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Sonic Advance 3 is a very weird game both in design and theming. It is the most visually beautiful of the Sonic Advance trilogy and its music is pretty good. The gameplay is very strange as it bends the expansive platform heavy level design from the first game with the narrow speedways of the second and designing everything around a team up mechanic that takes some getting used to. There are five characters total each having unique abilities as well as giving the player's character different abilities. The player can do team up moves to aid in platforming while the partner character grants changes to the player's character. It opens up level design and allows for players to approach different challenges in different ways depending on who they are playing as. The levels are mostly well designed around this mechanic though some notable weak points include Toy Kingdom Zone as a whole, and Chaos Angel Act 3. It is also one of the harder games in the series. Some good examples include Chaos Angel Zone as a whole and the last two acts of Cyber Track Zone. The weak point of the game include the boss fights, the Special Stages, and the changes made to the characters' controls. Overall, a mixed bag **** that I recommend solely for its unique gameplay.

This was my very first RPG. I've completed it three times since first getting it in middle school and it's fine. I'm no expert on RPGs so I won't talk about this for long. I don't remember the story very well as each playthrough lasted over the course of years taking frequent and long breaks along the way. The ending was very underwhelming and it did cause a series of legal battles for a couple years so there's that.

This was my second Sonic game growing up. It's essentially Sonic Rush but exchanging the trick system with wisp powers. The wisp powers actually shake up the gameplay pretty substantially setting this entry apart from both Sonic Rush games before it. It's only better than the original Sonic Rush because it has better boss fights, better level design and better music. Blaze the Cat is an unfortunate omission though.

This is an example **** that does everything right except for gameplay. Cutscenes, music, visuals and story are mostly better than anything the series has seen before it. Unfortunately, the gameplay has a functionality issue. Sonic may control more comfortably than he did in Secret Rings but the combat completely undermines that improvement. It's exhausting, relentless and a even annoying. The quick time events are the worst part of it. You're not only supposed to swing the Wii remote when the game displays the icon but you also need to pay attention to how fast the icon is shaking. The faster it shakes, the sooner you need to swing. Eventually you start having to swing a split second before it even appears. These QTEs ruin most of the bosses this game offers.

This is yet another Sonic game I really wanted to like but couldn't. There are too many mechanics to keep track of and the game doesn't teach the player how to use any of them nor their importance. I was able to clear the first four races in the Hero campaign before struggling with the fifth for half an hour. There are good and even innovative mechanics such as the air you need to conserve, the trick system, the rings you can fly into, rail grinding, and the function of the drift. I then realized that there was a level up mechanic. I don't know what it does and I don't know how I benefit from understanding it. All I know is its inclusion completely jumps the shark and makes the gameplay so much worse than it otherwise would be. There is also the wind trail that some racers leave behind. I don't know what causes it, how to ride it, or how to jump off.

It's just pinball. It's fine. There's nothing I found wrong with it. It's a good time waster. What you see is what you get, a good pinball game on a handheld device with no backlight. I played it on the DS so I don't really know how bad the GBA backlight is.

The original Sonic Adventure was released in late 1999, and despite receiving positive reception from the few critics who bothered to buy a Sega Dreamcast, this game wouldn't maintain that status for long. The original Sonic Adventure was a very unpolished game featuring collision issues, camera malfunctions, and very flimsy programming during the automated sequences. However, Sonic Adventure was the very first sixth gen platformer and it released at a time when standards were very much colored by the flaws of the 5th generation of games. Most audiences simply tolerated Sonic Adventure's issues as they weren't issues that didn't already plague most games of the era. Instead, Sonic Adventure was judged by what unique content it offered compared to other 3D platformers. Sonic Adventure has 6 playable characters following different gameplay formats. Sonic's gameplay alone was enough to make up for a lot of the game's technical issues at the time as it offered unique high speed linear platforming backed with a momentum engine. The only other 3D platformer I can think of from the era that could compare to this format is Crash Bandicoot. It is obvious that Sonic's gameplay saw the most praise because the character still stood out from the competition even though less people were noticing. Tails also followed that format. Knuckles's gameplay was comparable to most 3D platformers of the time as it was a collectathon. Knuckles's gameplay was criticized for contrasting too much with Sonic's and Tails's gameplay and not offering anything different from games like Mario 64, Spyro the Dragon and Banjo Kazooie. Luckily, the length of his campaign covers a small portion of the full package, it functioned well and it offered a surface level of entertainment. At best, Knuckles is average and at worst he is mediocre. Amy was one of the most criticized characters in the game for her slow gameplay. Big the Cat is the most infamous bringing to the table confusing fishing gameplay. His campaign was also criticized for being completely disconnected from the larger narrative the game told. E-102 Gamma is one of the more fondly remembered parts of the game due to the story he took part in. Though lock on shooting wasn't an unknown genre, he saw less scrutiny than Knuckles or Big. Despite some spotted criticism, Sonic Adventure was viewed as a successful 3D transition for the Sonic the Hedgehog series. When Sonic Adventure DX released, it saw a very different response. Now the game would be judged by a larger audience defined by the standards of the sixth generation; standards that were much higher than the fifth. Sonic Adventure also didn't have enough time to make a name for itself while on the Dreamcast leading to a legacy that could very easily be disregarded and it was. Sonic Adventure DX is a complete port of the Dreamcast original but with uglier visuals, uglier models, poorer controls, and twelve unlockable bad games from the Game Gear. The only thing this game adds of any value is the free cam option allowing the player to control the camera himself. Despite the downgrades, Sonic Adventure DX isn't worse by a large margin. This version is at least average.

Sonic Adventure 2 does a few good things that a sequel should do. The gameplay introduces new mechanics, harder levels, a larger plot, better production, and the game reinforces all this with ranks and missions. Unfortunately, Sonic Adventure 2 also does a few things a bad sequel would do. Everyone controls worse and certain mechanics can often clash with one another (ie the lightspeed dash and the bounce ability). Returning mechanics are a functional step down from the game prior. There are three gameplay formats but the player no longer decides which one they want to play specifically which makes adapting to the control changes and new mechanics an unnecessary challenge. The kart racing segments function poorly and did not need to be included. Despite this, the returning mechanics don't take away from some of the new ones. For example, the new grinding mechanic does a great job shaking up the gameplay and opens up fun new challenges and unique level design. The new drill dive that the Treasure Hunting characters now have is snappy and adds flow to their movement. Even though they function poorly, the gravity gimmicks of the final stages are integrated well and were likely innovative in their time.

Disconnected from the Dreamcast original, this is still as average as the original. Only minimal content was added to the Chao Garden and 2 Player mode; two optional sections of the game I have no interest in. It also looks and runs marginally worse. Overall, a mediocre port of an already average game.

Attempts a new format of gameplay surrounding a new mechanic called "boost mode". Visuals, music and character animations are a sizable step up. Unfortunately, the gameplay is a slight step down due mainly to the Gameboy Advance's limitations. This was the fastest game in the series at the time though the Gameboy Advance's screen is too small for the player to see much coming. Despite this, the levels don't take advantage of this oversight too often for it to ruin the game entirely. As a matter of fact, the new boost mode mechanic makes this one of the most influential and important games in the series as it would pave the road follow up games would follow. The bosses are the best of the Advance series with three exceptions: Aero Egg, Egg-Go-Round, and Eggrobo Z. Special Stages are the worst in the series especially since the Chaos Emeralds are not longer shared among characters. Would recommend primarily for its influence on nearly every game in the series going forward.

Emulates the Genesis classics and does so very well. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy provide plenty of fun variety, challenges and repeatability. Visuals are fairly generic but get the job done. Not the fastest game in the series but this change is appropriate given the Game Boy Advance's limitations. Levels are designed elegantly though there are unfair traps from time to time especially in the last two levels. Bosses are good with the exception of the Egg X whose attack pattern and hitboxes are slightly unfair. Special Stages are the worst part of the game and all you get in return is the best boss in the game. Overall, better than Sonic 1.

I played this game through Dolphin a few years ago and even though emulation is now the superior way to play the classics, in 2002 this must have been a treat. I didn't spend much time on it but I was surprised to find all the bonuses in this compilation. There is artwork of the many characters throughout the series, scans of the original game manuals, scans of the covers of various Sonic the Hedgehog comic issues from the Archie series, videos promoting various sonic games throughout the icon's history, and so much more. It is the ultimate Sonic the Hedgehog treasure trove. Though the emulations of the games themselves aren't perfect, they were still as fun as ever. This is exactly what a compilation is at its best. Sonic Mega Collection reminded people why Sonic was so beloved and why he continues to be. It was meant to be the game that taught three new audiences Sonic's history. As far as compilations go, Sonic Mega Collection is easily among the best.

Sonic Battle was the first game on the Game Boy Advance I ever owned and it was fine at first but once I started playing the story modes I gave up once Rouge kidnapped Emerl. The difficulty spikes in this game is the biggest problem. The AI of your opponent never improves. The game's challenge is beating the same character over and over. Sometimes under a time limit, sometimes with a handicap. The fight itself isn't challenging unless you're playing as Emerl. The combat is clunky and unsatisfying and the RPG gimmicks are starting to feel very stale in these post - Saturn Sonic games. The 3D environments might have looked impressive for the time and the art style is indeed very neat. It's just a shame that this game is such a bore and sometimes a frustration to play.

Here it is. My very first Sonic game and the only one in the entire series where nostalgia clouds my analytical lens. Sonic Rush Adventure is easily my favorite Sonic game of all time. It takes the levels from Sonic Rush and smooths out the difficulty curve with less inconvenient enemy placement and death traps. There are also plenty of exciting set pieces much like any game in the series. Rather than focusing on two sides of a story, like Sonic Rush, Sonic Rush Adventure follows one continuous story front to back all while retaining both Sonic and Blaze as playable characters (you unlock Blaze after beating the third boss). Perhaps the biggest point of contention for most are the boat rides. You probably already guessed my stance on these. I love them. I find them a lot of fun and they make excellent use of the DS touch screen. Having to actively ride to the next level increased the scale of Blaze's dimension. It also added to the thrill that a grand adventure should have. The bosses are, once again, excellent. My favorite being the Ghost Condor. For years, I've tried my best to defeat the boss without falling back down to the runway bellow. I've speed ran this game and tried my best to get the highest score on every level. I've experienced everything this game has to offer. But no game is perfect and there are some flaws I can't overlook. Entering the final levels are kind of a pain as you need to back track to abandoned islands where you will find stone relics. You use them to unlock the door to Pirate Island where you face off against Whisker and Johnny, the fake out villains of this game. This decision would've been more digestible if the game had levels on each of these islands. Actually, there are hidden islands all throughout the game most containing one bonus level. These bonus levels are meant to challenge the player's skill but they also feel very unfinished. Most of these bonus levels are riddled with bottomless pits and cheap obstacle placement, reuse assets, and are so short they leave no impression at all. Hidden levels is something I always appreciate in a game and I've gotten used to these levels faults but their presence is worth a mention (especially considering you play one right before Coral Cave). The Chaos Emeralds make a return and you collect them by racing Johnny, some green **** with a jet ski for a head. When I was young, I hated these. Collecting the Chaos Emeralds was a nightmare because of how unfair this seemed. There are races where Johnny has infinite boost. The only way to stand a chance is to upgrade your jet ski using minerals from previous stages but the game never tells you this. Thank god I talk to every npc on South Island as they give you missions. Some of them give you rewards such as the Sol Emeralds, medals and decorations for the island. Unfortunately you can only have access to the missions menu by talking to Marine the Raccoon and the missions menu is so bland and uninteresting. This is also a nitpick but sometimes the cut scenes go on too long. Characters will ramble on and on and I'm usually very patient when it comes to these. I do remember there being a skip feature but I haven't played through the campaign in a long time. Starting with Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic stories started having fake endings in order to make up for the loss of multiple stories and campaigns. In Sonic Rush Adventure, you unlock the true ending by collecting all the Chaos and Sol Emeralds. The Jeweled Scepter, the Master Emerald of Blaze's dimension, is stolen by Dr Eggman and Eggman Nega. This reveal caught me off guard: one because I genuinely thought Johnny and Whisker were the big bads of this game and two because I've never seen Eggman Nega before. Now that I'm older and have played many games, read many books, and watched many movies I can say for sure that the Eggmen being here in the finally feels completely phoned in. These two appear completely out of nowhere as they played no role in the story before. I thought this could've been one of the few Sonic games where Eggman played no role at all but I was wrong. They're here and the final boss with them was fine. When it comes to world building, I believe Sonic Rush Adventure is among the best the series has to offer. It is simple, yet ambitious. Dimps did everything they could to improve and add to Sonic Rush. It may falter but I will never forget the experience I had with this game. Its faults will not suede me from giving it the highest score I can offer. It's a score that is share by only one other Sonic game and it's a game that isn't even on this website. Compared to all other games in the series, Sonic Rush Adventure comes the closest to finding that balance between world building, storytelling, challenge and fun. There is no doubt in my mind that it sets that bar incredibly high.

Sonic Rush is the very last piece I added to my Sonic the Hedgehog DS library and it is considered, by many, to be the best the series has to offer on the console. It is fun, challenging, but above all else, balanced. The only major flaws this game suffers from are view distance, cheap enemy placement and excessive bottomless pits but these issues never reach the same extremes as the Advance games. The bosses, one of the most consistently poor sections in the series, are genuinely challenging. Sometimes a little too challenging. Sonic Rush follows a significantly streamlined story compared to its predecessors. It focuses on only two characters meaning two campaigns. Sonic the Hedgehog and the newcomer Blaze the Cat. Both are identical with control and play the same levels. This was a negative against Sonic Heroes but that was because the game required four playthroughs and that game play wasn't very good to begin with. Sonic Rush is among the few Sonic games I would highly recommend but it isn't my favorite as there are two on this website that I believe surpass it.

I believe Shadow the Hedgehog is just as bad as Sonic Heroes but for opposite reasons. Where I found Sonic Heroes's gameplay to difficult to get used to, Shadow the Hedgehog returns to a more simplified move set as it focuses on one character rather than 12. It is also one of the most stable 3D games in the entire series which came as quite a shock to me. I never came across any game breaking glitches in all of my playthroughs. General movement in Sonic Heroes was also horrible. Here Shadow's movement is more constrained. It takes him time to accelerate to full speed, and while at full speed, turning is delayed to prevent the player from flying off the road. It does, however, make maneuvering around corners and dodging projectiles a little problematic. Wish there was at least a side step. He also retains the floaty jump that all the games have. As far as general controls and stability, Shadow the Hedgehog is a step in the right direction. Though the spindash **** now because Sonic Team wanted to place more focus on the weapons which also work really well. So the basic movement, stability and mechanics seem to be leagues ahead of Heroes but nearly everything else is far behind. The game's story is awfully generic and the levels feel bland from the very start. Add on the fact that none of the levels are built like Sonic levels. The levels do not compliment Shadow's control at all. Instead they are open areas filled with drones. Drones: enemies with AI so dumb they are no challenge to kill. Enemies continue to have health bars like in Heroes and the combat is boring. Just fire and spam the same attack till they die. No thought goes into these encounters. Every level follows a mission structure and completing a mission will lead Shadow to a different level and what was probably supposed to be a different side of the story. This game has ten endings, all of which are fundamentally the same. Once the player discovers all ten they gain access to a secret eleventh which completely discards the entire concept of the game. It, much like Sonic Heroes, is a complete **** show. I'm not going to go over the darker tone of the game because its a weak argument. Everyone complains about an anthropomorphic hedgehog wielding a gun but no one bats an eye at the squirrel (Conker). There is a fundamental difference between Conker and Shadow, though. Conker's Bad Fur Day is an absurd concept and it revels in that absurdness. It knows when to make fun of itself and when to take itself seriously. It has likeable and memorable characters. The developers at Rare wanted that game to be many things but they knew that none of that would ever matter unless the game was good. If the game isn't good then nothing else it offers matters. Conker is like a roller coaster with many twists, sharp turns and hills. Shadow the Hedgehog is a straight line that loops ten times over with one sharp turn at the end. Conker has personality in excess while Shadow the Hedgehog is as dull and generic as one can get.

Lets start with the positives: Music - Excellent as always Art direction - As good as one can make it in 2003. The levels look amazing. Story - Back to basics in all but one campaign. Its not exactly a plus but this was the very first big Sonic game released on all the major consoles of the time. It would make sense to hold back on the exposition, lore, and world building. Now then, everything else. This was the very first time the heads of Sonic Team promised to bring Sonic "back to his roots" a promise that would be made nearly every single time the series got a new game. I don't believe they understand what the phrase means. In the game, the player controls three characters at a time. Sonic Team wanted to make a game focused around a single gameplay format, like the classics, but they didn't want to relinquish any of the supporting cast so this was the result. Sonic Heroes was made on the same engine as Sonic Adventures 1 and 2; two games that pushed the engine and the Dreamcast to its absolute limits. Now the team had to get it working on four separate pieces of hardware. What resulted is a game less stable than both of the prior installments at their worst. Both of the Adventure games' instability can be excused because: 1. It's often easy to avoid. 2. All the characters control comfortably and have a very simple move-set. 3. 3D was still in its early stages. Nearly all 3D games of the 90s had plenty of instability. Comparing 90s 3D gaming to everything afterwards is like comparing NES games to the SNES. Most of the flaws with the Adventure games were excused in their time because 3D was still a developing innovation. There were hurdles that couldn't be jumped over, but by 2003 those hurdles had been all but demolished and to see Sonic Team still struggling to climb over them was disappointing. I won't talk about the gameplay in detail. Its main problems are instability and obnoxious controls. The four selectable teams on the menu are separate campaigns in disguise. Don't be fooled. You have to play the game 4 times in order to see the end of the story with little to no variation. It's like having to play Sonic 3 as Sonic, then Tails, and then Knuckles in order to play Death Egg Zone onward. Levels - 3 Visuals - 8 Story - 6 Bosses - 0