Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles
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| ♥ | This article is dedicated to Michael Jackson (August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009), the composer of Sonic 3, who died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 50. |
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An adventure so big, one cartridge wasn't enough.
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""Sonic races through the green fields. The sun races through a blue sky filled with white clouds. The ways of his heart are much like the sun. Sonic runs and rests, the sun raises and sets. Don't give up on the sun. Don't make the sun laugh at you.""
— Sonic & Knuckles' tagline
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are 1994 video games developed by Sega Technical Institute and published by Sega for the Genesis. They are the third installment in the Sonic franchise. Both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were planned as a single game until time constraints, cartridge costs, and a promo for the McDonald's tie-in forced the developers to split it. Despite this, it is possible to combine them by attaching the Sonic 3 cartridge to an adapter on the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge. The movie is set to have elements in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Plot
The game takes place after the events of Sonic 2. The Death Egg crashes on the floating Angel Island, causing it to fall onto the ocean. Dr. Robotnik eventually meets Knuckles the Echidna, the last member of an ancient echidna civilization that once inhabited the island, who is guarding the Master Emerald. Robotnik dupes Knuckles into believing that Sonic is attempting to steal the Master Emerald and that the launch base is Sonic's base, causing Knuckles to turn against Sonic and help Robotnik while the latter repairs the Death Egg.
Sonic and Tails approach Angel Island on the Tornado before Sonic uses the Chaos Emeralds to transform into Super Sonic to approach the island faster. However, Knuckles ambushes him and steals the emeralds, forcing Sonic to retrieve them. At the Launch Base, Sonic and Tails fight Knuckles, but the Death Egg relaunches. Despite this, Sonic and Tails can defeat Robotnik, causing the Death Egg to crash-land on Angel Island again.
Once the Death Egg crash-lands on Angel Island, Sonic travels to Angel Island to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds to defeat Robotnik, causing Knuckles to believe that Sonic is trying to steal the Emeralds for himself. Eventually, Sonic defeats Knuckles in the Hidden Palace Zone (not to be confused with the scrapped level from Sonic 2), and both discover that Robotnik is stealing the Master Emerald. Knuckles tries to attack Robotnik but is shocked by the electricity. After that, Knuckles shows Sonic a portal that takes them to Sky Sanctuary, where Sonic infiltrates the Death Egg and defeats Robotnik as Super Sonic, retrieving the Master Emerald and returning it to Angel Island as it rises back into the sky.
Why It Rocks & Knuckles
- Not only is this game a large improvement over the last two games, but what also makes this game so special is that the game was actually rushed for release in 1994, but yet it still managed to be pitch-perfect just like the other Sonic games.
- Colourful and awesome graphics for 1994 standards; each sprite is very well detailed, with fluid and smooth animations, the backgrounds have great design, and the badniks' designs are great too.
- Incredible soundtrack as usual. Despite not retaining Masato Nakamura (the composer of the previous Sonic Genesis games) as the game's composer, the soundtrack once again failed to be bad and follows the Sonic series' rule of constantly having great soundtracks.
- Many themes are very catchy and can make you want to play the stage for longer just to listen to it, notably the music for Hydrocity, IceCap, Lava Reef, or Flying Battery Zone.
- Some themes know well how to sound serious, and they even have a combination of sounding serious and awesome at the same time, including the music for Death Egg and the Doomsday Zone.
- Interestingly, it was discovered that the Genesis version of Sonic 3 used a different soundtrack composed by Brad Buxer and the late Michael Jackson of all people, as the original soundtrack exists on the PC re-release, with the themes being the ones for Carnival Night, IceCap, Launch Base, the credits, Knuckles', and the act 1 boss.
- What makes it even more interesting is that IceCap Zone in the Genesis version uses a remixed instrumental version of "Hard Times", a song by the Jetzons made in 1982 that was never released at the time of Sonic 3's release. The song would eventually be released in 2008 by the independent label Fervor Records after reissuing "Made in America" as "The Complete Jetzons", but Sonic 3 was 14 years old when this song was finally released.
- Additionally, the credits theme of Sonic 3 was later used as a basis for Stranger in Moscow, which in turn was written in September 1993 and was first used as Sonic 3's credits theme before being released in November 1996 (July 1997 in the United States).
- The prototype soundtrack is as amazing as the final version, and have tend to sound with many differences:
- Carnival Night Zone in the final version has a cool circus feel, with some pauses, while the prototype version is very catchy and captures the feel of having fun in a carnival at night.
- IceCap Zone in the final version if catchy to listen to, especially when the beginning of act 1 starts with the amazing slide on the snowboard. The prototype version has another happy feel to it, though can be peaceful.
- Launch Base Zone has a very groovy feel in the final version, with the "Go! Go!" sounds put together as if the game itself was telling you to reach the end of the act to have another showdown with Eggman/Robotnik. The prototype version's act 1 has a really great military feel, while act 2 has a nice construction feel, both of which are fitting for a level where the Death Egg was about to launch.
- The credits in standalone Sonic 3 can be described as a great way to end the Death Egg saga's first part before the second part comes where Eggman/Robotnik still tries to launch the Death Egg. The prototype version is beautiful to listen to and could be described as a complete conclusion to the Death Egg saga, as if the game itself was congratulating you for finishing the saga with a beautiful music as a goodbye.
- Knuckles' theme sounds perfectly accurate to a scene where someone was about to do something to halt Sonic and Tails' progress. The prototype version sounds more serious as if it was saying "Oh no! Knuckles is about to do something bad!".
- Act 1 boss has a lot of voices that say "Whoo! Come on!", as if the game itself was wishing you good luck and made you feel motivated to defeat the miniboss. The one heard in Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic 3 & Knuckles is more serious as if Eggman/Robotnik was not joking around this time.
- Once again, the gameplay is amazing and fast-paced, with responsive controls; it's especially fun to run on water, especially in Hydrocity Zone, IceCap features a snowboarding intro in Act 1 and later transforms into the awesome, standard platforming gameplay and the Spin Dash is once again fun to use.
- An excellent storyline that uses transitions and in-game cutscenes, as well as hints in the backgrounds of levels, to tell the story.
- In Sonic's story, Knuckles is an enemy at first but after he realizes that Robotnik teamed up with him only to steal the Master Emerald, he helps Sonic and Tails by leading them into the Sky Sanctuary, a relaxing, beautiful zone that leads to the Death Egg.
- Knuckles also has a unique storyline that takes place after Sonic's events, where he mostly fights Eggrobo and also fights Mecha Sonic in Sky Sanctuary as the final boss.
- The game introduced several shield variants; rather than having the regular shield that first appeared in the first Sonic game, there are elemental that not only give Sonic a new move but make him immune to fire or water (depending on which shield he has). These are the Flame, Aqua, and the Thunder shields. The Flame Shield allows Sonic to perform the Fireball Spin Dash and makes Sonic immune to fire-based enemies and hazards, the Aqua Shield allows Sonic to perform the Bound Jump and allows him to move in water without requiring the Air Bubble, while the Electric Shield causes rings to fly into Sonic and allows him to perform a Double Jump.
- The game, in general, introduced a new character that would soon become one of the main characters in the series - Knuckles the Echidna, who is independent, headstrong, and serious, yet gullible and short-tempered to a fault, protecting the Master Emerald on Angel Island. Knuckles would later become one of Sonic's best friends and would make appearances in future games.
- Both Sonic and Knuckles have their abilities to perform while airborne; Sonic can perform an Insta-Shield that can slash enemies and items within their range without the player having to touch them, while Knuckles can glide and climb walls up or down.
- Tails also can finally fly when controlled by the player, something which was not possible in Sonic 2 and was only possible by the A.I.
- The Bonus Stages are introduced inside checkpoints, being accessed similarly to the Special Stages from Sonic 2, except requiring at least 20 rings instead of 50. There are three types of Bonus Stages:
- The Gumball Bonus Stage, where the player can collect powerups in a gumball machine.
- The Glowing Sphere Bonus Stage, where the player has to rise to the top as quickly as possible using glowing spheres while collecting powerups along the way.
- The Slot Machine Bonus Stage, where the player can gamble away their rings with the possibility of earning a continue. This Bonus Stage plays like a cross between the Casino Night Zone slot machines from Sonic 2 and the Special Stages from the first Sonic game.
- It is possible to combine both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles via the adapter bundled with Sonic & Knuckles, allowing both games to become one game, being bigger and longer than Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 as the developers intended before time constraints, cartridge costs and a promo for the McDonald's tie-in forced the developers to split them.
- What makes it extra cool is that you can even insert the Sonic 2 cartridge, which turns the game into Knuckles in Sonic 2, where Knuckles possesses the same move set and attributes as Sonic & Knuckles. Inserting other Genesis games results in a lock-on game called Blue Sphere.
- Unlike the previous two Sonic Genesis games, Sonic 3 introduces a save feature, allowing you to resume your progress from which zone you left. For example, did you have to turn off the game while you were in Marble Garden Zone because you had to go somewhere? No problem, the save feature allows you to resume from Marble Garden instead of starting all over from Angel Island Zone.
- The Special Stages are accessed from Giant Rings scattered in hidden areas of the levels. They involve the player collecting blue spheres and avoiding the red spheres in a pseudo-3D view, and collecting a blue sphere automatically turns them red. Collecting every single blue sphere rewards a Chaos or Super Emerald. Additionally, if the player collects every single ring in a Special Stage, they earn a "Perfect" bonus, adding extra points to their score. While these Special Stages may sound easy, some of them can get quite challenging, especially as the movement speed increases and the music starts going faster.
- The Special Stages can be accessed as a mini-game if the player connects any other Sega Genesis game to Sonic & Knuckles. Locking on the first Sonic game results in over 1 million different Special Stages.
- The boss fights against Eggman/Robotnik are once again fun and each zone has its boss fight with him. Interestingly, act 1 has a miniboss, one of the machines Robotnik/Eggman built, while Act 2 is a full boss fight with him.
- The Doomsday Zone has one of the most famous final battles with Robotnik/Eggman, where Sonic turns into his Super/Hyper form to defeat him. The battle has three phases, where defeating the third phase defeats the boss and finishes the game, regardless of which ending you get.
- The Special Stages are once again a different thing, this time looking like 3D, where pressing any of the arrows on the D-pad turns Sonic to the side you press, and you have to collect all blue spheres to get a Chaos/Super Emerald.
- While each game has the typical optional Chaos Emerald sidequest, both games combined unlock the Super Emeralds, making 14 Emeralds to collect. Getting them all unlocks the Hyper form for your character (except Tails who gets a Super form since he can't obtain a Super form with the Chaos Emeralds alone)
- The Doomsday Zone is one of the coolest zones in the entire Sonic franchise. You control Super/Hyper Sonic in space, collecting rings while avoiding missiles and meteorites while trying to defeat Robotnik's Getaway Craft and Egg Bomber. You can even boost with Hyper Sonic to go faster, and as said before, it is one of the most famous final bosses of the entire franchise.
- Once again, there are a lot of great zones. Most of these were praised due to their design or trying a new gimmick the Sonic franchise has never tried before. The most notable examples include:
- Hydrocity Zone. At first glace, it appears to be another hard and horrendous underwater level, but in reality, it is a very fast, fun level where Sonic can bounce with the Bubble Shield all day, run on the water as one of the examples on how to demonstrate his speed, roll down hills at ludicrous speed and get caught in currents that fling him miles into the air.
- IceCap Zone is mainly loved for its music, but it has a lot of nice puzzle-like elements and an epic intro where Sonic rides down a mountain, collecting rings before crashing into a wall.
- Flying Battery Zone has some of the most epic music in the entire franchise, and it takes place in a giant airship that gives a Wing Fortress Zone feeling, except that the sections alternate from fast-paced action to slower gimmick-based platforming, and when you're inside the airship, the background is awesome machinery.
- Lava Reef Zone features the Death Egg in the background and features a lot of breathtaking moments, and the music for both acts go along with it perfectly, with act 1's music being a great motivation to keep going, while act 2 being more calm and peaceful, as if you were exploring a beautiful cave with crystals everywhere.
- Sky Sanctuary Zone may have only one act, but it is absolutely beautiful. It contains a lot of fun platforming, and it is one of the best levels you can speedrun and features an epic fight with Mecha Sonic. For Knuckles, the Mecha Sonic fight is his final boss.
- Death Egg Zone is now a full zone with two acts where you first run through the station, while in act 2 you are outside where the gravity goes in one or two ways. It also features a whopping 4 boss battles in a row.
- The Doomsday Zone. Already explained.
- Competition mode is much bigger than the one in the previous game; this time, it features a total of 3 game modes (Grand Prix, Match Race, and Time Attack) and 5 zones that are exclusive to it - Azure Lake, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget, Desert Palace, and Endless Mine.
- Grand Prix is the main mode of competition, and it also makes Sonic 3 as a bit of a racing game where two players must race through the five Zones mentioned prior in order. The winner is declared for the player that completes the most zones first. Before the race, the players are given the option as to whether or not they can get power-ups in the zones.
- Match Race is similar to Grand Prix, featuring the same rules, except that players can choose which zone they want to race on.
- Time Attack is a mode which just one player can play,, where the objective is to beat the zones in the least amount of time, hence its name.
- As for the zones, each one is very fun to race on, and are all unique from the main game's zones, rather than just reusing some from the main game:
- Azure Lake is an ancient ruins-themed zone that takes place at the water's edge of the namesake lake. It also features a grand landscape of forest and rocky mountains, the latter which are reflected on the water's surface. A short but speedy zone.
- Balloon Park is similar to Carnival Night, featuring a loop and several bumpers and balloons to get ahead.
- Chrome Gadget takes place at night with an industrial theme in an energy power plant. It has a very basic layout, but has multiple gimmicks to slow down the player.
- Desert Palace, hence its name, takes place in a desert with sand-coloured loops and quicksand pits, as well as featuring many rocky pillars and tall palm trees.
- Endless Mine is an abandoned mine cave that features numerous similarities to Mystic Cave from Sonic 2 and Lava Reef. Its background is features purple rocks, while the floor's rocks are green and yellow with wooden structure forming paths. Its music is known for being including a small piece of it in Sonic Generations for City Escape's classic remix's second verse.
- In 2022, it was re-released for the first time since 2011 as part of the Sonic Origins compilation for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, as well as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S via backward compatibility.
Bad Qualities & Knuckles
- The infamous Spinning Barrel in Carnival Night Zone Act 2. Words cannot describe how infamous it is. There's no instruction on how to even get through it until you figure it out by yourself that you have to move up and down repeatedly to lower it. Its infamy caused it to receive the nickname "The Barrel of Doom". Unsurprisingly, Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka later apologized for this part.
- Big Arms, Launch Base's final boss, can't be fought in the & Knuckles version unless you're Knuckles. This was fixed in the Origins re-release, where not only does Big Arms get fought in Sonic, Tails, and Amy's stories, but a new cutscene introducing the & Knuckles portion of the game is also created.
- Sonic 3 is normally shorter than Sonic 1 and 2 by default, only having 6 zones, a rather far cry from the first game's 7 zones and the second one's 11. Fortunately, attaching the Sonic 3 cartridge to an adapter on the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge makes the game longer, having 14 zones in total, more than Sonic 1 and 2.
- Unlike Sonic 2, combining the Sonic 1 cartridge with Sonic & Knuckles does not turn Sonic 1 into a game where Knuckles replaces Sonic as a playable character in Sonic 1. This is because of possible palette issues, bugs involving the gliding mechanic in Scrap Brain Zone, and Knuckles' gameplay not being considered enjoyable enough to fit Sonic 1's more cramped level design. Fortunately, inserting the Sonic 1 cartridge with Sonic & Knuckles results in a whopping 134,217,728 levels in the Blue Sphere lock-on game, so at least that's better than nothing.
- Getting a game over in Act 2 of a Zone requires retrying from Act 1 unless you have a continuation.
- Sandopolis Act 2 as Knuckles is one of the hardest stages in the game, including the Hyudoros (Ghosts) already being at their final phase at the start of the level (due to Sonic having already freed them, canonically) and ambushing Knuckles immediately, which is dangerous since you start with 0 rings. The level also takes a very long time to complete.
- The Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 port by Backbone Entertainment does not have the original Save menu, which removes the ability to select levels after completion of the game and instead you have to use save states for saving.
- Same issue without saving is present in Sonic & Knuckles, meaning you have to complete it in one sitting.
- Competition mode has problems too. The only way to make it a fair game is for both players to be Sonic and Knuckles and for Tails to not be played by anyone. He can fly, giving him an advantage over Sonic and Knuckles, who have useless abilities in the competition mode.
- Both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are loaded with plenty of glitches and polish issues, such as being able to softlock the game or making Sonic get stuck in scenery. This is mainly due to the fact that the development did not last long due to the aforementioned McDonald's promotion that caused Sonic 3 to be released in February 1994. Fortunately, several glitches and bugs were fixed in Sonic 3 & Knuckles
- The bugs and glitches alone resulted in an advice in Sonic 3's manual to watch out for them, where they have been referred as "Robotnik's diabolical traps".
Reception
Reception for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles was extremely positive, with many fans still regarding it as the best Sonic the Hedgehog game of the franchise.
On Gamefaqs, Sonic 3 had a score of 4.29 based on 2819 users[1], and Sonic & Knuckles received a score of 4.31 based on 2353 users.[2]
Videos
Trivia
- While the regular shield from the first Sonic game does not appear in the final version of Sonic 3, it did appear in a prototype build from November 3, 1993. It is unknown why it was removed from the final game in favor of the elemental shields.
- Interestingly, in the cutscenes, Knuckles wears yellow socks, while in the bad ending in Sonic 3 and his playable appearance, his socks are green. The reason why his socks are yellow in the cutscenes is because he and the HUD share the same palette due to Genesis' limitations, meaning if Knuckles had green socks, the HUD would be glitched and would appear green. This was fixed in the Sonic Origins remaster of Sonic 3.
- In a similar case to how Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 received ports for mobile in 2013, Sonic 3 was also meant to receive a mobile port, but this did not happen because of legal issues involving the soundtrack. When Sonic 3 was remastered for Sonic Origins, most soundtrack was replaced by the one used in the PC re-release of the game, which in turn used the original soundtrack that could be heard in the Sonic 3 prototype from November 3, 1993 before being replaced with a new soundtrack.
- The game spawned the "& Knuckles" meme.
- The Drop Dash originated from the prototype build of this game. Years later, it would return in Sonic Mania.
- This was the first Sonic game to have Takashi Iizuka's involvement.
- Originally, Sonic 3 was supposed to be released in Japan as the full version to make it the initial release. However, because foreign copies were being imported and sold, Sega was forced to release the standard version of Sonic 3.
- This is also the reason why the game was released in Japan much later, being released in May 1994, compared to North America and Europe, when the game was released in February.
- While Tails is not playable by default in Sonic & Knuckles, it is possible via cheat codes. Doing so reveals that he is fully playable, athough his sprites have been deleted and replaced with corrupted graphics.
- Both Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles' hidden level selects have some zones that cannot be accessed by normal means.
- Sonic 3's level select has Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley, and Sandopolis Zone, though they cannot be selected and attempting to load them without any additional cheat codes crashes the game. Additionally, the Sonic 3's level select reveals that Mushroom Hill was originally meant to be called Mushroom Valley.
- Also, Flying Battery is placed after Carnival Night, suggesting that Flying Battery Zone was intended to be the fifth zone instead of the eighth.
- Sonic & Knuckles' has all of the zones from Sonic 3 in it, though attempting to load them instead loads Mushroom Hill Zone.
- Sonic 3's level select has Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley, and Sandopolis Zone, though they cannot be selected and attempting to load them without any additional cheat codes crashes the game. Additionally, the Sonic 3's level select reveals that Mushroom Hill was originally meant to be called Mushroom Valley.
- In the standalone Sonic 3, waiting for the timer to reach 9:59 will award the player 100000 points for time bonus. This is pretty difficult to get though.
- Originally after the split, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were later planned to be released as a compilation on one cartridge, called Sonic the Hedgehog 3: Limited Edition, but was cancelled due to price concerns. Two prototypes would be leaked on February 23rd, 2008, with the build dates of April 8th and May 17th, 1994, respectively.
- Additionally, the codename for the entire Sonic 3 project is Sonic 3C, with Sonic 3 (Sonic 3A) and Sonic & Knuckles (Sonic 3B) being split from it.
- Big Shaker, the act 1 boss of Hydrocity Zone, is the only sub-boss to play the act 2 boss music instead of the act 1 boss music due to an error. This is only present in the standalone version of Sonic 3 and was fixed in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
References
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