Sonic The Hedgehog 3 - Sega Genesis Review

[Music] there is no question that the appearance of sega's little blue blur helped reshape the genesis platform into a bonafide contender for nintendo at least in the us and europe sonic 1 and 2 had been massive sales success stories there bringing in millions of dollars in profits and making sure the genesis and mega drive markets were here to stay so when it became clear that sega intended to make a part 3 it was a surprise to no one but like the company itself the behind the scenes story is just as interesting as the quality of the final product in this episode we are gonna touch on some of those legends and take a look at some of my opinions on the game itself i hope you guys enjoy my review of sonic 3. [Music] if you recall sonic 2 ends with the death egg crashing into the atmosphere in spectacular fashion sonic and tails had won and the evil dr robotnik had been foiled again but as the death egg descended into the oceans below it actually crashed into angel island a floating landmass that was home to knuckles its lone guardian dr robotnik quickly moves to scheme and confused the newcomer making him think that sonic and tails are the ones responsible for the island's new troubles knuckles sets to action attacking the heroic duo as they make landfall and so our adventure begins the earliest days of sonic 3's development actually intended for it to be a 3d isometric game that used sega's virtual processor the add-on chip that eventually got used in the genesis version of virtual racing it was to be called sonic 3d but with the development of the svp running behind sonic team needed to completely rethink the project returning it to a standard side-scrolling action title those initial ideas are what would go on to eventually become sonic 3d blast with sonic team wanting to still make the third game something different and special they decided it would be a much larger adventure than the previous two entries with a deeper story more robust gameplay mechanics and vastly superior visuals upon initial inspection sonic 3 is definitely a much larger feeling game stages are huge with tons of nooks and crannies to explore and it's not just filled with the vanilla loops that dominated the previous games here sonic has zip lines to ride ropes to swing on and tons of different platforms to help him get around a level the 10 minute time limit is in effect and i've run it out completely on more than one occasion while still looking around sonic team also wanted to deepen the gameplay a bit which resulted in the shield from the previous games being expanded and upgraded you get your standard spin dash of course but now you get three distinctive shields that not only protect you but also add abilities to help you out even more the flame shield keeps fire attacks from damaging you and adds the awesome fireball spin dash this allows you to jump and perform an air attack by pressing the jump button again the water shield allows you to breathe underwater and bounce for additional height this bounce can also be used as an attack the lightning shield protects you from electric based attacks and gives you the ability to double jump by pressing jump again in the air as a bonus this shield also has a magnetic property that picks up nearby rings also new to sonic 3 is the insta shield which allows you a brief boost to attack radius in the air and gives you a second of invincibility it's essentially your special move when you don't have any of the shield powers of course sonic also has access to his usual assortment of items within each level there are 1-ups to be found invincibilities and monitors to give you 10 rings at once there's also the heinous robotnik monitor that powers you down as if taking damage from an enemy there's also two types of secondary stages that you can play in sonic 3 the first is a special stage where you collect chaos emeralds this is a pseudo 3d sphere like area where you must collect the blue orbs collect them all and get a chaos emerald some of these are really challenging until you learn the layout there's also a bonus stage where you collect gumballs to score additional lives rings and power offs sonic 3 also has numerous options you can choose for this new adventure you can opt to play as sonic alone sonic and tails together or just plain old tales by his lonesome unlike sonic 2 however tails can actually fly in this one by tapping the jump button repeatedly also new is a save system that allows you to pick up your game on the last zone you were playing interestingly a look at the pcb reveals no battery like many of the other cartridges that could save back then and as one of the first games i had ever seen to use an f ram solution where sonic 2 had aimed to perfect the formula from the first sonic 3 was trying for something much deeper larger and more impressive [Music] sonic 3 also has a few competitive multiplayer options should you be interested you can race against a friend in five completely new zones or practice them in a time attack option along with the new zones comes new music animations and dangers you can choose to race with or without monitors it doesn't have the squashed look of the last game so the visuals come off better too you can choose sonic tails or knuckles for these races as well not the deepest multiplayer out there but a great distraction from the single player story [Music] the sonic titles have always enjoyed a great look and feel to its visuals they've been colorful the backgrounds are always loaded with parallax scrolling and it's among the faster platformers you could play back then sonic 3 continues that while adding some great detail that really gives it a distinctive feel there's animation here that goes well beyond the first two entries and the colors enjoy more shading and variation per stage i mean it just compare sonic 1 with sonic 3 here on the first stage look at how much simpler the art is in the original game there's just so much more going on in sonic 3. this goes for your power ups as well your shields have great animation as do their secondary powers there's just an overall feeling that so much more is happening in the presentation stage by stage things get better and better we go from beautiful green slopes to an arctic wasteland and sonic's finest looking adventure at that point these improvements are punctuated by an incredible snowboarding segment where sonic pulls a strider and some pretty incredible line scrolling effects in the second half of the game sega had doubled sonic 2's 8 megabits for sonic 3 making sure that some of the space was used for better graphics it was and sonic 3 is easily one of the platform's better looking games [Music] [Applause] [Music] the history of sonic 3 sound and music is truly fascinating having worked with michael jackson before numerous sources have confirmed that he helped sega make the music in this game the story gets pretty muddy as to the exact details because the work went uncredited due to jackson's molestation charges that popped up around the same time whether he contributed a little a lot or none at all sonic 3 soundtrack is pretty damn good each theme for the zones is radically different from one another and there are multiple versions of that tune for each act but as much as i enjoy it i consider sonic 2 soundtrack superior while you will enjoy what's here just fine there isn't anything nearly as memorable as the best of parts one and two here's a bit from each zone so you can make the call for yourselves [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i want to be up front here and say there is not a lot to dislike about sonic 3. if you have enjoyed these games before the third adventure is solid and well worth taking the only real blemish is that it feels unfinished and that's because it was as sonic team's time began to wind down they knew in order to make the february 1994 launch they'd need to cut the game in half and release sonic 3 as basically a part one of two upon beating sonic 3 you are met to what amounts to a cliffhanger and are left with no real resolution this is where sonic and knuckles comes in released only 8 months after sonic 3 it's the second half of the game in the real ending so in order to get the full sonic 3 experience you need to use the lachlan technology and put the two together for full-fledged adventure it's not a problem now that we have images and hacks that bring the two together from the get-go but back then you were paying a hundred dollars to see everything sonic 3 had to offer i also began to get a little bit tired of the lack of enemies in the late game your challenge here revolves around the navigation of the stages themselves and enemies take a backseat as any real threat to you the bosses are kinda weak too i was really hoping that by the time the third sonic showed up we'd have both stages and enemies that were worthy of my time of course the good still outweighs the bad quite a bit here this is a great looking and sounding game with huge levels and by the time you add sonic and knuckles the experience is almost too big for one game the saved game really helps in this regard and you can put in some serious time to see everything it has to offer the multiplayer of course adds even more to that content and you can always play the story mode together with a friend as well bottom line if you enjoy the sonic games this is about as robust and refined in experience as you'll find with sega's mascot [Music] [Music] [Music] some of you may be wondering why i chose to review sonic 3 alone well it's because it was released before sonic and knuckles so i played it all by itself all those years ago i wanted you to judge sonic 3 as i originally judged sonic 3. did it do enough on its own to be called a classic i think it does and fans of the franchise should definitely give it a try it looks better than the previous two games has more to do and once you know the layouts of the levels you can really keep the speed up sonic had been a pretty important part of the genesis success story in much of the world and the quality seemed to stay high with each and every release and that's saying something because i consider sonic 2 to be one hell of a good game the only area i wanted to see changed was the importance of the enemies being a bigger deal in the stage design so much of this feels empty of any real challenge outside of surviving the environment obstacles and it had been that way for quite some time still with gameplay that was fast and responsive sonic 3 is definitely one of the best platformers on the genesis and well worth the praise it received both then and now its reissues have slowed down in recent years presumably because of the michael jackson music thing but you can still get it on steam for a fiver and it includes all the extra content of sonic and knuckles i have always considered sonic 2 and 3 the high points of this series and i still feel that way today they are both easy recommendations to anyone interested in the genesis library i'm single lord x thank you guys for watching and i will catch you next time [Music] you

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 83,306

Keywords: sonic the hedgehog, sonic 3 & knuckles, sonic 3, segalordx, sega lord x, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, game gear, 32x, mega cd, genesis, saturn, master system, sega, sega cd, gameplay, review, movies, retro games, retro gaming, video games, ps4, xbox, wii, nintendo, gamecube, n64, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, vita, switch, atari

Id: 5CE007Tj1C0

Length: 15min 48sec (948 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 20 2021