sonic advance

review

every time i play a Dimps sonic game, the same exact pattern happens. i’ll lead you through step by step.

step 1: i have a great time in the early stages! fun, simple level design leads to extremely exciting, fast-paced sonic gameplay that rivals some of the best the series has to offer.

step 2: the level hits. the one act that just has atrocious level design, one with an absurd amount of bottomless pits, catastrophic pathing, and downright atrocious enemy placement.

step 3: the chain of bad level design begins, and after the level, everything goes downhill, and the rest of the game becomes a garble of awful stages that just aren’t fun.

i just don’t find the Dimps style of level fun. they’re big on mazy, linear designs that aren’t all that fun to run through, at least in my eyes. a lot of the moment-to-moment gameplay isn’t fast, you’re just running around back and forth, with the occasional burst of speed to get to a new area. it feels much more lethargic than sonic gameplay should.

it sounds like i’m hating on this game, and i’m not. i see the vision with Dimps, and like i said earlier, the early game is extremely fun. it just drops off a cliff as soon as the level design becomes too… high-concept, i guess. when it tries to go for anything too special, it tends to fall flat. that, alongside an extremely… meh ending, leads to a game that just doesn’t hit the mark, in my eyes.

score

4/10

notes

• developed by Dimps
• published by Sega
• released in 2001
• played on gba
• crossposted to backloggd