For many a Sonic fan that grew up with the series among the early 00’s, the Sonic Adventure series was one of the highlights, featuring not only many characters but also a story that felt like it had stakes to it. During that time, few people I knew owned a Gamecube, and going over to my friend’s house was the only way I could experience the awesomeness (and salt) that could be found in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle‘s 2P mode. My friend was kind enough to lend another game to me as I left his place: Sonic Advance… on the Nokia N-gage.

The Nokia port of this game, Sonic N, was pretty terrible, having molasses-tier framerate, screen crunch so bad that you’d doubt that it hadn’t been through a trash compactor, and really small buttons that made for terrible platforming action. It was a mistake in so many ways, yet it introduced me to how Sonic played on a 2D field. I would later come to enjoy the boost formula through Sonic Rush later on, but nevertheless Sonic Advance stuck in my mind as the perfect representation of the Sonic series gameplay for quite some time.

In Sonic Advance, it’s just another typical day for Sonic and his friends, as Eggman is capturing Flickies for his evildoing as usual. Sonic is joined by Amy Rose as a playable character in addition to the returning Tails and Knuckles, who also sport their modern designs. Sonic and his friends run through a variety of level tropes familiar to the series, such as forests, a casino and an ice level. But that’s not to say that the game hasn’t got new tricks up its sleeve by the endgame – Egg Rocket Zone has Sonic racing up a rocket against time as the rocket splits apart section by section, and Cosmic Angel Zone goes full psychedelic with its trippy background and gravity-switching.

Apart from levels, Sonic and co. all sport sprites with detailed animation, and some new moves. Sonic can use the grind rails that are present to access specific routes, and has the somersault from Adventure 2. Tails has his tail swipe from Adventure, Knuckles can punch, and Amy’s gameplay revolves around her hammer entirely, mimicking her Adventure playstyle. Personally, I’ve always liked playing as Amy despite having no immediate jump attack, as she is able to double the effect of a spring to zip around the stage effectively faster than Sonic.

To be quite honest, despite my praise, Sonic Advance is marred by some questionable choices in stage design and also have absolutely terrible special stages that I don’t know how I cleared when I was young. At the same time, Sonic Advance does have a good balance between giving Sonic a fresh coat of paint for to make it accessible for newcomers to the series like me at the time, and keeping the tried-and-true gameplay intact. It’s a short game, with short stages outside of the final two – perfect for short bursts on a handheld. If you can track down a copy somewhere to play on an old DS, this old gem is still worth a run or two.