The Sonic 3 & Knuckles Iceberg Explained

i love sonic 3 and knuckles it's easily one of my top five games of all time loads of great levels three characters with different abilities to play as and a cool story where sonic butts heads with a new rival knuckles the echidna sonic 3 proved to be too ambitious a project so it was split into two separate releases sonic 3 released early 1994 and sonic and knuckles released later that year with revolutionary lock-on technology that allowed you to connect the two together and play the complete adventure in one go a game like sonic 3 and knuckles is perfect for the iceberg format where we take this image of an iceberg littered with sonic fax and explore it fact by fact of course the facts at the surface are pretty well known and the ones in the depths at the bottom are much more obscure and i guarantee there'll be something in here you haven't heard of even if you're a massive sonic 3 knuckles fan so i present the sonic 3 and knuckles iceberg before we start shout out to soccerman612 and bmv277 whose icebergs that were posted on reddit i combined for this video to form the ultimate sonic 3 knuckles iceberg let's get going the barrel of doom the barrel of doom refers to a particular puzzle found in carnival night zone act 2 where the player is required to use a barrel in order to progress the barrel's mechanics went unexplained in the game's instruction manual leading to many players assuming its momentum was controlled by jumping while it is possible to get past the barrel this way it's incredibly difficult the barrel can actually be controlled much more simply by pressing the up and down buttons on the d-pad to make the barrel ascend or descend michael jackson's soundtrack it's been confirmed that michael jackson composed a soundtrack for sonic the hedgehog 3 that went largely unused though samples of jackson's music and possible compositions of his remain intact in the final version of the game the most prominent tracks that have similarities to jackson's music are carnival night zone that uses a sample and the same beat as jam and the ending theme for sonic the hedgehog 3 which bears a striking resemblance to stranger in moscow the reason for jackson being uncredited for his work and the reason for the majority of his work not making it into the final version of the game is a topic that's been chronicled by the d-pad check the description for a link to their video hidden palace mural hidden palace zone contains a large prominent mural that depicts sonic battling dr eggman who has possession of the master emerald the mural is a depiction of the game's secret doomsday zone boss fight suggesting the fight was pre-ordained and prophesized by the former inhabitants of the hidden palace a fan theory puts forward the idea that eggman was able to trick knuckles into believing sonic was the baddie in the game because of the ambiguity of the mural which almost looks like sonic is trying to steal the master emerald from eggman who's acting as its protector some fans have suggested sonic's depiction in the mural bears a resemblance to shadow the hedgehog mcdonald's toys in 1994 italian range of mcdonald's happy meal toys were released including a sonic tails knuckles and dr eggman toy the toy range released a couple of months later in japan with a redesigned eggman toy that looked more like his in-game appearance as opposed to his adventures of sonic the hedgehog cartoon look mcdonald's were also part of the reason why the game was eventually split into two as sega were pressured to meet an early 1994 deadline due to this happy meal licensing deal no way no way this refers to a message that shows on screen when plugging any sonic game other than sonic 2 or sonic 3 into the sonic knuckles cartridge most genesis games grant the ability to play through the sonic 3 knuckles special stages dubbed blue sphere when plugged into the sonic and knuckles cart what's fascinating about this is that there's an astonishing 128 million different blue sphere special stage level layouts in total hydro city sonic statues in hydro city zones sonic statues are sometimes visible in the background if you're able to reach the highest points of the stage it's a neat little visual touch and combined with the hidden palace mural more evidence that sonic's arrival on the floating island was prophesied this little visual touch was also included in sonic mania too hard times rumors persisted for years that icecap zone was one of the stages based off a michael jackson song with a lot of people pointing out similarities between smooth criminal and icecap but those theories turned out to be wrong as capzone was instead based on a song called hard times by obscure 1980s band the jetsons a band that brad buxa who worked on the sonic 3 soundtrack was part of last year the jetsons issued a vinyl release of the song half times featuring ascap zone on the cover a little nod to the sonic connection tiger handheld back in 1994 sonic the hedgehog 3 was released on both the sega genesis and in tiger lcd handheld form it's not very engaging but if you missed out on grabbing it back then the handheld was one of many tiger lcd games re-released in 2020 sonic knuckles collection sonic knuckles collection was a pc compilation game released in 1997 that included sonic the hedgehog 3 sonic and knuckles and the blue sphere game it's most notable for its midi soundtrack and the fact that icecap's own carnival night zone and launch base zone have music that differs from the console release yellow socks due to a graphical glitch knuckles socks appear yellow rather than the intended green in the cut scenes of sonic 3 and knuckles despite being a mistake this look caught on in various forms of media that would go on to portray knuckles with yellow socks for years to come unlike the deep red that was intended knuckles also appears a much more pinkish shade in sonic 3 prompting knuckles to sometimes appear as hot pink rather than red in various forms of comics merchant dice and even in costume form to be honest i kind of like this pink version of knuckles november 3rd 1993 prototype the november 3rd 1993 prototype of sonic 3 is the first and only true prototype version of the game to have been discovered the rom was dumped and made widely available on the internet on november 16 2019 the prototype has a lot of significant differences from the final version of the game and includes abandoned character abilities such as an early version of sonic's drop dash found in sonic mania unused character sprites and animations and different music that would later be repurposed for sonic knuckles collection on pc among other things save screen music glitch there's an interesting music glitch on the sonic 3 save screen if you spend just over 47 minutes on the screen one of the instruments will increase in volume dramatically leading to a distinctly different sounding song original stage order flying battery zone was originally planned to follow carnival night zone and precede icecap zone in the game's original stage order the snowboard that sonic uses at the start of icecap zone was originally going to be a broken hatch door from flying battery gamecom sonic jam sonic jam is a 1998 game released for the black and white tiger electronics handheld system the gamecom the game makes extensive use out of sprites from sonic 3 and knuckles some prototype assets that went unused in sonic 3 knuckles even ended up in this game sonic jam is renowned for being one of the worst sonic games ever released seriously check out a video of it on youtube it looks awful sonic 3k proof of concept sonic 3k proof of concept is a video uploaded by sonic mania developer christian whitehead in 2014 showcasing a build of sonic 3 and knuckles being played on a mobile phone unfortunately the mobile port never went any further than this maybe because of licensing issues regarding the game's soundtrack though we don't know for sure angel island is the island on which most of sonic 3 knuckles takes place and it's inspired by a real-life island in california what's confusing is that angel island may more commonly be known as the floating island in some regions such as the uk where it was always referred to as the floating island in sonic the comic it's just another regional naming difference like dr eggman versus dr robotnik that's gone on to cause some confusion amongst fans it's especially confusing because angel island zone is also the first level of the game so effectively angel island is simultaneously both the first zone of the game and also the name of the entire island that the majority of the game takes place on except for sky sanctuary and death egg zone which are floating above the island itself spring replaced with one up sonic 3 and knuckles and sonic 3 vanilla or sonic 3 without knuckles contain a number of notable differences most noticeably several music tracks including the game's mini boss and credits theme are altered when sonic 3 is locked on to sonic and knuckles a few sonic 3 zones also have some mini changes making them generally easier than in sonic 3 vanilla one example is this spring at the beginning of hydrocity zone act 2 that's replaced with a nice friendly one up instead sonic and garfield the sonic and garfield pack is a 1999 pc compilation game that includes the sonic and knuckles collection garfield caught in the act and a puzzle game called baku baku animal the game has resulted in some pretty funny fan art being made but that's it really the two characters haven't really interacted beyond this game as far as i know which is a shame macy's thanksgiving day parade in 1993 to promote the release of sonic 3 sega of america sponsored the creation of a sonic balloon for the annual macy's thanksgiving day parade making sonic the first video game character to appear in the parade unfortunately the sonic balloon was the victim of strong winds it crashed into a lamp post knocking out the bulb and sonic ended up deflated in the process the broken lamppost injured a man and a young girl sonic would have a much more successful parade in 1994 which went off without a hitch knuckle's story takes place after sonic's story have you ever wondered about whether sonic and knuckles adventure takes place concurrently or not i guess it's fairly evident that they don't take place at the same time because when you play through his knuckles you never interact with sonic but what's cool is that the game is littered with clues to suggest that knuckles story takes place after sonics the evidence is baked into levels for example the ghosts are already loose and released from their capsule in sandopolis zone an event that we see happen when playing through the game as sonic in launch based zone the death egg that's present in the background when playing a sonic isn't there for knuckles there's many more examples that you might miss if you just play through the game casually but it shows a nice attention to detail blue knuckles probably sonic 3 and knuckles is most famous pallet glitch it's possible to play as a blue version of knuckles by using a game genie code blue knuckles is really just knuckles with sonic's color palettes because you can see he retains sonic's name and portrait in the bottom left of the screen strangely when completing a level blue knuckles is referred to as tails interestingly you don't have to use a game genie to get a glimpse of blue knuckles pause the game at the right time after passing an end of level signpost in sonic 3 and you can see him there too hydro city pronunciation have you always called sonic 3's second zone hydro city like i have or maybe you've called it something else the sonic community has suggested two possible pronunciations for the zone hydro city or hydrocity some fans have even suggested other ways of pronouncing the zone which pronunciation is the correct one has never been explicitly confirmed by sega but it completely blew my mind to learn that not everybody pronounced it hydro city sonic knuckles 5 sonic knuckles 5 is one of many bootleg sonic games released for the nes sonic knuckles 5 has a nifty 8-bit interpretation of the sonic and knuckles title screen with the music and all but the actual game is a version of the original sonic the hedgehog with no knuckles in sight get blue balls get blue spheres is the message that pops up when a special stage is entered in the game however originally the spheres were referred to as balls and in development the special stage introductory message read get blue balls which was changed for the obviously sexual nature of the message and i'm not going to explain that any further broken super emeralds in sonic 3 and knuckles once the player has collected all seven chaos emeralds they can continue to enter the special stages and transform each chaos emerald into a super emerald super emeralds were added to the game to give players something extra to collect and collecting them allows the player to transform into hypersonic hyperknuckles and super tails it's since been confirmed that the super emeralds will not return in any future installments making them exclusive to sonic 3 and knuckles and the super emeralds along with hypersonic hyperknuckles and super tails are presumably not canon now it seems like they reappear in sonic mania in the hidden power zone section of knuckles adventure but christian whitehead has explained on twitter that the broken looking super emeralds in sonic mania are in fact just stone replicas rankles the otter is a hoax character created by the uk version of sega magazine the magazine published an article claiming there was a secret unlockable character called rankles the otter in the game and offered a one million pound prize to the first fan to send in a photograph of rankles the article itself stated that rankles was fictional and a joke character but what's kind of interesting is that several readers sent the magazine screenshots of green glitched knuckles prompting the magazine to publish an article explaining how to achieve the green knuckles glitch and stating that this glitched knuckles was not rankles the clever fans didn't get their 1 million pounds run dmc while michael jackson's involvement in sonic 3 is relatively well known samples of other musicians also found their way into the finished product there are voice samples of norman cook and james brown that appear in the sonic 3 mini boss theme and there's a run dmc sample that appears in the launch base zone theme knuckles is a mole in the original japanese version of the 1996 sonic the hedgehog anime knuckles is a mole not an echidna in the movie knuckles is seen in a whack-a-mole parody scene he is referred to as mr mole by sarah and on the character bio section of the western dvd release of the movie knuckles is once again referred to as a mole what gives well at one point in the sonic 3 development process sega did toy with the idea of knuckles being a mole but landed on him being an echidna instead i guess not everyone got the memo scott pilgrim's favorite game there's an awful lot of references to sonic 3 and knuckles in the scott pilgrim series of comic books in one volume scott can be seen wearing a sonic knuckles t-shirt in another scene scott can be seen playing the game sandopolis zone act 2 specifically and in another scott phones roommate wallace to ask for the sonic 3 cheat code also one of scott's earlier bands was literally called sonic and knuckles and unlike in the movie sonic gets mentioned more than any other game which might suggest that sonic 3 knuckles is scott pilgrim's favorite game so if it's your favorite game you're in good company eggman replaces egg robo as flying battery boss this is an interesting little one when you play as knuckles your main antagonist is egg robo a robotic version of eggman in flying battery zone though knuckles faces eggman rather than egg robo this is because the flying battery boss uses a unique front-on sprite of eggman's face that the team seemingly didn't prepare for egg robo 2 there's no law significance here as far as i know and by the way occasionally knuckles is able to battle eggman instead of egg robo in mushroom hill zone due to a graphical glitch as well [Music] humans in sonic 3. until sonic 3 dr eggman was the only known human character in the sonic game universe but both marble garden zone and sandopolis zone contain decoration depicting humans officially knuckles is the remnant of a long-lost civilization of echidnas who built the hidden palace on angel island to host the master emerald and chaos emeralds but what role did humans play in the history of angel island and what was their relationship with echidnas sonic adventure is the game that's thought of as introducing humans to the world of sonic but maybe they were always there dragon ball z connections it's pretty well known that there are plenty of similarities between the sonic and dragon ball z franchises least of all the sparkly golden super forms that both sonic and the saiyans can achieve but did you know that one specific element of sonic 3 and knuckles was directly inspired by dragon ball z can you guess what it was well the globe-shaped 3d mini worlds that the special stages take place in take inspiration from king kai's little planet in dragon ball z sega sonic bros the blue sphere special stage music is a piece of music written by yoshiaki kashima that's actually recycled from an earlier cancelled 1992 arcade game sega sonic bros where the piece is played in levels 40-49 and 90-99 so at the very least we know that music didn't come from michael jackson prototype knuckles prototype knuckles refers to an image of a really strange looking version of knuckles that can be found on the internet when it's posted online it's often falsely described as a prototype version of knuckles actually the image originates from uk-based sonic xs magazine whose artists not sega made this weird image the 1993 prototype of sonic 3 does contain a slightly different prototype knuckles who has a bit of a more pronounced brow marxio brothers the marxio brothers are a trio of villainous electricians that appear in the british sonic the comic in the comic the brothers are the ones responsible for the building and management of carnival night zone the marxio brothers are a mashup parody of the marx brothers comedy act and the super mario brothers the marxian brothers also have their own in-comic video game that sonic can be seen playing though he isn't a fan killing eggman it's actually possible to defeat and kill dr eggman without the use of debug mode or anything like that there's a little section of launch based zone where eggman appears and doesn't fly away until sonic lands on the platform next to him if you play as sonic and tails you can keep sonic bouncing on the spring and use tails to jump and damage eggman from the platform above after 256 hits eggman will explode and release a little animal nike deal while knuckles was being designed sega were in the middle of working out a merchandising deal with nike as part of the deal the white swoosh on knuckles chest was going to have been a nike tick though the merchandising deal eventually fell through the white crescent remained this fact was made widely known by did you know gaming but this particular rumor has never been directly confirmed or denied by anyone associated with the game as far as i know the best evidence we have although it's vague comes from an interview with sonic 3 artist yuda takahashi who said under knuckles neck there's a mark that looks like that of a moon bear though we didn't come to an agreement we were thinking about a collaboration with a certain shoe manufacturer that mark is the remnant of that collaboration red sonic in 2012 a sonic stadium forum user called oblivion the hog uploaded a portuguese magazine scan of an early version of sonic 3 featuring a red hedgehog called dreads in place of knuckles the scans convinced some users but the red sonic turned out to be an elaborate but effective and memorable hoax eggman made the sandopolis guardian so this one refers to the sandopolis zone act one miniboss a stone guardian who protects sandopolis pyramid this guy doesn't look like a typical eggman creation but he might actually be think about it for starters even though he can't be defeated by conventional means when the player forces him to jump into the sinking sand he nonetheless explodes like eggman's other creations also takashi izuka in the guidebook for sonic jam described the ghosts inside sandopolus pyramid as the first enemies who weren't made by eggman suggesting that maybe the guardian was an elaborate eggman creation knuckles is jamaican knuckles was originally designed with the nation of jamaica in mind owing to his dreadlocks and the colour scheme of his shoes which are inspired by rastafarian colours knuckles was also planned to have a jamaican accent according to official sources though in what piece of media exactly is unknown and obviously this never happened interestingly in certain comics and books however remnants of knuckles jamaican origin remains as he occasionally uses the jamaican word mon when speaking space ghost lost episode in a 1994 episode of space ghost coast to coast space ghost can be seen playing the game and fighting against knuckles in hidden palace zone due to legal reasons because the footage of music being used was without the permission of sega the episode with this sonic snippet has been left out of subsequent dvd releases of the series making it something of a lost episode of space ghost though it remains widely accessible on the internet hidden katakana tiles in slot machine bonus stage in sonic and knuckles as a slot machine bonus level some hidden messages in japanese katakana script have been uncovered as being hidden placeholders for the three slots this katakana is actually a japanese buddhist poem called irohan the text isn't as weird as it sounds and there isn't really any deeper buddhist significance here as the aroha poem is quite often used as placeholder text in japanese it's not exclusive to sonic and knuckles sonic exe sonic exe is a viral creepypasta horror game in which a black and red-eyed version of sonic hunts down and kills tails knuckles and dr eggman it's pretty well known this is a bit of a long shot but one of the many palette glitches that can be achieved in sonic 3 sees sonic eyes turn a similar black and red and his gloves turn a blood red too did this obscure palette glitch inspire one of the most well-known creepypasta games of all time probably not but it's kind of fun to think so seinfeld and sonic 3 universe connection i think this one refers to one episode of seinfeld where the crew visits champagne video store when it's decorated with a whole bunch of sega genesis games including sonic the hedgehog 3 which is a pretty neat cameo samsung sonic so this one's a strange one that isn't really discussed very often samsung sonic refers to a strange one-off version of sonic that appeared briefly in a korean magazine advert a little background on this one first due to historical tension between japan and south korea it wasn't easy for japanese companies to sell electronic goods in korea in the 1980s and 90s so the sega genesis was repackaged by samsung over in korea as the super aladdin boy the korean version of sonic 3 is pretty much the same as other regions but the box art differs and samsung were responsible for the game's advertising a strange image of sonic with a large mouse-like nose and blue arms has been uncovered in an advert in a 1994 korean gaming magazine titled gamechan accompanied with a hangul version of the sonic 3 logo which is also quite rare as the logo was rarely localized into other countries scripts the text below this strange sonic simply reads samsung game software suggesting sonic may have briefly been appropriated by samsung though we currently don't know any further context about this strange apparition castle in the sky connection castle in the sky is a 1986 animated fantasy adventure film written and directed by legendary hayao miyasaki of studio ghibli fame the film bears a number of striking resemblances to sonic 3 and knuckles most prominently both pieces center around a floating island elevated into the sky by a powerful gemstone beyond that several levels and even set pieces such as sky sanctuary's destruction at the hands of the death egg appeared to be heavily inspired by parallel settings and scenes from the castle in the sky though this connection has never been officially confirmed sonic creator yuji naka is a noted miyasaki fan seizures seizures refers to a long-running rumor that certain aspects of sonic 3 knuckles contains epileptic caesar inducing visuals this is often used as an explanation as to why hypersonic has never reappeared in subsequent sonic games because of the fast rapid pace of his color changes is this true well reports of game induced seizures can be found online dating from the early 1990s but often the exact game in question is omitted and i've not been able to find anything mentioning sonic 3 and knuckles specifically though sonic the hedgehog as a series does get mentioned still hypersonic causing seizures has become a common joke online and for what it's worth the game grumps of all people added a seizure warning in their playthrough of sonic 3 and knuckles due to the bonus stage chaos in sonic 3. now this is one of my favorite theories of all time chaos in sonic 3 refers to a theory that chaos a monster who appeared in sonic adventure was originally planned to appear in sonic 3 and knuckles the primary evidence for this is mtv sega rock the rock a special sonic knuckles teaser broadcast consisting of a competition where gamers would have the chance to competitively play sonic and knuckles for the first time inside alcatraz prison more interestingly than that the special also shows a few behind-the-scenes clips of the development team's offices with one wall in the office being plastered with concept art eagle-eyed fans have pointed out that one piece of art seems to depict a dragon-like creature battling supersonic a creature that looks like an early concept for perfect chaos the final boss of sonic adventure now the image is very obscured but it looks pretty convincing the idea that chaos as a character was in development as early as 1993 is further corroborated by the japanese manual for sonic 3 that mentions knuckles mistaking the death egg for some sort of prophesized legendary dragon egg and there we have it the depths of the iceberg fully explored i'm sure there are plenty plenty more weird and obscure nuggets of knowledge about sonic 3 and knuckles if you know anything interesting let me know in the comments i'd love to hear it at this point i'd like to recommend two videos cyber shells sonic 3 bonus video and the d-pad's michael jackson video for more sonic 3 knuckles facts oh and also mish causes mario 64 iceberg of course and my obscure sonic games video too alright that's all i've got thanks for watching and like and subscribe if you enjoyed this journey see you next time

Channel: Johnny Vector

Views: 265,809

Keywords: iceberg, iceberg explained, sonic iceberg, the sonic iceberg, the sonic iceberg explained, the sonic iceberg 2, the sonic 3 iceberg, sonic 3 iceberg, iceberg meme, iceberg template, iceberg video, youtube iceberg, sonic 3 & knuckles, sonic the hedgehog iceberg, sonic the hedgehog, sonic 3 & knuckles iceberg, the sonic 3 & knuckles iceberg, the sonic the hedgehog iceberg, the sonic the hedgehog iceberg explained, sonic, mario 64 iceberg, mario 64 iceberg explained

Id: DBasAC55zrs

Length: 30min 55sec (1855 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021