Yup. Even now, when I'm off work sick, I'll play through the entire game again. Just perfect.
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Is Sonic 3&K a better game than Sonic 2?
- Thread starter Sami+
- Start date
Yup. Even now, when I'm off work sick, I'll play through the entire game again. Just perfect.
Ein Bear
Member
Are you seriously saying that Sonic 4 is better than Sonic 3&K?
You're going to have to explain your rationale for that one.
I adored Sonic 2, but I could never get into Sonic 3. Something about it just really put me off. I think it was the structure of the levels being a bit more linear, perhaps? I'm not sure. Either way, I really didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as Sonic 2, and as a result I've never finished it, sadly.
Eh, I like the direction they went with in 2 -> 3&K more than 1 -> CD. And I actually don't mind Labyrinth Zone most days, but it's still not that great to me.
Yeh, I guess that's a way of putting it.
Sonic cd is the purest platformer in the series. It places more emphasis on in-air control than any other game in the series, and the levels have more verticality than any game in the series.
Sonic cd also has the fewest bottomless pits of any game in the series.
This is how I've felt about Sonic 1 for the longest.
On a bit of a tangent, Sonic 1 in general outside of the iconic Green Hill Zone always felt weird/different enough that I could never place where it stood as a part of the Genesis trio. It's like some of the later levels have a lot of great design but they feel so weird when you realize how much of the game is spent starting and stopping. The later two games would perfect the pacing so you'd get greater/longer segments of both platforming and movement that flowed naturally into one another but Sonic 1 beyond GHZ feels like a set of good levels built for the wrong character/character mechanics.
Spring Yard does show some shades of brilliance though.
Also, am I weird for somehow preferring the visual design of Sonic 1 to Sonic 2 (both of which are rated much lower than 3Ks)?
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
Yes I can finally save!
I thought the levels in CD were shit.
Cool, I think they're terrific.
Baleoce
Member
This is my issue.
Dragon1893
Member
Definitely. Sonic 2 is overrated. Lot's of filler levels and the art isn't nearly as good as 1 and 3&K.
Definitely enjoyed 3K more than 2.
Sonic 2 had some amazing levels but also a bunch of really boring throwaway levels that really throws off the pacing in the second part of the game. Oil Ocean, that one mountain level, that one cave level, etc.
One thing I loved about Sonic 3 was the sense of progression rather than just going from one random level to the next random level. Falling down at the end of Angel Island Zone straight into Hydrocity Zone. Flying from Marble Garden Zone into Carnival Night Zone as the sky turns into night. It made the game feel so much more cohesive than the previous titles.
Sonic 2 had some amazing levels but also a bunch of really boring throwaway levels that really throws off the pacing in the second part of the game. Oil Ocean, that one mountain level, that one cave level, etc.
One thing I loved about Sonic 3 was the sense of progression rather than just going from one random level to the next random level. Falling down at the end of Angel Island Zone straight into Hydrocity Zone. Flying from Marble Garden Zone into Carnival Night Zone as the sky turns into night. It made the game feel so much more cohesive than the previous titles.
Time travel idea/mechanic was cool.
SCReuter
Member
Nope! I love them all, and it's my most replayed title in the series aside from Sonic CD. The pacing, platforming, artwork, and music are killer throughout.
Dragon1893
Member
Yup. Plus having different music for each act was also a very nice touch they introduced with 3.
MegamanPoweredUP
Member
Yes but SEGA PC's version of Sonic 3 & Knukles.
Console's S3&K had inferior soundtrack which makes Sonic 2's soundtrack the better one.
Also PC version had some cool bonus shit (custom screensaver, artworks, soundtrack, windows theme). That was the most complete Sonic experience you could desire.
I keep this game like a relic.
Edit: actually this is some sort of S&K collection which includes S3, S&K and S3&K. I don't know if there's another PC's S3&K, but Collection is the tightest shit.
Console's S3&K had inferior soundtrack which makes Sonic 2's soundtrack the better one.
Also PC version had some cool bonus shit (custom screensaver, artworks, soundtrack, windows theme). That was the most complete Sonic experience you could desire.
I keep this game like a relic.
Edit: actually this is some sort of S&K collection which includes S3, S&K and S3&K. I don't know if there's another PC's S3&K, but Collection is the tightest shit.
I like the variety the mechanic affords - sonic cd is absolutely enormous in terms of content and people likely will never see a good 3/4 of it, but I like the actual level layouts the most. Where the other games in the series are built around a concept of horizontal paths layered on top of each other that frequently intersect, sonic cd is basically a sandbox sonic game. Each level is a huge square with no set path. While this may have a higher learning curve at first, for those who master the mechanics, the ability to essentially create your own path gives a feeling of accomplishment unrivalled in the series. When you play sonic cd right, you should be tricking and spinning off of virtually everything.
Sonic cd's level design isnt as random as it seems. When you begin to play with the mechanics and physics - which actually are a tiny bit different than any other game in the series - the rhyme and reason behind seemingly chaotic bumper and landscape placement becomes apparent. See my chaos collieion zone video earlier in this topic - the seemingly nonsense bumper placement is actually purposeful.
I have played all the sonic games to death. Sonic cd is the most challenging and rewarding game in the series imo. Its the only game that I feel like I dont have memorized, that still keeps me on my toes and presents a new, fresh take every time I play. One of the biggest compliments I can give the game is that even today i still come up with new paths and ways to tackle the levels.
I was making a hack once many years ago that would let players select a set time zone and play the entire game in that time zone with all the time travel panels removed. Hence, if you wanted, you could play only the bad future levels, and really see how different each time zone actually is. I should return to that hack. I remember stopping once I couldnt figure out how to load a specific time period's solidity chart - I had figured out how to set the art and level layout.
I remember when I got sonic 3 after getting sonic cd, I was very disappointed and thought it was a huge step backwards. I've played every single sonic game as they've released.
Sonic 3 and S&K is where it all went wrong first. Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic CD are the last great 2D Sonics.
Hell yes. You always know what you're talking about anyway, but you're extra on point here. Sonic CD is greatness.
Gonna be really honest here. As a die-hard sonic fan (lol) I only managed to sit myself down and play through the entirety of S3&K two years ago. This was after starting with Sonic 1, 2, playing a bit of 3 and stopping, then getting into Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, losing interest around Heroes, missing the whole 2006 fiasco as it was happening, returning to the franchise with Unleashed, playing and liking Colors and Generations, THEN playing S3&K
I think as an entire experience, S3&K doesn't really mesh as well as Sonic 2. It's better as a platformer and better in terms of content, but I think the charm of very whimsical shapes (checkerboard in Sonic 1, columns in Sonic 2 on the first zones) got lost in Sonic 3, along with what I still feel is a completely unnecessary re-spriting of Sonic.
The music in 3&K... honestly feels like a mess on the whole to me. It sounds like people finishing off someone else's work, and lacks an overall cohesive direction the way Sonic 1 and 2's soundtracks have. Don't get me wrong, some tracks are absolute standouts like Hydrocity etc. then you have Mushroom Hill which sounds like pointless noodling around a thematic idea which isn't even very good in the first place.
As iconic as the soundtrack to 3 is, I think 20 years down the road it could have done with a lot more of a cohesive vision and a lot less of a continuing logistical and licensing nightmare.
There's also this pet peeve I have against the overall art aesthetic of Sonic 3. The first two games' tileset work have light sources coming off from an angle. Sonic 3 tilesets generally have light sources implied to come from the camera, and somehow that has never ever succesfully jived with me.
Some shots to highlight the difference. Many parts of S3&K's tilesets also look either way too contrasted or simply under-baked to me. These two reasons (art and music) are why I stopped playing Sonic 3 back in the heyday and almost 2 decades later now that I've sat through the entire game (and thoroughly enjoyed it) I think my criticisms still apply.
Overall, S3&K is a great game that... felt like it had severe developmental issues (and it did, if 3 & K is any indication, along with the logistical mess that is the soundtrack)
I think as an entire experience, S3&K doesn't really mesh as well as Sonic 2. It's better as a platformer and better in terms of content, but I think the charm of very whimsical shapes (checkerboard in Sonic 1, columns in Sonic 2 on the first zones) got lost in Sonic 3, along with what I still feel is a completely unnecessary re-spriting of Sonic.
The music in 3&K... honestly feels like a mess on the whole to me. It sounds like people finishing off someone else's work, and lacks an overall cohesive direction the way Sonic 1 and 2's soundtracks have. Don't get me wrong, some tracks are absolute standouts like Hydrocity etc. then you have Mushroom Hill which sounds like pointless noodling around a thematic idea which isn't even very good in the first place.
As iconic as the soundtrack to 3 is, I think 20 years down the road it could have done with a lot more of a cohesive vision and a lot less of a continuing logistical and licensing nightmare.
There's also this pet peeve I have against the overall art aesthetic of Sonic 3. The first two games' tileset work have light sources coming off from an angle. Sonic 3 tilesets generally have light sources implied to come from the camera, and somehow that has never ever succesfully jived with me.
Some shots to highlight the difference. Many parts of S3&K's tilesets also look either way too contrasted or simply under-baked to me. These two reasons (art and music) are why I stopped playing Sonic 3 back in the heyday and almost 2 decades later now that I've sat through the entire game (and thoroughly enjoyed it) I think my criticisms still apply.
Overall, S3&K is a great game that... felt like it had severe developmental issues (and it did, if 3 & K is any indication, along with the logistical mess that is the soundtrack)
Haha, I don't know why but I never even considered playing Sonic on my PC until the Sonic CD demo was on some disk I got once. I didn't know the S3&K PC version had different music, just looked some up now but gotta say I prefer the Mega-Drive versions, it's what I grew up with though so that's no surprise.
tiggerkiddo
Member
Sonic 2 always had the best Sonic stage/platformer level ever in Casino Night but Sonic 3&K trumps it as the superior package. While the first half in 3 is my favorite, the second half has much more polished zones. The music in 3K is also far better, especially since they change things up for the second act, a well welcome change. Carnival Night...<3
Nintendojitsu
Banned
Make it quick, accessible and less focus on story and how many bells and whistles it could throw at me in a single sitting. It actually features many of the same problems I had with Sonic CD. Also that Pachinko minigame was a wasted effort.
SCReuter
Member
Yes but SEGA PC's version of Sonic 3 & Knukles.
Console's S3&K had inferior soundtrack which makes Sonic 2's soundtrack the better one.
Also PC version had some cool bonus shit (custom screensaver, artworks, soundtrack, windows theme). That was the most complete Sonic experience you could desire.
I keep this game like a relic.
Edit: actually this is some sort of S&K collection which includes S3, S&K and S3&K. I don't know if there's another PC's S3&K, but Collection is the tightest shit.
But the Genesis version has compositions by Brad Buxer and (supposedly) Michael Jackson! The PC port's last minute placeholder music can't compete with that.
That was sega's aesthetic at the time, that quality basically defines 1994-1996 for sega. You can see it in other games, too, like ecco the tides of time, X-Men 2 the clone wars, and knuckles chaotix.
That aesthetic is basically what I think of when I think of sega.
I still prefer the hyper surreal aesthetic of sonic cd, however.
MegamanPoweredUP
Member
Dude, nostalgia is a bad thing. No way
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vbXvHfOQz4Q
Is worse than this
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a3hjl797-WE
I admit Carnival Night is my major issue with console's Sonic games.
I think Angel Island's ugliness is a little more than that.
Seriously.
The foliage in the background looks like the result of shitty non-integer pixel resize with no filtering. It makes the zone look like a bad angelfire webpage with bad gifs.
I never was taken by angel island zone, but I think flying battery zone is the bees knees. I much prefer sonic & knuckles to sonic 3, I actually don't like many of the zones in sonic 3 at all. Marble garden zone, carnival zone, and launch base zone are bland to me, and angel island zone is so-so. Hydrocity zone and ice cap zone are the only real standouts.
By contrast I love basically every zone in sonic & knuckles.
JustAnotherOtaku
Member
Both great, but nothing will top 2 as far as I'm concerned. Maybe because of the jump from 1 to 2, maybe because of the way I got completely sucked into the hype leading up to the release of 2, but I definitely prefer it.
Oh my god, now I know why people bitched about the PC versions music. That intro sounds off-key let alone any good. In a perfect world, someone would find the originals Mega Drive ones and use them at their best quality but that PC track is just horrible. Like, not comparing it to the Mega Drive song, just generally horrible.
That's what sonic jam is.
Soodanim
Member
I've thought about this before, and the answer is that I can play 3 (taken as an entire game) for longer before I get bored. And while it's still not great, Carnival is better than Casino.
In recent years I've come to appreciate Sonic 1 more. Between the music and the reduced focus on GOTTA GO FAST, it's an enjoyable game. The only let downs are the things they learned from and improved on in 2, like graphics and spikes.
Try as I might to enjoy Sonic CD, I just can't get into it properly. I like the peel out move, but the game itself isn't fantastic.
In recent years I've come to appreciate Sonic 1 more. Between the music and the reduced focus on GOTTA GO FAST, it's an enjoyable game. The only let downs are the things they learned from and improved on in 2, like graphics and spikes.
Try as I might to enjoy Sonic CD, I just can't get into it properly. I like the peel out move, but the game itself isn't fantastic.
I was a big believer in Sonic 2 for most of my life, the whole Sonic 3 aesthetic just put me off. However I got the the Gamecube collection and after finally playing Sonic 3 and Knuckles together, I have to admit it's the best.
Frankly it annoys me that they exist as separate products when they are that damn amazing together
Sonic 2 still has Casino Night zone and the Chemical Zone music though. Top tier stuff.
Frankly it annoys me that they exist as separate products when they are that damn amazing together
Sonic 2 still has Casino Night zone and the Chemical Zone music though. Top tier stuff.
Chubzdoomer
Banned
What don't you like about Hill Top Zone?
MrCunningham
Member
Of course. Better level design, better visuals (lot better), lots of exploration, longer game, more bosses, more variety on stages, better special stages, and the possibility to enjoy the game with another difficulty, alternative paths and perspective with Knuckles. The latest stages at Sonic 2 where horrible, I don't like sky chase, that plane, and death egg there.
Starting at green Angel Island, and seeing it on fire was impressive the first time I enjoyed it. Hidrocity is one of my favorite levels. I like Marble Garden and how fast I could go there, even if some people hate it. Carnival Night improved Casino Night, even if I don't like casino levels. Icecap deserves all my love. Launch Base is also great. Mushroom Hill is lovely. Flying Battery is insane. I love Sandpolis outside and inside the pyramid. Lava Reef is my favorite level of all the game (take all my love, all my money, and all my life). Hidden Palace gave some epic environment to the game. Sky Sanctuary was really nice. And Death Egg is probably the most bizarre zone in 16bit Sonic games.
I still wonder why did they choose Sky Sanctuary for Generations, instead of Lava Reef. And why didn't they introduce Hidrocity or Icecap for Sonic 3.
The only thing I need to complain about the game is the barrel at Carnival Night Act 2. It took me many years to find out how to get out of there. Thanks Internet. Once I could make it, I could enjoy the game even more.
I want a 3D HD remake of this game. With the Classic Sonic gameplay at Generations. Please Sega!! And fix that barrel BTW.
Starting at green Angel Island, and seeing it on fire was impressive the first time I enjoyed it. Hidrocity is one of my favorite levels. I like Marble Garden and how fast I could go there, even if some people hate it. Carnival Night improved Casino Night, even if I don't like casino levels. Icecap deserves all my love. Launch Base is also great. Mushroom Hill is lovely. Flying Battery is insane. I love Sandpolis outside and inside the pyramid. Lava Reef is my favorite level of all the game (take all my love, all my money, and all my life). Hidden Palace gave some epic environment to the game. Sky Sanctuary was really nice. And Death Egg is probably the most bizarre zone in 16bit Sonic games.
I still wonder why did they choose Sky Sanctuary for Generations, instead of Lava Reef. And why didn't they introduce Hidrocity or Icecap for Sonic 3.
The only thing I need to complain about the game is the barrel at Carnival Night Act 2. It took me many years to find out how to get out of there. Thanks Internet. Once I could make it, I could enjoy the game even more.
I want a 3D HD remake of this game. With the Classic Sonic gameplay at Generations. Please Sega!! And fix that barrel BTW.
I think sonic cd is great for the same reason I think dracula x is great - they epitomize the potential "cd games" had in the 90s. They were my favorite games of the past, only cranked up to 11. More everything that I love.
I always wonder if mario wacky world would have been a similar situation.
I always wonder if mario wacky world would have been a similar situation.
Cizeta-Moroder
Banned
My man. Sonic 1&CD are some of the most underrated/misunderstood games in history, in the same way as Doom1&2. Saying that Sonic is about speed is like saying that Doom is about shotguns and demons.
I'd rather think big and ask Sega for world peace.
Sonic 2 is my least favourite of the classics. I think it's probably the purest game that introduces all the design philosophies of the series that the rest of the games borrow from, but because of that it's the one I find the least interesting, kind of like SMB3. Sonic 3K is one of my favourite platformers of all time and has much more to its design, like alternate paths for different characters, shield power ups and mini-bosses.
Nintendojitsu
Banned
THE BARREL
Who the hell thought that was good game design? It ruined the entire flow of the game for me.
Who the hell thought that was good game design? It ruined the entire flow of the game for me.
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
Everyone knows it's:
> S3&K > Sonic 2 > Sonic 3
Com'n people!
Sonic 1
Com'n people!