Sonic Advance 2

Sonic Advance 2 is a side-scrolling platform game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, developed by Dimps and published by THQ for the Game Boy Advance. It is based on a modified version of Sonic Advance's game engine.

Basic gameplay is an improvement on Sonic Advance, with much of the earlier features intact. Compared to its predecessor, Sonic Advance 2 contains more and larger levels, the overall difficulty is higher making it a more challenging game, an enhanced sound track, and offers better control over the playable characters. Most levels start in a corner of a map and require to move uphill or downhill.

All characters can now perform various stunts when flying through the air and not curled in a ball (i.e. after being launched from a spring or similar). These are activated by holding a direction on the D-pad and pressing the R button. Some of these stunts can be used to destroy enemies.

In each act, there are seven Special Rings. Collecting all seven of these and completing the Act, without dying, will take the player to a Special Stage, where a player can win a Chaos Emerald. The stage accessed and emerald obtained both depend on which zone the player was in when they accessed the stage. Unlike Sonic Advance, emeralds are not shared between characters.

Sonic Advance 2 is the second classical 2D Sonic game to not end all Zone names with the word "Zone" (the first was Sonic CD). There are 9 zones in the game, with two acts and a Boss Attack level in each one, except for XX and True Area 53.