ITT: Sonic 3

[Ketchup]

I remember the day Sonic 3 came out, the anticipation for it was huge and the cartridge was £55 (i think, may have been £45), a huge amount of money for a new game at the time. Graphically it was a stepup from Sonic 2, the 3D ish intro, the actual bit of story at the start it looked and still does look amazing.

The first Sonic game and one of the first Mega Drive games that i remember owning to have its own save system. At the time it didn't make a lot of sense, it only had 6 zones and whilst they were large you could complete it quite quickly. Why did it have a save system at all? Well we all know why the reason for that is later on but the levels are huge. In fact they're probably a bit too large with most levels being broken up with a mid level boss fight of some kind, again with some nice graphical effects. I wasn't a fan of a few of the levels though, some of its down to the length, some down to themeing like the Marble Garden which never felt right thanks to the floating platforms you had to run on. But it had some iconic levels such as Ice Cap zone which had wonderful music, great graphics and snowboarding. In fact the music in this game is some of the best in the series.

I can't not mention Carnival Night Zone, a bigger and better version some may say of the Casino Night zone from Sonic 2, with one MAJOR flaw.

If you don't know what this is, right in the middle of the level is a barrel in the way of the only path you can go on. You can jump on it and it bounces slightly but not enough for you to get past it. Having tails and sonic jump on it didn't move it enough although sometimes tails could glitch through. Me and a friend spent weeks trying to get past this section, maybe it was a dead end and there was another route? Or you needed a power up? Or maybe there was a secret wall. No, none of that worked. In the end we managed to glitch through it, i had a pad with turbo fire and that made sonic jump up and down so quickly with the help of the bubble shield that you could move it out of the way just about.

Years later i and probably everyone else found out you had to push up and down whilst standing on it to make it move. NOWHERE else in the game do you ever have to do that, no where in the game or manual is it mentioned. To me it was obviously a tactic to slow the player down but well it is horribly cheap.

The power ups went one better than Sonic 2 and fitted into the world pretty well. Knuckles was introduced as a new character but unplayable and of course i can't not mention the new 3D bonus stages. Im not a fan of them personally, they can get pretty tough and whilst they look nice at first they are all rather samey and dull.

This game has some of the best boss battles out of the whole series, especially the final boss battle which whilst iconic never really felt like a proper final boss and again we all know why that was. Great game and one i've finally just bought on ebay to fill in my collection.

[Qazimod]

Since I was always a bit late getting into a new generation and found saving for new games to take an eternity, I was playing Sonic 1 at around the time when everyone else was enjoying 3, so it wasn't until things like emulation and bargain bin finds that I was really able to enjoy it. Happily, I was at least able to enjoy the games "in order", and the third game just seemed to have so much going on, from the way the opening act transformed after being bombed, to the crazy routes of Hydrocity Zone and more besides. And yes, I got stuck on the barrel too, since you'd only ever push Up when you wanted to look at something, right? Apparently not.

There are a few good fan tributes and lots of random trivia about the game too - some of my favourite stuff includes

analysis of the possible influence of Michael Jackson on Sonic 3's tunes (some of the theories have since been debunked but there are still some interesting similarities between certain tunes), and Project D0lphin's awesome acoustic cover of Hydrocity Zone

. Oh, and I loved the new shields as well; the electric, fire and bubble variants all had their own uses and I never felt like they "broke" the game too much. It's certainly one of the best 2D Sonics around (although I'd be including everything from Sonic CD to Sonic Rush in there so it's pretty tough to compare them all), even though I still end up making too many silly mistakes just to get fast times...

[Asura]

I can confirm it was £54.99 at launch. I was a massive Sonic fan as a kid, and this was one of the first games I remember seeing 6 months in advance (in Sonic The Comic) and counting down the days until launch, and even then having to wait months to get it for my birthday. I immediately played it for 6 straight hours; probably my longest gaming session up until that point.

People express a lot of differing opinions about the Sonic series - it's odd, really, that in the gaming pantheon it sometimes gets stacked up against the Mario games. In retrospect it's obvious why, given the "opposed mascot" nature of the characters originally, but despite the Mario games being a cash cow, Nintendo has kept a pretty tight leash on them in terms of quality. You might not like every Mario game, but all of the platformers have had some critical acclaim - even some of the less liked titles (such as Sunshine, or the "New" series, or Mario 2) have fans.

The Sonic games are just bizarre in terms of consistency. Sonic 1, superb (though a bit more reliant on visuals than gameplay, I think). Sonic 2, amazing - up there with the best 16-bit games. Sonic 3 is my favourite and a brilliant game, Knuckles improves it. CD is weird, but not a bad game by any means.

Then it just goes off the rails. 3D, the Adventure series, Heroes, Black Knight, Secret Rings, and the-one-we-only-speak-of-in-hushed-tones (06). I'm not one of the people who says they're all shit, but they are WILDLY inconsistent.

Generations was good, I thought, but they needed to take Sonic and do with it what New Super Mario Bros did with the Mario series - really take it back to basics, for better or worse. It seems they sort-of did that but then panicked halfway through and just had to SHOVE Sonic 06/Unleashed in there for good measure. It was jarring.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

I have nothing but the most damning contempt for anyone who was too dumb to work out the Carnival Night barrels. I expect all who failed to grasp it went on to lead dull, unfulfilled lives in the food service, cleaning or gasoline outlet industries, assuming they were able to find employment at all.

On the game itself, it's wonderful but for a few issues:

* the redesigned Sonic sprite lacks the charm of the original

* splitting the game over two cartridges left you feeling rather short-changed on finishing this first half

* they ditched the Sonic theme, man!

But it does have Ice Cap Zone and that wonderful, Stranger in Moscow-tastic end credits tune so, and is proper amazing when combined with Sonic & Knuckles so I forgive it these foibles.

[Asura]

* the redesigned Sonic sprite lacks the charm of the original

* splitting the game over two cartridges left you feeling rather short-changed on finishing this first half

* they ditched the Sonic theme, man!

Funnily enough, none of these things bothered me back then.

>> Given, the Sonic sprite lacked some charm - but I feel it was made up for by a few things, such as the larger number of animations (Sonic's idle, "stage end" and teetering off balance animations were great). Tails' swimming animation was really good.

>> I never really noticed it was short until years later. The zones were fewer in number than in 2, but they were long - and each act had its own boss. Also, the multiplayer and single player time trial mode was superior to 2's, as well as the special stage system (and collecting the emeralds) being more involved, giving plenty to do even before S&Knuckles came along.

>> I honestly liked the themes on Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

[DarhkFox]

Borrowed this from a mate a couple weeks after it come out. I finished it over the course of a weekend including all the chaos emeralds , although I'm sure there might have been a glitch to get them all ( restart the game after getting a emerald and repeat process o get them all. Cheap I know.)

[NEG]

A shame you didn't write about & Knuckles as a combo, but maybe purposely so. It's just a even more amazing game with them together.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles to me is still the third best game ever. Only Zelda Ocarina of Time and Mario 64 surpass it. (It's a tie between Banjo-Kazooie and Sonic 2 for fourth)

I'd rant at length about the wonders of this game but maybe another time.

I will briefly mention the lovely Sonic 3 Complete rom that everyone should check out. You can read the features list for yourselves.

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_3_Complete_(hack)

[Shimmyhill]

I was never all that sure i liked Sonic 3 despite playing it through loads - i dont recall the glitch so maybe worked it out or read about it at the time?

Now i do recall getting the game on launch day as i was in the city with my mum as i had to have some teeth out (mouth too small for number of teeth i had..) and my mum produced the game as a surprise! My mind was blown as while i had a healthy gaming collection i dont recall my parents directly buying me games and esp one that was so expensive on launch!!

Happy days!

[Down by Law]

I got this not long after launch - Ritz video (remember them?) were doing a special - only £44.99 (!) I was 9 years old at the time and I just couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Me and my brother pooled our pocket money for what seemed like an eternity but we had enough between us to get it.

Back then I felt a little sick that it was so short compared to Sonic 2 - alright the levels are a lot bigger but I guess it was becase 2 had something like 12-13 zones so 'seemed' like you were getting much more game. We got up to the end of the Casino Zone in 1 sitting and with the save function knew we only had a couple more acts to go.. I didn't really like the tunes as much either (except the credit theme which was fucking awesome) and I didn't like Launch Base, Marble Garden at ALL so a 1/3 of the game I really disliked which pretty much sucked. It also blew chunks that some of the best tunes were hidden away in that rubbish 2player race mode. Azure Lake !

The UK cover made Sonic look a bit special as well !

Of course when Sonic + Knuckles came out so you could play the game as it was originally intended it kicked major ass and I was so glad I still had the Sonic 3 cart to experience it in it's true glory. Many a wasted Saturday afternoon on that one. Truly glorious.

[deKay]

I remember saving up for some other game (I forget what, but it may have been Phantasy Star IV?) and then on one Saturday morning the latest Megatech or something came out and BAM - a review of Sonic 3 (when there was *no previous coverage*), and not only that, but it was ALREADY OUT. I grabbed my £45 (exactly how much I'd saved so far!) and ran down to Woolworths and bought it.

Best day ever.

[merman]

I'll always remember the "controversial" Digitiser review on Channel 4's Teletext.

They gave it 72% and said there was very little about it that was new.

[Keyboard Koala]

I can't not mention Carnival Night Zone, a bigger and better version some may say of the Casino Night zone from Sonic 2, with one MAJOR flaw.

[JLM]

Wow, I had no idea it was £55 at launch. My mum bought it for me as a surprise not long after it came out and had it running when I got home from school. I remember being incredibly excited about it and also gutted that I had to go to Cubs and so couldn't just play it all evening.

I remember the game fondly and it's one I still go back to very often, but I agree with Down By Law that Marble Garden Zone is not fun at all. That and Metropolis Zone in Sonic 2 are two of my least favourite from the 16 bit Sonics. I don't recall having any problems with the Carnvial Night barrels. I feel like if you play a lot of video games and know that you have to go up or down to proceed you will instinctively try pressing up or down at some stage, and that said stage shouldn't take you very long to reach. I agree that it's a bit odd that it's the only time you have to do it, but I had no idea it was a major issue for people.

[Asura]

I remember being incredibly excited about it and also gutted that I had to go to Cubs and so couldn't just play it all evening.

Holy shit, wave of nostalgia there.

[Streets Of Rage]

I got it for £45 on launch day at Dixons, I remember saving for it for months, I put down £55 for it and on the day of collection I walked in to collect and they gave me it and a tenner, happy days!

Loved the game, played it to bits, went through it for nostalgias sake (along with 1/2/Knuckles) when I was home a few years ago, the save battery was still working, so much nostalgia, awesome!

[deKay]

Wow, I had no idea it was £55 at launch.

It wasn't - it was £45 and one of the first at that price (previous "usual" RRP was £39.99).

[Wools]

I'm a huge fan of the Sonic series and despite it appearing to be the least liked of the main Mega Drive games, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 has always been my favourite.

There's only 6 levels, but I've found them to be perfectly designed, with memorable routes, little hidden secrets and some absolutely beautiful graphics. The music is wonderful and despite it not being as hummable as the original, they remain some of the best tracks to come out of the Mega Drive.

And despite JLM disagreeing, Marble Garden is up there with Snow Cap Zone as my favourite. Sonic 3 is a classic game.

[deKay]

Important question:

Hydro-city or hydrocity (like electricity)?

[Nick R]

Important question:

Hydro-city or hydrocity (like electricity)?

Last year I made this post about a great Sonic 3 and Knuckles speedrun, which shows just how far speedrunners can push some games. It's worth watching at least the highlighted moments I listed below:

This Sonic 3 & Knuckles run from the Awesome Games Done Quick event is excellent. Not just because of the speed, but because the player explains all the tricks and bug exploits he's using as he goes.

There's a whole sequence of Sonic 3 levels that ends with the player saying "And if you thought I broke that level..." before proceeding to demolish the next level in ever more outrageous ways.

No-one's going to bother watching the whole thing, so here are the highlights you should skip to:

6:45 - Marble Garden 1 - An explanation of the screen wrap bug that gets exploited a lot in this run

Marble Garden 2 - Fighting Knuckles' boss with Tails?

9m - Carnival Night 1 - If you only watch one part of this, watch this bit. Gravity flipping fun! Probably the most spectacular bug exploit in the whole run.

15:10s - IceCap 1 - In probably the second most spectacular trick in the entire run, on his second attempt, he skips from the middle of Act 1 right to the Act 2 boss. Beating that boss causes Acts 1 and 2 to complete at the same time!

17:30 - Launch Base Act 1 - More screen zipping. Then messing up the boss graphics, just for fun.

25:20 - Flying Battery 1 - Apparently this flying trick has an 8 frame window to get right...

26:30 to 28m - Flying Battery 1 boss and Act 2 - "What's wrong with this picture?" Never mind that, what's wrong with those clouds?

29:10 - Yeah let's skip Sandopolis 1.

35:50 - Yeah let's run through the ground and skip half of Lava Reef 2. "It's not that hard, I have about a third of a second to do it in!"

36:35 - Yeah let's skip the Lava Reef 2 boss.

Run over, wacky bug demonstration time!

50:15 - OK, now it's really time to break Marble Zone. Returning to the start of Act 1 to fight the Act 2 boss from inside a wall.

52:35 - Launch Base - Creative way of getting Knuckles onto Sonic's route. Then fighting Sonic's bosses requires a jump within a single frame window and results in some messed up graphics.

[imp]

Oh man, I loved Sonic 3.

When I was very young, we'd had a Thai student who stayed with us while she did her degree. Apparently her family must have ran in important circles, because she was in touch with this very wealthy family who were looking to educate their 8-year-old son in the UK. They wanted him to live with a family for a year to acclimatise to life in the UK before sending him to boarding school, so when I was seven, they flew over to visit us to see if we would be a suitable family.

So the Thai family came over, and I was on my best behaviour, answering questions about school, and what I liked. What I liked was Sonic. Somehow I was a huge Sonic fan (children are stupid) at this point, despite having never really played any of the games, the only system I owned was a Game Boy I had been given by my aunt. I was an avid reader of Sonic the Comic, and had played Sonic 2 on a master system once or twice, so I must have just been massively susceptible to marketing. Anyway, I showed them some drawings I had done of Sonic, or more likely probably reams of drawings, (I was a pretty capable artist as a youth), and probably bored them to death on the topic, before just descending into general games-chat with their son.

Anyway, cut to two weeks later, and the Thai family are back for another visit. Completely out of the blue they gave me a Megadrive with a copy of Sonic 3. My mind was completely blown it was so unexpected! Bloody rich bastards! (Thank you rich bastards!)

This was the longest evening of my life as I had to wait hours until they left before my Dad would set it up for me. Somehow this process took fucking ages too, as it was well past my bedtime by the time we had it working. I was allowed to play it for about 15 minutes. Enough to make it to Hydrocity Zone, leaving me desperate for more.

I didn't sleep a wink that night. I would try but my heart was beating too loudly in my chest. I would try and allviate the excitement by reading the manual, but that only served to exacerbate matters. Eventually, I got out of bed at 5AM and had two and a half glorious hours of Sonic 3 before I had to get ready for school. It was magical.

But yeah, very fond memories of the game, I still prefer it to all the other 2D Sonic games. I even like Marble Garden! I completed it over and over again (with S&K eventually too), so I had save slots that had the game complete with all chaos and hyper chaos emeralds for all variations of characters since I didn't get any other games for a good long while, and also ones where I didn't collect any hyper emeralds since Super Sonic was less ridiculous than Hyper Sonic.

[freezycold]

The thing I remember most about getting Sonic 3 was that when reading the manual on the drive home it said Knuckles likes grapes. I like grapes too, so I thought he must be a cool guy.

[Qazimod]

He was 15 years old in '94? Getting on a bit then...

[deKay]

Wasn't Tails 4 in Sonic 2 and 10 in Sonic 3?

[Asura]

This was the longest evening of my life as I had to wait hours until they left before my Dad would set it up for me. Somehow this process took fucking ages too, as it was well past my bedtime by the time we had it working. I was allowed to play it for about 15 minutes. Enough to make it to Hydrocity Zone, leaving me desperate for more.

I didn't sleep a wink that night. I would try but my heart was beating too loudly in my chest. I would try and allviate the excitement by reading the manual. That just made it worse! Eventually, I got out of bed at 5AM and had two and a half glorious hours of Sonic 3 before I had to get ready for school. It was magical.

I miss that. This whole post makes me very nostalgic. It's been a few years since I had a game make me feel this way.

[sweetdaddyg]

I hadn't actually played sonic 3. I dug out my sega mega drive collection on ps3 and gave it a go. It's enjoyable and different enough. Shows that they were exploring new avenues for sonic rather than let him grow stale, but it seems they went too far down that road, whereas ninty only made gradual changes to mario making him more familiar while still handling very differently.

Is it true Michael Jackson did the original score but then when the whole "interfereing with children" thing came out Sega got cold feet?

[Asura]

Is it true Michael Jackson did the original score but then when the whole "interfereing with children" thing came out Sega got cold feet?

Never 100% confirmed. There was a rumour at the time, and some of the music has bits in it which suggest he was involved. The usual examples people make are the coda in the Carnival Night Zone's music sounding like the start of MJ's Jam, and the end theme sounding similar to Stranger in Moscow. However, pop is a strange type of music in that you can apparently find those similarities in a range of media, so they're not proof.

There was a YouTube video floating round a few years ago about it, but many of its conclusions have since been debunked.

EDIT: OK, looked it up again! Seems the video came out, many things in it were wrong, but it has since been 100% proven that MJ did provide some music for the game.

[NEG]

It was confirmed by some employee after his death. Mini-boss theme and credits are the standouts (to me) but it tended to be Ice Cap and Launch Base changed for the PC versions. (The music, that is.)

Edit:doh, everything better explained in above video.

[MW_Jimmy]

Didn't know where to put this:

Wow.

After the Jetzons breakup, keyboardist Brad Buxer went on to work with Mathew Wilder, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and was musical director for Michael Jackson for over 18 years. While Buxer worked in collaboration with Jackson, the duo composed music for the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 soundtrack, which included instrumental versions of the then unreleased Jetzons song "Hard Times" and the future Jackson single "Stranger in Moscow".

[NEG]

Didn't know where to put this:

Wow.

Beautiful.

[sixbuttons]

It was confirmed by some employee after his death. Mini-boss theme and credits are the standouts (to me) but it tended to be Ice Cap and Launch Base changed for the PC versions. (The music, that is.)

Edit:doh, everything better explained in above video.

Bit late to the party here but I thought those track changes were related to the PC version's music being midi and therefore unable to cope with the sampling used in those tracks.

The YouTuber Orkal did a whole load of glitch videos a while back that rip the game wide open. So much data just always in memory that you can just turn the game into a gibbering wreck whenever you feel like it.

Particularly like this one, just for the MEGAGLITCH at the end:

I love S3&K though. Just one of the all-time most complete, exquisite platformers ever.