Here we go again...Have you ever wanted your favorite video game series to be in its own fighting game? Well then, you're in for a treat! Today I'm reviewing Sonic Battle for the Game Boy Advance. Now, I've heard about this game a lot but I haven't actually seen it. After playing it for a good bit of time, I can make a conclusion about what I think.


Gameplay:

Right when you start up the game, you have to enter a name. My only problem with this is that its limited on just five letters. Besides, it’s only for multiplayer, and we'll be focusing on Story Mode. I should mention the many options on the menu. There's Story Mode, Battle
Mode, Challenge Mode, Minigames, (Only Multiplayer) etc. When you start Story Mode, you can only choose Sonic's story for the moment. This game is like Sonic Adventure where you need to play the story to unlock other character stories that all show what they do in the storyline. Here, you have to play the episode all the way through to unlock one new character that follows off where the last character's story did. Starting as Sonic, we can see Eggman throw out a robot he found called a Gizoid. The reason? It won't obey his orders. Smooth move,
man of 300 IQ, you could have just easily checked if it wasn't working. The robot washes up on the beach of Emerald Town where Sonic finds it and decides to bring it to Tails to fix. Emerald Town? Actually, a lot of these areas aren't very well named, and could have just been
named after an old zone. Anyways, Sonic and the Gizoid head over to Tails' House only to be greeted by a similar looking robot to the Gizoid, just without color. Now you get into your first fight. Every time you die or start a battle, you must choose a fighting style. Now, I’m not exactly sure how these work, but depending on your fighting style, your special moves will be changed. Each character has one specific fighting style that can allow you two spamming ground special attacks, an aerial attack, and also a defend action which is pretty much useless, as it only lasts for a millisecond. With these moves, you’re pretty much invincible if you keep alternating between them and spamming them to death. Now, the only problem is you HAVE to do this to ensure victory in Story Mode. As cheap as it is, this is what you’ll be doing the entire game. After defeating the Gizoid copy, Sonic takes it to Tails’ Lab to fix it up. While there, Tails learns that the robot can copy people’s actions. So now you will alternate in Story Mode battles by using the main character of the story and the Gizoid, who will learn character’s moves while fighting them, including some other special powers. However, to use these attacks, you must first equip them using Skill Points earned in battle. You need a ton of these just to get one move, even something pointless like color. So, here are the requirements for getting Skill Point rewards:

1 Skill Point: Win a fight but lose one or more live(s).

2 Skill Points: Win a fight without losing a live.

3 Skill Points: Win a fight against two Phis (The Gizoid copies) without losing a life.

5 Skill Points: Win a fight without getting hit.

7 Skill Points: Win a fight against two Phis without getting hit.

When I said the robot can copy actions, I wasn’t kidding. It can copy everything a character has, including their spammy special attacks. It also copies what people say, even when it uses that character’s move. It gets somewhat annoying when you have a mixed amount of attacks from different people. So, you basically want to collect every character’s move to create a broken, undefeated spamming cheater. Again, I don’t want to do this, but everyone else will do the same thing, just because every character is absurdly stronger than you. If you
can believe me, Cream is probably the strongest character in the game. Why is it that everything that looks so cute and non-threatening is the strongest thing in the world…? Cream has powerful special attacks, and super-fast healing power. You have a robot that takes 15 Skill Points just to equip one move. By the way, if you see the number 5 anywhere in a battle, that means you’ll have to do the same fight again, only this time it’s 10 of whatever. In fact, one of the recurring fights that revolve around this is fighting Gamma. You have to fight him at least twice every episode. Not only that, Gamma is strong and fast. He even has a self destruct power when he dies, which he’ll say ‘Initiating recovery mode.’ And explode. Yeah, last time I checked, an explosive suicide is not recovery. When you have to play as the robot, everything goes downhill. Since all your moves are half-based on Sonic’s, only weaker and slower, you’re going to have a tough time until you can get moves that will help you earn lots of Skill Points.


Graphics: 9

The graphics are okay, but they are re-used from Sonic Advance. Since Emerl is the only new addition to the game, I have to give them some credit for his sprites and also the rest of the stuff they did, such as the maps, the cutscenes and the 3D battlegrounds.


Sound: 8

Not a big fan of the music in this game, which is a bit of a downside for me personally, because I like Sonic music, but you have to hear the same music over and over. Since you have to do repeat battles, with the exact same music, and exact same sound effects you hear millions of times since you spam one attack to death, not only does it get old, it also get very annoying.


Addictiveness: 5

This isn’t technically a one-time game, but with how loathsome the game is for me, I just want to get it over with and never have to play it again.

Depth: 10

Now, as I have stated previously, Emerl has the power to copy movesets, abilities, and even colors of characters. Using these colors can give you combinations of many different appearances of Emerl, changing it’s eyes, horn, body, and limbs. Using these colors can give you 9000 color combinations. (And yes, it is exactly 9000.)


Story: 8

I’ve already explained the story, but in case you didn’t see it, or just skipped to this part of the review, I’ll go over it again. Dr. Eggman finds a robot known as a Gizoid. (Which is later named Emerl) The robot doesn’t answer Eggman so he throws it into the ocean where Sonic finds it and befriends it. The story for each character only follows off the previous character, so in a way, they are more so ‘Chapters’ than separate storylines.


Difficulty: 7

If I haven’t already hammered it into the review enough, I should mention once more that spamming your character’s fastest, most broken attack in a fight. This is how you will solve the majority of the fights in this game, and it’s probably the only way to beat Story Mode without too much frustration and pain, although it will happen anyway.


OVERALL: 7.3

Now, I’m not saying this is a bad game, I’m just saying it’s broken. At this point, I have nothing more to say, as I’ve said it enough and honestly if your opponents weren’t so much stronger than you I wouldn’t have to do this. But until next time, I leave you with this review.


“Go back to where you came from if you don’t want to be smashed, stomped on, and turned into ashes!” ~Amy – Sonic Battle


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Wow. Very nice review here. I hope you write some more.

Very good review! So much detail, and just well written. You took your time with it, and it shows. Very good.

Eirinn : Fun fact, this was the review I was talking about a couple months ago that I lost. xD Although it took awhile, it's finally here.

M4g1cW4rr10r : even if it was going to be a old review its still very nice