Sonic the Hedgehog 3

"One of the best games on the Genesis, but something is still missing..."

In looking at Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles, one cannot possibly understand the true scope of one of, if not the greatest undertaking of Sega's Sonic Team unless one looks at both games combined. However, at the time, Sonic 3 was the first one out, so this review will focus on Sonic 3 as it stands on it's own. After the massive success of Sonic 2, everyone was anxiously awaiting Sonic's next adventure, touted by Sega to be the biggest and best Sonic game yet. I will certainly not argue that they did indeed outdo themselves, but that will be saved for a look at Sonic & Knuckles and the grand scope of this project. For now, on with the show.

It began when Sonic took out the Death Egg in Sonic 2, but it wasn't totally destroyed. Instead, it crash landed on Mobius' mysterious Floating Island, eventually revealed to be the origin of the legendary Chaos Emeralds, as well as other mysterious secrets. A new character was introduced, Knuckles the Echidna, the last of an ancient race that populated the Floating Island long ago and the guardians of the Chaos Emeralds. By convincing Knuckles that Sonic was actually the bad guy, Robotnik got a head start on finding the emeralds and rebuilding his Death Egg. Knowing that Mobius would be lost forever if Robotnik got his hands on all the emeralds, Sonic and Tails set off to the Floating Island to sway Knuckles and stop Robotnik once and for all. In a nutshell. The first thing you'll noticed when booting up the game is that there is a file select screen. This is a first for a Sonic game, and a very good idea I think. When starting a new file, you can select Sonic, Tails, or both together and the game will save which zone you're currently in and how many emeralds you have. You can also play without a save if you want. After that, you're off to the Floating Island to meet Knuckles.

Sonic 3 introduces several new features, besides the save ability. Sonic can now create an instant shield around himself for a split second by pressing jump in the air, and there are three different kinds of shields available: fire, lightning and water. Each shield has a secondary attack, which is activated by pressing jump in the air, instead of the instant shield move. The fire shield protects you from lava and flame attacks and gives you a fireball attack shooting forward, the lightning shield draws rings to you like a magnet and protects you from electric attacks while giving you the ability to double jump, and the water shield lets you breath under water indefinitely while giving you a bubble bounce move to propel you a little higher. All three shields will repel certain shot attacks as well, which is very useful.

One thing that may turn some people off is that there are only 6 zones, whereas Sonic 2 had 11 total. However, the acts are about 50% larger than Sonic 2 on average. The levels really are absolutely massive, and each of the two acts in a zone has different gimmicks and designs, some different enemies, some different backgrounds and graphics, and even slightly different music tracks. Most levels have multiple available paths to take, and some are only open to certain characters. All the levels are designed beautifully, as usual. Sonic Team really knows how to make fast and fun levels. They even manage to create some interesting boss fights, such as a midair battle where Tails carries Sonic as he attacks Robotnik's flying Egg-o-matic, and the tricky final boss who has a particularly small hit zone and requires good jumping accuracy. And of course, some hedgehog snowboarding thrown in for good measure. Also new is the special stage entry. No more goal posts or star posts are needed. You have to find giant golden rings, like the ones in Sonic 1, hidden in secret rooms around the levels. There are at least 2 in every act, and one act has as many as 8, but you won't be able to find them all without backtracking to cover all the available routes, probably running out of time in the process.

The new special stage in this Sonic adventure is a 3D sphere which Sonic runs across automatically while you steer him and jump over obstacles. The objective in the special stage is to collect all the blue spheres while avoiding the red ones, but it's not quite that simple. The blue spheres turn into red ones when you run over them, and there are also rings around to collect. A 50,000 point bonus awaits you if you can collect all the rings in a stage before getting the last blue sphere. You can also turn blue spheres into rings that are in a group, usually squares 3x3 or larger, by collecting the spheres on the outer edge of the formation, surrounding the blue spheres with red ones. This will turn all the spheres in the formation into rings. You also have to worry about white bumper spheres which will bounce you backwards. You'll have to hit up on the d-pad to go forwards again, but sometimes you have to use these to complete the stage. Once you collect all the blue spheres, you get the emerald for that stage. But of course, there's a catch: Sonic will gradually speed up and the longer you spend in the stage, the faster it gets. There are actually 8 of these stages (the last one can only be accessed by the level select code), but seven emeralds to collect as usual. Overall, it's a great new special stage concept that's very fun and can get quite challenging for obvious reasons.

The Genesis was always considered technically inferior to the SNES, but you probably wouldn't know it looking at this game. The engine of the last two Sonic games really pushed the limits of the system. The levels are huge and the backgrounds change while you're playing, such as when Robotnik sets fire to Angel Island halfway through the first act, or in the Ice Cap zone where you shoot up from underground ice caves to the surface of glaciers. One thing Sega was always good at with the Sonic games is scrolling backgrounds, and Sonic 3 is no exception. Particularly cool is the surface of the water in Hydrocity, with multiple scrolling layers horizontally and vertically as you break the surface and rocket towards the upper levels of the act. The huge amount of artwork crammed into this cart is quite incredible. All this with the trademark speed of Sonic makes this a showpiece for the late Genesis generation.

The SNES was also considered to have superior sound, and while the SNES sound chip was indeed superior to its Genesis counterpart, the Sonic games always manage to have great sounding music. The sound effects are nothing very special, but they do the job fine. The music is full of catchy tunes you'll find yourself humming well after you finish playing. Not only that, but the music actually changes from act one to act two in every zone. The theme and instrumentation is the same, but the tune is rearranged a bit to keep the music fresh. With so much music and artwork crammed into this cart, it's a wonder they got through six zones at all. Some of my favourites include the jazzy Hydrocity, the final boss music and the ending credits.

Overall, it doesn't have the classic feel of the first two Sonic games, but it's not supposed to. It's a fresh new adventure with new twists and turns, and even thought it was one of the best games on the Genesis, it still feels like something is missing, doesn't it? Whatever happens to Knuckles and his showdown with Sonic? What part does he play in the saga of the Floating Island? Well, that's because you only have half the story here. In order to get all the answers, and quite possibly the best game ever released on the Genesis, we have to look forward several months to the release of Sonic & Knuckles, and the pinnacle of Sonic gaming...stay tuned.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/08/03