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.