Sonic The Hedgehog 3

Sonic 3's road to release  was met with a bit of development hell. Not hell to the level of a Duke Nukem Forever, or even the nightmare that was the failed development of Sonic XTreme, but still a hell nonetheless. Sonic 3 was planned to be a massive game, a whopping 34 Megabit cartridge with tons of levels, a save feature and other goodies. But to make a game that massive for a Sega Cartridge would prove expensive, so much like King Solomon, the Sonic 3 game was split in half, with the second half to be worked on and refined while the first half would get released first.

While that was going on, the game actually got some celebrity aid. The king of pop himself, Michael Jackson wanted to work on Sonic 3's music. It was all going well, but Jackson, unsatisfied with the quality of the Genesis sound, would leave mid-development. Despite that, the songs he added were left intact to the game. It remained a long rumor until confirmed a few years back. The reason it was so underplayed at the time was due to Jackson's ongoing molestation trial and Sega felt that known association with him would be a PR nightmare.

Sonic 3 had a strong advertising build for it, with Sega proclaiming its release date of February 2nd, 1994 as "Hedgehog Day" instead of Groundhog Day. It sold over 1.02 million copies, actually making it the worst selling of the main line Sonic games on the Genesis. Be it the lack of ever being bundled with the console, or the massive Sonic mania had cooled after a very over saturated 1993 with Sonic being everywhere including multiple games, toys, foodstuffs, apparel and two cartoons on at the same time. TWO! Despite that though, the game was well liked critically and has been considered among the best of the system. Is that true? Let's dive into the game itself to see for ourselves.

The story follows right where Sonic 2 left off. Robotnik and his Death Egg crash onto the floating island known as Angel Island. While trying to repair the Death Egg, Robotnik meets the island's guardian Knuckles the Echidna. However, while Knuckles is tough, he is also very, very naive. Robotnik tells him that Sonic and Tails are the villains who are out to steal the powerful master emerald, the source of the island's power.  When Sonic and Tails arrive on the island, they are ambushed by Knuckles, who steals Sonic's chaos emeralds. So now it's up to Sonic and Tails to put a stop to Robotnik once again, while also having to deal with the antics of Knuckles.

Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is a one to two player game. You control either Sonic or Tails as you head through six zones (two acts each) to stop Dr. Robotnik from rebuilding his death egg. You move with the D-Pad, jump with either A, B or C and can spin dash by holding down, tapping a jump button and letting go.

For the most part, controls remain the same, but there have been some new tweaks to both Sonic and Tails. Taping A mid-jump with Sonic has him do a flash attack. On its own, it really doesn't do much, but with the addition of the three new shields, they allow Sonic to do a different kind of special attack. The water shield gives Sonic a bubble to keep him underwater longer without need of air bubble locations. He can also bounce higher by tapping A mid-jump. The fire shield keeps the player safe from fire attacks and Sonic can tap A in mid-air to do a fiery zip in a forward direction. Finally the lightning shield serves as a magnet that can attract nearby rings. Sonic can also do a zap hop by tapping A.

As for tails, he doesn't get the added shield tapped A abilities as he's been given a far greater new trick. He can actually fly manually now by jumping and tapping the A button multiple times. However, he only gets up a little bit before tiring out. When playing the main game with two players, you can use Tails to carry Sonic up to higher areas that he couldn't reach without. It finally gives Tails far more of a purpose in the main game other than being just another sprite following Sonic around.

The progression of the levels is a bit more fluid this time around, with each stage leading you into the next. Sonic lands off Tails' plane and onto the first zone Angel Island, a lush jungle landscape. After meeting the mid-boss for the first time, you see that Robotnik's robots completely torch the place, turning it into a fiery inferno. After defeating Robotnik, you'll see Knuckles spring a trap, leading you falling into Hydrocity, an underwater city. You defeat Robotnik again and get shot from a geyser into Marble Garden, an ancient ruin covered in grass and slowly falling apart thanks to Robotnik's drilling.

You defeat Robotnik again and land at Carnival Night, a city filled with spinning wheels, canons, that weird barrel that you have to press up and down in the right rhythm to ride. You defeat Robotnik again and find a canon that shoots you into the Ice Cap, where you snowboard your way into the icy caves. And finally you fight through the snow to land at the Launch Base, an area filled with water and other traps to keep Sonic busy while Robotnik finishes up the Death Egg. Overall, the game is definitely the shortest in terms of acts and zones, with six zones and twelve acts. But levels feel much larger and are filled with multiple paths to take to reach your goal. Another fine option is the battery backup that allows you to save your progress.

Special stages return in Sonic 3 in the form of giant rings you find throughout the levels. You enter a 3D special stage where the goal is to collect all the blue spheres. There are rings to collect, star spheres that will bump you around, and red spheres that will end your game. If you get all the blue spheres, you get the Chaos Emerald at the end. Every blue sphere collected turns red, so be careful. Also levels get progressively faster as you go on. If you see a square pattern with plenty of spheres in the middle, you should fill the edges first as it will turn all spheres into rings. Collect all the rings in the stage to get perfect, which ensures you an extra life. Though if you get at least 50 rings, you are given a continue. Once again, getting all 7 emeralds earns you the power of Super Sonic, which is essentially invincibility as long as you have plenty of rings. Tails gets the shaft once again in terms of super powers.

Also returning to the Sonic games is the 2-player competition, where you can race through four original levels added just for this. There's not much special to this, but it does give you your first chance to play Knuckles, albeit without the abilities he'll earn in Sonic and Knuckles. It's a fun diversion from the main game, and I'm glad that they considered bringing it back.

Graphically the game looks amazing, the sprite work is far more detailed this time around, especially when it comes to simple things like the resdesigns for Sonic and Tails. The environments look far more lush and detailed, and everything flows exceptionally well. Case in point Angel Island going up in flames mid-act one. It's a solid showing of the power that the Genesis could possess. On the sound level, the music is some of the best in the Sonic series. A few of the Jackson tracks are still packed within the game, notably Carnival Night (sounding reminiscent of Jam) and the credits theme (reminiscent of Stranger in Moscow). Another band by the name of  The Jetzons also had their song "Hard Times" sampled for Ice Cap. It's a solid work all around, and despite the claims of Michael Jackson, I think the sound chip produces some of its finest works.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a great Sonic game. It's platforming is perfect, its graphics and sound solid and as a first part to this two parter, it sets things up perfectly. If there were any gripes, I'd say the difficulty was a bit too easy and the game a bit too short. That aside, it is definitely recommended for any Sonic fan to pick this classic up. However, Sega still had to finish up the second part to this story and in the holiday season of 1994, they would conclude things with Sonic & Knuckles.

RATING: A