I'll start this review by saying that this is the first game I have ever played in my life, so as a result this review may be slightly more biased than my other reviews. A review is a description of an experience so my intentions are to convey my feelings towards the game, but this time I'm gonna give my thoughts as an adult who played this game very early in my life.
Sonic Advance 2 is a 2D platformer which starts off with the titular character; Sonic the Hedgehog as the first playable character in the game. Later on the player unlocks 3 characters by proceeding through an admittedly lacking story and another secret character unlocked by 100%-ing the game.
The gameplay is largly carried over from the original Sonic Advance, but this game added a new trick system. The trick system revolves around pressing the R button in a certain direction. It adds a bit of depth to the rather simplistic Sonic 2D gameplay, but it became a lot more fleshed out in a later game Sonic Rush.
Overall the game is a lot more fast paced than Sonic Advance 1 and when you manage to break the speed barrier, you feel like you actually achieved something. Like in the classic games, speed is a reward for skilled players. The level design encourages speed, but I admit looking back it's not that good... Possibly due to the screen crunch or just bad level design, a lot of the sections of the game rely a lot on trial and error.
The soundtrack although fitting isn't my cup of tea, but I acknowledge those songs as good, just not something I'd listen to after I'm done with my playthrough.
Overall, although flawed, I still enjoy playing this game from time to time, however it isn't as good as I thought back when I was a kid. I still recommend it, it's a game that someone should just play for themselves and see if they like it or not. Thanks for reading.

I'm gonna start the review by saying that Mortal Kombat Deception is my favorite MK game from the entire series.
It's the first MK game I have ever played and I still hold it in high regards.
Mortal Kombat Deception is a follow up and a major improvement of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. More characters, more content and most importantly a lot more fun. You have your standard versus mode, arcade mode and practice mode as well as new additions like Chess Kombat, Puzzle Kombat and the revamped Krypt and Konquest mode completely built from the ground up.
The gameplay is a natural evolution of MK Deadly Alliance. Each Kombatant still has 2 hand to hand styles and 1 weapon style. It feels smooth and satisfying to pull off a long combo string as well as using the newly introduced death traps and enviormental interaction in general.
Let's now address the new version of the Konquest mode. Instead of being a tutorial that taught the player how to play the game while also explaining backstories of characters, it is now a fully playable adventure mode telling the story of Shujinko. Because it's a spoiler free review, I won't talk about the plot itself. Konquest mode is mostly about exploring locations and realms while major fights are done in the game's default fighting engine. However it features voice acting that rivals MK4 in terms of how awful it is. However the tone of the game is the darkest MK has gotten without being ridiculous.
The game still has the usual Mortal Kombat aesthetic as well as some of the best costumes the characters have ever had. Mileena and Sub-Zero both have some of my favorite costumes in the series as they both fit what the character is all about as well as their personalities.
People like to discredit the game for having an unmemorable cast of new characters, but in my opinion only Kira and Kobra are forgettable and on the memorable side we get Shujinko, Onaga and Havik for example. The fan favorites return, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Ermac, Mileena and many others are featured in the roster of MK Deception. Among them are two very controversial ones; Dark Raiden and Zombie Liu Kang. In the intro cinematic, Raiden blows himself up along with the Deadly Alliance in a desperate attempt to stop the Dragon King Onaga to reclaim his army. In the game he reincarnates as Dark Raiden who is shown to be an extremist version of Earthrealm's protector who is willing to do questionable things to say the least to protect Earthrealm. While Liu Kang becomes a Zombie after Dark Raiden brings only the body back to life, but not the soul making him a mindless puppet with talent and fighting skills of Liu Kang.
Visually the game looks great for the PS2 era and some models and enviornments still hold up to this day.
The soundtrack is my personal favorite in the series. Tracks like "Chamber of Artifacts: Red Dragon" are ones that come to my mind when I think of Mortal Kombat. Even the Character select theme is quite catchy.
I previously mentioned Chess Kombat and Puzzle Kombat. Chess Kombat is a game of virtual chess. You can assign characters to represent the chess pieces and once they meet on the board they fight over who takes the spot on said board.
As for Puzzle Kombat; It's a Tetris clone with an MK twist on it. While destroying blocks your character attack the other pushing them to their doom and whoever has their board full, dies.
This game was the first MK game to have online functionality, however the Gamecube version didn't have it and instead Midway gave Gamecube owners two characters exclusive to that version of the game; Shao Kahn and Goro.
Overall Mortal Kombat Deception is my favorite game in the MK franchise and I think everyone should give it a shot before jumping on the bandwagon and mindlessly bashing it.