(Part 3 of 5)

As I have previously mentioned, during development of Sonic 3, the game had to be split in half in order for Sega to meet deadlines with their releases, and out of this decision, we got two completely separate games: Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and Sonic & Knuckles. This decision did make both of these games seem a bit lacking in terms of content, but thankfully… there was a way to remedy this situation. See, while Sonic & Knuckles is still a fully original game that you can play all by itself, it is also a game with a lock-on feature, where you can take any other Sega Genesis title and plop it right on top of Sonic & Knuckles while in the system, making it look like some sort of inbred monster. For the most part, most Sega Genesis titles don’t really give you anything new or special from doing this (aside from one thing that I will get to later), but, whenever you put Sonic 3 onto it, you are able to finally play the true, definitive version of Sonic 3, which is comically referred to as Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles.

For all the years that I have been playing this game, THIS is the version that I have always stuck to, whether it be for just a regular run or for a 100% run, and honestly, why wouldn’t I? Given the fact that this is a thing, there really isn’t any reason to go back and play through the original versions, unless you wanna see all of the little details those games had compared to this, which are interesting to see, but let’s be real here: THIS is the only version of Sonic 3 that you ever need to play. So, with that in mind, I can confidently say that this is, without a doubt, one of the best games in the entire series, and quite possibly the best game you could possibly find on the Sega Genesis. Sure, it’s not my favorite Sonic game, and it doesn’t necessarily fix some of the smaller issues I have about the game, but as a whole, it not only brings these two games together to make one big, wonderful package to blaze through, but it adds just that little bit extra to make it all worthwhile.

Once again, for the most part, not too much about the game has changed, as all the graphics, music, the story, control, and gameplay remains the same, running at that consistent quality you come to expect from these titles, but this time around, some things are now altered to fit the experience more. From the start of the game, you can now play as Knuckles, and you can play through all the levels as him, from Angel Island all the way to The Doomsday Zone, so that is pretty cool. In addition, several of the levels have new layouts for the sake of having these new characters to play as, you go right from Launch Base to Mushroom Hill whenever you beat that level, and you can now play as Tails in all of the S&K levels, so that is pretty cool for those of you big Tails fans out there.

The biggest change made between this and the original versions, however, would have to be with the Chaos Emeralds. As per usual, you collect them in the same manner that you would in the original Sonic 3 and S&K, and you can still turn into Super Sonic, but you don’t get to do so forever. Once you reach Mushroom Hill Zone, all of your Chaos Emeralds are now gone, and you are now forced to go looking around for new Special Rings in order to get them back. Only this time, once you go inside one of these rings, you are taken to Hidden Palace Zone, where you will be tasked with getting one of the seven Super Emeralds… which are essentially just the Chaos Emeralds, except bigger and more powerful. You do this by playing through the special stages from S&K, and once you manage to get all of them, you are then given the ultimate reward: the ability to turn into Hyper Sonic… which is essentially Super Sonic, except now you can do a screen nuke attack, and you can give people seizures! So that’s fun.

Sonic doesn’t get to hog all the god-like fun for himself though, as Tails and Knuckles can also get their own super forms from doing this as well, which is pretty great to see, especially since Tails didn’t even get his own super form in the original Sonic 3. For the most part, these forms are pretty similar to that of Hyper Sonic, so there isn’t much difference to be found here, with the exception of Super Tails, who not only has all of those previously mentioned qualities, but he can also summon an army of birds to help him out. Once again, I don’t particularly play as Tails or Knuckles in this game, but for those that do, getting these rewards is pretty great if you enjoy these characters more then Sonic, and they can also be even more helpful, such as the aforementioned bird army Tails has, which is able to annihilate bosses.

Overall, despite not adding too much new content, or changing anything in the game too drastically, Sonic 3 & Knuckles manages to do what it sets out to do, and as a result, creates not just one of the best games on the Sega Genesis, but also one of the best Sonic games of all time. It is one of my personal favorite games in the series (previously my favorite), and it has so many fantastic qualities to it that are still fun to go back and revisit all the way to this day, even after 30 years. I would absolutely recommend this version of the game alone, for those who loved the original versions, or for those who are just Sonic fans in general, because if you somehow haven’t played this version of the game, then you have clearly been missing out for all these years. By the way, you wanna know why Sonic 3 was initially sliced in half during development? Like, the actual, concrete reason why? It’s because Sega wanted the game to be released alongside a Happy Meal toy line that was gonna be released with McDonald’s… I’m fucking serious, look it up, it’s so dumb.

Update #7