Talk about a wasted opportunity. A fighting game with Sonic characters is such easy money, but this ain't it.

First impressions were all over the place. The art is out-fucking-standing, this is SUCH a good look for the gang, but I swear I felt my ears bleeding a little bit with that Mode Select BGM. Whoever decided to use that guitar sample for multiple tracks in the game, you have a special place in hell set aside for you. The soundtrack as a whole is pretty weak, with a couple exceptions (Holy Summit is so good, no wonder they brought it back for Advance 3.)

The writing is cheeky and fun, and the story itself was entertaining enough but good lord the progression here is absolute dogshit. How do you like fighting the same character twice(or more!) in a row, with more rounds each time? How about selecting a random building just for shits and giggles since it's your first time playing, only to be assaulted by Emerl clones because you dared to explore a little bit?
The moment I realized I could win most battles by either spamming normal attacks or special R attacks, you bet your ass that turbo button was on and the frameskip was rolling. While the combat system is interesting on the surface, it's just not very satisfying. Even when customizing Emerl with new skills, every fight feels like a slapfest, with everyone waving those foam spaghetti things in the air.

Uh, what else... Oh, it looks really good. Sonic's GBA entries always had beautiful sprites, and Battle brought so many great animations to the whole cast. I also love the 3D environments, always cool to see that on the GBA, even though I wished it was a normal 2D fighting game instead.

That really just sums it up. I wish this was a regular ass 2D fighter on the PS2 or some shit. Instead, we have a weird arena fighter with some interesting ideas that ultimately aren't very satisfying. The story isn't good enough to warrant playing this all the way to completion, I feel. Cute character moments don't make up for all the "fight Gamma again for the millionth time" you have to sit through.

A Sonic fighting game for the GBA. The graphics look outstanding for the console, with lovely 2D sprites complimenting the small 3D arenas. The story mode boasts a really great story, too, one of the best in a Sonic game, all revolving around a robot called Emerl, who you can customise using abilities from the other characters and enemies you encounter.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is just…..ok. For the limited amount of buttons on the GBA, it utilises them really well, but the battles all feel the same, even with the different abilities, so the game tends to feel a bit repetitive. What makes this even worse is in the story mode, you’ll often fight in a situation, then have to do the exact same fight but everyone has more lives (dragging it out even more). This padding starts out really early, and it’s a shame because the length of the game would be fine without them, so they make the game a chore to play for no reason.

The atmosphere of Sonic Battle is great, so it’s unfortunate that the gameplay can’t keep up with it.

Sonic Battle is a game that shouldn’t be stuck on the GBA, as it has so much potential as a simple but fun fighting game.

I love the presentation, the jagged outlines and black borders give it a unique and striking look, and the way the sprites move are a fantastic evolution of the Advance sprites.

Combat wise it does work, every character has a few different options for special moves as well as their own basic attacks and movement. There’s also newcomer Emerl, who can copy other characters abilities through the games story mode, and he can become unbelievably powerful, something that would be fun to play against friends with their own emerls…

But what’s the likelihood of that happening now, you need link cables to play multiplayer and this game never got rereleased. Also levelling up Emerl takes forever, learning good skills is a nightmare, and equipping them requires so many skill points.

You also have to play this games story mode which… is awful. The story itself isn’t bad at all, it’s very similar in tone to the Adventure era, and I like how we see so many perspectives on the plot. But the structure kills it, as you repeat the same battles again and again and again. It’s incredibly tedious and I just can’t ever imagine completing this more than once.

It’s a shame because there’s tons of potential here, but Sonic Battle just ain’t there.

Tried playing it through the emulator when I was about 12 years old, couldn't beat the story mode due to some problems with the controls and the game constantly crashing on me for some reason, of course I couldn't figure out why at that time.
But still, even if most of it can be done by button mashing certain cheesy moves, the game is mostly pretty fun.
And dont get me started on the sprites, they are gorgeous. They were also used for the Sonic RPG flash games, which were a HUGE part of my childhood.

This is a very fun, pretty polished hidden gem from this series! The combat mechanics are very simple, but they utilize a very interesting special moves system where each stock you can block one of the three types of moves. The 3D arenas are also really cool for a GBA game, especially if playing it on a handheld like a GBA or 3DS where it won't look too chunky.

The story is pretty good too, as it's basically just "Sonic and Co. literally raise a child together". You can imagine pretty well how that goes, although it tying back into SA2's story with Gerald Robotnik and Shadow was pretty cool. Really goes to show how much SEGA was committing to the continuity of this series back in the day.

The main appeal of this game is customizing the robot playable character that the characters raise, Emerl. He has a super cool ability where you can equip him with moves from other characters you get from fighting those characters, where the only issue is that they don't drop enough. From what I've seen, it's nearly impossible to get all of the cards in a reasonable time, which is my main critique of the game. After trying (in vain) for about 2 hours to get anywhere in the Virtual Training mode for new cards, I just gave up and cheated them in because I have better things to do.

Overall though, really fun time that gets a solid recommendation for me! Good length, good difficulty, genuinely just a really fun, although not perfect, game.