As a 90s child of a Nintendo household, my life has been one long struggle to break Nintendo Official Magazine's mental hate-conditioning against Sonic the Hedgehog. I've played plenty of Sonic games, of course - every early GameCube adopter on the planet was, at some point, forced to pick up Sonic Adventure 2: Battle to combat the console's early games drought, and since then I've played everything from Sonic Spinball to Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 to Sonic: Dark Brotherhood. But for some reason, I've never fully understood Sonic the Hedgehog's special intrinsic appeal to so many people around the world. I know grown men in their thirties and forties who still hold a bright burning blue flame for Sonic, despite the fact most of his games are straight-up pure bad rubbish and your life would have been better off if you'd never played them. They are otherwise normal men who have hidden vaults of Sonic OCs, tattoos, memorabilia and comic books. I know a guy with a mortgage and a car who cried at the Sonic Mania reveal trailer. I know another guy who involuntarily yelled "OH WOW! FUCK!!" at the intro to last year's Sonic the Hedgehog movie, much to my embarrassment and the anger of nearby parents who had brought their kids. What is it about this Sonic the Hedgehog guy that speaks to the hearts of men?
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, like the titular character's reputation, is something has always eluded and confused me. Whenever I've picked up a £5 Sonic Super Collection or Good Ol' Genesis Games Bundle or whatever, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles has always been absent or semi-hamstrung in some way, and I've missed out on yet another opportunity to play it and go "ohhh man, this one track was totally by Michael Jackson!" or look up some cool trivia about Sandopolis Zone on the Sonic Wiki. What is the deal with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 "& Knuckles" anyway? I still don't totally understand how Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and & Knuckles co-exist as one entity. It was a cartridge you stuck on another cartridge and it added a bunch of levels and Knuckles? But it was standalone? And it could go into Sonic the Hedgehog 2 too? Or was that its own thing? Ahhhh! It's really confusing - even for a guy who understands cryptic games-tech-marketing horrors like the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak and the Nintendo 3D Dual Screen Circle Pad Pro. The Mega Drive is such a wild plastic beast.
Anyway. I finally played and beat Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. Kinda by accident. I recently discovered that the Sega Mega Drive Collection on PC has official mod support - Sega and/or the contractor they hired to make the collection implemented a handy little in-game loader for fan mods, which Steam workshop users have inevitably hijacked and allowed you to play whatever Sega Mega Drive ROMs you want inside Sega/D2's emulator. I played a bunch of Castlevania: Bloodlines for free! In an officially licensed Sega product! It's nifty! Anyway, anyway. While using that loader to play a Streets of Rage 2 mod that lets you play as any enemy in the game, I realised I'd been sitting on Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles for approximately 10 years on Steam and I decided to finally play Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. It's funny how this shit goes. Games licensing is fucking hell!
Having now played and completed Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, I have now realised that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles may be one the keys I need to decrypting the mystique of Sonic the Hedgehog's appeal. The main thing I took away from this game is that Sonic is cool. Sonic the Hedgehog had a little bit of attitude and flair in Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, Sonic the Hedgehog is in his absolute top form of cool. Sonic the Hedgehog smirks, Sonic the Hedgehog wags his little Mickey Mouse finger, Sonic the Hedgehog points at pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog like "Oh? Him? That's me. Sonic the Hedgehog.". That's cool. He abseils, he grinds, he drives around in a little spaceship. That's even cooler. Perhaps Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is the genesis of these men who cry about Sonic the Hedgehog? I'm one step closer to understanding...
Anyway, anyway, anyway. The game itself! Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles! It's good. Even when I was a kid, I was always kinda aware that Mario and Sonic invariably went against their own reputations and natures - Mario games focused on, and even rewarded, speedy, quick-thinking play; while Sonic games often slowed the player down to a dead end and asked them to solve problems or explore their terrain in way that Mario didn't really care about doing. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is the maximal form of that "Sonic is slow and he does puzzles" philosophy, best epitomised by the infamous Casino Carnival Clusterfuck Zone's up-down barrel. It's exciting, in a way, to think your way through a problem with Sonic's fairly limited move-set, but inevitably it comes into conflict with an urge to see Sonic the Hedgehog go really fast and zip up and down ramps and shit. Dying to a timeout rather than an enemy or a pit or Dr. Robotnik tastes so sour! Some acts go on way too long, and some zones unnecessarily drag the length out of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles to proportions that don't really fit a game about going fast. Which of these stages are Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and which ones are & Knuckles? I have no idea. It's all one big blue blur.
At this point in the review, I was going to go on a big tirade about how the game's limited screen estate makes a lot of the fun-running frustrating, as enemies and obstacles often appear out of nowhere. But as it turns out, there's already a really good fan mod of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles called Sonic 3 A.I.R. that adds widescreen support, and Sega themselves are re-releasing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles in widescreen soon too. So now I look like this: https://picon.ngfiles.com/743000/flash_743809_card.png?f1601004175
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, like the titular character's reputation, is something has always eluded and confused me. Whenever I've picked up a £5 Sonic Super Collection or Good Ol' Genesis Games Bundle or whatever, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles has always been absent or semi-hamstrung in some way, and I've missed out on yet another opportunity to play it and go "ohhh man, this one track was totally by Michael Jackson!" or look up some cool trivia about Sandopolis Zone on the Sonic Wiki. What is the deal with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 "& Knuckles" anyway? I still don't totally understand how Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and & Knuckles co-exist as one entity. It was a cartridge you stuck on another cartridge and it added a bunch of levels and Knuckles? But it was standalone? And it could go into Sonic the Hedgehog 2 too? Or was that its own thing? Ahhhh! It's really confusing - even for a guy who understands cryptic games-tech-marketing horrors like the Nintendo 64 Expansion Pak and the Nintendo 3D Dual Screen Circle Pad Pro. The Mega Drive is such a wild plastic beast.
Anyway. I finally played and beat Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. Kinda by accident. I recently discovered that the Sega Mega Drive Collection on PC has official mod support - Sega and/or the contractor they hired to make the collection implemented a handy little in-game loader for fan mods, which Steam workshop users have inevitably hijacked and allowed you to play whatever Sega Mega Drive ROMs you want inside Sega/D2's emulator. I played a bunch of Castlevania: Bloodlines for free! In an officially licensed Sega product! It's nifty! Anyway, anyway. While using that loader to play a Streets of Rage 2 mod that lets you play as any enemy in the game, I realised I'd been sitting on Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles for approximately 10 years on Steam and I decided to finally play Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles. It's funny how this shit goes. Games licensing is fucking hell!
Having now played and completed Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, I have now realised that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles may be one the keys I need to decrypting the mystique of Sonic the Hedgehog's appeal. The main thing I took away from this game is that Sonic is cool. Sonic the Hedgehog had a little bit of attitude and flair in Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, Sonic the Hedgehog is in his absolute top form of cool. Sonic the Hedgehog smirks, Sonic the Hedgehog wags his little Mickey Mouse finger, Sonic the Hedgehog points at pictures of Sonic the Hedgehog like "Oh? Him? That's me. Sonic the Hedgehog.". That's cool. He abseils, he grinds, he drives around in a little spaceship. That's even cooler. Perhaps Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is the genesis of these men who cry about Sonic the Hedgehog? I'm one step closer to understanding...
Anyway, anyway, anyway. The game itself! Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles! It's good. Even when I was a kid, I was always kinda aware that Mario and Sonic invariably went against their own reputations and natures - Mario games focused on, and even rewarded, speedy, quick-thinking play; while Sonic games often slowed the player down to a dead end and asked them to solve problems or explore their terrain in way that Mario didn't really care about doing. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is the maximal form of that "Sonic is slow and he does puzzles" philosophy, best epitomised by the infamous Casino Carnival Clusterfuck Zone's up-down barrel. It's exciting, in a way, to think your way through a problem with Sonic's fairly limited move-set, but inevitably it comes into conflict with an urge to see Sonic the Hedgehog go really fast and zip up and down ramps and shit. Dying to a timeout rather than an enemy or a pit or Dr. Robotnik tastes so sour! Some acts go on way too long, and some zones unnecessarily drag the length out of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles to proportions that don't really fit a game about going fast. Which of these stages are Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and which ones are & Knuckles? I have no idea. It's all one big blue blur.
At this point in the review, I was going to go on a big tirade about how the game's limited screen estate makes a lot of the fun-running frustrating, as enemies and obstacles often appear out of nowhere. But as it turns out, there's already a really good fan mod of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles called Sonic 3 A.I.R. that adds widescreen support, and Sega themselves are re-releasing Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles in widescreen soon too. So now I look like this: https://picon.ngfiles.com/743000/flash_743809_card.png?f1601004175
11 Comments
i've seen more than one review on here mention that they were "surprised" by what Sonic 3 is! i include myself in that camp! i always assumed it was more Sonic 2 and that the Knuckles thing was.... a thing that let you play as knuckles? shame it doesn't seem to have the same legacy as Super Mario Bros 3 but i guess thats the caveat of having your game stuck in a copyrights hell
after thinking about this while writing the review, i asked one of my Sonic Friends about the "why is sonic cool?" vibe and they suggested it may be as much down to Sega's marketing, the cartoon and Sonic the Comic as anything that's actually inside the game. as someone who didnt "grow up" with Sonic, this may be why i struggle to gleam his cool aura just from the games...
after thinking about this while writing the review, i asked one of my Sonic Friends about the "why is sonic cool?" vibe and they suggested it may be as much down to Sega's marketing, the cartoon and Sonic the Comic as anything that's actually inside the game. as someone who didnt "grow up" with Sonic, this may be why i struggle to gleam his cool aura just from the games...
As nutty as the dual-cart gimmick is, you're definitely right that it presents some strangeness to the structure of the game. I've always preferred to view S3 and S&K as two shorter (and as a result, better) games, but I don't know how common that is among fans?
It's interesting that you bring up the opposing playstyles of sonic and mario, as I've always felt that even in the best 2D mario games, the endgame playstyle (not including speedrun-levels of perfection) is to bypass a lot of the level design and exploit the path of least resistance. Sonic, on the other hand, requires you to confront the most intense aspect of its design (speeding around actively bothersome obstacles) to be playing it at its peak. It's very arcade-y in that sense, and is also the aspect that makes me think that, generally, the shorter the game the better.
It's interesting that you bring up the opposing playstyles of sonic and mario, as I've always felt that even in the best 2D mario games, the endgame playstyle (not including speedrun-levels of perfection) is to bypass a lot of the level design and exploit the path of least resistance. Sonic, on the other hand, requires you to confront the most intense aspect of its design (speeding around actively bothersome obstacles) to be playing it at its peak. It's very arcade-y in that sense, and is also the aspect that makes me think that, generally, the shorter the game the better.
i think mario focuses on speed in a macro sense (across the whole game), and sonic in a micro sense (moment to moment).
or maybe it's the opposite word for each. i don't have a game design degree
or maybe it's the opposite word for each. i don't have a game design degree
I believe people, including me, really like Sonic for one reason, he's cool. It's simple but it's true. Why is Sonic cool though? I think it comes down to what Sonic was originally intended to be. A cooler and edgier Mario. People love his attitude and care-free nature. He does what he wants the way he wants to do it. Children look up to him, others can relate to him. People like that he's a contrast to Mario. Faster and more stylish gameplay. I think a good word would be 'unique'? Sonic did so many weird and crazy things with the older titles in the 2000s and it really showed how creative Sonic Team could be.
I admit, though, to really grasp this kinda stuff, you have to have played his games as kid. To be a kid and look up to Sonic as a hero, an icon, is something that you can't really describe that well with words. We're Sonic fans because we're Sonic Fans, and I think that enough is justified.
I admit, though, to really grasp this kinda stuff, you have to have played his games as kid. To be a kid and look up to Sonic as a hero, an icon, is something that you can't really describe that well with words. We're Sonic fans because we're Sonic Fans, and I think that enough is justified.
That whole paragraph was about Richie wasn't it
Calling out Richie on backloggd dot com
Richie is one such case among many
who's richie?
The Mechagamezilla podcast where they make an intervention for Richie's Sonic MANIA is pure gold
heatten
2 years ago