Faster, bigger and a lot harder than the first. Sonic breaks the sound barrier, Cream the Rabbit makes her debut, and nearly every boss is fought at a full sprint.
Released19 Dec 2002 (JP) · Mar 2003 (US, EU)
DeveloperDimps and Sonic Team
PublisherSega; THQ in North America
ZonesSeven, plus XX and True Area 53
PlayableSonic, Cream, Tails, Knuckles, Amy
DebutCream the Rabbit and Cheese
Title
Sonic Advance 2 Japan: ソニック アドバンス２
Platform
Game Boy Advance
Developer
Dimps, with Sonic Team
Publisher
Sega; co-published by THQ in North America; Infogrames distributed it in Europe, and our original page credits Sega Europe
Sonic Advance 2 is the moment the handheld series found its own voice. Where the first game was a tribute to the Mega Drive, the sequel throws out the careful platforming and builds everything around speed: longer levels stuffed with boosters and rails, a Boost Mode that kicks in when you run flat out, and tricks you can pull in mid-air.
It is also where Cream the Rabbit and her Chao, Cheese, first appeared. Designed for Sonic Heroes, she was brought forward to give younger players an easier way in. Tails, Knuckles and Amy return, but this time you unlock them by playing.
The speed came with a price. Boss fights all take place on the run, the levels punish mistakes, and collecting the Chaos Emeralds means hunting down seven hidden Special Rings in a single act. Critics loved the looks and the replay value and argued about the difficulty, and the game went on to sell around a million copies.
Sky Canyon.Cream in Boost Mode.A Special Stage.
Dr. Eggman, you fiend! I’m coming after you to rescue my pals!
Sonic’s war cry from the story page of Sega’s North American manual. The booklet sets things up in two sentences: Eggman is kidnapping animals to turn them into robots for his empire, and this time he has taken Tails and Knuckles too.
— Official description: Sega, Sonic Advance 2 North American instruction manual (2003), story page, as transcribed by Sonic Retro. One line quoted; the rest summarised.
Quick Answers
The short answers, with the detail further down the page.
When did Sonic Advance 2 come out?
In Japan on 19 December 2002, then in North America and Europe in March 2003. More →
Who is Cream the Rabbit?
A young rabbit who travels with her Chao, Cheese. Sonic Advance 2 is her first game; she had been created for Sonic Heroes and was added here as a beginner-friendly character. More →
How do you unlock the other characters?
Play as Sonic: beating Leaf Forest unlocks Cream, Music Plant unlocks Tails and Sky Canyon unlocks Knuckles. Amy appears once you have all seven Emeralds with each of the other four. More →
What is Boost Mode?
Run at top speed for long enough and you break the sound barrier, trailing afterimages. You can run across water, and your B-button attack gets stronger. Collecting rings gets you there faster. More →
How do you reach the Special Stages?
Collect all seven Special Rings hidden in a single act. The Special Stage starts when you finish the act, and the Emerald you win depends on the zone. Emeralds are not shared between characters. More →
How do you unlock True Area 53?
Collect all seven Emeralds as Sonic, and clear the game with Cream, Tails and Knuckles too. Then Super Sonic chases Eggman for the real ending. More →
Why are the bosses so hard?
Every boss except the last is fought while running to the right, so lost rings fly away behind you. More →
How well did it sell?
About a million copies: roughly 740,000 in the US, 177,000 in Japan and 100,000 in the UK. More →
Can I play it today?
Outside Japan, on the original cartridge only. Japan also got a Wii U Virtual Console release in 2016. More →
Plot / Story
Dr. Eggman.
Eggman is building his empire again, and the raw material is the animal population: kidnapped, wired up and turned into robots. The North American manual adds a personal touch. This time he has grabbed Tails and Knuckles as well, and Sonic sets off to get his friends back.
The game tells it on the run. In Leaf Forest Sonic catches Eggman carrying off a little rabbit and her Chao; one smashed Egg Hammer Tank II later, Cream and Cheese are free. In Music Plant the doctor is trying to make off with Tails in the Egg Totem, and a bewildered Tails has no idea what Eggman is up to. In Sky Canyon it is Knuckles who comes at Sonic, at the controls of the Egg Saucer, fooled yet again, and Sonic gives him a telling-off once the machine is wrecked. Then it is on to Egg Utopia and the final showdown at XX.
Two endings and a kidnapped mother
Beat the doctor at XX without the full set of Emeralds and your hero drops out of space with the wreckage of Egg Utopia, lands among a crowd of animal friends, and is reminded after the credits that there are seven Emeralds to find.
The proper ending asks a lot: all seven Emeralds as Sonic, and the game cleared with Cream, Tails and Knuckles too. Then, with Egg Utopia gone, a cloaked machine sucks up Cream’s mother Vanilla as she watches the birds in Leaf Forest. Cream bursts into tears, Sonic turns super and gives chase to True Area 53, and after the fight he catches Vanilla as they fall from the sky.
XX.Super Eggrobo Z.True Area 53.
Zones in Sonic Advance 2
Seven zones of two acts, each followed by a boss chase, then XX and, for those who earn it, True Area 53. The acts are huge: the developers made them several times bigger than in the first game.
Leaf Forest ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg Hammer Tank IIWhere it all starts, and where Sonic first meets Cream.
Hot Crater ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg Bomber TankThe second zone.
Music Plant ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg TotemEggman tries to carry Tails off here; beat him and Tails joins the cast.
Ice Paradise ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Aero EggA snowy night with a lit-up city behind, spotlights, frozen loops and LED signs pointing the way.
Sky Canyon ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg SaucerBuilt around the trick button: several routes cannot be finished without mid-air tricks. Knuckles flies the boss the first time through.
Techno Base ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg Go-RoundAnother stage that leans on tricks to reach its paths.
Egg Utopia ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg FrogEggman’s base in space, and the last stop before XX.
XXFinal zone · boss: Super Eggrobo ZThe only boss you can fight without running for your life.
True Area 53Secret · Super Sonic onlySonic flies freely around the arena, dashing with A or B, starting with 50 rings and losing one a second.
Each act hides seven Special Rings. Collect them all and the Special Stage opens at the end of the act.
Sonic Mega CollectionGameCube · 2002The compilation carried a preview trailer for Sonic Advance 2, and its artwork gallery quietly teased Cream before her debut.
Sonic Adventure DX: Director’s CutGameCube · 2003Cream turned up there in a cameo soon after her debut.
Sonic Heroes2003The game Cream was originally designed for. She went on to feature in many later games.
Sonic Advance 3Game Boy Advance · 2004The direct sequel, which completed the Advance trilogy.
Characters
Five heroes, four of them locked at the start. Cream is the newcomer; everyone else has new tricks for a faster game.
Character
Who they are
In this game
Stats & abilities
Sonic the HedgehogPlayable from the start
Sega’s blue blur, out to rescue his friends.
The only one who can reach True Area 53, and the one who unlocks the others along the way.
Homing Attack on enemies below him
Insta-Shield-style double spin and air dash
Bound: slam straight down with B in mid-air
Skid Attack, and a flaming Super Skid in Boost Mode
Cream the RabbitDebut · unlocked in Leaf Forest
A young rabbit rescued from Eggman in the very first zone. Originally designed for Sonic Heroes, she arrived early because Heroes was not ready.
The easy mode. She flies faster than Tails, and Cheese does the fighting for her.
B sends Cheese after the nearest enemy or boss
Flight by tapping A
Step Attack in Boost Mode, with Cheese as a shield
Chao rolling attack in mid-air
Miles “Tails” ProwerUnlocked in Music Plant
Sonic’s best friend, kidnapped by Eggman in Music Plant.
The flyer, rescued from the Egg Totem.
Propeller flight for 8 seconds
Tail swipe, and a Super Tail Swipe in Boost Mode
Knuckles the EchidnaUnlocked in Sky Canyon
The echidna, tricked by Eggman once again and flying the Egg Saucer against Sonic.
Glides and climbs to reach hidden ground, with moves borrowed from Sonic Adventure 2.
Glide and climb
Drill Claw: corkscrew straight down
Spiral Attack in Boost Mode
His idle punches can break enemies
Amy RoseThe final unlock
Sonic’s hammer-wielding admirer, playable from the start in the first game.
Earned by collecting all seven Emeralds with each of the other four. Getting the Emeralds with her unlocks nothing.
Spins when she jumps this time
Hammer swing in mid-air
Hammer whirl and head slide
Spin Dash, charged by running on the spot
Vanilla the RabbitCream’s mother
Cream’s mother, introduced in the true ending.
Kidnapped by a cloaked device after Egg Utopia falls, and rescued by Super Sonic.
Not playable.
Bosses
Every boss but the last is fought on the move, running right. The pictures are Sega’s artwork from our original gallery.
Egg Hammer Tank IILeaf ForestThe first game’s opening boss, back for more.
Egg Bomber TankHot CraterWaits at the end of the crater.
Egg TotemMusic PlantEggman tries to carry Tails off with it.
Aero EggIce ParadiseFought on the snowy roads of Ice Paradise.
Egg SaucerSky CanyonPiloted by a duped Knuckles the first time.
Egg Go-RoundTechno BaseFought in Techno Base.
Egg FrogEgg UtopiaGuards Eggman’s space base.
The people who made it
Credits from the game, as listed by Sega Retro.
Yuji NakaProducer · Sonic TeamHas said the concept work began as soon as the first Advance was finished.
Akinori NishiyamaDirectorDirected again after the first game.
Yuji UekawaArt directorCharacter designer of the Adventure era.
Hiroshi Matsumoto, Koichi SakitaProducer and line producer · DimpsRan the Dimps side of development.
Our original page had no history section, so this one is new, built from the producer’s account as cited by Wikipedia, Sonic Retro’s research and Sega Retro’s release data.
Built for speed
An early Leaf Forest.
Speed was the whole brief. Dimps built the game with help from Sonic Team, starting from an upgraded version of the Sonic Advance engine, and producer Yuji Naka has said the planning began as soon as the first game was finished. Full production took about eight months from February 2002. A much faster Sonic needed somewhere to go, so the stages were laid out roughly six times larger than before, and the graphics were given a harder, more mechanical edge to match.
A rabbit borrowed from Sonic Heroes
Cream and Cheese.
Cream was created for Sonic Heroes, then still in development for the home consoles. With Heroes not due until 2003, the team brought her into Advance 2 as a gentler option for newcomers, and the handheld got the debut. Sega had already slipped her into the artwork gallery of Sonic Mega Collection.
Announcement and release
Sega announced the game on 1 July 2002 and brought it to September’s Tokyo Game Show; a preview trailer also appeared on Sonic Mega Collection. It reached Japan on 19 December 2002, North America in March 2003 with THQ co-publishing, and Europe later that month with Infogrames distributing.
The unused fourth acts
Every zone in the code has four act slots: two regular acts, a boss act, and a fourth that was never used. Each spare Act 4 is the same placeholder, a single platform under a roof of spikes based on the XX boss arena, with backgrounds borrowed from other stages.
Firsts: what this game introduced
Sonic Advance 2 introduced ideas the 2D games kept using for years.
1Cream the RabbitThe first appearance of Cream and her Chao, Cheese.
2Boost ModeRun long enough at full speed and you break the sound barrier, with afterimages, water-running and stronger attacks.
3Trick actionsPress R after a spring or ramp to pull a trick in mid-air; some routes cannot be reached without them.
4Bosses on the runNearly every boss is fought while running right, like the Mushroom Hill boss in Sonic & Knuckles.
5Vanilla the RabbitCream’s mother appears for the first time, in the true ending.
6Speed over explorationSonic Retro sees it as the start of the reaction-based style 2D Sonic followed for years afterwards.
Cheats & secrets
Our original Sonic Advance 2 page had no cheats section. Sonic Advance 2 has no button codes of its own, so this is a guide to its unlockables, checked against Sonic Retro.
Characters
As Sonic, beat Leaf Forest for Cream, Music Plant for Tails and Sky Canyon for Knuckles. Collect all seven Emeralds with Sonic, Cream, Tails and Knuckles to unlock Amy.
Tiny Chao Garden
Clear the game with any one character holding all seven Emeralds.
Sound test and boss mode
Clear the game with all seven Emeralds using two characters for the sound test, and with three for the boss option in Time Attack. Beating the extra zone as Sonic adds six more tracks to the sound test.
True Area 53
Get all seven Emeralds as Sonic, then clear the game with Cream, Tails and Knuckles.
Everything at once
If the game cannot find its save chip, it unlocks all of its content, as the other Advance games do.
Checked against Sonic Retro, November 2026.
Glitches, exploits and oddities
Sonic Advance 2 is remarkably clean: Sonic Retro lists only a couple of bugs, so this section also covers the game’s quirks.
The silent extra life
Pass a score milestone on the results screen and you earn an extra life without hearing its jingle. The first game had the same bug.
Appeal instead of looking up
Cream’s Step Attack.
There is no look-up any more: press Up and your character strikes an idle pose, which the game calls Appeal. Knuckles’ version is a flurry of punches, and it can destroy Badniks.
Lost rings on the run
Because the bosses are fought at full speed, rings you drop fly off behind you and cannot be collected again.
Emulator trouble
Some older emulators misread the link-cable hardware, and the game boots straight into an empty multiplayer screen. A soft reset gets you out.
Videos & media
A complete run of the game, and a review from Classic Game Room’s CGRundertow series.
A full playthrough from the World of Longplays archive.
A video review from CGRundertow, part of the Classic Game Room network.
Trivia & facts
Cream was designed for Sonic Heroes and only appeared in Advance 2 first because Heroes was delayed.
Amy Rose.Getting all seven Emeralds with Amy unlocks nothing at all.
Emeralds are tracked per character, unlike the first game, where all four heroes shared them.
Amy spins when she jumps this time, unlike in the first Sonic Advance.
Every zone has a hidden, unused Act 4: the same spiky platform each time.
Media & artwork
Box art, artwork and screenshots, from Sonic Scene’s own galleries and Sonic Retro. Select any image to view it larger.
North American box.European box.Japanese box.Back of the North American box.Back of the European box.Back of the Japanese box.North American cartridge.Promotional poster.Sonic artwork.Cheese the Chao.The logo.The Japanese logo.The island map.World map screens.All seven Emeralds.Hot Crater.Music Plant.Ice Paradise.Techno Base.Egg Utopia.The Leaf Forest boss chase.The Egg Saucer.In action.In action.
Sonic Retro sees Advance 2’s reaction-first design as the template 2D Sonic followed for years afterwards, and Cream went on to appear in many later games.
Releases and re-releases
Game Boy Advance (Japan)19 December 2002 – ¥5,800.
Game Boy Advance (North America)March 2003 – Co-published by THQ.
Game Boy Advance (Europe)March 2003 – 21 March in Germany and France, 28 March in the UK.
Budget reissue (Japan)17 June 2004 – ¥3,800.
Wii U Virtual Console (Japan)24 February 2016 – The GBA original.
Where to play it today
Outside Japan, the original cartridge is the only official way to play; Japan also had a Wii U Virtual Console release in 2016.
Sales & reviews
Sales
By the figures Wikipedia cites, Sonic Advance 2 sold about 740,000 copies in the United States, roughly 177,000 in Japan and 100,000 in the UK, a little over a million in all.
1.02mCopies sold in the US, Japan and UK
740kUnited States
84%Average of the 12 period scores below
100%Play, US
Reception and review scores
Period reviews from Sega Retro’s index of magazine scans, with scores converted to percentages where needed.
PlayUS · April 2003
100%
GameNOWUS · May 2003 (converted)
91%
HyperAustralia · June 2003
88%
Electronic Gaming MonthlyUS · May 2003 (converted)
85%
Pocket GamesUS · summer 2003
85%
GameProUS · May 2003 (converted)
83%
Nintendo PowerUS · March 2003 (converted)
82%
N-ZoneGermany · May 2003
82%
CubeUK · issue 18 · April 2003
80%
Nintendo Official MagazineUK · April 2003
80%
Game StationUK
80%
NGC MagazineUK · June 2003
73%
The looks won everyone over. GameSpot thought it squeezed far more out of the hardware than the first game and compared the animation to a cartoon; IGN called the colours brighter and liked the bouncy soundtrack, though Nintendo World Report noticed some recycled tunes. The huge levels and hidden routes were praised for giving the game legs, and GameSpot and 1UP enjoyed the Special Ring hunt.
The difficulty split the room. GameSpot called it the hardest Sonic yet and the running boss fights merciless, IGN saw the challenge as its one real problem, and Nintendo World Report felt it spoiled a good game; 1UP, on the other hand, welcomed it. AllGame was the odd one out, finding the whole thing a dull retread.
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet. Played it? Give it a score out of 10 and tell other fans what you think.
Every fact on this page was checked against the sources below. Sonic Retro and Sega Retro are linked through the Wayback Machine copies we read (the live sites sit behind a bot check).
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Hot Crater ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg Bomber TankThe second zone.
Music Plant ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg TotemEggman tries to carry Tails off here; beat him and Tails joins the cast.
Ice Paradise ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Aero EggA snowy night with a lit-up city behind, spotlights, frozen loops and LED signs pointing the way.
Techno Base ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg Go-RoundAnother stage that leans on tricks to reach its paths.
Egg Utopia ZoneActs 1–2 · boss: Egg FrogEggman’s base in space, and the last stop before XX.
Sonic the HedgehogPlayable from the start
Cream the RabbitDebut · unlocked in Leaf Forest
Miles “Tails” ProwerUnlocked in Music Plant
Knuckles the EchidnaUnlocked in Sky Canyon
Amy RoseThe final unlock
Vanilla the RabbitCream’s mother
Egg Hammer Tank IILeaf ForestThe first game’s opening boss, back for more.
Egg Bomber TankHot CraterWaits at the end of the crater.
Egg TotemMusic PlantEggman tries to carry Tails off with it.
Aero EggIce ParadiseFought on the snowy roads of Ice Paradise.
Egg SaucerSky CanyonPiloted by a duped Knuckles the first time.
Egg Go-RoundTechno BaseFought in Techno Base.
Egg FrogEgg UtopiaGuards Eggman’s space base.
