Sonic Advance

 

Sonic Advance is a 2001 side-scrolling platform game developed by Dimps for the Game Boy Advance (GBA). It was the first Sonic the Hedgehog game to be released on a Nintendo platform and was produced in commemoration of the series' tenth anniversary. The story follows Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy as they journey to stop Doctor Eggman from taking over the world. Controlling a character, players are tasked with completing each level, defeating Eggman and his robot army, and collecting the seven Chaos Emeralds.

Development began after Sega shifted its focus to third-party software development, due to the poor performance of the Dreamcast console. Sega recruited Dimps to lead development, making the game the first in the franchise developed by the studio. While Sonic Advance follows a similar style of gameplay to the Sega Genesis Sonic games, certain concepts and designs were reused from newer titles such as Sonic Adventure (1998). The game has been ported to Nokia's N-Gage and Android devices and is available on the Wii U via the Virtual Console in Japan.

Sonic Advance received positive reviews for its graphics, character animations, and its similarities to the original Genesis games, but was criticized for its short length and special stages. It was a major commercial success, selling 1.21 million copies in the United States and is among the GBA's bestselling titles. Dimps has since created many entries in the series, including two sequels to the game, Sonic Advance 2 (2002) and Sonic Advance 3 (2004).