Check it out, it's 14-year-old me with a GameBoy Advance speaker pressed against his ear canal, mouth open while he pipes the most goopy-ass version of Scrap Brain Zone directly into his skull.

You can add Sonic Advance to the growing pile of reviews where I state, "I haven't played this since it came out." It's in good company, the Burger King Trilogy is in there. It's been so long that abandoning my previously held opinions on Sonic Advance and going in with no expectations was easy enough, though I did assume the consensus from my mutuals would be that Advance is among the best and most cherished of Sonic's handheld outings only to find it's pulled around a 3/5 average. A little surprising considering some of those mutuals think more highly of Sonic than I do, but now that I've closed the 20+ year gap... yeah, 3/5 seems about right!

Congratulations to Sonic Advance, because that practically makes it the best "traditional" handheld Sonic I've played.

Like the Game Gear games, Sonic Advance doesn't match the pace and feel of the Genesis titles, but the better hardware does allow for a much closer approximation, one that's pleasant enough in hand and which is only noticeably off to the kinds of people who are entirely too invested in this stuff. Like me. I just bought another copy of Sonic Mania, I'm up to five now, so I'd like to think I'm qualified enough to say that the way Sonic and his friend make contact with destructible objects and how they bounce off them doesn't quite pass the sniff test with me but it hardly ruins the game.

In fact, Sonic's physics feel perfectly in place with the way levels are designed, and that's really the most important thing. For the most part, stage design is pretty good. There's a nice mix of platforming and speed and plenty of routes that are made or less accessible depending on who you play as. The game does completely hit a wall and burn most of its good will by the time you get to Angel Island, though. The introduction of numerous bottomless pits, many of which the level directly funnels you into, is aggravating, and it's a problem that persists into the two single act zones that follow.

Also, not a fan of Amy. Dislike playing as her immensely. She felt bad in Adventure and she feels even worse here. These zones aren't improved by shafting you with a character that has a lower speed cap and movement abilities that purposefully feel bad. I'm sure there's some lunatic out there waiting in the wings who has dedicated a significant portion of their time to perfecting Amy's tech and will insist that it's not the game, it's the player. I don't care, I'm putting Amy in the contraption now.

Despite Sonic Advance's sloppy end game, I was pleasantly surprised with it overall, and that maybe says more about my insanely low expectations for a handheld Sonic than it does the game itself. Uh, end of review.

Pros: The first ever Sonic game on a Nintendo console, and that right there, was a huge ass deal, and the game itself is decent enough too. It's a callback to the classic Genesis era of Sonic games, and you get the good and the bad with that. The visuals are nice, I'll start there, using the modern art style borrowed from the Adventure games, and there's also really well done 2D sprite-work too, where the characters are expressive with plenty of smooth animation. Which, speaking of, you can choose from up to four different characters to play as. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy. Most of their abilities from the Genesis games are back, with some new ones, like ground attacks where Sonic can slide kick, Tails can tail whip, and Knuckles can do a series of punches. And then there's Amy Rose, whom I believe this game is her first playable 2D platformer role, and she can't spin-dash, only use her hammer in a variety of ways, and it's creative, a change of pace anyway, though not the most fun with the way these levels are designed...

Cons: These levels kinda suck. They're big and sprawling, overstay their welcome, and are still filled with plenty of those oldschool traps, traps that especially get you on your first time through, or if you're just a beginner. Not great design, in my opinion. The visuals, while fine, aren't as iconic here as their Genesis forebearers, and the music not quite up to par either. Everything here does manage to demonstrate what Sonic is all about to a new audience on Nintendo consoles though, heh...

What it means to me: This game was unsurprisingly the first Sonic game I ever owned, considering I was a Nintendo only kid. I recall some stages including bullshit design that would frustrate me to no end (One particular stage required you to have the knowledge that jumping from the side of the wall would send you in the opposite direction to land on a platform otherwise inaccessible... Thanks, like I would've understood that mechanic as a child...). Honestly, what I enjoyed most out of this game was Chao Garden!! Yeah, that fun virtual pet type game from Sonic Adventure was included here too, and could even link up with Sonic Adventure 2 Battle on Gamecube! I always loved those little dudes, and how if you find the tiny rescued animals in the campaign, you could use them to modify your Chao (those animals in the campaign are just as cute in this one too, I recall the tiny elephant being adorable), and so yeah, some good stuff here, nothing great though, and the main game being full of bullshit really was a damper, which, when clumped altogether equals a middling package.