Sonic Advance (7 Emeralds) Part 1: Tails Playthrough
6I was supposed to play an RPG this weekend, as anyone who watched my last weekend game would have seen from the hint, but I didn't have time. I actually had this recorded for another week, so here we go.
I'm not playing through as all four characters, Tails, Knuckles and Sonic's 'Extra' Zone is all I'll do, but I get the 7 Emeralds as Tails here.
It's a fairly decent 2D sonic game, that incorporates some newer moves (some seen in the Adventure series) to add another dynamic to the gameplay. Tails can fly and can now slash his tails like in Sonic Adventure.
The level themes aren't anything new, you have a green hills zone, an industrial base, a funpark zone, snow zone, ancient ruins, space.
The platforming is pretty solid, as is the music, but it's a little bit easy as my only complaint, only a couple of bosses should prove difficult. Of course there's always Amy who attacks with her Piko Piko Hammer, but that's still easy to learn how to use.
The Emeralds are harder in my opinion than most of the Megadrive Emeralds, but that's mainly due to it being awkward to work out the depth perception. The tricks can be hard to do, and particularly on the 7th Emerald you'll think that the mines are blocking them, but as you'll see I get both blocked groups of rings from the trick point.
On normal mode bosses on the whole have 8 hits, and after 6 hits will go into a rage mode of sorts whereby they move and attack faster. They're nothing special, but I do like the Knuckles/Mecha Knuckles fight as well as the final boss.
On the whole it is a pretty decent game, but that's all it is. Decent. There's no major additions to the game from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in fact there's less in some regards. On the other hand playing as the different characters and learning their style is fun, as they have an additional use compared to S3&K. Sonic & Amy can grind on rails, Sonic can somersault, Amy can vault and attack with her Hammer, Tails has his tail slash, Knuckles has his punching. There's a lot less chance for exploration with different characters surprisingly. You'll find Sonic is able to go to 90% of the places Tails and Knuckles can, including the 7 springs for the Emerald challenges, although they'll be a bit harder to get to. The other 10% of the places aren't worth exploring. There's no Extra lives or power ups that you would get in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
Next I'll upload my Knuckles playthrough, and you'll see how he plays differently, especially in boss fights.