Doubtless, Sega Technical Institute wanted fans to enjoy the complete Sonic 3 experience as it was originally meant to be. Thus, they crafted the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge with innovative, new lock-on technology. Players could flip open the top of the cart and insert their Sonic 3 cartridge into it, combining the games into one gigantic adventure. Despite the detour, Sonic Team was ultimately able to deliver the game they had set out to make—and it was glorious.
Gameplay-wise, the complete Sonic 3 isn’t much different than its predecessors. Sonic and crew speed through 2-act levels, bopping Eggman’s robots along the way before facing off against the doctor himself in one of his nefarious mechs. Where the game truly shines is in its sense of scale. It starts with the game’s narrative, which packs more story into its iconic opening cutscene than Sonic 2 in its entirety.
Sonic 3 begins immediately where 2 left off. Sonic has severely damaged Eggman’s space station, the Death Egg, causing it to crash land onto a mysterious floating island. Eggman tricks the island’s guardian, Knuckles the Echidna, into turning against Sonic, keeping both parties distracted and giving him time to repair his superweapon.
It’s a fairly straightforward tale, but the game’s new bells and whistles enhance the story in ways far beyond those of Sonic 1 and 2. As you zip through the zones, you’ll occasionally run into Knuckles, who springs various traps on the blue speedster. He may push a boulder on Sonic that sends him careening into lava or hamper a level’s visibility by killing the lights. These short cutscenes provide refreshing breaks during gameplay and occasionally even alter the level’s structure, keeping players engaged.
The game also includes the aforementioned transitions from one level to the next. Instead of the screen simply fading to black upon completion of a level before fading into a completely new area, small interactive cutscenes showcase Sonic moving from one location to another. For example, Sonic is shot out of a cannon at the end of Carnival Night onto the cold mountains of Ice Cap, or leaps onto a passing battleship at the end of Mushroom Hill, leading into Flying Battery. As a result, the levels in Sonic 3 feel much more interconnected, like they’re part of a larger world instead of an assortment of random locations.
This all comes to a head in the game’s epic climax as the story shifts into overdrive. If you’re playing Sonic 3 by itself, Sonic faces off against Eggman one final time on the deck of the Death Egg, and the doctor’s resulting defeat sets off a chain reaction that blows up the superweapon for good. But if you attach Sonic 3 to Sonic & Knuckles, you’ll discover that the Death Egg has simply crashed atop the island’s volcano, kicking off the second half of the game.