Sonic Advance 2/General Mechanics

BUTTONS:

A: Jump In air: Sonic (Instant shield), Tails (Fly), Cream (Fly), Knuckles (Glide), Amy (Attack)

B: Attack button On Ground: Sonic (Sliding Kick), Tails (Tailspin), Cream (Cheese homing attack), Knuckles (Double Punch), Amy (Hammer attack)

^v<>: Moves the character around. Holding up does a "taunt" of sorts, and pressing down while moving puts the character in a roll, which needs to be jumped out of to exit.

R: Trick button Only available in air after jumping off a ramp or bouncing off a spring.(Trick section below). Sonic does a spin kick if you use R+</>. R+^ yields a double jump, which allows you to reach higher areas. R alone will send Sonic flipping backwards, while R+v sends Sonic into a bounce attack that's just about worthless except perhaps in score attacking (in a later guide). Amy's set is almost identical to Sonic's.

Tails and Cream have similar sets as well. Their R+</> tricks both send you on a slightly upward angle while still going right, which is helpful on some occasions. R+^ yields the same double jump, while R alone has a similar "flip back." R+v is different for each; Tails does a rather pointless body slam that doesn't even damage (to my knowledge), and Cream does her "butt stomp" move.

R+</>: Knuckles goes into a fast-descending, uncontrollable glide, which ends in a tumble. While he initially has more speed than Sonic and Amy while in the air, Knuckles ends up rolling, slowing him considerably. R+^: Knuckles does a midair uppercut. You get roughly the same upward boost as the other characters, but you have almost no control while using it, and can only move after you reach the peak of the jump. Depending on how close you are to your destination, you may lose Boost Mode (if you have it) upon landing. R+v: Knuckles starts spinning on a vertical axis towards the ground, fist-forward. He's able to break brick floors to open new passages. Always lands standing still. Pretty much pointless. R alone: Knuckles sticks out his elbow and flies straight backwards, is able to defeat enemies, and is able to run normally afterwards, with little or no loss of speed from moving in midair.

BOOST STATE: The most important thing to go fast in this game. Gameplay is completely centered around keeping it for as long and as early as possible. Boost state is obtainable by either running a far enough distance, hitting a boost pad, or hitting some horizontal springs. Boost state in turn is lost by hitting a wall(hitting a wall in the air does not lose you boost state so long as you are able to have appropriate speed when you land on the ground), landing on the ground while going to slow or going to slow in general, or hitting an enemy. One weird thing about the boost state is that the more rings you have the easier it is to build up speed, and also makes the distance to enter boost shorter. In quite a few levels this is manipulated to get boost before some crucial areas allowing for faster movement.

AIR-DASH(Sonic only): The most ridiculous mechanic in this game. It's easily abused allowing you to gain ridiculous amounts of speed quickly. Sometimes so fast that you can actually go faster than the game screen is set to scroll. The reason this happens is because doing an air-dash removes all friction from sonic in the air, so he does not slow down. To perform an air-dash you need to be in the air and then quickly double tap forward: A > >. Another way to do it that is faster is to jump in the middle of the 2 forward inputs: > A >.

STARTS: At the begging of every level is the starting countdown. If you hit and hold forward when the announcers says "GO" (roughly a 3 frame window) you will get a boost and be able to save a second or two. The quick start however is basically mandatory in Music Plant 1 because the start is very tight before you get boost state.

SLOPES AND JUMPING: Slope use is also a hugs part of this game, and knowing how to use them is your biggest friend. It's very hard to explain on paper so ill make a video on it later that will be posted here (https://www.youtube.com/user/znubzx) (direct link soon).

ROLLING: A smaller part of the speedrun but a very useful trick that saves bits of time along a whole level. Rolling is Primarily used to gain speed on downward slopes. Rolling however is not useful on upward slopes because you do not gain any speed by holding forward, and it is solely based on momentum. Its helpful in loops but is only optimal on the downhill side of the loop. Rolling is sometimes also used to get into small areas that you can't normally get through while standing. Also rolling is a form of an attack so you can roll into and through enemies and boxes without losing speed, or having to go around them.

For any further guides or other helpful videos and IL's check out https://www.youtube.com/user/znubzx, https://www.youtube.com/user/kirbymastah1991, https://www.youtube.com/user/ComboBlaze