A great sendoff to the Sonic Advance series.
Gathering the Chaos Emeralds is a much more manageable task than it was in SA2. Although admittedly it’s still a big grind, they’ve added so many quality of life improvements that I noted were missing from the last game, such as the fact the chaos you collect between stages don’t reset. I do think that they should have either gone with just keys or chaos though, making you collect both is a bit more tedious than it had to be.
Special stages themselves are much better than the first game (I never played any in the second). Managing to actually hit the rings doesn't feel like a horrible trick on your depth perception. Unfortunately the enemy hit detection is still a bit wonky in these stages. Most of them I got through on the first try, the 6th one took me 2 tries and holy hell that last one was a bitch cos of all the enemies.
I like that the game no longer requires you to go through it several times with every character to be able to play the true ending. In fact all characters share a single save slot now and you can pick and choose who you want per stage. They compensate this by making 3 acts per zone and making the acts themselves longer.
Level themes are on par with the 2nd one, with a nice mix of classic zone types and unique ones, like Toy Kingdom. This is the 3rd game in a row to use an ice themed zone, and I think I love the aesthetic of this one the most. Bonus points for not using Green Hill Zone clone as act 1 again, although I feel like city-themed stages are almost as much of a cliché in Sonic games now.
Lots of fun types of enemy designs too, especially in the toy kingdom.
I was pretty happy with the team system. It never felt like it overtook the game, it was just a nice bonus to have. Plus the fact each pair gives a unique playstyle is a really great way to make the characters stand out and make you try different combinations.
A small problem I had with the game is that the level designs feel worse than before. There’s way too many insta-death crush blocks now. Plus I feel like they reused a lot more assets between worlds, like the “clacker” things. It’s not so bad that it breaks the game for me, but if this had the level design of 1 and 2 I think it’d be a 9/10 for me. Either way it’s still a fantastic 2D Sonic experience that manages to stand out due to the partner system.
Gathering the Chaos Emeralds is a much more manageable task than it was in SA2. Although admittedly it’s still a big grind, they’ve added so many quality of life improvements that I noted were missing from the last game, such as the fact the chaos you collect between stages don’t reset. I do think that they should have either gone with just keys or chaos though, making you collect both is a bit more tedious than it had to be.
Special stages themselves are much better than the first game (I never played any in the second). Managing to actually hit the rings doesn't feel like a horrible trick on your depth perception. Unfortunately the enemy hit detection is still a bit wonky in these stages. Most of them I got through on the first try, the 6th one took me 2 tries and holy hell that last one was a bitch cos of all the enemies.
I like that the game no longer requires you to go through it several times with every character to be able to play the true ending. In fact all characters share a single save slot now and you can pick and choose who you want per stage. They compensate this by making 3 acts per zone and making the acts themselves longer.
Level themes are on par with the 2nd one, with a nice mix of classic zone types and unique ones, like Toy Kingdom. This is the 3rd game in a row to use an ice themed zone, and I think I love the aesthetic of this one the most. Bonus points for not using Green Hill Zone clone as act 1 again, although I feel like city-themed stages are almost as much of a cliché in Sonic games now.
Lots of fun types of enemy designs too, especially in the toy kingdom.
I was pretty happy with the team system. It never felt like it overtook the game, it was just a nice bonus to have. Plus the fact each pair gives a unique playstyle is a really great way to make the characters stand out and make you try different combinations.
A small problem I had with the game is that the level designs feel worse than before. There’s way too many insta-death crush blocks now. Plus I feel like they reused a lot more assets between worlds, like the “clacker” things. It’s not so bad that it breaks the game for me, but if this had the level design of 1 and 2 I think it’d be a 9/10 for me. Either way it’s still a fantastic 2D Sonic experience that manages to stand out due to the partner system.