Sonic Advance is a reasonable enough facsimile of 2D Sonic, but the GBA hardware really lets it down. As expected, the soundtrack is underwhelming compared to the Genesis originals, and the smaller screen size makes off-screen attacks common (especially later on), adding an omnipresent unease to gameplay. The addition of Amy is appreciated, but any replay value the multiple unique characters bring is curbed by terrible Special Stages, the locations of which are both too sparse and too hidden to ever really bother.

What a mixed bag of a game for me. There's lots to like about it. The pixel art is nice, I like the playable characters mostly, the zones are fun overall, and it's short and sweet with some fun level design, but good lord are their so many other issues with this game that make this just an overall not enjoyable time. The special stages are horrendus, only giving you one chance to nab each each run through, with no extras hidden throughout like the other classic games. The special stages themselves are awful to play, using this weird pseudo 3D style that just does not work at all and makes it near impossible to read depth. The playable characters are nice in practice, but Amy sticks out like a sore thumb for adding nothing, but an extended range on her aerial attack, making boss fights easier and nothing else, with the trade-off of not letting her have a ball form so she gets hit all the time. On top of that you have to beat the game with each character (total of 4 playthroughs!) in order to get the true ending, which is just exhausting by the end, and feels like a way to just add padding. The level design is overall good, but near the end it gets awful. They'll be sudden stops during high speed sections, enemy locations that you can't see till you get hit by them, and multiple times where you'll just crash into spikes out of nowhere, taking damage suddenly. All of these issues combine into an overall unpleasant experience that I don't really see myself going back to much. It's a shame, because this game does have lots of potential, but is marred by dumb design choices. Hopefully the sequels take what work, and make an actual good game out of this series.