I started Unleashed as my next big lunge into this series but I found myself really wanting to play some smaller shit here and there, Ive been wanting to take a stab at larger games less and less if i already have so much media im consuming already on my plate
So naturally that's why youll see bursts of me messing around with things such as 007 GoldenEye tiger electronics or the Home Improvement Game or peeking at the Postal series
Or even swinging into something that has a gnarly hook thats totally off base from anything else i've been doing :)
It's the spice of life, babes.. spice of life

With that being said, Sonic Battle is something Fiercly different.. it's an arena fighter on the fucking Gameboy Advance and it plays like it in every way youd expect
You get some fun combos and fine enough looking stages, though only a couple of them were really stand-out as visually interesting to me with others just kind of devolving into "Gee I hope I get to play on one that Doesnt have annoying terrain blocking my depth of field all the time"

This gameplay is very unique but the tedium here is so harsh it makes me grit my teeth in agony..the execution of it all is effective enough in short bursts but when youre playing this shit back to back to back to back against CPUs you start to notice little.. cracks in it all..
the depth of field misses, getting juggled, the guessing game of how strong you are against your opponent because you can't see their HP bar.. all of this and more really wears on you.

And thats all just shit you find in the multiplayer
I played all of the story mode stuff almost in one sitting and let me tell you

DONT. DO. THAT.. DONT DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

And ill explain Why

Sonic Battle's campaign presents itself as this sort of Sonic Adventure style story structuring at first glance
each character having a different perspective in the overall narrative with one consistent thread that ties them all together and unites all the perspectives in the final showdown of tearing some colossal threat's ass asunder(which rocks)

But the most baffling thing to me is that when you beat the first story you get booted out to the title screen for picking another one, and this is in a completely linear fashion too. You dont really get the whole "Oh i finished sonic now alll these are open" kind of feel, when the stories youre playing through are more conjoined like chapters of the overarching story than perspectives you can watch in any order
you can replay them as much as you want(not sure why you would)
but for the first time experience it's absolutely railed into the script

But.. it's a nice script im ngl
Apart from Amy's characterization of being flighty and nearly psychotically in love with sonic
( ermm, jodie you cant say that..,, god forbid women do ANYTHING jodie, what da heck.. loser. )
and yes u in the back youre right, i dont have a problem with Amy crushing on Sonic. I just think there's something cataclysmically ironic and funny about how Shadow has better characterization than her in this game

There is a moment in this game when Amy straight up hallucinates up a Sonic ghost to try to beat Rouge's ass
FOR SOME REASON and then hes gone and its like what just happened lmfaoooo
I love her though just pointing it out because the actual narrative of the game and interactions are kinda fun
I really like Emerl as a main character and how each character has something important to rub off on him with.

from sonic he gets that heroic kinda charisma and not giving up, tails that independency, knuckles the willpower to be tough for himself, rouge the quick thinking and kinda wound up makin him a bit zesty which was hilarious LMAO
amy reaffirmed his dedication to protecting but cream helped him have a reasoning for that protecting with genuine love and understanding
and that understanding is brought home with shadow's affirmations of existence and the pursuit of life

It's dope! It's aggravating being told it through a series of
"ok kill that guy 10 times maybe"
[dialogue inbetween]
"ok now kill that guy 10 More times.. maybe"
and then you do that and it just goes and goesss
The best thing about this game is by far the customization though and the sheer amount of characters you can play as is a double edged sword

On one hand, you have so many different kits to mess around with and apply to your Emerl build... on the Other Hand.. this game is too FUCKING L O N G!!!!!!!!!!!! oH MY G O D.
I enjoyed the narrative and the conclusion to it is actually really sad, one of the more bittersweet ones in the series actually that I don't think is talked about in how beautiful it is enough even though it's similar to SA2's ending in a handful of ways

final thoughts: this game can fucking SUCK a lot of the time, some fights got stupidly unfair for no reason at ALLLLLLLLLLLLL bleaugh. I almost wanna just give it 2/5 stars but I really do like a handful of things about it as a side game
the art is nice, the story is simple and sweet and i like how satisfying some of the ass kicking is for the characters
my favorites to play as were cream, rouge and shadow
im incredibly surprised this game is gamma's true final throes, its... confusing.. like why did they do him like that..
Oh well, atleast Omega is funny
Emerl fits right at home and exemplifies some of the best aspects about Shadow, Sonic and Gamma all rolled into one which is W E I R R RR RR RR D but hey it works for me, i like the little dude

this is a more interesting title in the sonic series, that being a portable exclusive story-focused party fighter. Due to the "portable exclusive" part of that, I have never actually played this game with other people before, which kinda sucks considering the fact this is a fighting game here. The CPU are extremely cheesable due to some mechanics allowing you to get easy instant kills and stun-locks. The plot is weird, follows sonic and the gang as they go collect chaos emeralds to help restore a new robot characters memory. the OST is actually not that bad as well, considering the fact its on the GBA, which isnt really remembered for its audio quality. I think the plot ties into sonic advance 3 in a roundabout way but I never really got it. If you want some more sonic shenanigans and havent played this one yet, go for it. Don't expect to play the multiplayer anytime soon, though.

For the last 20 years, modders have been using the sprites from this game in all sorts of Sonic related media, and frankly the sprites are by far the best part of this game. This is an isometric 3D fighting game with 2D sprites, and it is a weird one where I liked the gameplay way more than it deserved. It is very jank and full of stunlocks and one hit kills. What really lets this game down is the campaign, which is both too short and yet incredibly repetitive at the same time. There's only 7 characters in the game, but they make you fight them dozens of times. Not only that, but after every single fight, they make you do the same fight again, but with twice as many lives. Every single fight. The story is also all over the place; I like the idea of Emerl and there are some interesting character dynamics with some characters like Shadow, but overall it's very poorly written and very confusing as to what, if anything, is actually going on. I'm also pretty sure the moral of Cream's story is "violence is necessary, don't be a pacifist".

A genuinely great base for a unique Sonic fighter, with a diverse cast, beautiful art styles both in-game and within key art, and a soundtrack with a surprising amount of hits. Unfortunately, it's ultimately let down by some of the worst pacing a campaign in this series has ever seen, combined with the absolute slog of a game-long quest that is getting Emerl up to resembling anything close to playable.

You're a real one if you remember the sprites from this game being used in every Sonic VS battle animation in the mid-2000s to early 2010s.

Uno de mis juegos favoritos del Gameboy Advance.

Un juego de peleas de Sonic en el que la mayor parte del tiempo pasaremos controlando a un robot que aprende a copiar técnicas de combate con sólo verlas. Contiene un sistema pseudo-RPG en el que vamos desbloqueando ataques de todos los otros personajes que podremos equipar a costa de puntos.

En su momento me voló la cabeza la trama y la novedad del sistema de copiado de ataques. Jamás logré jugar un Versus con nadie en este juego :(

It's... ok. Really the most I can say about this game. I should say that this is all from a single player perspective, I have sadly never been able to play this game with other people, despite it being a fighting game.
I think the core gameplay is nice, having a basic attack, a heavy attack, a dash attack, an air attack, an upper, a kind of weird homing in attack you can use in certain situations, and various special attacks. The game doesn't really come off as hampered from the lack of buttons imo, my main issue with the gameplay is the lack of interesting movement options, which is a shame due to the size of the arenas the fights takes place in. Each character feels unique to play which is nice, but there's obviously some balancing issues here (Cream is ridiculously good compared to the rest of the cast for example). A cool part of the game is that the main character, Emerl, gets to use traits from every other character, so you get to pick your favorite tools and combine them into one super-character. Though sadly, by the time you've got enough skill points to use everything you want (skill points being increased after each fight, they're the game's way of not having Emerl be stupid broken from the get-go, limiting what you can have on him at once) the story is pretty much over. Also annoyingly there's no actual way to get one skill over another (outside of character), it's not based on how much a move is used or anything, you just have to get into a battle with the character you want to get something from and pray you get the one you want.
The main story is... pretty fun but it has a few critical issues. Sometimes it can just drag on and on, like, you'll finish a battle that has 3 lives for everyone, and then have to do an exact repeat of that fight with 5 lives. It just gets exhausting.
Secondly, the AI is very susceptible to getting caught in loops (mainly with special moves, but can be done with some other moves like Rouge's air attack) which obviously makes the fights less engaging, though the AI will automatically block a special attack if you use it too much against them (this is limited to one at a time however, so if you alternate between two the problem is still very much there).
The story is, like, stupidly good for this GBA spinoff fighting game, but I don't want to reveal too much. Basically it centers around Emerl, an ancient robot that Professor Gerald had worked on before Shadow, with him interacting with different characters in the 8 campaigns. There's ones that are kind of just there like Knuckles', but if you get through all of them the story in this game is really one of the best out of Sonic.
Aesthetically I don't have much to say but yeah it's excellent. The portraits are all super sleek and there's a reason the sprites from this game were used in all those flash animations. Music is good, sometimes the GBA soundchip makes it ear grating but sometimes it really works (go listen to Battle Highway).
I don't really know who I'd recommend this game to, Sonic fans for the story, sure, but none of the elements from the main series really work their way into here. This game is very odd for a fighting game, so don't know if I'd suggest it there either. Just play it if you feel like it, I guess.