We are finally here, the big kahuna, the game
people have been asking me to do ever since I dropped a video on Sonic Mania. Sonic the Hedgehog 3⌠and Knuckles⌠ugh. Can I mini-tangent real quick? I hate referring to this as âSonic 3 & Knucklesâ. Just what kind of title is that? Too long, cumbersome, awkward. Throughout the video I'm just gonna refer
to this complete package as âSonic 3" and I hope you're okay with it. Theyâre one game anyway, might as well call
it as such. Right, so how's the Taxman & Stealth port? I imagine good. Yeah well⌠the proof of concept looks good. What's even more baffling to me than SEGA
restricting the ports to mobile devices is their silence on a Sonic 3 port. There is a proof of concept by the very people
who made the ports in the first place, it is completely doable. Alas, we don't have a port, so the next best
thing is Sonic 3 Complete. I don't normally discuss ROMhacks, however
this particular hack is so popular that I'd be remiss to gloss over it. If you want an excruciatingly in-depth look
at all the options and easter eggs on offer, have a gander at Cybershellâs video. He is the resident Sonic loremaster after
all, what would we do without him? I'll try to keep this brief: Sonic 3âs original
release had slightly altered level design, a few different tracks, the Big Arm boss fight,
and it was slightly more difficult. When you connected the Sonic and Knuckles
cartridge to the Sonic 3 cartridge with lock-on technology, it became what we now know as
Sonic 3 and Knuckles: it was slightly easier, removed Big Arm, replaced the boss and power
up music with the music in Sonic and Knuckles, and most important of all it became one game. Sonic 3 Complete allows you to play either
game separately, and you can even tweak the settings to play the older version of Sonic
3 with different music and the Big Arm boss fight. You can choose to put Flying Battery after
Carnival Night, where it was supposed to go originally. They even gave Flying Battery a night texture
so that the transition from Carnival Night to Flying Battery wouldn't be too jarring. Those are the important bits: needless to
say Sonic 3 Complete is the ideal way to play Sonic 3, but it's just not the same. It doesn't add widescreen or fix the frame-rate,
two of the biggest fixes that kept me coming back to the ports above all else. I love the options available for Sonic 3 Complete,
but I've only ever changed Flying Battery, kept Sonic 3 to the original release to fight
Big Arm, and I can activate and deactivate Super Sonic with a button other than jump,
which is a really neat improvement. That said, I do still consider this the definitive
version of Sonic 3, so we may as well use this as the basis of my critique. As I said, I only tweaked a few things, so
we should all be around the same page. Alright, itâs time for the Sonic game everyone
loves and no one ever shuts up about. Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It isnât as elaborate as Sonic CD, but we
do still open on a cinematic of sorts. Sonic and Tails fly to Angel Island to investigate,
a red dude punches Sonic out of his super form, steals the chaos emeralds and runs away. Damn. Despite it all happening in-engine, without
a flashy animation, this is a brilliant setup. The red dude hit you and stole all your gems,
go catch him. That red dude is Knuckles the Echidna, who
plays the troublemaker. Youâll constantly encounter him, and heâll
make your life miserable, until itâs revealed at the end that he was played by Eggman the
entire time, and then he helps you out. Simple, but effective. Though, his introduction isnât just for
show: this is the first time in the classic series where playing as another character
has an impact that isnât exclusively cosmetic. I didnât go into depth with the other characters
in my previous videos because I was waiting for the game where they were fully utilized. In Sonic 2, you could play as Tails, but he
was just a carbon-copy of Sonic; yet, in Sonic 3, Tails can fly which differentiates him
from Sonic in a huge way. Knuckles can glide and climb up walls, at
the cost of his lower jump height. Sonic gains a new ability in the form of the
insta-shield, which lets him completely bypass the spikes on spike enemies, and can be used
to hit enemies or bosses a couple frames earlier than youâre supposed to. It sounds like a minor upgrade, but it makes
boss fights in particular much easier when you learn the ins and outs. Itâs also a crucial ability to make playing
as Sonic viable, when Tails can do the exact same things as Sonic with the ability to fly. Why would you pick Sonic over Tails? Well, he has that rad insta-shield. Why would you pick Tails over Sonic? Well, Tails has an easier campaign thanks
to his flight, plus he can find secrets much easier. Why pick Knuckles over Sonic? His campaign is harder, with tweaked boss
fights and exclusive level pathways that take advantage of his unique abilities. Angel Island is a great way to introduce this
concept. Tails can fly up this column of spikes, and
Knuckles can break through this stone wall thanks to his spiked knuckles. While Tails goes along with Sonic in his adventure,
and ultimately syncs up with him at some point, Knuckles has his own pathway in almost every
zone. This means that a second playthrough as Knuckles,
while familiar, has a different story setup with the Egg Robo, and entirely new level
design. The best part is that each character, besides
Knuckleâs nerfed jump height, control the exact same as Sonic. You never need to worry that picking Knuckles
will alter how you play: no matter what, it will always be a sonic game. It also doesnât adversely affect the level
design, because the contained sections donât take away from any other path. It doesnât feel like youâre missing something
huge by picking Sonic, because thereâs still a sizeable chunk of brilliant level to explore. This zone in particular is a great starting
point, focusing on the three tenets of Sonic as you would expect it to: speed here, platforming
there, exploration everywhere. In just this first section, thereâs a bumper
on top of a tree that takes you to speed shoes, and two different pathways, one with more
to collect, another thatâs more straightforward. If you fail to stay on the top path which
is heavy with platforming, you fall to the bottom path and are forced through an easier
section, though you miss out on potential elemental shields or lives. The elemental shields are fantastic for promoting
exploration, much more than any other Sonic game. The fire shield gives you a dash in the air
with immunity to fire, the lightning shield gives you an extra jump with ring attraction
and immunity to electrical hazards, and the bubble shield lets you bounce on the ground
for extra height, as well as breath underwater. The coolest part, though, is that they all
act like any other shield: Sonic always gets an extra hit no matter what, you just lose
the extra abilities along with it. My chief problem with Sonic CDâs level design
was its focus on exploration where it didnât matter. Sonic 1 and 2 didnât exactly give the best
incentive to explore, especially in the mobile port where you had unlimited continues, but
it at least focused less on exploration overall to compensate. It was still fun to explore in those games
for speed shoes, invincibility, rings; because it wasnât a focus, and it only happened
in spurts. Sonic 3 found the perfect blend, and I posit
this is why people like it so damn much. Think about it like this: Angel Island has
a metric ton of secret areas, with a tight focus on a few different pathways to the end. You can keep a cohesive and memorable structure
like this, while still promoting all three pillars of the triad to equal extents. Run through loops and inside tree trunks,
platform on disappearing blocks or ziplines, explore caves and high to reach areas for
goodies. To a greater or lesser extent, each zone following
this one is the same structure, which is a slight departure even from Sonic 2. That game had different types of zone layouts
for different situations: Casino Night for Sonicâs physics, Chemical Plant for his
speed and momentum, Aquatic Ruin for pathway selection and punishment. It was less about finding a cohesive structure
for the levels to follow, and more about zone identity: which is probably why Metropolis
is the way it is. Sonic 3, on the other hand, discards a bit
of that gameplay identity for a solid structure, and I definitely prefer that approach. Though it does homogenize the feel of each
zone, itâs ultimately for the best. Besides, the unique set-pieces and visual
themes are what differentiate each zone the most. Hydrocity is much larger than Angel Island
zone, with much more to do and find; yet, it never devolves into a maze-like Sonic CD
experience. What it does is build a gigantic map with
one straight path to an endpoint, and litter multiple pathways along that key path. Hydrocity is allowed to be as large as it
is because youâre on a straight path the entire time, which is very very similar to
Chemical Plant. While it doesnât necessarily allow you to
avoid water, the water segments come in short bursts, and contain the same speed and platforming
segments with minimal annoyances. Again, itâs all uphill from Labyrinth. I particularly enjoy the focus on the fans
to push Sonic through the water, as it both allows for a visually interesting set-piece,
simultaneously allowing for unique platforming opportunities. Although water isnât entirely avoidable,
itâs still used as a punishment since thereâs almost always a better path you can maintain
on the top if youâre skilled enough. This zone is better than Angel Island in every
way: groovy music, huge and secret-heavy, while still focusing on speed and momentum. This huge level is emulated in Marble Garden,
Launch Base, Sandopolis Act 1; but, other zones are more inspired by Angel Islandâs
relative simplicity, like Ice Cap, Flying Battery, and Sandopolis Act 2: neither of
which are inherently good or bad. As much as I like the Hydrocity-type level
design, it falls flat on its face in zones like Marble Garden. I hate Marble Garden: this zone is where I
almost always lose interest in a new playthrough. Again, it has a setup similar to Hydrocity:
huge, multi-layered, secret heavy. My problem with the zone is just how huge
it is, the reliance on instant kill spike crushers, John Cena âyou canât see meâ
wrecking balls, long annoying slopes, and the spinning top. It hits all the right layout beats, while
screwing up almost everything else. In one of the first rooms, youâll run to
the right and instantly fly into a huge ball of spikes that I would be surprised if anyone
saw coming their first time. This same spike ball is littered throughout
the stage, and itâs always at the end of a blitz of speed where youâd never expect
it. Similarly, there are crushers you need to
avoid that can catch you off guard from time to time; though, Iâll admit, theyâre easy
to avoid once you get the hang of them and at least they open and close quite quickly,
in stark contrast to similar crush blocks in Sandopolis. I appreciate a focus on slopes, and some of
the platforming is interesting surrounding that concept, but I find it to more often
be an annoyance than an interesting challenge. Most of the time you bypass slopes by spinning
into blue wheels anyway, so itâs hard to defend the use of them in so many instances. I really hate the feeling that I just got
punked from a secret area because I canât get back up the slope. Granted, a lot of these levels similarly lock
you out of content if you go too far, but itâs usually pretty obvious when thatâs
about to happen: like when you go on the water tubes in Hydrocity or something. In Marble Garden, the moment you even accidentally
fall onto a slope, youâre never getting back up. In Hydrocity youâre committed to moving
on, in Marble Garden itâs moreso a slap in the face. Youâll occasionally find a spinning top
that really adds almost nothing to the level, other than: it lets you float and go really
fast on the ground. That floating part is what really bothers
me, since itâs so incredibly slow until it touches the ground, where sometimes youâll
whiz by so fast youâll run straight into a spike ball or other hazard. Itâs happened to me too many times to count
in previous playthroughs, hence why I jump off the spinning top as soon as it looks like
I wonât need it: keywords looks like. There are some pillars you canât break through
with a normal spindash, so youâll need to carry the spinning top with you to break through
it and enter a unique set-piece that, while cool looking, could just as easily been accomplished
without needing to drag this gimmicky spin top with you into potentially dangerous areas. Remember the hollow treetop? My point stands. One of Sonic 3âs biggest problems concerns
its level gimmicks. This spinning top is only the tip of the iceberg,
there are so many other gimmicks in Sonic 3 that reek of feature creep. The barrels in Carnival Night, the see-saws
in Mushroom Hill, the rappel lines in Sandopolis, the light bridges in Death Egg: they donât
fit Sonicâs speed or platforming well at all. Thereâs no sense of purpose to any of these
gimmicks, other than to break up the pace of a level or look flashy. I get that itâs kinda cool to rappel down
a tower or travel across a light bridge, but they destroy the pace of both Sandopolis and
Death Egg. Granted, you can avoid most of these gimmicks
depending on which path you take, though the moment you get stuck in either of these speed
traps, you canât get out until youâre finished with the set-piece. At least I understand the inclusion of these
two; I canât even fathom why you would put the spinning barrels or the see-saws in any
Sonic game for any reason. Everyone knows how infamously weird the spinning
barrels were for kids, and the see-saw: donât even get me started. This is variety for no oneâs sake, in both
cases you press up and down in various rhythms until youâre done, and then youâre back
to speeding around the level, or running into bumpers and balloons and water and gravity
and *cough*. Itâs not like they all suck either: I love
the spinning cups in Launch Base, the hand spinners in Hydrocity, the spinning poles
in Flying Battery: they promote speed while also effectively breaking up the pace of a
level, without completely halting it. Speaking of halting the pace: Carnival Night. Casino Night wasnât revolutionary, but it
did focus on movement in a way I hadnât quite seen before, even in Spring Yard. Pinball bumpers and flippers could launch
you to higher platforms, half-pipes were used with the bumpers as obstacles to progression,
and while I wasnât a huge fan of the moving blocks or elevators, it was a fine zone with
a unique identity. Carnival Night⌠eh. I wouldnât call it bad, it has a similar
feel to a zone like Hydrocity or Marble Garden, but I donât like how the level obstacles
are utilized. The ball bumpers are placed in tight passageways
to bar entry, the oyster clam things have springs on their backs, the triangle bumpers
lock you into areas, this⌠weird platform thing adds almost nothing to the level, the
slopes can be a little too elaborate and donât mix well with Sonicâs physics, to the point
where thereâs a well known glitch here to clip out of bounds, thereâs a random water
segment, I already voiced my complaints with the barrel. Now, none of this stuff is outright bad, itâs
just the combination that always gets to me. I like the extra height you can gain using
the balloons, I like the spinning cylinders used both in speedy sections and more platforming
focused sections. Even the music is good, itâs just⌠not
ideal. A level that focuses on halting Sonicâs
momentum is interesting as a punishment in a specific pathway, not as an entire zone
that has a lot more linear segments than youâd expect. The best way to describe it is⌠cramped,
taken to the max in Sandopolis Act 2. The first act of Sandopolis is okay. It suffers from a few of the problems in Marble
Garden; Namely, even slower crush blocks, some weird grapple hook zipline jumping between
towers; however, generally itâs a fun act. Itâs fairly big, with so many different
pathways to take. I particularly like when Sonic does two laps
over one loop, dunno why it just amuses me. I donât have a big problem with act 1: I
have a big problem with Act 2. Not only is act 2 quite possibly the longest
act in the game, itâs incredibly linear, momentarily confusing, and there are ghosts
who chase you around the cramped slow platforming, the best mix. This looping section with the moving sand
can be quite confusing, and the only reason I know what Iâm doing now is because Iâve
played the game a whole bunch. Even then, on repeat playthroughs I still
get stuck for a little while trying to figure out how to exit the loop. This is in direct opposition to a similar
loop in Ice Cap, which is a much faster loop, and far easier to figure out. It also acted as a bit of a punishment for
failing to platform correctly, as if you fall down, it begins the loop again and youâre
forced to repeat the platforming challenge. Itâs much more straightforward, usually
just requiring you push or jump on an ice block to ram through an obstacle in your way. Ice Cap in general feels like what Sandopolis
could have been. It starts off with the iconic snowboard segment,
but you really start the level inside the ice cave. This section is quite linear, but compensates
with some tricky platforming and a few hidden secrets. This works because after a minute or two,
you emerge from the cave where the level opens up substantially, with some new trampoline
gimmicks to play around with. The next act will play with the concept even
further, mixing the cave segments and open air organically. Sandopolis Act 2 could have benefited from
more expansive level design, or more punishing platforming. Neither Ice Cap nor Sandopolis Act 2 have
bottomless pits, but as Iâve mentioned Ice Cap has its own way of punishing the player,
whereas Sandopolis Act 2 only has that one looping segment. After that, death is probably gonna be hashed
out via crush blocks or rising sand, neither of which I would consider to be incredibly
fair or interesting. Ice Cap doesnât really have instant death,
though I guess you could argue since Sandopolis Act 2 takes place near the very end of the
game, more difficult sections are warranted; however, I would argue you can introduce this
element of challenge without instant death, as I outlined in my previous videos. I could see an interesting punishment in the
rising sand slowing your movement speed, making the level more about outrunning the quicksand
to keep your speed and momentum, rather than avoiding the death planes. I donât think I would even mind Sandopolis
Act 2 if it wasnât so consistently lengthy. I usually donât have a problem with longer
zones, Sonic Mania has some lengthy endgame acts, and I donât really mind because the
moment to moment platforming is paced so well. It feels like Sandopolis Act 2 repeats a lot
of set-pieces, almost none of which are very interesting. I mean, who asked for time management in a
Sonic game? Flying Battery has fleeting success with these
various ideas. Itâs a more linear stage, with more deadly
hazards. There are platforming segments on the bottom
that flirt with bottomless pits, but I always found these to be contextually sound. Thereâs always enough lead time to the bottomless
pit segments, and the platforming is consistently challenging: I wouldnât go as far as to
say itâs the most competent or interesting 2D platforming ever, but itâs at least not
frustrating outside of one issue with the spinning cylinders. Since you need to enter these from the openings
on either side, it can feel a little janky sometimes. Either you miss the entrance and fall through,
or attempt to enter from the top and fail spectacularly. Youâd be surprised how many times I forget
that I canât just enter from the top of these things, especially after Sonic Mania
allows you to enter from anywhere. Death Egg actually presents a better alternative
with these objects, only allowing you to enter from the opening. In both Flying Battery and Death Egg, I do
enjoy the advantages of both the fire and electric shields. The fire shield can completely negate the
damage from the flamethrower obstacles, as well as bypass lava in Lava Reef; whereas,
the electric shield can prevent damage while you run on the electrically charged terrain
in Death Egg. Both Hydrocity and Carnival Night use the
bubble shield to let you breath underwater as mentioned before, and because so many of
the zones have a great use for the shields, youâre always gonna want to explore, especially
now that Super Sonic is back. Now you have incentive to seek the 7 chaos
emeralds, as well as incentive to seek the 7 super emeralds. It works so incredibly well in Sonic 3 because
they finally nailed special stage entrances, it is absolutely perfect in every way. Seriously, I canât even think of a sufficient
reason to dislike how theyâre handled, other than not being able to get Super Sonic in
the first zone, but seeing as you can potentially get him as soon as Hydrocity you wonât see
me complaining. Plus, maybe it was a wee bit broken to have
Super Sonic before you begin Chemical Plant. This time, you donât need anything to enter
a special stage: the real trick is finding where the special rings are hidden. There are about 6 or 7 in each zone, meaning
thereâs ample opportunity to collect all of the chaos emeralds. Youâd think that after you collected the
emeralds, thereâd be no reason to go after the special rings anymore, but thatâs where
youâre wrong. Anytime you enter a special ring after you
already have the emeralds, you get 50 rings and can either immediately turn super sonic,
or sustain super sonic for an even longer period of time. Additionally, once you get to Mushroom Hill
Zone, there are 7 more emeralds to collect, so youâre immediately back on the exploration
track. My overall point is that thereâs always
a reason to be on the hunt for shields, rings, and special stages. The special stages themselves are competent,
though Iâd struggle to call them absolutely amazing. Theyâre more puzzle based: avoid the red
spheres, turn the blue spheres into red spheres, surround blue spheres with red spheres to
turn them all into rings, get all the blue spheres for an emerald, get 50 rings for a
continue. Standard fare, and while these special stages
certainly err on the side of caution, they arenât very⌠interesting. Sure itâs fun to figure out how they work
the first time, but thereâs really not a whole lot of skill involved once you know
what youâre getting into. At least with Sonic 2 once you had the stages
memorized, there was skill involved in getting Sonic where he needed to go and avoiding the
bombs with well-paced jumps, but in CD it was all skill. Jump into the UFOâs, avoid the water, keep
your time up, and the entire stage was always visible and easy to read meaning thereâs
basically no need for memorization. Iâd argue the Sonic 3 special stages also
donât require a whole lot of memorization, but a few of them can get pretty hectic when
you donât know what youâre doing. If youâre in one for too long, Sonic will
travel at an incredibly fast speed, so fast that if you donât know what youâre next
move is in advance, you could easily careen straight into a red sphere. Thankfully itâs not nearly as bad as anything
in the Sonic 1 or 2 special stages, I just hesitate to call them amazing, and I think
I even prefer the Sonic CD special stages. Unfortunately since Taxman and Stealth couldnât
touch Sonic 3, the framerate on the special stages is horrendous, and can honestly screw
a bit with some of your inputs. It might not be fair for me to compare the
framerate of baseline Sonic 3, to the improved versions of the other special stages. Iâm confident that if the framerate were
fixed, there wouldnât really be any input issues, and I can say that because Mania has
them and they run beautifully. My other complaint is that they can run a
little long, though since you only have to do them 14 times theoretically, it isnât
a huge complaint. I do enjoy the more complex blue sphere puzzles,
which have segments where you need to let Sonic move backwards, or segments where you
need to jump over a red sphere into a yellow bumper sphere, and I do sometimes like the
panic moments where youâre going at max speed and donât know where the remaining
blue spheres are. I think an arrow or some indication of where
the remaining blue spheres are would be helpful in a pinch, especially because itâs really
hard to create a mental map of these special stages and track where youâve been going,
since the perspective is constantly changing and the color scheme is pretty same-y. Overall, though, theyâre competent and itâs
still my favorite system due to just how easy they are to enter, and how much it adds to
exploration. My favorite new reward for completing every
special stage is Hyper Sonic, who has what is essentially a dash in any direction, and
glows a variety of different colors with sparkles all around him and afterimages. This is the first and only time we ever see
hyper sonic. Thereâs an extra cool touch when collecting
the super emeralds, where youâre transported to the Hidden Palace, no not that Hidden Palace. Anyway, what youâre essentially doing in
the Hidden Palace is powering up your existing emeralds, and whatâs really cool is that
this exact emerald room can be seen later on when you actually visit the Hidden Palace. Itâs right after the room where Sonic is
prophesized to defeat Eggman in space with his hyper form, a subtle and effective form
of world-building for such a graphically and narratively limited title. Generally Sonic 3 contextualizes Angel Island
the best of any Sonic game to this point. Act 1 of Sandopolis transitions into Act 2
via a pyramid entrance, Act 1 of Angel Island starts off in a grassy beach, which is set
to flame by Eggmanâs robot, and the transition from Act 1 to 2 comes with a slightly remixed
music track, and without a black screen, the camera simply pans and you continue the zone. Additionally, from zone to zone, thereâs
always a transition. Marble Garden ends with a boss fight where
Tails carries you in the air, so when you transition to Carnival Night, not only does
the sky turn dark in Marble Garden itself, you enter Carnival Night as youâre lowered
to the ground by tails. In the original, though most of them worked
fine, with some suspension of disbelief required when going from Ice Cap to Launch Base, there
was always one that bugged me: the transition from Carnival Night to Ice Cap. You use a cannon to fly all the way to the
frozen alps, and thereâs no indication that Carnival Night ever changed to daytime, itâs
just immediately daytime in the alps somewhere. Sonic 3 Complete fixes this transition by
going with the prototype design where Flying Battery was placed after Carnival Night. I imagine it was changed because Flying Battery
was either: a) unfinished when they wanted to release Sonic 3, or b) was a bit too much
of a spike in difficulty. I mean, Flying Battery kinda works no matter
where itâs placed, since the thing can theoretically show up whenever it wants, and drop you wherever
it wants. Going from Mushroom Hill to Flying Battery
to Sandopolis makes perfect sense, and itâs not so farfetched to imagine going from the
dried out Mushroom Hill straight to Sandopolis, especially since the time of day is at least
the same. Overall though, even when playing the original,
these stage transitions really help to differentiate Sonic 3 from its predecessors. In a way, it focuses even more on the story
elements than Sonic CD, with both the level transitions and the segments where Knuckles
or one of Eggmans machines will fundamentally change the levelâs visual design. Itâs kinda like how time travelling worked
in Sonic CD, but with more of a narrative purpose. The fact that Knuckles even has his own unique
story to explain why youâre going through the same zones as Sonic and Tails is genius,
because it wouldnât make sense for him to play out the exact same story seeing as he
was an enemy right up until the very end. Yeah, the Egg Robo isnât amazing or anything,
but it still makes sense, even up to the finer details, like not letting him do Death Egg
because it was destroyed by Sonic and Tails at that point, and just having his story end
at Sky Sanctuary. For me, this is always what elevated Sonic
3 to new heights. When youâre running around Mushroom Hill
Zone, what are you thinking about? The speedy loops, the bouncy mushrooms, the
secret areas, the chicken blowers, the gorgeous visual design, the amazing music? You might very well be thinking about that
stuff, I know I am in the moment; yet, Iâm also thinking just as much about where this
fits into Angel Island. Mushroom Hill happens at the mid-season finale,
if you will, after you prevent the Death Egg from lifting off and chase Eggman down to
finish the job. Going from Launch Base to Mushroom Hill has
narrative purpose, and also makes thematic sense. Obviously this stuff doesnât necessarily
matter in the other games. I guess it doesnât make a whole lot of sense
to go from grassy plains to a Chemical Plant to an old ruin to a casino, but itâs not
like it really made a difference in the long run. Its introduction in Sonic 3 is a pure improvement,
icing on the cake if you will. It contributes to a larger narrative that
lacks scope for sure, but threads each zone together. The final few zones link into the final boss
in a marvelous way. You find the Hidden Palace after exploring
the lava infested underbelly of Angel Island, and Hidden Palace has a transporter that takes
you to Sky Sanctuary, a seemingly abandoned ruin floating in the sky. You travel here after Eggman steals the Master
Emerald and actually succeeds in launching the Death Egg this time, so you use Sky Sanctuary
as sort of a stepping stone to get into the Death Egg. It makes sense that Sky Sanctuary only has
one act, and is by far the most linear platforming-focused stage in the game: thereâs no time to be
wasted here you need to stop Eggman. There are several boss fights because Eggman
doesnât want you anywhere near his Death Egg, for obvious reasons. Heâs throwing everything at you to prevent
you from messing up his plans again, and once you finally get onto the Death Egg, itâs
sufficiently challenging. Itâs slightly confusing to navigate, with
great attack telegraphs: itâs challenging, without devolving into Metropolis, Scrap Brain,
or Metallic Madness. Itâs not my favorite zone in the world,
of course, I despise the light bridges, but I do think the gravity mechanic is unique,
and to be honest it made me a bit nauseous: in a good way! What I love about Death Egg is that the final
boss takes place on the very top, and doesnât take away your rings automatically like it
does in Sonic 2. Now, if you die to the boss it doesnât give
you any rings to start off with, but I do like how lenient it is on your first go. To make it a little more forgiving, they could
at least have given you a few rings in the beginning, but made it so that once you lost
your rings they would instantly fall thanks to gravity or something. As it stands, the rings you do lose donât
bounce on the platforms below you, so you arenât necessarily allowed to cheese the
boss thanks to the knockback frames that prevent you from immediately grabbing all of your
rings again. Honestly, this is how every boss should handle
the ring system, so that it prevents you from cheesing the boss, without forcing you to
brave the boss with zero rings. The actual boss though⌠heâs okay I guess,
but I honestly wonder why so many people complain about the Death Egg Robot in Sonic 2, but
not about the final boss of Sonic 3 which is just as difficult. Itâs the same setup: you have the mini-boss
that emulates Mecha-sonic where you take out the mechanical fingers, and then you have
to deal with the real final boss by jumping into the cockpit, damaging the Master Emerald,
and avoiding the giant laser with a precise jump. He also shoots fire out of his nose as soon
as he puts his shield up again. This segment doesnât take as long as the
Death Egg Robot in Sonic 2, but you can just as easily die in one hit and get sent back
to the fingers, which if anything are a little bit more offensive than mecha sonic because
they take just as long with absolutely zero effort. Seriously, you can spindash in place and youâll
get through the segment in no time flat, itâs just a time sink. The final segment is what really irritates
me. After youâve finally got the timing down,
you know the boss like the back of your hand, instead of winning outright, you need to chase
Eggman down and hit him another 8 times. Thanks to Sonicâs unique physics system,
if you hit Eggman fast enough from the very left of his cockpit, Sonic can fly all the
way to the left where there arenât any platforms. Even worse is that as soon as you land the
final hit, you canât even use the stage scrolling momentum to your advantage, plainly
put: if you are running too fast when you land that final hit, Sonic will die. To even survive this segment, you need to
hit Eggman from the bottom, which is pretty easy when you know what to do, but that final
middle finger is what always gets to me and considering it sends you all the way back
to the first segment, Iâd say it causes more harm than good. Big Arm has this problem as well, requiring
you re-fight a pathetic first boss, jump into Eggmanâs Egg Mobile, watch an epic cut-scene
where Eggman attempts to lift the Death Egg into space, fight the real boss of Launch
Base, then fight the real real boss of Launch Base, which is by far the hardest challenge
youâll have come up against in the entire game. Granted, on your second or third go, Big Arm
is very predictable and easy to down, itâs just ludicrous to expect the player to sit
through so much waiting around to get to the real final boss. Maybe thereâs a reason they took out Big
Arm when you attach Sonic and Knuckles. It was meant to be a cap off to Sonic the
Hedgehog 3, but Sonic and Knuckles already has a sendoff with the Death Egg Boss fight
and Hyper Sonic segment. The Hyper Sonic final boss fight isnât all
that revolutionary either, though I do like it for story reasons. Itâs an epic space battle where you can
fly around as hyper sonic for the first time. It also gives more purpose to finding the
emeralds than just watching a shiny new cut-scene. Mechanically though, thereâs an unbearably
long introduction segment where you collect rings so you donât lose all of them too
fast, and when you actually catch up to Eggman, all youâre doing is directing missiles into
his cockpit. Youâre not gonna take damage here, so there
are almost no stakes. Itâs even more laughable afterwards, just
ramming into him a few times until youâre done. Again, I like this boss for more thematic
reasons than I do for gameplay reasons, though the other bosses in the game arenât too
shabby. First Eggman boss has bottomless pits, and
some well timed fireballs for you to jump over; the second boss of Hydrocity has some
interesting platforming to reach his tall cockpit by using the bomb momentum, and avoiding
the torrential water can be a bit of a challenge; the second boss of the Death Egg is pretty
interesting as well, forcing you to time when you change the gravity so the spike enemies
will fall onto the floating orb in the middle of the screen. Unfortunately, though it has some great bosses,
most of them are still laughable. The first miniboss isnât even worthy of
being called a boss, the Launch Base Eggman encounter is a joke with the insta-shield,
the Sandopolis miniboss is literally just slowly waiting for him to jump into the quicksand,
and while I like the second boss of Lava Reef and think itâs really unique, itâs a bit
repetitive for my liking. After the third cycle of him eating up the
lava, my mind starts to wander. I do appreciate the effort of giving unique
tracks to the minibosses, major bosses, and final boss. In Sonic 3 Complete you can even use the original
miniboss theme said to be composed by Michael Jackson. Itâs a little⌠weird. Iâd be lying if I said I didnât like it
though. The remixed tracks for each act are all pretty
great as well, though in some cases like Ice Cap Act 2 it just feels like they stripped
away a few of the instruments and what weâre left with is⌠kinda soulless and strange. Sonic 3 is the perfect template for a classic
Sonic game. It has an outer shell thatâs absolutely
solid: multiple playable characters with different advantages, narrative elements that add context
to the adventure, zone transitions that help build Angel Island as cohesive, and a general
zone template that blends speed, platforming, and exploration very well, with two loose
types of more focused, linear stages, and less focused, nonlinear stages. However, this only works as a template, as
an outer crust. I flat out donât like Marble Garden or Sandopolis,
Carnival Night isnât as interesting as Casino Nightâs pinball focus, most of the bosses
suck, the special stages arenât perfect, and it lacks a lot of the fixes that the mobile
ports made to the originals that fixed them fundamentally: lacking a consistent framerate
and widescreen is a huge detriment to the experience, since you donât have nearly
as much time to react to stage hazards or obstacles. Add widescreen and you fix Marble Garden quite
a bit, add a stable framerate and you fix the special stages quite a bit. Sonic 3 Complete gives you an unparalleled
set of options, and thatâs great, but itâs still only the original and that experience,
along with all the other original versions of Classic Sonic, is flawed. Sonic 3 is my favorite original classic sonic
game precisely because itâs the most well-rounded, but I firmly believe that on some level, this
game is a tad overrated. I donât like using that term because it
puts people down that genuinely love the game, and I donât want to do that. I donât want to make it seem like having
a high opinion of Sonic 3 is objectively wrong, because thatâs impossible. Hell, I have a high opinion of Sonic 3, I
just donât see it in the same light as the rest of this community. This game is deified as the best, and sometimes
only great Sonic game, that it somehow did everything right. Whenever you bring up Sonic Adventure 2, for
example, and complain about it, almost always the finger is pointed back to Sonic 3 as if
it had no flaws at all. Clearly, as Iâve outlined, itâs not perfect
and really: raising Sonic 3 as this impossibly high standard for the series may have hurt
it and the community in the long run. People new to the game might play it and feel
the hype blowback when it isnât as godly as it was made out to be, and I definitely
felt that blowback a few years ago. Remember, I started Classic Sonic with a much
more negative mindset, because I didnât give it the time or attention it deserved. After I gave each game a fair shot, multiple
playthroughs and all, it finally clicked with me. I donât love them, but theyâre certainly
speedy 2D platformers and I canât get that experience in many other places. Iâd like to make a call to action: lay off
the 3D games. Look, some of them are terrible, you can go
after Shadow or â06 and itâs not like Iâm gonna go after you for it; however,
Sonic Adventure 2 for example is my favorite Sonic game. Preferences exist, and I understand that,
but the amount of people who vehemently go after the bad parts of SA2 really bother me,
especially if they go on to praise Sonic 3 as if itâs the gold standard. Sonic 3 is great, one of the better Sonic
games for sure, but we seriously need to walk it down a peg. It gets really annoying to talk about Sonic
and hear, âif only we went back to the classics, there was never anything wrong with thoseâ. In fact, there is plenty wrong with classic
sonic: bad visibility, poor framerate, questionable level design, a pisspoor selection of bosses. The great parts of classic sonic shine through,
why canât the great parts of modern sonic? Though I guess Iâll save those thoughts
for my eventual discussion on 3D Sonic. I donât think Iâll jump straight into
Sonic Adventure though. Iâve thought about this for quite a while,
and I think Iâll save a Sonic Mania analysis video for the future. I have a lot of other videos in the works,
one of which may actually be on Sonic funnily enough. For the foreseeable future, this ends my series
retrospective of the mainline Classic Sonic titles. I hope I was able to provide a fair and balanced
critique of the formula, as well as a roadmap for the future. As you can imagine, I think Mania follows
that roadmap more or less faithfully, and Iâm excited for the future of 2D Sonic.
While I disagree with some of his opinions (I happen to love Marble Garden Zone), I think it says a lot that his critique of Sonic 3 is hedged, essentially, by "This is the perfect balance of Sonic elements, and the only missteps are the parts of those where the perfect balance was slightly off or I didn't enjoy them."
That says a LOT about the magnitude of what Sonic 3 accomplished, that the missteps are so minor.
It also helps explain why every title since has been chasing that goal.
He talks a bit at the end about being tired of people comparing every Sonic title to this one, but in his video he's summed up why: Sonic 3 balanced the differing elements of Sonic's design the best. It codified the identity of the series. Meanwhile, the 3D games he mentions? Their identity is completely unfocused--Just look at what Forces' creator had to say about Mania. The 3D games just don't have a cohesive identity to wrap around.
I was with him up until he started saying the game was overrated and people should stop complaining about the 3d games, Sonic Adventure 2 in particular.
I mean, what? Is this dude from a different dimension or something?
I swear I have seen nothing but gushing and endless praise over Adventure 2, lots of people calling it the best Sonic game ever. I don't disagree much there, but damn was that weird and out of nowhere.
I honestly think that if anything, the 3d games are the ones that are kinda overrated. Just look at how long it took for a proper follow up to S3&K to come out. And Sega just kept releasing bad to mediocre Sonic games (with some gems here and there) but none of which were what the fans actually wanted, the classic 2d style + the polish of modern day design... which is exactly what Sonic Mania is, hence the success.
It's just such a weird conclusion to an otherwise excellent analysis. Really strange to see someone objectively analyze something for like 4 videos in a row of 30 minutes each, only to end picking a side and complaining about something that doesn't really happen? I mean, if something like the metacritic scores were lower than they should be or if the mass consensus was that SA2 is a mediocre (or bad) game I would be inclined to agree, but that isn't the case... so yeah, weird.