Sonic 3 said bigger is better. And then proceeded to make some of the most bloated, uninteresting set of levels in the series. On the surface, this is a very ambitious game that does a lot to move the series forward. But I think it really gets lost in the sauce. The sauce being, excessively long levels that keep going WAY beyond the point of them running out of ideas, poor pacing all around, actively worthless trash boss fights and shallow level gimmicks.
I absolutely love the world building this game brought to the table, but honestly that's about all I like. The solid difficulty curve seen in the first 2 games, gone. The final zone, death egg, is easier than green hill in sonic 1. I find every level in this game to be completely mindless in how you interact with it and its general lack of obstacles. The only time I ever die in this game is when I spindash and there just happens to be an instant kill crusher just off camera that snags me. Which is a hazard this game relies on more than previous games.
Interconnected multi-tier pathways from sonic 2 that reward skilled play with faster, more satisfying gameplay? Largely replaced in favor of having a lot more verticality and longer levels, leading to stages that feel the same every single time you play them. The brevity of sonic 2's levels that allow experienced players to plow through levels they've mastered, letting them get to more complex/difficult levels in the late game faster in an inherently satisfying way? How about instead, have unskippable cutscenes in the first zone and littered throughout, an act 1 boss fight in every zone that's so worthless it can't be considered anything other than padding, levels that don't do anything or say anything new and run out of ideas almost immediately yet consistently just drag on and refuse to end. The S tier music from the first 2 games that worked within the boundaries of the system limitations to make iconic music that never gets old? How about a bunch of extremely repetitive beats that get tedious to listen to before the level ends.
The problem is just how shallow the levels and their gimmicks are. Easiest example is Ice Cap. Starts out with a 20 second cutscene of Sonic snowboarding. There's a pillar that's too tall to jump on...So you spindash into the pillar and it's shorter. There's these platforms that take you to the next part of the level if you spindash into them...so you spindash into them. These platforms are then copy pasted like 8 times with the only variance being sometimes you can tap a spring 2 inches away to activate them instead of spindashing. There's a section where all you do his hold right, then they copy paste that section but this time you hold left. A bit where you have to push a platform to progress. So you tap the platform and jump on top and wait for it to take you to the end of the level, where you fight a boss that had no thought put behind its design, who dies almost instantly like many other bosses. This level is pretty emblematic of most of Sonic 3's issues. Shallow level gimmicks they spam for most of the level, meandering and boring level design where nothing happens, completely ineffective seemingly randomly placed enemies. Music that's 40 seconds of repetitive build-up for 10 seconds of the good bit before it loops back to the build-up. A trash boss who's most optimal strategy is just spam jumping into it until it dies. There's an alternate route, said route containing a button next to a door opened by the button. You press the button and jump in. The next room is a button next to a door it opens. You press the button and jump in. Hidden route over back to spindashing into platforms. Hope you enjoyed the brief break from worthless binary interactions to engage in different worthless binary interactions.
All it's missing that's wrong with the rest of the game is that most levels are longer than ice cap, but with no more substance to back that length up. As well as a common theme of bosses that kill themselves/are basically lame auto scrollers. I LOVE long stages in sonic, but usually the games that go for that are pretty demanding, exciting games. I'll do a 12 minute level in heroes and absolutely love it. I've had days where I just play Eggmanland in HD Unleashed for hours, one of my favorite stages in the series. But 3-5 minutes in marble garden zone are absolute torture. The levels are just so lifeless and one note. Playing them just feels like going through the motions, and it's the same on every single playthrough. There really isn't much attempt to play with momentum and slopes, y'know, what the series was built on. It's just a very standard generic platformer.
Then there's the hidden special stage rings, which I think are a horrible way to implement special stages. Sonic 1, CD, and Knuckles Chaotix requiring you to bring 50 rings to the end of a level plays with the idea that sonic games are about replay value and getting better at the game. Sonic 2's checkpoint special stages was ok considering they wanted to give you more attempts than the other method would allow in that game's structure. All putting them behind walk-through walls does is make you ram your head into every vaguely suspicious wall on your first playthrough, and then after that well then you know where they are so doing them is just obligatorily going through the motions just like the rest of the game. I DO like blue sphere and the music that goes with it, the later levels especially get more engaging than sonic 3 ever does in its actual levels. But I'm SICK of playing the first batch of blue sphere levels. This is because unlike 1 and 2, getting super sonic is required for the true final boss. So oh boy in a game I already found too long for its own good here I am playing some of the longest special stages in the series less than 10 seconds into the first level. I'm sick of the game by the time I even get to hydrocity zone and it only gets worse from there. Playing as Tails and Knuckles don't really change a whole lot since the level design is so bare bones and restrictive. This is also among their worst playable incarnations, which makes sense as this is the first time they've really been prominently standalone main playable characters... But tails flies so slow, knuckles climbs really slow and the glide isn't great in a game with such empty level design. Playing as them just makes bosses (The ones that don't just kill themselves) slightly harder since they don't have the insta-shield sonic has and Knuckles' jump is slightly shorter than Sonic's. Which for the record, the insta-shield is so broken, they really gave Sonic a Melee Fox shine in a game where enemies were already ineffective.
Anyway, I hate to ramble on too long but it really is almost EVERYTHING about 3/K. Right down to the goal post at the end of levels. The entire point was that they're satisfying to smack into at fast speeds and make a nice sound effect. Now they just slowly float down after beating one of the most innefective lame bosses in the entire platformer genre. This game really makes a boss where the challenge is hopping across platforms floating on lava for a little over a minute and directly prior to this they give you a lava shield that makes you immune to lava. And this is one of the better bosses even tbh. Compared to animal capsule that kills itself when you stand on its head...Or rock golem that slowly hops to its death just by you standing near its kill pit.
This game was rushed so they could meet a Mcdonalds promotion in time. Of all the reasons to rush a game, this has to be the most hilarious. This is why the game's split into 2. Can't really say if that effected the game otherwise, as splitting it up let them get as much done as possible. I think the entire design philosophy was just flawed from the get go. Sonic 1 was a massive push to stand out from the crowd with a very well thought out core. Sonic 2 aimed to double down on what made 1 good, pushing to keep the pace up even better without losing the high skill ceiling. But they'd already basically perfected it with 2, so going into 3 they wanted world building, bigger levels, just...MORE. Not a bad time in the series to do it, but in doubling the amount of bosses per zone, adding 2 playable characters, making cutscenes, hiding 77 special rings everywhere, adding 3 largely worthless elemental shields that just undermine already ineffective obstacles, having 2 versions of every single level song so act 2 gets a remix of act 1's, transitions between stages, twice the amount of special stages as usual....They just got lost somewhere along the way. Having more doesn't matter if you lose everything that made these games fun to begin with. And even the story that I appreciate is there, it doesn't even resonate with me emotionally like even sonic 2 was able to do just through its sky chase act and end cutscene music. I've seen some people say the first half of sonic 3 is better than the &Knuckles portion, personally I don't see a huge difference between them the whole game just succ.
Somehow the most meaty game in the 2D series, is also the one that's the emptiest/most hollow. Not a single level has any moment that I can even think back on with any feelings whatsoever. Perhaps one of the most unmemorable classic games ever. And to be clear, I get a more average Sonic fan will likely not see what I'm talking about. I don't think most people are really going to sonic to analyze the level design and replay every game endlessly to try and get the most out of each release. I think most people come to this game and have a very frictionless, pain free experience and to them that's enough. There's no Labyrinth zones here. But as someone who thought Labyrinth zone was actually really fun and engaging and played with the core fundamentals sonic was built off of in interesting ways, with a challenging and to this day unique boss to cap it off...I WANT labyrinth zones. I want chemical plant noob traps filtering out 3 year old me out of the rest of the game until I figure it out, and I want 3 acts of metropolis zone. I want some tension at the end of the game since there's no save function like in 3/K and dying is actually possible unlike 3/K. I realize this makes me a sadist to the average Sonic fan but this is just what I value in Sonic, and 3/K doesn't have this. Not necessarily difficulty, but some genuine friction to the experience. Some texture beyond "Well in carnival night there's a platform that you're supposed to stand on for a moment then jump, repeat until you reach your destination. We're gonna put this platform everywhere. And in the same zone we're gonna put a barrel where you're meant to just press up and down repeatedly until you get to your destination" The levels are just composed of empty ground, weak obstacles, and gimmicks that introduce nothing but binary interactions.
And I almost don't want to even include it in the review because I genuinely don't hold grudges on glitches. But no other game in the series consistently glitches out on me like this one. Going fast and clipping through a wall and being softlocked is such an issue they warn you about it in the manual, calling it "Robotnik's diobolical traps". Can't seem to go one full playthrough without SOMETHING happening. Pretty frequently it's just sonic rolling through a completely automated section but for some reason coming to a full dead stop as though he hit a wall right when he hits a slope. Ironically my least buggy playthrough has been through the Sonic Origins collection people seem to despise for some reason.
The best 2D sonic game? The one where you grab a pulley and repeatedly press down until you're pulled to the top, grab the next one, and do it again? Nah, all this game's good for is making your genesis tower bigger.
I absolutely love the world building this game brought to the table, but honestly that's about all I like. The solid difficulty curve seen in the first 2 games, gone. The final zone, death egg, is easier than green hill in sonic 1. I find every level in this game to be completely mindless in how you interact with it and its general lack of obstacles. The only time I ever die in this game is when I spindash and there just happens to be an instant kill crusher just off camera that snags me. Which is a hazard this game relies on more than previous games.
Interconnected multi-tier pathways from sonic 2 that reward skilled play with faster, more satisfying gameplay? Largely replaced in favor of having a lot more verticality and longer levels, leading to stages that feel the same every single time you play them. The brevity of sonic 2's levels that allow experienced players to plow through levels they've mastered, letting them get to more complex/difficult levels in the late game faster in an inherently satisfying way? How about instead, have unskippable cutscenes in the first zone and littered throughout, an act 1 boss fight in every zone that's so worthless it can't be considered anything other than padding, levels that don't do anything or say anything new and run out of ideas almost immediately yet consistently just drag on and refuse to end. The S tier music from the first 2 games that worked within the boundaries of the system limitations to make iconic music that never gets old? How about a bunch of extremely repetitive beats that get tedious to listen to before the level ends.
The problem is just how shallow the levels and their gimmicks are. Easiest example is Ice Cap. Starts out with a 20 second cutscene of Sonic snowboarding. There's a pillar that's too tall to jump on...So you spindash into the pillar and it's shorter. There's these platforms that take you to the next part of the level if you spindash into them...so you spindash into them. These platforms are then copy pasted like 8 times with the only variance being sometimes you can tap a spring 2 inches away to activate them instead of spindashing. There's a section where all you do his hold right, then they copy paste that section but this time you hold left. A bit where you have to push a platform to progress. So you tap the platform and jump on top and wait for it to take you to the end of the level, where you fight a boss that had no thought put behind its design, who dies almost instantly like many other bosses. This level is pretty emblematic of most of Sonic 3's issues. Shallow level gimmicks they spam for most of the level, meandering and boring level design where nothing happens, completely ineffective seemingly randomly placed enemies. Music that's 40 seconds of repetitive build-up for 10 seconds of the good bit before it loops back to the build-up. A trash boss who's most optimal strategy is just spam jumping into it until it dies. There's an alternate route, said route containing a button next to a door opened by the button. You press the button and jump in. The next room is a button next to a door it opens. You press the button and jump in. Hidden route over back to spindashing into platforms. Hope you enjoyed the brief break from worthless binary interactions to engage in different worthless binary interactions.
All it's missing that's wrong with the rest of the game is that most levels are longer than ice cap, but with no more substance to back that length up. As well as a common theme of bosses that kill themselves/are basically lame auto scrollers. I LOVE long stages in sonic, but usually the games that go for that are pretty demanding, exciting games. I'll do a 12 minute level in heroes and absolutely love it. I've had days where I just play Eggmanland in HD Unleashed for hours, one of my favorite stages in the series. But 3-5 minutes in marble garden zone are absolute torture. The levels are just so lifeless and one note. Playing them just feels like going through the motions, and it's the same on every single playthrough. There really isn't much attempt to play with momentum and slopes, y'know, what the series was built on. It's just a very standard generic platformer.
Then there's the hidden special stage rings, which I think are a horrible way to implement special stages. Sonic 1, CD, and Knuckles Chaotix requiring you to bring 50 rings to the end of a level plays with the idea that sonic games are about replay value and getting better at the game. Sonic 2's checkpoint special stages was ok considering they wanted to give you more attempts than the other method would allow in that game's structure. All putting them behind walk-through walls does is make you ram your head into every vaguely suspicious wall on your first playthrough, and then after that well then you know where they are so doing them is just obligatorily going through the motions just like the rest of the game. I DO like blue sphere and the music that goes with it, the later levels especially get more engaging than sonic 3 ever does in its actual levels. But I'm SICK of playing the first batch of blue sphere levels. This is because unlike 1 and 2, getting super sonic is required for the true final boss. So oh boy in a game I already found too long for its own good here I am playing some of the longest special stages in the series less than 10 seconds into the first level. I'm sick of the game by the time I even get to hydrocity zone and it only gets worse from there. Playing as Tails and Knuckles don't really change a whole lot since the level design is so bare bones and restrictive. This is also among their worst playable incarnations, which makes sense as this is the first time they've really been prominently standalone main playable characters... But tails flies so slow, knuckles climbs really slow and the glide isn't great in a game with such empty level design. Playing as them just makes bosses (The ones that don't just kill themselves) slightly harder since they don't have the insta-shield sonic has and Knuckles' jump is slightly shorter than Sonic's. Which for the record, the insta-shield is so broken, they really gave Sonic a Melee Fox shine in a game where enemies were already ineffective.
Anyway, I hate to ramble on too long but it really is almost EVERYTHING about 3/K. Right down to the goal post at the end of levels. The entire point was that they're satisfying to smack into at fast speeds and make a nice sound effect. Now they just slowly float down after beating one of the most innefective lame bosses in the entire platformer genre. This game really makes a boss where the challenge is hopping across platforms floating on lava for a little over a minute and directly prior to this they give you a lava shield that makes you immune to lava. And this is one of the better bosses even tbh. Compared to animal capsule that kills itself when you stand on its head...Or rock golem that slowly hops to its death just by you standing near its kill pit.
This game was rushed so they could meet a Mcdonalds promotion in time. Of all the reasons to rush a game, this has to be the most hilarious. This is why the game's split into 2. Can't really say if that effected the game otherwise, as splitting it up let them get as much done as possible. I think the entire design philosophy was just flawed from the get go. Sonic 1 was a massive push to stand out from the crowd with a very well thought out core. Sonic 2 aimed to double down on what made 1 good, pushing to keep the pace up even better without losing the high skill ceiling. But they'd already basically perfected it with 2, so going into 3 they wanted world building, bigger levels, just...MORE. Not a bad time in the series to do it, but in doubling the amount of bosses per zone, adding 2 playable characters, making cutscenes, hiding 77 special rings everywhere, adding 3 largely worthless elemental shields that just undermine already ineffective obstacles, having 2 versions of every single level song so act 2 gets a remix of act 1's, transitions between stages, twice the amount of special stages as usual....They just got lost somewhere along the way. Having more doesn't matter if you lose everything that made these games fun to begin with. And even the story that I appreciate is there, it doesn't even resonate with me emotionally like even sonic 2 was able to do just through its sky chase act and end cutscene music. I've seen some people say the first half of sonic 3 is better than the &Knuckles portion, personally I don't see a huge difference between them the whole game just succ.
Somehow the most meaty game in the 2D series, is also the one that's the emptiest/most hollow. Not a single level has any moment that I can even think back on with any feelings whatsoever. Perhaps one of the most unmemorable classic games ever. And to be clear, I get a more average Sonic fan will likely not see what I'm talking about. I don't think most people are really going to sonic to analyze the level design and replay every game endlessly to try and get the most out of each release. I think most people come to this game and have a very frictionless, pain free experience and to them that's enough. There's no Labyrinth zones here. But as someone who thought Labyrinth zone was actually really fun and engaging and played with the core fundamentals sonic was built off of in interesting ways, with a challenging and to this day unique boss to cap it off...I WANT labyrinth zones. I want chemical plant noob traps filtering out 3 year old me out of the rest of the game until I figure it out, and I want 3 acts of metropolis zone. I want some tension at the end of the game since there's no save function like in 3/K and dying is actually possible unlike 3/K. I realize this makes me a sadist to the average Sonic fan but this is just what I value in Sonic, and 3/K doesn't have this. Not necessarily difficulty, but some genuine friction to the experience. Some texture beyond "Well in carnival night there's a platform that you're supposed to stand on for a moment then jump, repeat until you reach your destination. We're gonna put this platform everywhere. And in the same zone we're gonna put a barrel where you're meant to just press up and down repeatedly until you get to your destination" The levels are just composed of empty ground, weak obstacles, and gimmicks that introduce nothing but binary interactions.
And I almost don't want to even include it in the review because I genuinely don't hold grudges on glitches. But no other game in the series consistently glitches out on me like this one. Going fast and clipping through a wall and being softlocked is such an issue they warn you about it in the manual, calling it "Robotnik's diobolical traps". Can't seem to go one full playthrough without SOMETHING happening. Pretty frequently it's just sonic rolling through a completely automated section but for some reason coming to a full dead stop as though he hit a wall right when he hits a slope. Ironically my least buggy playthrough has been through the Sonic Origins collection people seem to despise for some reason.
The best 2D sonic game? The one where you grab a pulley and repeatedly press down until you're pulled to the top, grab the next one, and do it again? Nah, all this game's good for is making your genesis tower bigger.