Sonic Advance

Sonic Advance was released on the GameBoy Advance in 2001.

It is a traditional Sonic platformer title that utilises the characters special attributes.

The game was successful enough to recieve two more entries in the Advance series. The Sonic Advance series was succeeded by Sonic Rush.

Plot
Dr. Eggman is back to his old tricks again, trapping animals and capturing Chaos Emeralds all to continue building his Eggman Empire. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Amy set out to save their animal friends, retrieve the emeralds and put a stop to his Empire once again.

Playable characters
Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic is the fastest character in the game and can perform a Spin Attack that can be used for both offence and split second defence as well as being able to slide across the ground. He is capable of grinding on rails as he could in Sonic Adventure 2.

Miles "Tails" Prower: Tails is capable of flying allowing him to bypass many of the obstacles the others struggle with and take routes the others cannot reach. He has access to a tail attack move and is capable of swimming underwater.

Knuckles the Echidna: Knuckles can punch, climb and glide through the air as well as swim across the waters surface with a breast stroke. Knuckles is capable of climbing up walls that even Tails cannot scale.

Amy Rose: Amy's moveset is based around her Piko Piko Hammer. She is the only character of the four that cannot perform a spindash, although she is still capable of attacking with her oversized hammer. Like Sonic she is able to grind on rails.

It is also possible to play as Sonic & Tails by pressing Up, right, down, right, L, right, R, right and A whilst highlighting Sonic on the player select screen. Tails will follow behind Sonic like he did in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

Versus Mode
In this mode players connect up to four GameBoy Advances in order to compete with one another. When competing with 3 or more players active, players can choose between individual or team play.

Team play allows characters to co-operatively interact with one another. Sonic for example is able to propel team mates along with his spindash forcing them into a sprint, Tails can pick up his team mate and carry them great distances, Knuckles can carry his team mate when gliding or climbing and Amy will launch herself skywards like she's jumped on a spring if attacking her team mate with the Piko Piko Hammer.

The different versus modes are as follows:


 * Collect the Rings: A race to gather as many rings as possible. Players can attack each other to steal the rings of opponents. This mode is the only playable mode in Single Pak play.
 * Race: A race to the finish across the in game levels. This game mode includes unique power ups. In 3-4 player mode any player who doesn't pass the finish gate within one minute of the winner is disqualified. Multi Pak play only.
 * Chao Hunt: Players compete to gather as many Chao as possible within a time limit. Chao will automatically follow the person who touched them last, allowing other players to steal Chao from each other.

Tiny Chao Garden
This mode is unlocked upon collecting the Chaos Emeralds.

Using the interconnectivity between the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo Gamecube, players can bring their Chao from Sonic Adventure 2 Battle to raise them on the go.

This garden includes basic Chao care options as well as two mini games to play with your Chao; Janken(or Rock Paper Scissors) and Chao Memory, a game where the player must pair flipped over cards with depictions of food to earn rings. These rings can be spent on rare Chao eggs, toys to improve your Chao's mood or food to feed them.

Trivia

 * This was the first Sonic game to be released on a system not built by Sega.
 * The different characters act as difficulty settings due to their unique abilities. From easiest to hardest; Tails(thanks to his flight capabilities), Knuckles(thanks to his additional gliding and climbing), Sonic and Amy(who presents a unique challenge by not being able to spindash).
 * This marks Amy's first playable role in a 2D Sonic title.