Sonic the Hedgehog 3
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| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 {{#if:{{{image|}}}|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image|}}} | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Sega Technical Institute {{#if:{{{publisher|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher|}}} |
| Release date(s) | Image:European flag.svg February 24th, 1994 Image:Flag of the United States.svg February 2nd, 1994 Image:Flag of Japan.svg May 27th, 1994 |
| Genre(s) | Platform game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer {{#if:{{{ratings|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings|}}} |
| Platform(s) | Genesis/Mega Drive, Saturn, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox {{#if:{{{media|}}}|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media|}}} |
Sonic the Hedgehog 3, often abbreviated and officially known in Europe as Sonic 3, is a platform game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It was developed by Sega Technical Institute and published by Sega. The game debuted worldwide in the first half of 1994 on the Sega Genesis in America and the Sega Megadrive in Japan and Europe.
The game is closely tied to its sequel Sonic & Knuckles, as the two games were originally one until time constraints and cartridge costs forced the game to be split into two interlocking parts. Combined, both games have sold over 4 million copies.
Contents |
Storyline
Image:Sonic3.png The storyline picks up a little while after the end of Sonic 2: Dr. Eggman's space station, the Death Egg, has fallen out of orbit after Robotnik’s mech suit exploded in his final showdown with Sonic, causing critical damage to the ship.
However, instead of impacting on the planet, the Death Egg crash-landed on Angel Island<ref>Angel Island is referred to in the English game manuals as "Floating Island", but the name has since been retconned back to Angel Island as of Sonic Adventure.</ref>, a mystical floating landmass previously believed to exist only in legend. As Eggman repairs the ship he meets up with the Island’s sole inhabitant, Knuckles the Echidna. Knuckles is the last surviving member of an ancient civilization, whose ruins and relics are scattered throughout the island. He is also the guardian of the Master Emerald, which is the source of the island’s levitation powers.
Knowing Sonic and Tails will try to track him down, and realising he can use the Master Emerald to power the ship, Eggman deceives Knuckles into believing Sonic is trying to steal it, and he’s come to help him. Shortly after, Sonic and Miles “Tails” Prower land on Angel Island in their bi-plane The Tornado, in search of Eggman. No sooner than they have arrived, Knuckles ambushes Sonic from underground with such force, he knocks both the Chaos Emeralds and residual Chaos Energy from him. Stunned and untransformed, Sonic can only watch as Knuckles steals the emeralds and disappears inland. Once recovered, Sonic and Tails set off in a race against time to stop Knuckles, Eggman and the re-launch of the Death Egg.
Gameplay
Changes
Based on a faster, more flexible game engine, Sonic 3 included more scope than any other game in the series to date: The play fields were 3 times larger than previous games, with multiple paths for different characters, more environmental elements to interact with, faster top speeds, more bosses, and more set pieces, all without any of the Framerate issues that plagued certain parts of Sonic 2.
The game introduced many staples to the series, such as a more story-driven game, the use of in-game cut scenes to create a feeling of continuity, multiple shield types, a double-jump manoeuvre (forerunner of Sonic 3D’s blast attack, and Sonic Adventure’s homing attack), more diverse bosses, the end of zone fanfare, used in all games from Sonic 3 to Sonic Heroes, and introduced Jun Senoue to the series, who would later become sound director of the 3D Sonic games, lending them their signature rock-inspired soundtracks.
Unlike previous games, each first act seamlessly connects to the second act, and each zone is connected to the next via a cut scene to maintain continuity. This helps the game feel like it's set in a real geographical location, as opposed to separate, disjoined zones that for the most part had no correlation with the zones around them (as in previous Sonic games). Knuckles has also become a firm fan favourite, alternating roles between rival, antagonist, and partner.
Overview of play
Image:Sonic3 Hydrocity.png In single player mode, the player can choose to play solo, as either Sonic or Tails, or as a team, controlling Sonic and the AI, or with a second player controlling Tails, which is the default configuration.
The object of the game is to progress through six zones, each comprised of two acts, a mini-boss (otherwise known as a mid-boss or an Act 1 Boss) which does not involve Eggman, and a main boss, piloted by Eggman. In order to completely finish the game, 7 Chaos Emeralds must also be collected from the special stages.
The gameplay builds on the formula laid down in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Sonic and Tails are now equipped with special moves that are activated by pressing the jump button a second time while in mid air. Tails will fly if he’s out of water, or swim if he’s in water, both for a limited amount of time. In a team game, a second player can use Tails to "airlift" Sonic for a short amount of time. This technique is essential for beating the Marble Garden boss, though the flight time is unlimited. If Sonic has no shield equipped, he will generate an Insta-shield, giving him split second burst of invincibility.
Instead of a single shield power-up, there are now three elemental shields:
- Lightning shield: Absorbs all electric and charge-based attacks, and will draw in any rings near to the player. Sonic can generate a charge jump; a double jump, which acts like a mid-air normal jump. This shield shorts out upon contact with water, or any damage taken. This is the predecessor of Sonic Adventure's magnetic shield.
- Flame shield: Absorbs all fire-based attacks, and allows the player to walk on lava or fire without taking damage. Sonic can generate a blast jump: a fast, near horizontal dive across the screen as a fireball. This shield extinguishes upon contact with water, or any damage taken. This is the predecessor of Shadow the hedgehog’s heat barrier. The blast jump is a lot like Sonic's Jump Dash move from the Sonic Advance series.
- Water shield: Deflects all water based attacks and allows the player to breath freely underwater. Sonic can use it to generate a bounce jump; the closer Sonic is to the ground when he makes the second jump, the higher he bounces. This shield pops with any damage taken. The bouncing move is very similar to the one Sonic gains from the Bounce Bracelet from Sonic Adventure 2.
All three shields have the ability to deflect small projectiles, such as the shots from badniks in Hydrocity Zone and Marble Garden Zone.
Zones
Levels
There are 6 levels in Sonic 3, each made up of two acts. They are: Image:Sonic3 IceCap.png
- Angel Island Zone: A tranquil jungle island that is set ablaze by Dr. Robotnik just after Sonic and Tails arrive. Knuckles the island guardian makes his first appearance here, as he recovers the emeralds from Sonic immediately after they land on the shore.
- Hydrocity Zone: The inner workings of a complex hydroelectric dam. This stage takes place mostly underwater.
- Marble Garden Zone: The marble ruins of an ancient civilization. Marble Garden is the only zone in Sonic 3 with no water in it. Dr. Robotnik uses his mobile vehicle to drill through the surface of this stage, causing massive earthquakes in the process that Sonic must outrun in a timely fashion. The final boss of Marble Garden is fought in the sky, while Sonic clings on to Tails.
- Carnival Night Zone: Tails drops Sonic into a playful carnival filled with balloons, pinball bumpers, and cannons to launch from, although unlike Casino Night Zone in Sonic 2 there are no slot machines.
- Icecap Zone: Sonic is shot from a cannon and lands on a snowboard in the snowy mountains. The first act takes place mostly underground inside an ice-cold cavern, while the second act brings Sonic back to Icecap's powder-snow surface.
- Launch Base Zone: Dr. Robotnik's launch site that was built for re-launching the sunken Death Egg, with spinning elevators for facilitation of travel and alarms to keep out intruders.
Special Stages
Image:Sonic 3 Special Stage.png As in previous Sonic games, star posts are scattered throughout each act to save the player's progress. Furthermore, if Sonic has collected at least 50 rings and he hits a check point, a bright halo of stars will float above it, which Sonic can then jump through to access a bonus stage. The bonus stage is based on a gumball machine. The sides of a bottomless shaft are lined with one-time-use bumpers, which propel Sonic upwards. Each time he passes the slot of the gumball machine, it releases a ball which Sonic can then grab. Bonuses include shields, rings, lives, bumpers, empty balls, and a one use set of springs at the bottom of the shaft. The stage ends when Sonic falls out of the bottom of the shaft.
Note that star posts in Sonic 3 are used to enter bonus stages this time instead of emerald stages, as in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The emerald stages are once again entered by jumping through a large golden ring. Contrary to the original Sonic the Hedgehog however, these rings are hidden in the scenery, and multiple can be found in each act. In addition, the player is not required to collect any amount of rings to enter the emerald stage.
Each special stage is based on a 3-dimensional, checkered sphere of which only a small surface portion is visible at any given time. The surface of the orb is covered in blue, red, and "starred" white spheres, and rings. Sonic runs across the surface, following the edges of the chequer squares. At each corner, he can turn left, right, or carry on straight. The aim is to collect all the blue spheres, whilst avoiding the red spheres, which result in instant failure. White spheres bounce Sonic backwards. If blue spheres are collected in square patterns, they turn into rings. Earning 50 rings grants the player a continue, and collecting all the possible rings in a stage results in a perfect clear, which adds 50,000 points to the total score, worth a life.
The stage ends when all the blue spheres are collected, awarding the player with a Chaos Emerald, or when the first red sphere is touched, which ends the stage on the current score.
There are 7 stages, one for each Emerald. When all Emeralds are collected, Sonic can become Super Sonic by collecting 50 rings and performing a double jump. At this point, any additional giant rings found will add 50 rings to the player's total, instead of starting a special stage.
Multiplayer
Sonic 3 retained head-to-head racing introduced in Sonic 2, although instead of using levels from the single player game, five entirely new tracks were created for competitions and Knuckles was added as a selectable character. Players can select to play a Grand Prix of all five tracks, a single track to race on, or race the clock in time trial mode.
The five tracks are:
- Azure Lake: A short but speedy course along the waters of Azure Lake. This track is the fastest among the five multiplayer stages, and can be completed in well under 20 seconds.
- Balloon Park: A bouncy stage similar to Carnival Night with a loop and several bumpers and balloons to get ahead. A well known bug in the loop can enable the player to skip large parts of each lap.
- Chrome Gadget: A tour through a Death Egg like maze filled with platforms and force fields. If a racer touches the bottom of a platform, he dies.
- Desert Palace: This desert ruin takes the player through high speed loops and over quicksand bridges. However, should a racer start spinning in the loop too early, he will be hurled back at high speed to the beginning of the track.
- Endless Mine: The longest of the five stages, set in an abandoned mine cave. Endless Mine poses no real dangers to the racers, but needs some well timed jumps and speed stops to complete the stage in a smooth fashion.
Reception
Although Sonic 3 did not do as well as Sonic 2 in terms of sales, the game was almost universally well received by gamers and reviewers: scoring in the high 80% range. The general consensus amongst fans is that the "true" Sonic 3 (Sonic 3 & Knuckles) along with Sonic CD are the main candidates for best 2D Sonic game.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles was that last 2D Sonic game in the main series until Sonic Advance, 7 years later.
Technical specifications
Image:Sonic3 SaveScreen.png The Sonic 3 cartridge has a small amount of non-volatile RAM built into it, allowing the player to save game progress. Depending on whether Sonic 3 or Sonic 3 & Knuckles was being played, the save features were changed. Sonic 3 & Knuckles has 8 save slots instead of 6, and saves the number of lives and continues gained, as well as progress. Regardless of the game being played, all the save data is stored in the Sonic 3 cartridge.
Sonic 3 was the second Sonic game to save game progress (after Sonic CD), and would be the only cartridge-based Sonic game to do so until Sonic Advance, Sonic Pocket Adventure notwithstanding.
Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally planned to be one game. However, as time constraints and the manufacturing costs of a 32 megabit cartridge with NVRAM would have pushed the price up, the decision was taken to split the game in half, giving the developers more time to finish the second game, and splitting the high cost between two cartridges.
The second half of the game, Sonic & Knuckles was released worldwide in the second half of 1994. Sonic & Knuckles is known as a lock-on cartridge: There is a slot built on top, which Sonic 3 can be inserted into, forming the 32 megabit game, Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic designer Yuji Naka confirmed that this game is what Sonic 3 was originally intended to be.
Because the two games were originally one, and designed in tandem, a lot of extra data from Sonic & Knuckles is still present on the Sonic 3 cartridge. Such as references to zones as far ahead as Lava Reef (Zone 10), and most of the music. When plugged together, the data from Sonic 3 is appended to the data from Sonic & Knuckles, as the two were designed to work together and correctly reference each other.
In contrast, Knuckles in Sonic 2 works by patching the original Sonic 2 ROM.
Re-releases
Since its original release in 1994, Sonic 3 has been re-released several times, first in 1997 for the Sega Saturn as part of the compilation game Sonic Jam. In 2002, it was part of the Sonic Mega Collection for Nintendo GameCube, in 2004, as part of the Sonic Mega Collection Plus on Sony PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox. A Microsoft Windows running PC port was also released as part of the Sonic and Knuckles Collection. All versions are faithful ports, apart from the PC version featuring different music for any songs that simultaneously use music and voices (MIDI and PCM ), like Icecap and Launch Base. This was a technical limitation: to play these songs would have required the soundcard to simultaneously use MIDI and Wave output, a feature not available on all cards at the time.
Trivia
Image:Sonic 3 Level Select.png
- The first letters of the race tracks' names make up the sequence A, B, C, D and E.
- Some levels from Sonic & Knuckles appear in the level select which is activated via a cheat code: When Sonic is jumping at you after the SEGA logo fades away and you can hear a drumbeat, quickly press up-up-down-down-up-up-up-up (please note that this code is extremely difficult to enter). You should hear a ring sound. Now scroll down below "Competition" and enter the Sound Test. Even though each of Mushroom Valley's (a prototype name for Mushroom Hill), Flying Battery's, and Sandopolis's two acts show up on the screen, selecting any of the six will not yield anything. With these 3 zones visible in the level select though, this is further evidence that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were supposed to be one game.
- Like a few other titles in the series, Sonic 3 has the occasional bug in which a player can get stuck in the scenery. The manual addresses this problem, but suggests that it is a deliberate "feature"; a "diabolical trap from which Sonic can not escape, and the player will have to reset the game."
- Enemy artwork from the manual shows two badniks who do not appear in the game: "TechnoSqueek" and "Blaster". Both of these enemies appear in Sonic & Knuckles in the Flying Battery Zone, which was originally intended to be set between Carnival Night Zone and Icecap Zone.
- According to the manual, there are two separate badniks named "Blastoid"; the blue cannon badnik in Hydrocity, and the small electric pod in Carnival Night that teleports between the ceiling and the floor of hallways.
- According to the manual, Knuckles' favourite food is grapes.
- The music of Icecap Zone (inspired by the Eurodance music of that era) is one of the most frequently remixed video game songs.
- On Sonic 3's hidden level select screen, the snapshots used to represent each zone are the same ones used in Sonic the Hedgehog 2's level select. Included with them is an icon for Hidden Palace Zone, which was cut from Sonic 2.
- The Game Over song used in this game was carried over to Sonic & Knuckles eight months later, and then used again in Sonic 3D Blast, while Sonic Pocket Adventure has a version of this song transposed up a few notes.
- It has been confirmed that, at one point in development, Michael Jackson brought a team of his musicians to be involved in the game's soundtrack - however, due to the scandals that arose around this point, this plan fell through. <ref>http://www.sws2b.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5270</ref> Whatever music that was completed ended up in the finished game <ref>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbVM-l2Oku4</ref>. Howard Drossin would complete the soundtrack, which was later used in Sonic & Knuckles. Some similarities to Sonic 3 tracks to Jackson songs include:
- Carnival Night Zone, a few seconds of which bear a resemblance to a part of Jam.
- The credits theme of Sonic 3 (without S&K lock-on) shares almost identical chord-progression to Stranger in Moscow.
- Icecap Zone is similar to Who Is It, sped-up. Alternatively, some people think it bears resemblance to Smooth Criminal.
- The music of the minibosses, as well as that of Launch Base Zone, features a highly digitized voice that could possibly belong to Jackson. This music was changed in Sonic & Knuckles, but the Launch Base music remained the same.
- Brad Buxer, Doug Grisby III, Bobby Brooks, Darryl Ross and Geoff Grace all lended their work to Sonic 3's soundtrack; all of the above worked with Michael Jackson at some point in time.
- A discography of another musician working on the game, Cirocco (appearing as 'Scirocco' in the Sonic 3 credits) lists a song 'The Water' as being composed by Michael Jackson and belonging to Sonic The Hedgehog. <ref>http://www.musicpowers.com/id31.html</ref>
- Sonic 3 is also the only 2D Genesis Sonic game that did not begin with a "Hill Zone," unlike Sonic 1 (Green Hill Zone), Sonic 2 (Emerald Hill Zone), and Sonic & Knuckles (Mushroom Hill Zone). This may be why Mushroom Valley was renamed for Sonic & Knuckles.
- Issue #13(August 1994) of the Archie comic book features a story loosely based on Sonic 3.
Notes and references
<references/>
- Sales figures of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles
- European release date
- Japanese release date
- Information on the game split
- Critical reception of Sonic 3
External links
- Template:Moby game
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 time attack records at The Sonic Center
- Sonic 3 at Green Hill Zone - contains info, screenshots and a basic walkthrough.
- {{{2|{{{title|Sonic the Hedgehog 3}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
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