![Sonic Advance 2](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.timeextension.com/e6081b8cb8638/sonic-advance-2.900x.jpg)
When Sonic Advance 2 was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003, it received a fairly positive response from the gaming press, with most critics taking the time to praise its incredible sprite work and improvements over its predecessor. But that's not to say that it wasn't without its flaws.
The game was much faster than the first Sonic Advance yet seemed to punish players for getting creative and throwing caution to the wind, with bottomless pits and difficult-to-spot enemies always being positioned in exactly the correct place to discourage players from deviating from the ideal route. Now, though, a hacker named Tracker_TD has taken the time to address many of these issues, releasing Sonic Advance 2 SP — a new ROM hack of the game that aims to rebalance and improve the overall experience to remove these frustrations.
Sonic Advance 2 SP tweaks the placement of several enemies, replaces many of the bottomless pits with alternative routes, and adjusts the amount of Special Rings to allow "for a more freeform approach". Players also now only have to collect five Special Rings to enter the special levels as opposed to the original seven.
Want to give the hack a try yourself? You can grab it here.
[source youtube.com]
Comments 4
Oh this is most welcome considering how often the player would get punished for speeding through the stages or exploring.
Nice! Sonic Advance 1 was about as close as anyone got to the classics (until Mania, of course), but Advance 2, Advance 3, and Rush all felt like a considerable step back: too often, they had just one path through the level, bottomless pits everywhere, and hard-to-anticipate obstacles to make sure you fall into said bottomless pits unless you know exactly what you're doing.
It's great to see 2's level design getting the attention and refinement it needed!
@smoreon I can agree with this. I would continuously go back to play Advance 1 while the rest I would go back once in a while, and then quit immediately when I realized how dull they were.
Rush though, I played the game, 100% it in less than a week, then sold it. To this day I don't really understand the appeal, but whatever. I distinctly remember my pace being broken because they kept on locking me in a room with enemies to beat, that I would simply boost back and forth to beat.
If you're going to expect me to fight enemies, don't give me an invincible option right there.
@Tobunari Rush, like the 3D "boostathons", can be fun when you get to know the levels well enough to blast through them. I'd forgotten about the enemies (I also finished it years ago, got the emeralds, etc., and never went back to it), but I did remember that it throws in a lot of pits and things to discourage you from going fast.
I don't like any of these boost-based games as much as most people seem to- Sonic Adventure is still the closest to getting 3D Sonic right, in my opinion.
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