Sonic 3 and Knuckles/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anticlimax Boss: The final boss in the normal version of Sonic 3 is just a standard-issue Robotnik flying machine except with a spiky top. In fairness, this was never really supposed to be the final boss fight: it was just something hurriedly thrown together once it became obvious that the game would have to be split in two.
  • Awesome Music: It's a Genesis Sonic game. So pretty much the entire soundtrack qualifies. What's really cool is that, rather than using the same music twice per Zone, each Act 2 features a remixed version of the Act 1 theme.
    • The Ice Cap Zone theme seems to be particularly popular, if its status on OverClocked Remix as one of the most-remixed tracks, ever, is any indication.
      • This is meta, as the original Ice Cap Zone music was essentially a song originally composed by Sonic 3's original composer Brad Buxer. Specifically, "Hard Times", from his original band The Jetzons.
    • The soundtrack also got additional respect once word got out that Michael Jackson's sound crew partially composed it. Many parts of each song are either heavily sampled from or inspired by his Dangerous album and standalone tracks.
  • Breather Boss:
    • The Golem mini-boss of Sandopolis Zone Act 1 is pathetically easy. Even the fact that it's a Puzzle Boss doesn't help it much, as the solution to beat it is rather obvious.
    • Knuckles. He's ridiculously easy to beat, but even so, it's still satisfying to finally get revenge for all of the cheap tricks he's pulled since the start of the game.
  • Breather Level: Hidden Palace Zone. Mushroom Hill is also this if you lock on both games, as it's the first level of Sonic and Knuckles. It's quite easy and is shorter than most of the levels in both games. Ice Cap is also notable because it's quite short, but has difficult bosses.
  • Contested Sequel:
    • Downplayed, as most fans like both games, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles as a whole is this to Sonic 2 for some. Both sides argue whether their game is the best 2D Sonic game and which one has the better level design.
    • The Sonic & Knuckles half, while technically not a sequel and the game's second half, nevertheless gets this reaction from fans even when locked on. Some consider it a worthy expansion to the Sonic 3 half, while others consider it a slow, inferior, rushed addition.
  • Cult Classic: Compared to its other Genesis predecessors, Sonic 3 & Knuckles doesn't have as much mainstream public recognition due to a number of factors. The game didn't sell nearly as well as its predecessors and when it was released, the Sega Saturn was already announced and nearing release. Despite this, Sonic 3 & Knuckles is very well-loved within the core fandom and is a common contender for best game for the franchise.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Orbinauts, black orbs with four spiked balls orbiting their body, from the Launch Base Zone. Unlike their ice counterparts in the previous level, Orbinauts are smart enough to keep the spiked balls instead of throwing them out and leaving themselves defenseless. While it is possible to defeat Chainspikes and Orbinauts as Sonic without taking damage through the careful utilization of the Insta-Shield, Tails and Knuckles cannot defeat these guys without either conventional or mercy invincibility.
    • Scorps, the brown mechanical enemies in Sandopolis that attack by trying to sting you with their spiked tail. Their attack is almost impossible to dodge, and if you do somehow dodge it, you'll have to watch that it doesn't hit you when the tail comes back.
    • Chainspikes, the blue enemies in Death Egg Zone with four spikes. You need to hit them from a diagonal angle (easier said than done) or else the spikes positioned in four directions will get you.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Mecha Sonic, to the point that some of his fans actually prefer him to Metal Sonic, the more prominent robotic Sonic knockoff.
  • Fandom Berserk Button: Saying that Sonic & Knuckles should have been called Sonic 4, or any implication that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are two separate games.
  • Game Breaker:
    • If Super Sonic or Super Knuckles broke the game, then Hyper Sonic, Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails took the pieces and ground them into a microscopic powder. This is most likely the reason that subsequent Sonic games tended to reserve the Super Modes solely for the final boss battle.
    • Sonic Adventure didn't have Super Sonic because they couldn't figure out how to pull it off (there's even a hidden message with Tikal explaining how to turn Super). Of course, there's been many games since then that they could have spent trying to figure out how to pull off Super Mode in ordinary gameplay.They finally succeeded in Sonic Colors. They are bringing it back for Sonic 4, thank God.
    • The Hyper Modes are quite powerful, but the Bonus Stages make them true game breakers. In Sonic 2, Super Sonic was more balanced since every level had a finite number of rings and hence a hard time cap on how long you could stay super. But in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the Anti-Gravity/Glowing Sphere bonus stage allows you to earn oodles of rings with relative ease when you know how to play it. You can also manipulate the system because the Bonus Stage you go to at a Starpost is determined not randomly, but by how many rings you're carrying. By playing only the Anti-Gravity bonus stage at each Starpost, it's possible to finish every act with 999 rings, which are worth 999 seconds of super transformation time. That's over 16 minutes, and the game's timer allows you only 10 minutes per act.
    • And then there's a potentially literal game breaker with the debug mode.
    • The insta-shield (which attacks enemies while protecting Sonic, and can be used anytime without a proper shield) and the lightning shield (which doubles Sonic's jumping height) make most bosses a cakewalk. For instance, when facing the Launch Base Act 2 boss (which is one of the final bosses in the standalone Sonic 3), instead of facing Robotnik properly, you can Lightning-jump up to his "nest" area prior to the boss battle, and defeat him literally before the battle even begins.
    • Having a second player play as Tails in Sonic & Tails mode can easily dispatch most enemies and bosses, since Tails can't lose rings when hit.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • "Blastoid" can be a bit of a Goddamned Bats in Hydrocity Zone. Especially since he will inevitably hit you at least three times throughout the level. Most likely even more, considering his placement.
    • Batbot can be a literal Goddamned bat in Carnival Night Zone, as it follows you forever and therefore can end up in some inconvenient places, knocking you back.
    • "Skorp", the scorpion in Sandopolis Zone. Touching the spiked ball on it's tail get the player character hurt, and it will also use the tail and try to attack Sonic at an aimed angle. And it's very accurate.
    • The ghosts in Sandopolis Zone Act 2, especially when it is dark: they grow big and attack in numbers, and they can't be killed off permanently! Well, not until you turn the light back on.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • The points from destroying successive robots or bricks went 100, 200, 500, 1000, and stays at 1000. But there is a mechanic left over from the original Sonic the Hedgehog game: upon destroying the 13th object, the score jumps to 10,000. There is only one area in the original game this can be done (you can destroy 16 blocks in a row if you do it right), but there's also one in Sonic the Hedgehog 3: in the Launch Pad zone, right near the beginning, there's an alarm that summons a flying robot. Doing a spindash in that alarm and staying there to keep setting off the alarm will summon robot after robot, which fly right into Sonic and are destroyed. Since you get an extra life every 50,000 points, it's possible to rack up over 200 lives until either the life counter or score maxes out.
    • In Sonic 3 by itself, through some stage select hijinks, you can get the game to play music from the wrong stage.
    • Have you ever wanted to hear Sonic & Knuckles' mid-boss theme while fighting a mid-boss in standalone Sonic 3? Here's how. Also, this fight plays the wrong (major boss rather than mid-boss) music to begin with...
    • In Launch Base Zone, there is a part of the level where Robotnik/Eggman in his eggmobile tries to fly off with a box. However, he only flies off if the player jumps up to a certain height. As such, if the player is playing as Sonic and Tails, he can use the 2P controller to control Tails and attack Robotnik. After 256 hits, Robotnik pops like a regular badnik and releases either a blue bird or a white chicken. See the video here. Now we know the real reason as to why he was called Eggman.
    • When ducking, you'll scroll the screen downwards. With some precise movements, it's possible to go inside the floor, possibly skipping some sections of the level.
    • And there are plenty more documented by YouTuber ORKAL (though not all of them are so benevolent):
  • Harsher in Hindsight: When starting Sandopolis Zone Act 2 with Knuckles, it is completely dark and the capsule containing the ghosts is already open, meaning the ghost are ready to attack. Then we learn in Sonic Adventure 2 that Knuckles is supposedly afraid of ghosts.
  • Holy Shit Quotient: Angel Island being engulfed in flames, Sonic being nearly bombed by an airship, Eggman destroying an entire temple, Sonic snowboarding down a tall mountain, Eggman stealing the Master Emerald, and Super Sonic chasing Eggman down through space. And may we say that all this was achieved on the Sega Genesis?
  • Just Here for Godzilla: A significant number of fans just play the game for Hyper Sonic, a special Up to Eleven Super Mode exclusive to the combined game. Many fans wish that Hyper Sonic would appear in another game.
  • Memetic Mutation: Michael Jackson's involvement with the soundtrack of Sonic 3 has inspired many a Sonic/MJ music mashup, with some...interesting results.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Despite the levels being between two and three times the size of what was seen in the previous Sonic games, the ten minute time limit remains. This can render it literally impossible to complete some of the longer levels on a single life if you make even the slightest mistake while navigating the level, particularly the second acts of the Carnival Night and Sandopolis Zones.
    • While the Super/Hyper modes are game breakers par excellence, it's moderately annoying to Knuckles players that Super Mode just requires a double jump: the same key combination required for flight or climbing. So if you have enough rings to go Super, you can't use Knuckles-specific mechanics without doing so.
    • Grabbing an invincibility power-up or Sonic disables his Insta-Shield and shield jumps for the duration of the effect, forcing you to wait out the invincibility if you're trying to get somewhere that requires an elemental shield or Tails to jump to. It's understandable that having a shield disables the Insta-Shield (since the same command for an Insta-Shield is now used for shield jumps), but there isn't much of a practical reason why invincibility means you can only perform basic jumps. Going Super or Hyper as Sonic also disables the shield jumps, though he at least has a higher jump in either form and a unique double-jump when Hyper.
    • The level select code in Sonic 3 standalone is infamous for being unforgiving to input. You have to press ↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ when the title theme starts, but before Sonic lands and uncurls from his ball form, meaning that you have enter the code in about two seconds. In comparsion, the Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic 3 & Knuckles versions of the code simply require you to input directional commands while hanging onto an object, with no requirement to enter the code so quickly.
  • Stop Helping Me!: Tails, when he's tagging along with Sonic. If you get a friend (or yourself[1]) to control Tails with the player 2 controller, he can be extremely helpful. But if the AI controls Tails, then he'll get in your way, collapse platforms that you want to use, attack enemies and bosses half a second before you do (so they'll have Mercy Invincibility by the time you hit them), and all-around make a nuisance of himself.
  • That One Boss:
    • Marble Garden's mini-boss can be problematic with Knuckles. Not only does his shorter jump make it harder to reach, but the spikes platform also retracts and protrudes every second, meaning you have a shorter window to properly hit the boss while using a character that takes longer to do so.
    • Marble Garden's boss can be annoying to defeat with Tails alone. While Knuckles faces a entirely different boss and Sonic can hop on Robotnik's head with no problem, Tails must carefully fly towards the lower part of his pod taking care to not hit either the drill in its front or the fire on its back, since his tails are the only part that can cause damage while flying.
    • Both the miniboss and main boss of Ice Cap Zone are considered this by some players, the former because it's hard to hit, and the latter because its freezing attacks are randomized.
    • Red Eye, the miniboss of Death Egg Zone Act 1, has two phases. It can be rather tricky trying to fight it without getting hit. Other minibosses in this game tend to be easy.
  • That One Level:
    • Carnival Night Zone Act 2. The level seems designed to waste your time, so that you'll invariably run out the timer while fighting Robotnik (unless you use Sonic's Insta-Shield against him). And it features the infamous Barrel of Doom. Thankfully, if you lock on both games, it becomes a lot more manageable.
    • Ice Cap Zone is another "waste a lot of time" level. There's an awful lot of those types of levels and bosses in this game, which makes sense, since Robotnik's trying to prevent you from reaching the Death Egg before he relaunches it.
    • Both acts of Sandopolis Zone are really long levels. In particular, the ghosts in Act 2 will get on your nerves after a while. And that's not even getting into the "endless, looping sand slide" part.
  • That One Sidequest: Many of the Super Emerald stages in Sonic 3 & Knuckles are headaches, if only because their level design is really weird.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The PC port known as Sonic & Knuckles Collection bothers some players because all the music is in MIDI format (though with an FM synthesizer it sounds much closer to the original Genesis tunes), and several music tracks are outright changed, including IceCap Zone. That said, several of the new tracks can be quite good in their own right. Look them up and judge for yourself.
  • Unfortunate Character Design:
    • The Marble Garden boss, which has a long drill in between two spherical jets.
    • The miniboss of Carnival Night, as well as the boss of Flying Battery, are both rather freudian in design. The Flying Battery boss is especially blatant.
  • Unfortunate Implications: The commercial for Sonic & Knuckles featured elves pitching the game to Santa Claus, implying that the game would have been an unauthorized sequel. Fortunately, Santa had an It Will Never Catch On mindset, so the elves sold the idea to Sega instead.
  1. ↑ This is extremely easy in the PC version or via Emulation
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