Belongs in South Island, bud.

There's plenty of people here that will help you with heaping praise on it. Ask Craig, for example. I personally found them a decent, if decidedly non-Classic Sonic-esque, experience.

I found them enjoyable. These games were both more focused on speed than exploration, I realize now after playing through them for a second time, roughly. I like Sonic Rush better, however. It had much better music to me.

I've yet to play Rush Adventure but I consider the first to be the best of the handheld Sonic titles, it took what Sonic Advance 2 was trying to do and made it work. I think my only problem with it is the boost button however, it's too effective and I would have prefered something that didn't make you invulnerable.

I like Rush, Rush Adventure less so. For as much as people have bemoaned the BOOSTBOOSTBOOST mentality underlying Rush, the game didn't pretend to be anything else. The level design was more or less arranged so you would cruise through the acts at high speeds, with the occasional flippant punishment (the pistons in Huge Crisis, the shifty platforming interspersed between high speed sections in Night Carnival, the bottomless pits in Dead Line) thrown in just to keep the player on his/her toes. The game was about speed, and it had no illusions to being handheld MegaDrive games. Also, as Kaze said, every piece of Hideki Naganuma's soundtrack is utterly fantastic.

The problem I had with Rush Adventure is rather much the inverse of a general consensus I've seen in the community: the level design. Whereas most people seem to be of the opinion that Rush Adventure had better level design, I disagree. Yeah, Rush was quick to punish with death pits (Altitude Limit, I'm looking at you), but Rush Adventure wasn't exactly stellar in its design. Indeed, I found a number of zones to be quick to the jump on bottomless pits: Sky Babylon, Pirates' Island, a number of the Hidden Islands, and especially that misbegotten abomination Blizzard Peaks. The only zone whose level design I found to be above tolerable was Machine Labyrinth. The music also lacked a little flair, though those tracks in which Mariko Nanba and Tomoya Ohtani tried to emulate Naganuma's style (Machine Labyrinth, Whisker and Johnny) were quite pleasant.

Even with those things having been said, they're still fine games. The notion that they're broken because they're fast is some strain of puritanism to which I don't subscribe.

I too whole-heartedly agree. Sonic Rush is one of my favourite Sonic games of all time I find the moaning complaints around the death-traps and the need to rely on memory of the stage to succeed to be of little merit. The original Mega Man games, 2 in particular, was full of ill-designed levels and enemy placements that result in instant damage (or even death) as soon as you move onto the next screen (remember the stage with all the death-rays that activated as you dropped down through the screens - unless you had Flash Man's power it was nigh-impossible). Yet these games also relied on your learning the stages through errors and are to this day highly regarded as classics.
I've used this same method of memorizing level layout and planning my trick strategy, I've managed to get all but three 'S' Ranks in the original Rush.
Of couse, as has been said before, the soundtrack is simply wonderful in Rush. A friend of mine even made an animation in college based on "Jeh Jeh Rocket".
I do believe though that Rush Adventure lost the plot a bit with the sailing stuff. Waterbike was fine, and featured my favourite track, but the battleships - I can take it or leave it. Mostly leave it.

There's plenty of people here that will help you with heaping praise on it. Ask Craig, for example. I personally found them a decent, if decidedly non-Classic Sonic-esque, experience.

if you can find him that is. he's not around as much as he used to <falls into depression>
and about sonic rush2 belive it or not i cant find it. maybe i was late buying it and it disappeared from the shelves? i dont know i'm gonna have to cross the sea to get it.
and i'm glad you liked it episonic i heard a lot of postive things about so i'm looking forward to finding it

Yes, as mentioned before in this thread, I will protect my beloved Sonic Rush until the ends of this Earth. It stands in my top five along such juggernauts as S3&K, Sonic CD and SA1. I would go on record saying that Rush is better than SA2. What say you to that, internet. Doth my opinions cause serious business to brew inside your hearts?

Good.

Seriously though, Rush is astonishing, the soundtrack is one of the best in a 2d Sonic game, the R-Tricks finally feel natural and I get enough difference out of the two characters to enjoy playing both versions of the same levels in the same way I would Sonic, Tails and or Knuckles in S3.

I kind of wish the level design were a bit more diverse, but then I remember, I'm a speed gamer, I always use the fastest path anyway. Incidentally, Water Palace Act One is about the only stage which is fastest with Blaze, as she can take the up path, then the down and then using her R-Trick blast to the top of the up path again.

Oh Sonic Rush. How I know thee.

I would go on record saying that Rush is better than SA2. What say you
to that, internet. Doth my opinions cause serious business to brew
inside your hearts?

Personally I feel SA2 brought more bad than good to the table, so I'd be inclined to agree.  However, if the game was the same length but was 100% Sonic levels then I'd probably have trouble deciding.

That said, Rush is sadly in the post Bristow era, so SA2 has that advantage.

Edit: All this talk of Rush and SA2 has got me hankering for some high speed adventure, think I'll go play some.

"Personally I feel SA2 brought more bad than good to the table, so I'd be inclined to agree.  However, if the game was the same length but was 100% Sonic levels then I'd probably have trouble deciding"

hmm... you just reminded me of something, the problem with DS games is they are too short. so where my money's worth i'd choose SA2 over sonic rush2 (even if i didnt play rush2 yet).
and really do you replay DS games a lot? i sure dont, its annoying and neck tiring the first time.

i'm not attacking sonic rush 2 just the fact its on the DS.

I disagree. I've seen some well-sized games on the DS as well as the GBA, that aren't even super expensive! Also, defending Rush Adv, aside from its's 7 levels, also has alot of fun missions you do after so you can TRULY complete the game, and there's also emerald collecting, too.

I disagree. I've seen some well-sized games on the DS as well as the GBA, that aren't even super expensive! Also, defending Rush Adv, aside from its's 7 levels, also has alot of fun missions you do after so you can TRULY complete the game, and there's also emerald collecting, too.

The twist in Rush Adventure is that you had to race for the Chaos Emeralds and complete missions for the Sol Emeralds. Either way both got a bit tedious after a while, especially that mission for the last Sol Emerald. I still got all of the latter before the former, though.

I actually liked Rush Adventure better than the original.

I thought the plot was nicer, liked some of the new levels (the ghost ship level and the boss fight inside the giant whale are my favorite) and navigating the sea was more fun than in Phantom Hourglass. Not to mention we had non-human NPCs for the first time since the echidnas in Sonic Adventure.

I agree completely... although the species of NPC's just seems like an insignificant detail to me

I loved the Rush games. As has been said, they're not pretending to be anything else other than a way to get your speed fix, and at that they succeed with flying colors. My only real problem is that half the stages in Rush Adventure were as unforgiving with bottomless-pit-mania as was every single level set on the Ark to date... if not MORESO.

Have I mentioned that I absolutely HATE bottomless pit levels? Yeesh. >_<