Nintendo and Sega were once two big competitors and when a little over a year ago Sega’s key mascot made his first jump onto the Gameboy Advance people jumped for joy when they played the first Sonic Advance that brought back what made Sonic good; fast 2D gameplay. A year later, Sega brought back its mascot again for the Gameboy Advance starring Sonic, Tails, Amy (unlockable character), and even a new character Cream the Rabbit in an exciting new fast action 2d adventure lamely titled Sonic Advance 2. The sequel surpasses the original Sonic Advance in every way.

The game may start off like the original, but the huge level design in this sequel is the biggest of improvements over the original. The annoying spikes that players ran into while in sprint mode in the original are now gone. While the spikes are still there, because without them it wouldn’t be Sonic, they are not in annoying places where players just want to run fast. The game of course still features multiple paths for each level that players must either run or jump at a certain time to be able to achieve those certain areas.

Players must play as either of the four character and run through each of the levels using each of the characters special abilities such as running fast or flying for a shirt amount of time to collect rings, defeat enemies, and put an end to Dr. Eggman (doesn’t he ever give up?) . If players get hit from the enemies or spikes it sends the collected rings all over the place for players to be able to grab some of them back up, because without a ring players will see death if hit by another enemy or spike. The game may be short on the outside, but there is so much more to do than to just complete a level. If players complete the adventure game with 100% they will get access to Amy who carries a hammer to kill enemies with, or Cream the Rabbit who can literally throw her Chao partner at enemies and even float for a little amount of time. Along with connectivity to Sonic Adventure 2: Battle players will spend numerous amount of time growing their Chao, or unlock special features by collecting Chaos Emeralds and Special Rings in each of the levels. My only complaint about collecting the Chaos Emeralds and the Special Rings is that the levels are so massive that players will have a very hard time trying to find these items as the levels are very hard to memorize going at a very fast speed.

All in all, Sonic Advance 2 is a great sequel to Sonic Advance that players should not miss.