Uploaded August 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Played on the EKA2L1 emulator.

Remember when Nokia tried to get into the video gaming business with the Nokia N-Gage? If you were around in the early 2000s, you might.

Basically, it was their attempt at competing with Nintendo's Game Boy Advance. While admittedly it was a neat concept (combining video gaming and a mobile phone), it didn't work very well. Plus the thing was shaped like a taco (though actually modelled after a shock site image, believe it or not), hence it's nickname: The Taco Phone.

Anyways, some games were released for it. Some of them were ports of GBA games. And SonicN is no exception.

Now, I actually do like the Sonic Advance trilogy (with Sonic Advance 3 being my favorite one), but imagine playing it on a vertical screen. This is where things go downhill.

While the sprites are more or less the same as in Advance, there's screen crunch. Lots of it. Basically imagine Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis (the GBA port of Sonic 1) but vertical. This means you're more likely to completely run off-screen, which (to my knowledge) isn't possible in the original. There is an option to play in the original aspect ratio, but it adds a border on top and bottom of the still-vertical screen, thus making the game barely legible.

The controls, due to being on a keypad, also took a pretty bad hit. It's rather difficult to control compared to on the GBA. Even mapping the buttons to a Dualshock 4 (which is what I use) doesn't help matters.

Sound quality also took a major hit. Tons of compression and bitcrushing. And several sounds (like the jumping and ring sounds) are pitched lower than they should be.

Oh and they cut out the Tiny Chao Garden.

Overall, this isn't exactly a port worth playing unless you either have a Nokia N-Gage, or are just morbidly curious. Otherwise, stick to the original Sonic Advance.