Are you tired of Sonic games that are terrible? Then give this a try.
Compared to the console games SA3 is almost unique in its immediacy. None of this Sonic Adventure bullsh-- of wandering around a hub world, collecting stuff to move on. None of this being forced to play as every character and no cutscenes between every level. The story is simple. Eggman is after Chaos Emerlds with the help of his new and improved Gizoid robot (essentially it's Emerl from Sonic Battle recolored) to set out to stop Sonic and his friends. Tails, Amy, Knuckles and Cream are all along for the ride but unlike the recent glut of 3D games, they all run fast like Sonic and you aren't forced to play as them.
When the game starts you do have a sort of hub area. It's a small, 2D area where you can access the three act levels so you can do them in whatever order you choose. Also hidden within are two mini games. One involves defeating all the baddies in a certain amount of time. The other has you trying to open a container similar to the old Genesis ones that have animals in them and hitting the buttons in a certain sequece. Both these games are to give you more lives. Also once the three acts are finished, you can find the gateway to the battle stage with Eggman as well as the springboard to the Special Stage. Finally there's a large ring which sends you to a main hub area where you can go back to past stages or see how many chao and emeralds you collected.
Gameplay hasn't changed much from the previous two with once exception: This time around a tag team element has been added. At the start you can only choose from Sonic and Tails as a team and eventually Amy, Knuckles and Cream become available. You select two characters. One to lead. The other to follow. Holding down the R trigger will charge up a Team Move. For example. As Sonic, holding down the R trigger will charge up and Tails will fling Sonic high in the air. Now if you do this same move while in mid air, Tails will hover briefly while holding Sonic in the air like in that one boss battle in Sonic 3.
So it's worth it to play around with the pairings just to see what each character can do but I mostly stuck to the Sonic/Tails team because I'm old school like that. Though I will say Amy is about as useful as smashing your hand with a brick. Though I'll give you a hint: Use the Sonic/Cream jump combo to make the final battle with Eggman insanely easy.
Graphically, this is as nice as GBA games get. Not many games on the GBA look better than SA3. Sharp, crisp colorful graphics. Excellent character animations and a great presentation of the stages that feel more like the old Genesis games with checkered cliffs, bumpers and spring boards. The music is also nicely done which even includes a great remix of the well known, Green Hills Zone theme. Why don't more Sonic games remix old tunes?
In terms of Speed, SA3 is wicked fast. See Sega, we don't mind playing as these friends when they run fast like this! We want to zoom through levels at mach five. We don't want to hunt for Emerald shards, drive a clunky mech, throw gay little ring boxes and especially not fish for frogs. As with many Sonic games, the later levels make the blinding speed a little harder to keep up with for fear of that going too fast and missing a vital jump. But then again, it's not a Sonic game if it doesn't have sudden death platforming is it?
I do have one gripe with this game and that involves the amount of work you have to do the collect the Chaos Emeralds to unlock the final battle with Super Sonic. First through out each level, there are ten Chao. You usually will not find all of them in one go. I found using the Knuckles/Tails duo was better for searching thanks to Knuckles being able to climb. Once you find all the Chao, you then must go back to each stage act and find three keys. The keys allow access to the Special Stage which this time involves collecting rings while flying on the Tornado, but if you fail in your three tries (and later stages get hard) you have to go back and collect the keys again and you can't collect a key in a stage, then quit out. You have to complete it for it to count. This is a bit much. Why can't I access the Special Stage once I find all those Chao?
That gripe aside, Sonic Advance 3 is an extremely good game that rekindles the feel of the old Genesis games and mind you I played this AFTER playing Sonic Rush on the DS and I still think this could easily be one of the best Sonic games ever.