Sonic the Hedgehog 3
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| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | |
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| Developer(s) | Sonic Team Sega Technical Institute |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Designer(s) | Takashi Thomas Yuda (character design), Hirokazu Yasuhara (lead designer), Yuji Naka (programming) |
| Release date(s) |  February 2, 1994 February 24, 1994 May 27, 1994 |
| Genre(s) | Platform game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | VRC: GA (original release)ESRB: K-A (re-release) (1997) ELSPA: 3+ |
| Platform(s) | Mega Drive/Genesis, Saturn, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, PC, |
| Media | 16-megabit cartridge, CD-ROM |
| Input | Game controller |
Sonic the Hedgehog 3, often abbreviated and officially known in Europe as Sonic 3, is a platform game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series for the Mega Drive/Genesis. It was developed by Sonic Team in collaboration with Sega Technical Institute, and was published by Sega. The game debuted worldwide in the first half of 1994.
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 |
[edit] Storyline
The storyline picks up shortly after the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Dr. Robotnik's[1] space station, the Death Egg, has fallen out of orbit after his mech suit exploded in his final showdown with Sonic, causing critical damage to the ship.
However, instead of impacting the planet, the Death Egg crash-landed on Angel Island[2][3], a mystical floating landmass previously believed to exist only in legend. As Dr. Robotnik 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 a set of chaos emeralds, which are the source of the island’s levitation powers.
Knowing Sonic and Tails will try to track him down, and realizing he can use the Chaos Emeralds to power the ship, Robotnik deceives Knuckles into believing Sonic is trying to steal his emeralds, and he’s come to help him. Shortly after, Super Sonic and Miles “Tails” Prower land on Angel Island in their bi-plane, the Tornado, in search of Robotnik. No sooner than they have arrived, Knuckles ambushes Sonic from underground with such force, he knocks the Chaos Emeralds from him, returning him to normal blue Sonic. Stunned, 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, Dr. Robotnik and the re-launch of the Death Egg.
[edit] Gameplay
[edit] Changes
Based on a faster, more flexible game engine, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 included more scope than any other game in the series to date: The play fields were three 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 the Hedgehog 2.
The game introduced many staples to the series, such as a more story-driven game, multiple shield types, a double-jump maneuver (forerunner of Sonic 3D's blast attack, and Sonic Adventure's homing attack), several musical indents and themes used in most subsequent games, 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.
Each stage seamlessly connects to the next, via continuation or 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, as in previous Sonic games, bar Sonic 1 (8 Bit). Knuckles has also become a firm fan favourite, alternating roles between rival, antagonist, and partner.
[edit] Overview of play
In single player mode, the player can choose to play solo, as either Sonic or Tails, or as a team, controlling Sonic, with the AI or 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, an act 1 robotic mini-boss (otherwise known as a "mid-boss"), and an act 2 main boss, piloted by Robotnik. In order to completely finish the game, seven 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 limited. If Sonic has no shield equipped, he will generate an Insta-shield, giving him a split second burst of protection from projectiles and increasing Sonic's attack radius.
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, which has the same effect without the resistance to electricity and the Double-Jump move.
- 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 and the Homing Attack used in all 3D Sonic titles from Sonic Adventure onwards (though it does not home in on enemies, and can't link attacks together consecutively like the Homing Attack can).
- Water shield: Allows the player to breathe 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.
[edit] Zones
[edit] Levels
There are 6 levels in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, each made up of two acts. They are:
- 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 flooded remains of an ancient city. 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.
- 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.
- Ice Cap 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 Ice Cap'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.
[edit] Special Stages
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 based on a gumball machine. The sides of a 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 the Hedgehog 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, as they were in Sonic the Hedgehog. Contrary to the original Sonic the Hedgehog , 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 this sphere is covered in blue, red, and white with red star 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 (the blue spheres are replaced with red ones as they're collected, except when the ring trick below is performed). White spheres bounce Sonic backwards. If only the perimeter of a rectangle of blue spheres is collected leaving blue spheres on the inside (meaning the rectangle must have dimensions of at least 3x3), all of the spheres in that rectangle turn into rings. Earning 50 rings grants the player a continue. Collecting all the possible rings in a stage results in a perfect clear, which adds 50,000 points to the total score, worth an extra life. Also, as time elapses in these stages, the tempo of the music will increase, and Sonic will also start moving faster, making him more difficult to control over time and increasing the risk of accidentally contacting a red sphere.
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 without a shield. At this point, any additional giant rings found will add 50 rings to the player's total, instead of starting a special stage.
[edit] Multiplayer
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 retained head-to-head racing introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, although instead of using levels from the single player game with interlaced graphics, five entirely new tracks, as well as special character sprites, were created for competitions and Knuckles was added as a selectable character, albeit without his gliding and climbing abilities which were not unveiled until Sonic & Knuckles. 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 (the first letters of which make up the sequence A, B, C, D and E) 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. The loop was fixed in Sonic Mega Collection, and doesn't bounce you back.
- 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.
[edit] Reception
Although Sonic the Hedgehog 3 did not do as well as Sonic the Hedgehog 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 the Hedgehog 3 (Sonic 3 & Knuckles) along with Sonic CD are the main candidates for best 2D Sonic game. Sonic 3 & Knuckles was the last 2D Sonic game in the main series until Sonic Advance, 7 years later.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 received some criticism for a particular puzzle in the Carnival Night Zone, the infamous 'barrel'. At the time, puzzles generally weren't a part of Sonic titles, and the seemingly unsolvable puzzle involved a rather unconventional and unintuitive solution. This has caused tremendous frustration in many gamers, especially since at first glance, it appears to be an error in level design.
[edit] Technical specifications
The Sonic the Hedgehog 3 cartridge has a small amount of non-volatile RAM built into it, in the form of a Ramtron FM1208S-200CC ferroelectric RAM module. This allows the player to save game progress. Depending on whether Sonic the Hedgehog 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 the Hedgehog 3 cartridge.
Sonic the Hedgehog 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.
According to several sources, including the official Japanese strategy guide for Sonic Jam (written by members Sonic Team), Sonic the Hedgehog 3 originally began as a top-down, isometric game, similar to what would eventually become Sonic 3D Blast. This concept was abandoned early into development, after the team did not want to change the Sonic formula too radically for a sequel.
Sonic the Hedgehog 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 far too high, the decision was taken to split the game in half, giving the developers more time to finish the second part, 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 the Hedgehog 3 can be inserted into, forming the 32 megabit game, Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Yuji Naka, the game's programer and co-producer confirmed that this game is what Sonic the Hedgehog 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 the Hedgehog 3 cartridge. Several pieces of music and three unplayable levels from Sonic & Knuckles are listed on the level select and sound test screen, including Mushroom Valley, an early name for Mushroom Hill. In addition, by utilizing a glitch during certain stages, the Sonic & Knuckles miniboss theme can be heard in Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
When plugged together, the data from Sonic the Hedgehog 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 the Hedgehog 2 ROM.
[edit] Re-releases
Since its original release in 1994, Sonic the Hedgehog 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, Microsoft Xbox and Microsoft Windows for PC. An earlier Microsoft Windows running PC port was also released as part of the Sonic and Knuckles Collection. All versions are faithful ports, apart from this specific PC version featuring different music for any songs that simultaneously use music and voices (MIDI and PCM), like Ice Cap and Launch Base. This was a technical limitation: to play these songs using the proper "drum" sounds, which were voices and other sound effects, would have required the sound card to simultaneously use MIDI and Wave output, a feature not available on all cards at the time.
[edit] Sonic 3 and Michael Jackson
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. [4] Whatever music that was completed ended up in the finished game [5]. Howard Drossin would complete the soundtrack, which was later used in Sonic & Knuckles. Some similarities of 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 the Hedgehog 3 (without Sonic & Knuckles lock-on) shares identical chord-progression to "Stranger in Moscow".
- Ice Cap Zone is similar to "Who Is It", sped-up, with almost identical chord progressions. 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. One voice sample is also present in Knuckles' theme, but is only noticed if you listen to it for a very long time at the Sound Test. The miniboss music and Knuckles' theme were 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 lent their work to Sonic the Hedgehog 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 the Hedgehog 3 credits), lists a song 'The Water' as being composed by Michael Jackson and belonging to Sonic The Hedgehog. [6]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ As with all pre Sonic Adventure Sonic games, the doctor was called Eggman in Japan, and Robotnik in the west.
- ^ Angel Island was originally referred to in the earlier game manuals as "Floating Island", but the name has since been retconned to Angel Island as of Sonic Adventure.
- ^ http://forums.sonic-cult.org/index.php?showtopic=1752
- ^ http://www.sws2b.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5270
- ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbVM-l2Oku4
- ^ http://www.musicpowers.com/id31.html
[edit] References
- European release date
- Japanese release date
- Information on the game split
- Critical reception of Sonic 3
- Cartridge scan, showing Ramtron memory chip
[edit] Credits
- Executive Producer: Hayao Nakayama
- Project Managers: Hisashi Suzuki, Shinobu Toyoda, Masaharu Yoshii
- Producer: Yuji Naka
- Director: Hirokazu Yasuhara
- Lead Game Designer: Hirokazu Yasuhara
- Senior Game Designers: Hisayoshi Yoshida, Takashi Iizuka
- Lead Programmer: Yuji Naka
- Senior Programmers: Hiroshi Nikaidoh, Masanobu Yamamoto
- Character Designer: Takashi Thomas Yuda
- CG Artist: Kunitake Aoki
- Animator: Takashi Thomas Yuda
- Enemy Artist: Satoshi Yokokawa
- Scene Artists: Kunitake Aoki, Chie Yoshida, Tsuneko Aoki, Shigeru Okada, Takashi Thomas Yuda, Satoshi Yokokawa
- Art Assistant: Osamu Ohashi
- Music Composers: Brad Buxer, Bobby Brooks, Darryl Ross, Geoff Grace, Doug Grigsby III, Scirocco
- Sega Sound Team: Bo, Sachio Ogawa, Milpo, Masaru Setsumaru, Tatsuyuki Maeda, Tomonori Sawada, Masayuki Nagao, Jun Senoue
- Sound Project Coordinator: Hisaki Nimiya
- Marketing: Pamela Kelly
- Executive Management: Shouichirou Irimajiri, Tom Kalinske
- Executive Coordinators: Mamoru Shigeta, Tomio Takami, Diane A. Fornasier, Roger Hector, Takaharu Utsunomiya
- Sound Special Thanks: Mayumi Nina Sakazaki (MRM), Cube Corp., Opus Corp., Masanori Nakayama (Studio Who), Howard Drossin
- Special Thanks: Deborah McCracken, Emi Kawamura, Jina Ishiwatari
[edit] External links
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at MobyGames
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 page at The GHZ
- Sonic 3 at the Internet Movie Database
- WikiKnowledge - Wiki based guide to the game
