versions because "screen crunch" but don't understand that the GG versions are usually optimized for the resolution they're played on and games like 1 and 2 are far more polished in the Game Gear versions (such as 2 actually having well-programmed bosses that can't be exploited using safespots and can chain patterns, even if people hate that due to them being "too hard" in the game gear version rather than the broken pushovers they are in Master System's equivalent)
Advance's approach to multiple characters is probably the thing I miss the most even when Characters like Amy didn't play well imo (honestly if the screen crunch issues weren't there I might be singing a different tune). Sadly, I can't stand Advance 3's level design at all but the tag team mechanic is such a good idea that I'm disappointed that they never tried to make it a staple.
@@TheGamePixelz She would be super cool as an unlockable character in Origins. Maybe for getting all the emeralds and time stones as all three characters?
Amy was actually my favorite to play I loved her gameplay style especially everytime I found a spring and to be honest she's the main reason I return to the game to play
I tear up/cry whenever I hear Advance 3’s credit music. I love that game so much and it brings back to my childhood. I really want these games to be remastered for modern platforms.
That's me with Advance 1's credits theme. Brings me back to the days when I was in daycare and playing the game with friends outside when the batteries were low. The batteries didn't die until the second we went inside and it blew our young minds that the sun was a real one and kept the game alive for us 😅
To make it even more sadder Advance 3 is the last time we would hear the original VAs Adventure Cast before the dreaded 4Kids Recasting. I cry everytime😭
As a kid I always go to Chaos Angel zone because the music is so fucking good and sinister! It suck with me till this very day and always bring it up when taking about GBA game music in conversations.
@@haaxxx9 Chaos Angel is a fantastic final level to end off the Advance Trilogy, it’s even become a Stage for the Brawl Mod PMEX Remix, it goes over the Sky Sanctuary Stage.
It always rubs me the wrong way whenever I hear anyone say something like "Sonic hasn't had a good game since the 90s" when games like these and Rush exist. Even when the 3D games weren't getting the polish they needed, the handheld games stayed pretty consistent throughout the so-called dark age of Sonic. It was amazing to see Capcom acknowledging Mega Man's handheld legacy by releasing the Zero/ZX collection, games that I really liked but always thought were way less popular than classic or X. I hope SEGA gives these games the same spotlight.
Adventure 1, Adventure 2, Heroes, Unleashed, Colors, Generations. Hell, you can even find people who will say that Shadow, 06, and Lost World were fun.
@@smashmaster521 I wasn't implying that any of those games were bad, Unleashed is my personal fave, I was just pointing out that the handheld games just generally have less jank.
@sk No need to explain the obvious to kids that never grew up when Sonic was popular. Sonic became less of a global phenominal and more of a product for a cult for message board addicts. Sonic Advance/Rush games were forgotten because customers did not care much for those games after the initial shock of Sonic on Nintendo. Sonic Advance games cannot compete much with the other high quality GBA games. Few people outside Sonic forums cared about Sonic Advance 3's announcement. Sega has a business to run so they ignored Sonic Advance for logical reasons.
The sprite work for the Advance series is so full of charm it's actually crazy I played so much of two and three when I was a kiddo - if they remade them, I'd definitely fall in love all over again
Sonic Battle, honestly, got me feeling a certain kind of way as Emerl gained intelligence and he had to go through slaughtering other Eggman drones while questioning it all. Some parts of that story went downright wild with what happens to the cast and you feel sad when Emerl comes full circle with what he is. Sonic Battle Retrospective, perhaps?
Yeah I need a Sonic Battle retrospective asap I loved Sonic Advance it was the first game I ever played for the Gameboy Advance besides Pokémon. The music in that game still resonates with me to this day so much that I want to incorporate a good portion of it into my own music one day
I fucking agree, these are amazing games and I wish they were “mania’ed” it may even appeal to the people who perfer modern sonics design like I did when I was a kid. The level design is amazing and maybe with a remake like mania they might make functional cutscenes!!!! Man you got thinking a lot about these three games again king k
@@mechashadow I fully agree sonic generations 3ds should’ve focused on the handheld titles. That would’ve beee awesome! Modern sonic doing levels from these three gems while classic is doing stuff from game gear and All those handheld titles 😭
when i was a kid i played sonic advance 3 in the local game store, they had an gameboy advance hooked up to a pillar to secure it, (looking back at it it wasnt secured very well and someone could easily break it off and take it with them, probably why the customer preview thing was gone after some time...anyway) played it for hours, it had all the characters unlocked but i dont remember going further than the first level, i really wanted to get the game but my parents said no...i think now is finally the time i go back and buy it and play the whole game
I recently visited my Grandfather and during my visit he got super excited when he remembered that he had found something. He had found my old copy of Sonic Advance 3, and with this video I think I'm just going to have go give the whole trilogy a replay. Thanks for bringing back old, fond memories of these games. They deserve it.
Advance 3 was the one I played the most of the trilogy. I liked experimenting with the teams, the pretty darn good soundtrack, the levels that were so full of personality. Not gonna lie, whenever one of these video essays plays its credits music, my heart melts. It’s like saying hi to an old friend
I’ll always appreciate the Sonic Advance (&Sonic Battle) series because of how many amazing sprite animations were made using them. I remember using them myself when I had dreams of animating.
Dang, absolutely true. These games left such an impact on so many people, remixers, rom hackers, artists, players, hell, especially the IDW comic writers. They certainly deserve to be remembered.
I really like how the Advance games goes into mechanics that aren't really explored in any other games and hopefully they get a remaster in the future. For example, Cream's tag action doubles your current vertical velocity, which is a very interesting mechanic that I'd like to see return in some form.
You should listen to these restored Sonic advance music tracks by The Brickster. It's exactly how I'd want this game to sound in a remaster. Then just take the regular game, zoom it out because it's on a TV, and there you go. Easy HD remaster
Before listening to The Brickster’s remasters I just used Sonic Advance Remastered 3.0 tracks to clear my ears. It’s not as good but at least they have most if not all tracks.
@@jytvreal Hmm? What do you mean forgetting about Classic Sonic? Even if Advance 4 does become a thing, Classic Sonic's pretty much a mainstay now. If anything, they'll just try to cram him in Advance 4 as well.
My first one was advance 2, but just because it's my first game doesn't mean i absolute hate the special stages system that's why when i usually play again i use cheat codes to get all the 7 special rings because it's just the worse
@@Perrier_enjoyer you know just because its a remake doesn't mean it will be 3d right? I'd argue for sonic advance's sprite style it'd work better in a 2d animation style or 2.5d like fighterz maybe. but yeah I would prefer they just remaster the sprites and port it but keep it as sprites.
@@infern209x yeah, the sprites are what make it special. If they used hand drawn animation then it would look janky and choppy like the HD street fighter 2 game since you can’t add extra frames of animation to make it look better because it’ll make the game feel more sluggish
I never found all the chao sprites or got all the chaos emeralds in advance 3 so i had NO idea the story was this interesting, i'm so hyped to see if maybe its more managable for me as an adult. i also love that there's no irredeemable classic evil villain, you team up with eggman in the end AND fix the out-of-control gemeri? that's some steven universe level "caring for all your characters and wanting them to get better, even the villains." i love that.
Hmmmm, it's not like sonic wanted eggman to be well or vice versa, it's just that if they didn't defeated him there gemerl would be unstoppable. It's just a moment thing like in heroes for example
@@sonicheroesmadsnes Talking more about narrative in terms of writing than in what Sonic feels. He doesnt have to like Eggman, but teaming up shows he does not see him as the root of all evil or totally someone who must be killed no matter what.
Nah, I understand the message of Steven Universe but sometimes they went wat too far with it, especially that white space dictator, there are people who are unredeemable by nature and will never change, no matter how much you try
I feel like as much of the whole Genesis/Megadrive favouritism is just down to accessibility, since they have ideal ports and emulators to make such a task pretty easy for those specific games. Origins seems to literally be the ready made Headcannon remakes ported to new consoles. For other games it would require more manual work to get something of good quality onto the shelves. It's the reason Knuckles Chaotix doesn't make it into any compilations for example, or why Gems Collection had to take short cuts and use PC ports of its games rather than the originals. I don't get at all why the Wii U releases of the GBA titles stayed Japan exclusive though.
Yeah, you can play Sonic 1-3 and CD officially on countless platforms officially since the 90s but basically every portable game from the GBA, DS, 3DS, PSP etc is lucky if it has a digital release on the exact same platform to even get delisted. It is far too easy to find people or lists that act like 2D Sonic was on a hiatus between Sonic 3K to Sonic 4/Mania. The same goes for Castlevania and Mega Man but publishers are addressing the problem.
The GBA games, for some bizarre fucking reason, were all published by THQ in the states. THQ might not exist anymore but SEGA doesn't technically have any legal ability to port them. Similar situation to Ape Escape 2 on PSN, we got the EU version instead of NA here because for some reason it was given to Ubisoft to publish instead of sony doing it themselves (which they did for literally every other game in that series)
@@Toukozuki That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. SEGA may be badly managed especially back then, but at the very worst a simple distribution/marketing agreement would delay a port without THQ a few years or maybe force it to have a subtitle on another platform. It wasn't a Bayonetta 2/3 situation where SEGA needed the help from top to bottom and barely any interest in the work. It doesn't seem that there is a problem in Japan and while I don't want to think SEGA were too incompetent or uninterested to just repackage the roms on the Wii U with references to THQ removed... It is on brand with how they are ignoring other non-THQ published games.
@@thelastgogeta Yeah, there's no problem in Japan because Sega distributed the games themselves in Japan. As soon as another company gets involved, this sort of thing has to go through them. Now, imagine trying to do that for a company that's gone defunct. That sort of thing can keep any prospects of ports (or new games) in limbo indefinitely. It's not as simple as just removing any references to the original distributor. In fact, as ironic as it sounds, that could get Sega into legal trouble despite Sonic being their IP.
Pretty much the entire collection of GBA Sonic games will always have a special place in my heart, no matter how much my tastes change and my tolerance for bullshit shrinks. I'm absolutely part of the crowd that wants some kind of "Sonic Advance Mania" or whatever, but I'd honestly be happy to just see these games get more winks and nods in the same ways as the console games do.
This trilogy is still one of my favorite things I have played in the 2D series, even if one of my first experiences with Sonic was Classic Collection DS.
Pretty much most, if not all, of my favorite sprite animations back in the day would use Sonic Advance and Battle sprite art, which had encouraged me to get the games and I love playing them still today
Thank you for setting aside time to feature Music Plant's music, it's absolutely one of the best tracks out of ANY Sonic game imo. Sonic Advance 1, 2, and 3 absolutely deserve to be remastered, it would look great too. And throw Battle in there too, to give context to Gemerl.
I’m glad there’s another person who loves Advance 3. I got the game by complete accident yet I ended up falling in love with it and enjoying what it offered despite its weird special stage management, the hidden Chao and its spotty difficulty, especially towards the end.
I wonder if the lack of Re-release being due to the fact THQ published them outside of Japan. Sure the THQ name is still around but the company as we knew them as ceased to exist in 2013. Could make rights issues complicated
I wouldn't be so sure about that actually being the problem, back in the day Gameloft ported and published Sonic Advance 1 for mobile. Sure I think that was before THQ went under but it's an indication that maybe the games don't really have major licensing problems. Also I think Sega was one of the companies that acquired some of THQ's back catalog so I'd imagine they would have bought their own games back if they needed to, it'd be pretty dumb to allow another publisher to get their stuff.
Scott the Woz mentioned the Sonic Rush and Advanced games one time and it blew my mind to find out there were Sonic games on the GBA/DS. No one ever talks about these games, especially not SEGA, so hearing you talk about them more in depth here was really cool to see! Thanks for the video, KingK!
These games were my childhood. Waking up on a saturday morning and playing them on my ds was feeling that no game has ever made me feel. Thanks for covering them.
Even if you haven’t played the Advance games, the sprites themselves have cemented themselves into history through the amazing fan animations used with them
0:30 The interesting thing is that people who became scientists decades ago were already Sonic fans too! There's actually a gene called Sonic Hedgehog because the scientist who did research on it was a Sonic fan. There are some genes that have spikes called hedgehog genes because of their appearance and someone doing research on them thought it'd be funny to call them it the Sonic hedgehog gene.
For years I couldn't get into 2D Sonic. I played the classics + Mania, but the level designs felt like they were just forcing me into different areas. It wasn't until I played Sonic Advance 1 that I started to really get into 2D Sonic. Instead of having save slots where you'd get to choose who to play as, you only had one save slot for each character in Advance 1. That made it easier for me to try out the different characters, and Tails made exploring the levels a lot easier. And it made the levels easier to digest as other characters.
I still play Advance 2 from time to time. I used an Action Replay as a kid to unlock everything, and I'm so glad I did. It's a really fun game to play, but not to complete.
I just need to specify how much I absolutely needed this video in my life at this time. My first ever game (not just 1st Sonic game, 1st game period) was Sonic Advance 3. And I had so much I could say about this game, as well as the other Advance games I fell in love with immediately after. You've summarized my entire childhood and everything I loved about my youth into a single video, and at a critical point in my life where I reflect on my youth so often. Honestly, if I had to describe how I feel seeing this video, and hearing how you speak of these games that hold such high regard in my heart. You have blessed my day. Truly, I feel blessed with what you have given to me in the form of this video. Take my subscription, please.
This video made me realize that Sonic Advance 2 is probably why I've always leaned towards games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Unleashed over games like Sonic Adventure 1&2
I just finished a replay of all 3 games and battle on my Nintendo Switch through Retroarch and I remembered just how impactful these games were on my childhood. I'd love to see them return, great video!
Sonic Advance 2 was my first videogame ever and I love it. It is pretty straightforward but the challenge to collect every emerald chaos gave me a lot of game time. The trilogy deserves a remaster
The Sonic movies getting new kids into Sonic is making me so fucking happy. I see them at the game store rushing to the Sonic action figures and stuff. Genuinely brings a tear to my eye Kuz I know how much joy Sonic brought me at that age in the 90s and still to this very day. :’)
I always loved Nonaggression Zone. I realized later that it probably meant like a nonaggression pact between Sonic and Eggman, but as a kid I thought it meant Gemerl was not aggressive. Like sure he's the enemy and a looming threat to the world, but he feels no anger or aggression towards Sonic nor anyone. Just an unfeeling husk ready to bring on disaster without a care. It gave me chills
The Sonic X GBA player might have been my introduction into the series, but Advance 3 was the first Sonic game I ever owned. It was the game that truly made me a Sonic fan for life, and I will always hold it and the other Advance games in high regard for their spritework and innovative “advancements”, heh, of the 2d Sonic formula.
Dude I haven't watched the video yet, but seeing the title already makes me very happy. These were some quality games. While they weren't as impactful to video games as a whole when compared to the original trilogy, the Advance trilogy honestly isn't that far behind in quality. These games have great music (on a less-than-stellar soundchip), mostly great gameplay, and VERY high quality sprites. In conclusion, yes. These games are good, and they really need to be put in some kind of collection.
I'm so glad you touched upon the advance trilogy. Sonic Advance 1, 2, and 3 were literally my first ever video games I ever played as a kid (especially advance 2) and I still fondly play them on my old GBA SP to this day.
The Advance trilogy(and later Rush Duoligy)IMO are the perfect evolution the Genesis games. They take the core gameplay from those games, and mix some elements and aesthetics from the Adventure series and heroes into them. As much as I do love Sonic Mania for being a really well made game with a ton of passion put into it, I do hope that if there's another game like it, the dev's will at least look at these games for at least some inspiration.
Even Mania rubs me the wrong way because I actually liked these games. This was back before Classic and Modern Sonic were two separate things, so it just felt right having a new 2D trilogy with the modern designs. Kinda like how New Super Mario Bros was a novel concept before Nintendo ran that into the ground.
Honestly, if Sonic Mania uses modern designs of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and even Mighty and Ray, I actually wouldn't mind. As long the game plays well as it did in the first place, who really cares? The whole Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic to be separate characters never make sense to me and never sit right with me either. Especially since it's established before(Especially in the Sonic Adventure games) that Classic Sonic games and Modern Sonic games actually take place in the same universe and there's only one Sonic. Heck, even when Sonic Generations introduced the whole two Sonics thing, it still mentions that Classic Sonic is Modern Sonic, but from the past. I don't know why Sonic Forces retcons and say that Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic timelines take place in different universes.
@@retrofan4963 I think Generations was the start of a new timeline for Classic Sonic. Classic Sonic branched off and did his own thing when he saw his future self. Which is how we ended up with Classic now being from another dimension. This is a Classic Sonic that has grown since Generations due to Modern Sonic and co altering the past.
the new super mario games felt right for the ds because of its hardware limitations. sure we ended up getting a port of Mario 64 but that was later on after people settled more with the ds's hardware. NSBWII was interesting considering we had 2 galaxy games but, meh, still one of the best in the franchise. returning to NSMB for the 3ds was weird considering the technology and how common 3d (environment not weird 3d movie effect) games were available for the system. just feel like it should of been a one off thing to help bring old fans back to Nintendo for the ds, or introduce new fans to a franchise and basing it off the classics.
@@retrofan4963 It wasn't just the character designs. The levels, visual style and assets were all new. Then Mania comes in using the exact same style and assets as the Genesis games, with reused levels and suddenly it's the second coming of hedgehog Jesus. It was like no one remembered Sonic Advance because the conversation was always about using Mania to bash everything that came out after 1999, but it was most compared to Sonic 4.
@@thelastwindwaker7948 i dont think having mania going back to genesis anesthetic is the problem here. If sonic 4 didnt mismanage the design and use nothing but throwback rehash design with mishandled sonic rush controls and had quality control equivalent to mania as far as making a proper game.. Then it wouldnt be a problem back then. Sonic mania was the right call for what Sonic 4 failed to do.
Fun fact: Sega designed the game so if the chip for the save chip got damaged, everything would be unlocked. All the zones, emeralds, characters, etc. This also happens in emulators if the emulator's save type settings are poorly configured. I just thought that'd be fun to mention.
I've been saying it a decent bit over the years too, but yeah, these games are amazing, and considering the GBA's popularity and the rise of gaming in general, potentially played by MORE people in their original releases than the classics. They really do deserve some love.
The GBA Sonic games were fantastic, Advance trilogy, Battle and Pinball. It sucks that there is some legal issues because THQ published the games in America. Would love a collection of them
Does anyone remember the air dash sonic had in advance 1 and 2 by double pressing the button your going in after jumping? They also don't cap at nine lives, they just don't show anymore
I think the thing holding these back from being remastered is the fact that they’re Nintendo exclusive and of course… Nintendo would want to keep it that way…
The Castlevania Advance collection exists on other platforms besides the Switch, the Mega Man Legacy collections too, so I would still think it's possible for these games to be on more than just the Switch should an official remaster ever happen.
I’m very glad the Advance series is getting the recognition it deserves. The whole trilogy could use ports with Widescreen Improvements effectively making the playing experience that much more better. I occasionally see Rush talked about but never the Advance Games.
Speaking of the partner selection system in advance 3, does anyone remember Knuckles Chaotix? I know a lot of people didn't like the game as it was a pretty big departure from Sonic at the time, but I always loved picking new partner pairings to see whose abilities complemented one anothers
Growing up in the Dominican Republic, me and my friends _kinda_ had an idea of who Sonic was during the 90s, but Sonic was not as big as Mario was back there. I didn't really get to know Sonic until the early 2000s, and even then, I had never played one of his games, because no one in my neighborhood or my school had a Sonic game. Fast-forward to Summer 2004, I was in NYC for my school vacations, as every other year. My older brother had gotten me a GBA SP, and so I needed some new games, since I only had a couple GBA games, and I had left them back home in DR so my two younger brothers could play. One morning my uncle took me to the video game store and said I could get 2 games. I cheated and got both Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, making it count as a single game; particularly because Sapphire was for my youngest brother and Ruby was for me; the "second" game I got was Sonic Advance 3. Me being the Pokémon fan that I am, I started playing Pokémon Ruby right away. But later that evening I started up SA3 for the first time. And boy was I hooked. I could not stop playing. Went to bed late that night, playing as Sonic and Tails. And I kept playing only SA3 for the next several days. I could not put the game down, and only ever stopped playing because I could not best the Boss Act of the ice stage. From there I would go back and forth between Ruby and SA3, but boy will I never forget my very first experience playing a Sonic game. To this day, the Boost games are still my favorite. And SA3 is to thank for that
Sonic riders is definitely one of my favorite games. The gameplay is so fun and rewarding. OH and, Advance 3 was the game I had on my gba as a kid. I used to play it all the time.
The Adventure-era Sonic spin-offs like Advance, Rush, Battle, Riders, etc. we’re my CHILDHOOD! I’d love for them to be presented to a new generation, especially since Sonic games have only been trickling lately. Amazing videos!
Damn your speech at the end made me tear up I want the advance games hell even Sonic battle to get remastered just for the story alone damn you seem to give the best speeches it's sad to know all we seem to get is just the apparently perfect Sonic games. It just not fair seeing other Sonic games I personally love won't ever be remembered by new players instead people will just think the adventure era was garbage which it wasn't.
I think a collection with a wider screen and some sort of mercy/grace system in play would be great for the advance trilogy. My biggest issue with these games is the often unfair level design, and I think adding toggle-able signposting that warns of an upcoming area filled with bottomless pits or an upcoming warning of a particularly cheap enemy placement would do wonders for the game as a whole. No, it's not an amazing solution but it should be fairly easy to develop for and would be a good way to get new players "acquainted" with the games' frankly evil level design. Also playable Shadow and Blaze please and thanks
Part of why these games likely haven't been remade in any respect has a lot to do with all the restructuring that has happened at SEGA in the last decade or so. There's a video by the Golden Bolt that goes over it, but the tl;dr is that SEGA has been busy rebuilding itself from Yuji Naka's blunders and aren't in a space to be going after and remastering products they didn't themselves make. I wouldn't be surprised to see these on the list in the next 5 years, though.
They’re fierce. I hope they get rereleased some day. 1 is my favorite as it seems the most classic. 2 I never could get into but I’ll give her another go. 3 is so innovative and brilliant.
Sonic Battle. I remember getting that game thinking I was just going to get a regular run fast Sonic game. I was not expecting an arena fighter with a surprisingly deep story. Worth every fucking penny.
Gods everything said at 29:36 onwards can be said about the entire rush trilogy and 3D sonic boost trilogy (before forces) and it would fit in PERFECTLY.
Hmmm… its interesting how we have vastly different opinions on these games. My favorite was always 2, and I hated 3 so much that I never even finished it one time. As soon as they started going off about character combos and special abilities, I just quit. Sonic to me was always about each character having their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and it was always fun tackling each stage with every unique character. Sonic Advance 1 did this better, but something about 2 just felt more… right to me? Maybe it’s because I prefer memorizing exact moves and basically playing speed run strats. I didn’t like the whole like.. build your party system that they had going on in this game. It felt like you were punished for being a character loyalist, but people who enjoyed team building probably had a blast. That post is just basically to say: Yes, these games do deserve to be remembered. Each one is interesting and special, and it sucks that we keep getting 500 remakes and ports of the original 3 Genesis games and CD when there are games like the Advance series which go unnoticed.
Advance 3 was my first introduction to sonic games. I had watched the shows and I was obsessed so once I found out that the shows were actually based on a game (I know holy shit right!?) I NEEDED to play one. My sister had brought me to the store one day and I saw advance 3 and I harrassed her to get it for me. She agreed and I instantly fell in love with the game. As I grew older I found other sonic games and remembered how much emotion sonic advance 3 had to all their characters and was wondering where it all went. I still to this day love advance 3 so much and the amount of nostalgia I have for it is insane. I still say that the advance games (as flawed as they are) are some of the best in the whole series.
I grew up with Advance 2 and the rush games. Honestly I think DIMPS is a much more consistent with the quality of their Sonic games than Sonic Team is. I really wanna see a new original game from them. Give me Sonic Rush 3 dammit!
@@antimatter3084 I mean it kinda was rush 3? You couldn't play as Blaze and "Rush" wasn't in the title so I don't think it counts. Also, yes Colors DS is superior.
Honestly a collection that includes the Advanced games, Battle and the Rush games would be such a great collection of the really cool titles developed by Dimps and Sonic Team, that whole Era has such a great aesthetic and overarching story, I’d love for a convenient way to play them, especially if there were extra goodies like the Christian Whitehead Classic Remasters
These games are so great. I was pleasantly surprised that the Japanese versions of these games can be switched to English, since those are they only versions I have access to where I live. Replaying the first game over and over to get the true ending was well worth it.
I used to play 1 and 3 all the time. I felt like this game needed an extended screen (such as what Sonic Origins is about to do). The Advanced Trilogy was great, I have no idea why this series was left in the dust.
Sonic Advance 3 is, no joking around, my favorite Sonic game. I guess to be fair, a platformer with lots of moveset variety is kinda my bias (Kirby is my favorite game series after all), so mixing and matching 5 different Sonic characters for 20 different ways to play the levels is certainly my style (I personally liked using Tails and Amy so I can whack enemies mid-air with a hammer). I feel like if Sonic CD could initially be kind of split in reception due to it's weird physics, only to eventually be beloved with the rest of the classics thanks to the magic of Taxman and Stealth fixing all of it's flaws, then the Sonic Advance trilogy can get that same treatment too.
I hold a soft spot for Advance 1, it's probably the most derivative of the three, but it's the most chill and easy going to play compared to the more gimmicky sequels. Only downside is the occasional minor wonky bits of level design and the fact they forgot to add Sonic's brief invincibility with the insta shield, which kinda makes him the 'dud' compared to Tails and Knuckles. And yeah, Amy is a great new addition and it is a shame she wasn't in Mania (I can see why she wasn't though, programming her would have likely been a bigger gauntlet than conventional types like Mighty and Ray).
I'd be willing to bet that the reason Amy wasn't in Mania was because of Sega, not the Mania team themselves. There was probably some bullshit mandate about how Mania had to only include Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and then Encore mode had to use lesser-known characters so that they wouldn't take the spotlight from Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Something of that sentiment seems exactly like the kind of nonsensical shit that Sega would do.
I'm almost certain the reason why they didn't add Amy is because her abilities would be much harder to work around than anyone else. Might and Ray are blank slates, they can be given different abilities, but a game with Amy has to work well with her hammer and general lack of speed + agility
@@certifiednobody With due respect, that's BS, Amy is not restrained by a single playstyle, she's restrained by the lack of imagination. A group of modders made her character work in the game, why not a multimillion dolar company?
@@dragondelsur5156 Modders have unlimited time to make a specific project and are given leniency when it comes to issues such as polish and game balancing. An official Mania Plus Amy would require her ability to work via the jump button, be unique, not be more powerful than other characters, fit with the existing level designs, and avoid resembling "Modern Amy".
@@certifiednobody The last part was unnecesary, I don't see the issue with resembling Modern Amy and she doesn't have to work EXACTLY like Advance, she just has to play like the others but have a unique quirk. Like having the ability to roll and Spin Jump but not to Spin Dash and the up + jump imput being her vertical jump while down + jump adds the super peel out (Sonic does not use this move anymore so why have it accumulate dust?), I know the classics have the one button syndrome so work around it. If they had coders to make Mighty avoid spike damage the first time he hits them, they had coders for this.
I'm still waiting for a Sonic Advance trilogy remaster 😭I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SO LONG! I haven't played them since I was a kid, and I'd love to play them again in some sort of official capacity
You hit the nail on the head with Advanced 2 for me. My fondest memories with this game was searching for stage secrets then planning a route to finish as stylish as possible... also plenty of rings to transfer to sonic adventure battle 2 of course lol. I was SOOOO hype when I got Techno Base 1 and Hot Crater 2 down ❤️
Also, one thing I gotta give Advance props for is having a winter level in all three games yet still making the three of them distinct enough that I can remember them separately.
God the Advance sprites are so cool, these games have such a great aesthetic. I would love to see the buddy system from 3 return in some way too, it was a really cool evolution of the 2D formula. Couldn't agree more that these games deserve a remaster collection like Origins, I'd love to see these games with a bigger screen size too.
The buddy system is something with so much potential and a great way for 2d games to have even more insane replay value for sure
I'd even argue they deserve a remaster even more than the classics, those already had the really good mobile ports recently, but the Advance series had literally nothing so far.
The sprites are definitely my favorite Sonic sprites, I remember the tons of flash games and animations that used them
the buddy system would've been perfect in Forces, if they didn't shove Classic into it, put more effort, and more time into it
@Cybershell your videos be crackin me up🤣🤣
But anyways, Sonic Advance series needs to be re-released on mobile....but unfortunately Sega is just gonna keep recycling boost games, and Sonic 1 + 2.
Yuji's artwork was absolutely perfect for the GBA trilogy. The sprites they produced are so fluidly animated and they take full advantage of the color coding that each of the characters is known for.
Other than giving Knux blue eyes lol. I completely agree tho.
I highly agree, also knuckles’s eyes are like a shade of purple and blue, there actually purple.
That is such a good title:
Not “we need a new sonic advance” or “sonic advance is peak sonic” but just to be remembered.
Agreed.
Same goes for the rush trilogy. Especially the 3D boost trilogy (before forces).
Would be the perfect collection to release after Origins
@@slainredd4339 Even better would be a collection that includes the Sonic Advance and Sonic Rush games.
(and maybe the Sonic Rivals games, even though those were on PSP and made by Backbone Entertainment and have nothing to do with Sonic Advance or Rush)
Edit: Actually, Sonic Battle and Pinball Party would fit into such a collection more than the Rivals games.
@@JonnySpec I’m not sure how they would remaster Rush though since it uses 2 screens
the cutscene of sonic saving vanilla is one of my faves in the franchise. especially that little look he gave cream before turning super. He would have helped regardless because- he's Sonic- but he's doing it especially for her because she's a new friend and because she was determined to help her mother by tagging along- but he relaises she can only do so much, so he turned super to help.
really like little character moments like this
I greatly miss Sonic's displays of humanity. Beneath the ever-present sneer and attitude is a genuinely down to earth individual who just wants to live in a free world. It's surprisingly feel-good!
@@megamillion5852 those were the days
@@megamillion5852 Sonic's writing was best in the era of Secret Rings, Unleashed, and Black Knight in my opinion. The writers weren't afraid to show off his more sentimental side in those games, and it really benefitted his character.
sonic was at his best when he was depicted like an anime protagonist tbh
I'd actually say the Advance trilogy was a real triumph in demonstrating 2D Sonic could have an identity outside the classic titles, especially as the series went on.
The 8 bit games had some solid entries, but often lacked consistency, and wavered between trying to emulate what the console titles were doing and their own original concepts. The GBA games ends up with different emphases than the Genesis titles, yeah, but they're distinct and end up experimenting in some fascinating areas that are worth doing again. Advance is long overdue for going back to, especially if a team could effectively pair its ideas with better level design (by far the trilogy's biggest weakness).
@@martyrking2288 I'm guessing you don't know gamegear was 8bit. gamegear was handheld, genesis was console. both had their own versions of the sonic games. thats obviously what they were talking about but you misinterpreted what they said.
@@infern209x Don't forget Master System! Everyone always does, but it has a full set of cool Sonic games. I "think" they're the same as the Game Gear games but not totally sure
Looking back it’s disappointing Mania didn’t get no levels from the Advance Games and there’s no Mania 2 to look forward to, to provide for that.
@@svenbtb
master system has most of the games from game gear, but they're either earlier, less polished revisions (1-2, Chaos) or bad ports (Blast). most of the people play MS versions because "screen crunch" but don't understand that the GG versions are usually optimized for the resolution they're played on and games like 1 and 2 are far more polished in the Game Gear versions (such as 2 actually having well-programmed bosses that can't be exploited using safespots and can chain patterns, even if people hate that due to them being "too hard" in the game gear version rather than the broken pushovers they are in Master System's equivalent)
@@brandonwilliams6119 Mania takes place before the events of the Advance games.
Advance's approach to multiple characters is probably the thing I miss the most even when Characters like Amy didn't play well imo (honestly if the screen crunch issues weren't there I might be singing a different tune). Sadly, I can't stand Advance 3's level design at all but the tag team mechanic is such a good idea that I'm disappointed that they never tried to make it a staple.
Sorry but no one likes "Sonic's stupid friends".
Amy "didn't play well" intentionally. She's essentially the hard mode of the game.
@@TheGamePixelz Ok, still not that fun to play to me.
@@TheGamePixelz She would be super cool as an unlockable character in Origins. Maybe for getting all the emeralds and time stones as all three characters?
Amy was actually my favorite to play I loved her gameplay style especially everytime I found a spring and to be honest she's the main reason I return to the game to play
I tear up/cry whenever I hear Advance 3’s credit music. I love that game so much and it brings back to my childhood. I really want these games to be remastered for modern platforms.
Dude same that credits theme hits hard every single time
That's me with Advance 1's credits theme. Brings me back to the days when I was in daycare and playing the game with friends outside when the batteries were low. The batteries didn't die until the second we went inside and it blew our young minds that the sun was a real one and kept the game alive for us 😅
To make it even more sadder Advance 3 is the last time we would hear the original VAs Adventure Cast before the dreaded 4Kids Recasting. I cry everytime😭
As a kid I always go to Chaos Angel zone because the music is so fucking good and sinister! It suck with me till this very day and always bring it up when taking about GBA game music in conversations.
@@haaxxx9
Chaos Angel is a fantastic final level to end off the Advance Trilogy, it’s even become a Stage for the Brawl Mod PMEX Remix, it goes over the Sky Sanctuary Stage.
It always rubs me the wrong way whenever I hear anyone say something like "Sonic hasn't had a good game since the 90s" when games like these and Rush exist. Even when the 3D games weren't getting the polish they needed, the handheld games stayed pretty consistent throughout the so-called dark age of Sonic.
It was amazing to see Capcom acknowledging Mega Man's handheld legacy by releasing the Zero/ZX collection, games that I really liked but always thought were way less popular than classic or X. I hope SEGA gives these games the same spotlight.
Adventure 1, Adventure 2, Heroes, Unleashed, Colors, Generations. Hell, you can even find people who will say that Shadow, 06, and Lost World were fun.
@@smashmaster521 ....🙋🏻♂️lost world
@@smashmaster521 I wasn't implying that any of those games were bad, Unleashed is my personal fave, I was just pointing out that the handheld games just generally have less jank.
Lost world got that zelda dlc
@sk No need to explain the obvious to kids that never grew up when Sonic was popular. Sonic became less of a global phenominal and more of a product for a cult for message board addicts.
Sonic Advance/Rush games were forgotten because customers did not care much for those games after the initial shock of Sonic on Nintendo. Sonic Advance games cannot compete much with the other high quality GBA games. Few people outside Sonic forums cared about Sonic Advance 3's announcement. Sega has a business to run so they ignored Sonic Advance for logical reasons.
The sprite work for the Advance series is so full of charm it's actually crazy
I played so much of two and three when I was a kiddo - if they remade them, I'd definitely fall in love all over again
It makes the Genesis titles look like a test drive in comparison, but Mania doesn't actually improve it.
Sonic Battle, honestly, got me feeling a certain kind of way as Emerl gained intelligence and he had to go through slaughtering other Eggman drones while questioning it all. Some parts of that story went downright wild with what happens to the cast and you feel sad when Emerl comes full circle with what he is.
Sonic Battle Retrospective, perhaps?
I had same feeling to Gamma from Sonic Adventure 1
I cried at the end of sonic battle
Yeah I need a Sonic Battle retrospective asap I loved Sonic Advance it was the first game I ever played for the Gameboy Advance besides Pokémon. The music in that game still resonates with me to this day so much that I want to incorporate a good portion of it into my own music one day
@@final909 which is why they beat the crap out of eachother and fist bump after in the idw comics
The custom-character creation was very cool too. You were able to pick literally any move from every character after you unlocked the Skills.
I fucking agree, these are amazing games and I wish they were “mania’ed” it may even appeal to the people who perfer modern sonics design like I did when I was a kid. The level design is amazing and maybe with a remake like mania they might make functional cutscenes!!!! Man you got thinking a lot about these three games again king k
Sonic Generations 3DS was the chance but they did'nt really give that game the chance to become that under SEGA's mandates.
@Elon and depp. thanks I will be making smoothie looks great :P
@@mechashadow I fully agree sonic generations 3ds should’ve focused on the handheld titles. That would’ve beee awesome! Modern sonic doing levels from these three gems while classic is doing stuff from game gear and
All those handheld titles 😭
They don’t just agree, they FUCKING ageee
when i was a kid i played sonic advance 3 in the local game store, they had an gameboy advance hooked up to a pillar to secure it, (looking back at it it wasnt secured very well and someone could easily break it off and take it with them, probably why the customer preview thing was gone after some time...anyway) played it for hours, it had all the characters unlocked but i dont remember going further than the first level, i really wanted to get the game but my parents said no...i think now is finally the time i go back and buy it and play the whole game
I recently visited my Grandfather and during my visit he got super excited when he remembered that he had found something. He had found my old copy of Sonic Advance 3, and with this video I think I'm just going to have go give the whole trilogy a replay. Thanks for bringing back old, fond memories of these games. They deserve it.
Advance 3 was the one I played the most of the trilogy. I liked experimenting with the teams, the pretty darn good soundtrack, the levels that were so full of personality. Not gonna lie, whenever one of these video essays plays its credits music, my heart melts. It’s like saying hi to an old friend
I’ll always appreciate the Sonic Advance (&Sonic Battle) series because of how many amazing sprite animations were made using them. I remember using them myself when I had dreams of animating.
Dang, absolutely true. These games left such an impact on so many people, remixers, rom hackers, artists, players, hell, especially the IDW comic writers. They certainly deserve to be remembered.
You're right. Sonic Advance deserves to be remembered. Dimps delivered a good job with the series.
Rush series too.
I really like how the Advance games goes into mechanics that aren't really explored in any other games and hopefully they get a remaster in the future. For example, Cream's tag action doubles your current vertical velocity, which is a very interesting mechanic that I'd like to see return in some form.
I thought Cream’s tag action just gave you a god of destruction
You should listen to these restored Sonic advance music tracks by The Brickster. It's exactly how I'd want this game to sound in a remaster. Then just take the regular game, zoom it out because it's on a TV, and there you go. Easy HD remaster
If you've seen what these levels look like when zoomed out you wouldn't be saying that
More like just make the camera 16:9.
@@Elec.Balloon still need it zoomed out
Before listening to The Brickster’s remasters I just used Sonic Advance Remastered 3.0 tracks to clear my ears. It’s not as good but at least they have most if not all tracks.
Thank you for recommending this. Had no clue this existed
I would kill for an Advance 4 that is in widescreen and has the partner gimmick from 3. The Advance games have so much untapped potential.
nah, sonic advance is just forgetting about classic sonic for another 14 years
besides all dimps sonic games are bad
@@jytvreal you're kidding right?
@@jytvreal Hmm? What do you mean forgetting about Classic Sonic? Even if Advance 4 does become a thing, Classic Sonic's pretty much a mainstay now. If anything, they'll just try to cram him in Advance 4 as well.
I agree. Honestly, the whole Trilogy needs to be remembered, especially Advance 3. That game was really good.
Advance 3 gets WAY too much hate. I really enjoyed it! Way better than Advance 2 IMO.
@@SilverSpireZTHANK YOU. I don’t feel alone anymore.
Advance 3 appreciation gives me life.
And Battle Please!
@@SilverSpireZ Advance 3 gets hate? Since when?
The entire Super Sonic sequence of sonic advance 2 blew my mind as a kid and still gives me chills
Sonic Advance 3 was, in fact, my first Sonic game. I'll always remember it.
SAME
Mine was Sonic Adventure, but I played Advance 3 more.
My first one was advance 2, but just because it's my first game doesn't mean i absolute hate the special stages system that's why when i usually play again i use cheat codes to get all the 7 special rings because it's just the worse
Play Sonic Battle on GBA 😎
They gotta do a whole Dimps 2D Sonic collection where you have all the Advance and Rush titles (including Colors)
The Sonic Advance trilogy deserves more than to be remembered: It should be commemorated with a remake (please Sega, please listen to us!).
I’d rather enhanced ports. The advance sprites are too good to be replaced by boring 3D renders
@@Perrier_enjoyer you know just because its a remake doesn't mean it will be 3d right? I'd argue for sonic advance's sprite style it'd work better in a 2d animation style or 2.5d like fighterz maybe. but yeah I would prefer they just remaster the sprites and port it but keep it as sprites.
@@infern209x yeah, the sprites are what make it special. If they used hand drawn animation then it would look janky and choppy like the HD street fighter 2 game since you can’t add extra frames of animation to make it look better because it’ll make the game feel more sluggish
I never found all the chao sprites or got all the chaos emeralds in advance 3 so i had NO idea the story was this interesting, i'm so hyped to see if maybe its more managable for me as an adult. i also love that there's no irredeemable classic evil villain, you team up with eggman in the end AND fix the out-of-control gemeri? that's some steven universe level "caring for all your characters and wanting them to get better, even the villains." i love that.
Hmmmm, it's not like sonic wanted eggman to be well or vice versa, it's just that if they didn't defeated him there gemerl would be unstoppable. It's just a moment thing like in heroes for example
@@sonicheroesmadsnes Talking more about narrative in terms of writing than in what Sonic feels. He doesnt have to like Eggman, but teaming up shows he does not see him as the root of all evil or totally someone who must be killed no matter what.
Don’t compare Sonic to that trash show
@@christianj5950 Steven universe🤨📸
Nah, I understand the message of Steven Universe but sometimes they went wat too far with it, especially that white space dictator, there are people who are unredeemable by nature and will never change, no matter how much you try
I feel like as much of the whole Genesis/Megadrive favouritism is just down to accessibility, since they have ideal ports and emulators to make such a task pretty easy for those specific games. Origins seems to literally be the ready made Headcannon remakes ported to new consoles. For other games it would require more manual work to get something of good quality onto the shelves. It's the reason Knuckles Chaotix doesn't make it into any compilations for example, or why Gems Collection had to take short cuts and use PC ports of its games rather than the originals.
I don't get at all why the Wii U releases of the GBA titles stayed Japan exclusive though.
Yeah, you can play Sonic 1-3 and CD officially on countless platforms officially since the 90s but basically every portable game from the GBA, DS, 3DS, PSP etc is lucky if it has a digital release on the exact same platform to even get delisted.
It is far too easy to find people or lists that act like 2D Sonic was on a hiatus between Sonic 3K to Sonic 4/Mania. The same goes for Castlevania and Mega Man but publishers are addressing the problem.
The GBA games, for some bizarre fucking reason, were all published by THQ in the states. THQ might not exist anymore but SEGA doesn't technically have any legal ability to port them.
Similar situation to Ape Escape 2 on PSN, we got the EU version instead of NA here because for some reason it was given to Ubisoft to publish instead of sony doing it themselves (which they did for literally every other game in that series)
@@Toukozuki That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
SEGA may be badly managed especially back then, but at the very worst a simple distribution/marketing agreement would delay a port without THQ a few years or maybe force it to have a subtitle on another platform. It wasn't a Bayonetta 2/3 situation where SEGA needed the help from top to bottom and barely any interest in the work.
It doesn't seem that there is a problem in Japan and while I don't want to think SEGA were too incompetent or uninterested to just repackage the roms on the Wii U with references to THQ removed... It is on brand with how they are ignoring other non-THQ published games.
@@thelastgogeta What THQ references would they even have to remove from the Advance trilogy?
@@thelastgogeta Yeah, there's no problem in Japan because Sega distributed the games themselves in Japan. As soon as another company gets involved, this sort of thing has to go through them. Now, imagine trying to do that for a company that's gone defunct. That sort of thing can keep any prospects of ports (or new games) in limbo indefinitely. It's not as simple as just removing any references to the original distributor. In fact, as ironic as it sounds, that could get Sega into legal trouble despite Sonic being their IP.
Pretty much the entire collection of GBA Sonic games will always have a special place in my heart, no matter how much my tastes change and my tolerance for bullshit shrinks. I'm absolutely part of the crowd that wants some kind of "Sonic Advance Mania" or whatever, but I'd honestly be happy to just see these games get more winks and nods in the same ways as the console games do.
I still remember when I was a kid and I got a GBA with Sonic Advance 3 for my birthday. Good times.
This trilogy is still one of my favorite things I have played in the 2D series, even if one of my first experiences with Sonic was Classic Collection DS.
Pretty much most, if not all, of my favorite sprite animations back in the day would use Sonic Advance and Battle sprite art, which had encouraged me to get the games and I love playing them still today
Thank you for setting aside time to feature Music Plant's music, it's absolutely one of the best tracks out of ANY Sonic game imo. Sonic Advance 1, 2, and 3 absolutely deserve to be remastered, it would look great too. And throw Battle in there too, to give context to Gemerl.
I can never get enough of those sprites, they're animated really well and capture each character's personalities perfectly.
I’m glad there’s another person who loves Advance 3.
I got the game by complete accident yet I ended up falling in love with it and enjoying what it offered despite its weird special stage management, the hidden Chao and its spotty difficulty, especially towards the end.
I wonder if the lack of Re-release being due to the fact THQ published them outside of Japan. Sure the THQ name is still around but the company as we knew them as ceased to exist in 2013. Could make rights issues complicated
Spongebob BFBB was published by THQ and we still got the Rehydrated remake, so I imagine a re-release of this trilogy would at least be possible.
@@thelastwindwaker7948 fair but the rights were likely always with Nick
I wouldn't be so sure about that actually being the problem, back in the day Gameloft ported and published Sonic Advance 1 for mobile.
Sure I think that was before THQ went under but it's an indication that maybe the games don't really have major licensing problems. Also I think Sega was one of the companies that acquired some of THQ's back catalog so I'd imagine they would have bought their own games back if they needed to, it'd be pretty dumb to allow another publisher to get their stuff.
Advance 1 was on the 3DS eshop in Japan so I doubt it
@@certifiednobody yeah but only in Japan where Sega published it
Scott the Woz mentioned the Sonic Rush and Advanced games one time and it blew my mind to find out there were Sonic games on the GBA/DS. No one ever talks about these games, especially not SEGA, so hearing you talk about them more in depth here was really cool to see! Thanks for the video, KingK!
I wish your younger cousin the best in their future endeavors, and may they become the greatest mad scientist they can be
These games were my childhood. Waking up on a saturday morning and playing them on my ds was feeling that no game has ever made me feel. Thanks for covering them.
Even if you haven’t played the Advance games, the sprites themselves have cemented themselves into history through the amazing fan animations used with them
0:30 The interesting thing is that people who became scientists decades ago were already Sonic fans too! There's actually a gene called Sonic Hedgehog because the scientist who did research on it was a Sonic fan. There are some genes that have spikes called hedgehog genes because of their appearance and someone doing research on them thought it'd be funny to call them it the Sonic hedgehog gene.
this is the best fun fact ever
For years I couldn't get into 2D Sonic. I played the classics + Mania, but the level designs felt like they were just forcing me into different areas. It wasn't until I played Sonic Advance 1 that I started to really get into 2D Sonic. Instead of having save slots where you'd get to choose who to play as, you only had one save slot for each character in Advance 1. That made it easier for me to try out the different characters, and Tails made exploring the levels a lot easier. And it made the levels easier to digest as other characters.
I still play Advance 2 from time to time. I used an Action Replay as a kid to unlock everything, and I'm so glad I did. It's a really fun game to play, but not to complete.
I just need to specify how much I absolutely needed this video in my life at this time. My first ever game (not just 1st Sonic game, 1st game period) was Sonic Advance 3. And I had so much I could say about this game, as well as the other Advance games I fell in love with immediately after. You've summarized my entire childhood and everything I loved about my youth into a single video, and at a critical point in my life where I reflect on my youth so often. Honestly, if I had to describe how I feel seeing this video, and hearing how you speak of these games that hold such high regard in my heart. You have blessed my day. Truly, I feel blessed with what you have given to me in the form of this video. Take my subscription, please.
Well that sucks this was your first game :/
@@danielblaise156 Bro, Daniel...are you proud of being soulless? Way to ruin such a heartfelt and poignant comment.
This video made me realize that Sonic Advance 2 is probably why I've always leaned towards games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Unleashed over games like Sonic Adventure 1&2
I just finished a replay of all 3 games and battle on my Nintendo Switch through Retroarch and I remembered just how impactful these games were on my childhood. I'd love to see them return, great video!
Sonic Advance 2 was my first videogame ever and I love it. It is pretty straightforward but the challenge to collect every emerald chaos gave me a lot of game time.
The trilogy deserves a remaster
The Sonic movies getting new kids into Sonic is making me so fucking happy. I see them at the game store rushing to the Sonic action figures and stuff. Genuinely brings a tear to my eye Kuz I know how much joy Sonic brought me at that age in the 90s and still to this very day. :’)
I always loved Nonaggression Zone. I realized later that it probably meant like a nonaggression pact between Sonic and Eggman, but as a kid I thought it meant Gemerl was not aggressive. Like sure he's the enemy and a looming threat to the world, but he feels no anger or aggression towards Sonic nor anyone. Just an unfeeling husk ready to bring on disaster without a care. It gave me chills
Definitely have fond memories playing those games back in elementary school.
As an avid Sonic Advance series fan, I had NO idea using Amy's hammer gains extra height in Advance 1. Goes to show you always learn more and more
The Sonic X GBA player might have been my introduction into the series, but Advance 3 was the first Sonic game I ever owned. It was the game that truly made me a Sonic fan for life, and I will always hold it and the other Advance games in high regard for their spritework and innovative “advancements”, heh, of the 2d Sonic formula.
Dude I haven't watched the video yet, but seeing the title already makes me very happy. These were some quality games. While they weren't as impactful to video games as a whole when compared to the original trilogy, the Advance trilogy honestly isn't that far behind in quality. These games have great music (on a less-than-stellar soundchip), mostly great gameplay, and VERY high quality sprites.
In conclusion, yes. These games are good, and they really need to be put in some kind of collection.
sonic battle should be include in a sonic advance collection or it could end up like an other sonic origins
I'm so glad you touched upon the advance trilogy. Sonic Advance 1, 2, and 3 were literally my first ever video games I ever played as a kid (especially advance 2) and I still fondly play them on my old GBA SP to this day.
The love and appreciation exudes from this video, always nice to hear people talk about things they enjoy
The Advance trilogy(and later Rush Duoligy)IMO are the perfect evolution the Genesis games. They take the core gameplay from those games, and mix some elements and aesthetics from the Adventure series and heroes into them. As much as I do love Sonic Mania for being a really well made game with a ton of passion put into it, I do hope that if there's another game like it, the dev's will at least look at these games for at least some inspiration.
Nah rush sucked. Had potential maybe but was a big step back from the GBA games.
The whole trilogy is so special
Even Mania rubs me the wrong way because I actually liked these games. This was back before Classic and Modern Sonic were two separate things, so it just felt right having a new 2D trilogy with the modern designs. Kinda like how New Super Mario Bros was a novel concept before Nintendo ran that into the ground.
Honestly, if Sonic Mania uses modern designs of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and even Mighty and Ray, I actually wouldn't mind. As long the game plays well as it did in the first place, who really cares? The whole Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic to be separate characters never make sense to me and never sit right with me either. Especially since it's established before(Especially in the Sonic Adventure games) that Classic Sonic games and Modern Sonic games actually take place in the same universe and there's only one Sonic. Heck, even when Sonic Generations introduced the whole two Sonics thing, it still mentions that Classic Sonic is Modern Sonic, but from the past. I don't know why Sonic Forces retcons and say that Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic timelines take place in different universes.
@@retrofan4963 I think Generations was the start of a new timeline for Classic Sonic. Classic Sonic branched off and did his own thing when he saw his future self. Which is how we ended up with Classic now being from another dimension. This is a Classic Sonic that has grown since Generations due to Modern Sonic and co altering the past.
the new super mario games felt right for the ds because of its hardware limitations. sure we ended up getting a port of Mario 64 but that was later on after people settled more with the ds's hardware.
NSBWII was interesting considering we had 2 galaxy games but, meh, still one of the best in the franchise. returning to NSMB for the 3ds was weird considering the technology and how common 3d (environment not weird 3d movie effect) games were available for the system.
just feel like it should of been a one off thing to help bring old fans back to Nintendo for the ds, or introduce new fans to a franchise and basing it off the classics.
@@retrofan4963 It wasn't just the character designs. The levels, visual style and assets were all new.
Then Mania comes in using the exact same style and assets as the Genesis games, with reused levels and suddenly it's the second coming of hedgehog Jesus. It was like no one remembered Sonic Advance because the conversation was always about using Mania to bash everything that came out after 1999, but it was most compared to Sonic 4.
@@thelastwindwaker7948 i dont think having mania going back to genesis anesthetic is the problem here. If sonic 4 didnt mismanage the design and use nothing but throwback rehash design with mishandled sonic rush controls and had quality control equivalent to mania as far as making a proper game.. Then it wouldnt be a problem back then. Sonic mania was the right call for what Sonic 4 failed to do.
Fun fact: Sega designed the game so if the chip for the save chip got damaged, everything would be unlocked. All the zones, emeralds, characters, etc. This also happens in emulators if the emulator's save type settings are poorly configured. I just thought that'd be fun to mention.
I've been saying it a decent bit over the years too, but yeah, these games are amazing, and considering the GBA's popularity and the rise of gaming in general, potentially played by MORE people in their original releases than the classics. They really do deserve some love.
A "Handheld" collection would be neat, especially on Switch where the DS games could be played with the console in Portrait mode.
a collection with the sonic advance trilogy and sonic battle would be better or it could end up like an other sonic origins
The GBA Sonic games were fantastic, Advance trilogy, Battle and Pinball. It sucks that there is some legal issues because THQ published the games in America. Would love a collection of them
Does anyone remember the air dash sonic had in advance 1 and 2 by double pressing the button your going in after jumping? They also don't cap at nine lives, they just don't show anymore
I think the thing holding these back from being remastered is the fact that they’re Nintendo exclusive and of course… Nintendo would want to keep it that way…
The Castlevania Advance collection exists on other platforms besides the Switch, the Mega Man Legacy collections too, so I would still think it's possible for these games to be on more than just the Switch should an official remaster ever happen.
I’m very glad the Advance series is getting the recognition it deserves. The whole trilogy could use ports with Widescreen Improvements effectively making the playing experience that much more better. I occasionally see Rush talked about but never the Advance Games.
Speaking of the partner selection system in advance 3, does anyone remember Knuckles Chaotix? I know a lot of people didn't like the game as it was a pretty big departure from Sonic at the time, but I always loved picking new partner pairings to see whose abilities complemented one anothers
Sonic Battle was also great. We need a remaster of that game
Exactly I love the Advance series but some parts of it have not age well.
Growing up in the Dominican Republic, me and my friends _kinda_ had an idea of who Sonic was during the 90s, but Sonic was not as big as Mario was back there. I didn't really get to know Sonic until the early 2000s, and even then, I had never played one of his games, because no one in my neighborhood or my school had a Sonic game. Fast-forward to Summer 2004, I was in NYC for my school vacations, as every other year. My older brother had gotten me a GBA SP, and so I needed some new games, since I only had a couple GBA games, and I had left them back home in DR so my two younger brothers could play. One morning my uncle took me to the video game store and said I could get 2 games. I cheated and got both Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, making it count as a single game; particularly because Sapphire was for my youngest brother and Ruby was for me; the "second" game I got was Sonic Advance 3.
Me being the Pokémon fan that I am, I started playing Pokémon Ruby right away. But later that evening I started up SA3 for the first time. And boy was I hooked. I could not stop playing. Went to bed late that night, playing as Sonic and Tails. And I kept playing only SA3 for the next several days. I could not put the game down, and only ever stopped playing because I could not best the Boss Act of the ice stage. From there I would go back and forth between Ruby and SA3, but boy will I never forget my very first experience playing a Sonic game. To this day, the Boost games are still my favorite. And SA3 is to thank for that
Sonic riders is definitely one of my favorite games. The gameplay is so fun and rewarding. OH and, Advance 3 was the game I had on my gba as a kid. I used to play it all the time.
The Adventure-era Sonic spin-offs like Advance, Rush, Battle, Riders, etc. we’re my CHILDHOOD! I’d love for them to be presented to a new generation, especially since Sonic games have only been trickling lately.
Amazing videos!
Damn your speech at the end made me tear up I want the advance games hell even Sonic battle to get remastered just for the story alone damn you seem to give the best speeches it's sad to know all we seem to get is just the apparently perfect Sonic games. It just not fair seeing other Sonic games I personally love won't ever be remembered by new players instead people will just think the adventure era was garbage which it wasn't.
I think a collection with a wider screen and some sort of mercy/grace system in play would be great for the advance trilogy. My biggest issue with these games is the often unfair level design, and I think adding toggle-able signposting that warns of an upcoming area filled with bottomless pits or an upcoming warning of a particularly cheap enemy placement would do wonders for the game as a whole. No, it's not an amazing solution but it should be fairly easy to develop for and would be a good way to get new players "acquainted" with the games' frankly evil level design.
Also playable Shadow and Blaze please and thanks
Part of why these games likely haven't been remade in any respect has a lot to do with all the restructuring that has happened at SEGA in the last decade or so. There's a video by the Golden Bolt that goes over it, but the tl;dr is that SEGA has been busy rebuilding itself from Yuji Naka's blunders and aren't in a space to be going after and remastering products they didn't themselves make. I wouldn't be surprised to see these on the list in the next 5 years, though.
What blunders?
Ending it on the shot from Advanced 3 where all six main characters watch the master emerald restore was genius.
They’re fierce. I hope they get rereleased some day. 1 is my favorite as it seems the most classic. 2 I never could get into but I’ll give her another go. 3 is so innovative and brilliant.
Sonic Battle. I remember getting that game thinking I was just going to get a regular run fast Sonic game. I was not expecting an arena fighter with a surprisingly deep story. Worth every fucking penny.
Wonderful video and respect for bringing light to this wonderful series!
Gods everything said at 29:36 onwards can be said about the entire rush trilogy and 3D sonic boost trilogy (before forces) and it would fit in PERFECTLY.
*Some of the best sprites on GBA hands down.*
The music is so memorable. I thought the bosses were so interestingly designed. I need this remastered for switch.
Hmmm… its interesting how we have vastly different opinions on these games.
My favorite was always 2, and I hated 3 so much that I never even finished it one time. As soon as they started going off about character combos and special abilities, I just quit.
Sonic to me was always about each character having their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and it was always fun tackling each stage with every unique character. Sonic Advance 1 did this better, but something about 2 just felt more… right to me? Maybe it’s because I prefer memorizing exact moves and basically playing speed run strats.
I didn’t like the whole like.. build your party system that they had going on in this game. It felt like you were punished for being a character loyalist, but people who enjoyed team building probably had a blast.
That post is just basically to say: Yes, these games do deserve to be remembered. Each one is interesting and special, and it sucks that we keep getting 500 remakes and ports of the original 3 Genesis games and CD when there are games like the Advance series which go unnoticed.
Emerl story is iconic for me personally. Him and Shadow hit very similar story beats but the difference in how they're approached is incredible.
Advance 3 was my first introduction to sonic games. I had watched the shows and I was obsessed so once I found out that the shows were actually based on a game (I know holy shit right!?) I NEEDED to play one. My sister had brought me to the store one day and I saw advance 3 and I harrassed her to get it for me. She agreed and I instantly fell in love with the game. As I grew older I found other sonic games and remembered how much emotion sonic advance 3 had to all their characters and was wondering where it all went. I still to this day love advance 3 so much and the amount of nostalgia I have for it is insane. I still say that the advance games (as flawed as they are) are some of the best in the whole series.
3:51 That TRANSITION was incredibly satisfying.
I grew up with Advance 2 and the rush games. Honestly I think DIMPS is a much more consistent with the quality of their Sonic games than Sonic Team is. I really wanna see a new original game from them. Give me Sonic Rush 3 dammit!
Sonic Rush 3 was Sonic Colors on DS, and honestly I think DS Sonic Colors was better then Wii Sonic Colors.
@@antimatter3084 I mean it kinda was rush 3? You couldn't play as Blaze and "Rush" wasn't in the title so I don't think it counts. Also, yes Colors DS is superior.
Honestly a collection that includes the Advanced games, Battle and the Rush games would be such a great collection of the really cool titles developed by Dimps and Sonic Team, that whole Era has such a great aesthetic and overarching story, I’d love for a convenient way to play them, especially if there were extra goodies like the Christian Whitehead Classic Remasters
Straight up just an insanely good video, Advance definitely deserves to be remembered, great stuff
Sonic advance 3 was my first ever sonic game its what got me into the sonic franchise in general
These games are so great. I was pleasantly surprised that the Japanese versions of these games can be switched to English, since those are they only versions I have access to where I live. Replaying the first game over and over to get the true ending was well worth it.
I used to play 1 and 3 all the time. I felt like this game needed an extended screen (such as what Sonic Origins is about to do). The Advanced Trilogy was great, I have no idea why this series was left in the dust.
Sonic Advance 3 is, no joking around, my favorite Sonic game. I guess to be fair, a platformer with lots of moveset variety is kinda my bias (Kirby is my favorite game series after all), so mixing and matching 5 different Sonic characters for 20 different ways to play the levels is certainly my style (I personally liked using Tails and Amy so I can whack enemies mid-air with a hammer).
I feel like if Sonic CD could initially be kind of split in reception due to it's weird physics, only to eventually be beloved with the rest of the classics thanks to the magic of Taxman and Stealth fixing all of it's flaws, then the Sonic Advance trilogy can get that same treatment too.
i gotta say advance 2 is my favourite sonic game right after sonic 3 & knuckles. the feeling of flow you get is so unique and exhilarating
I hold a soft spot for Advance 1, it's probably the most derivative of the three, but it's the most chill and easy going to play compared to the more gimmicky sequels. Only downside is the occasional minor wonky bits of level design and the fact they forgot to add Sonic's brief invincibility with the insta shield, which kinda makes him the 'dud' compared to Tails and Knuckles.
And yeah, Amy is a great new addition and it is a shame she wasn't in Mania (I can see why she wasn't though, programming her would have likely been a bigger gauntlet than conventional types like Mighty and Ray).
I'd be willing to bet that the reason Amy wasn't in Mania was because of Sega, not the Mania team themselves.
There was probably some bullshit mandate about how Mania had to only include Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, and then Encore mode had to use lesser-known characters so that they wouldn't take the spotlight from Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.
Something of that sentiment seems exactly like the kind of nonsensical shit that Sega would do.
I'm almost certain the reason why they didn't add Amy is because her abilities would be much harder to work around than anyone else. Might and Ray are blank slates, they can be given different abilities, but a game with Amy has to work well with her hammer and general lack of speed + agility
@@certifiednobody With due respect, that's BS, Amy is not restrained by a single playstyle, she's restrained by the lack of imagination. A group of modders made her character work in the game, why not a multimillion dolar company?
@@dragondelsur5156 Modders have unlimited time to make a specific project and are given leniency when it comes to issues such as polish and game balancing.
An official Mania Plus Amy would require her ability to work via the jump button, be unique, not be more powerful than other characters, fit with the existing level designs, and avoid resembling "Modern Amy".
@@certifiednobody The last part was unnecesary, I don't see the issue with resembling Modern Amy and she doesn't have to work EXACTLY like Advance, she just has to play like the others but have a unique quirk. Like having the ability to roll and Spin Jump but not to Spin Dash and the up + jump imput being her vertical jump while down + jump adds the super peel out (Sonic does not use this move anymore so why have it accumulate dust?), I know the classics have the one button syndrome so work around it. If they had coders to make Mighty avoid spike damage the first time he hits them, they had coders for this.
I'm still waiting for a Sonic Advance trilogy remaster 😭I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SO LONG! I haven't played them since I was a kid, and I'd love to play them again in some sort of official capacity
Hmm…your speech sounds a bit uninterested for a game that needs to be “remembered”
True
honestly, buzz off
@@KingKlonoa lol try to beat Elden Ring (the easiest fromsoft game) and then try and talk to me.
@@Aodhanbaby That has literally nothing to do with this video. Also he just talks like that in every thing he uploads.
Always loved playing as Amy in Sonic Advance 3, absolute crime she isn’t a mainstay in more 2D Sonic games
You hit the nail on the head with Advanced 2 for me. My fondest memories with this game was searching for stage secrets then planning a route to finish as stylish as possible... also plenty of rings to transfer to sonic adventure battle 2 of course lol. I was SOOOO hype when I got Techno Base 1 and Hot Crater 2 down ❤️
Sonic advance 2 was my first childhood memory of “classic” sonic so even though I remember it being way too hard, it holds a special place.
Also, one thing I gotta give Advance props for is having a winter level in all three games yet still making the three of them distinct enough that I can remember them separately.
Sonic advance is great and the rush series is also a pretty cool trilogy on the DS too.