Finished playing Sonic Advance 3 (2004, Dimps, Sonic Team, Game Boy Advance) on 9/25/2015.
Gameplay Hours: ~20 …maybe?
Doctor Eggman has partnered up with his most powerful robot, Gemerl and divided Earth into seven distinct chunks where he plans to build seven separate empires on each one of them. Of course, this means it’s up to Sonic and friends to stop Eggman in his tracks.
7.5/10 – This game was fun. Not as great as the first one, but a big improvement from SA2. Lemme tell you why:
1. All main playable characters are easily unlocked by just beating certain levels.
2. You can team up any two characters and each combination gives you different abilities and moves. Combining Amy with Sonic for example, gives Sonic his own hammer.
4. Special combinations are even appropriately titled. Sonic & Tails for example shows as "The Unbreakeable Bond". Sonic & Amy, "The Cute Couple".
5. Certain combinations even have their own different sprites. For example, when you pair Sonic and Knuckles, they appear annoyed at eachother.
6. You don't have to defeat every single of Dr. Robotnik's boss machines in a row to get to the final boss. This however, is available as a Time Attack feature after collecting all the Bronze, Silver and Golden Special Rings from every single stage (not a frustrating task).
7. Most importantly, Chaos Emerald collecting isn't as frustrating as SA2 was. You do still have to explore the levels however, hunting for lost Chao critters, but once you find them you don't have to go look for them again. You simply have to search the levels in that Zone for a Special Key, which isn't hard at all to find. That one-use key will allow you access to the Special Zone.
8. The Special Zone is similar to Sonic 2 or SA1 in terms of gameplay but even though the difficulty goes up with each new zone, it's not at all frustrating to get all the Emeralds in your grubby little hedgehog hands.
9. This unlocks the Final Zone where you play as Super Sonic and team up with Dr. Eggdoodles to defeat his little robot invention-gone-berserk. This too, although a bit difficult is not a highly frustrating level.
I enjoyed this game and I'm happy I was able to collect everything it has to offer without losing sleep over it.
Balanced difficulty. Little frustration.
