Sonic 3 is 15 years old.

I liked Sonic 3, not as much on its own though. I didn't know of it until I played it on the Mega Collection and the graphics were good, the music was amazing and the levels were fantasic, however...

This thing pissed me off the most, like most people. I eventually got it though. The ending of S3 did suck though, S1, S2's and S&K's had a good ending scene while here all you got was the Death Egg falling down, then a victory pose, followed by the bigass ending pic and the credits.
Like I said above, I preferred Sonic 3 & Knuckles. But that's just my preference.

 

I was about to say 'wasn't Hedgehog day Sonic 2's release date' and then I remember that was SonicTwosday.


I actually don't like Sonic 3. It feels incomplete with SK, and S3K is just phenomenal. The few changes there were in S3K I feel shouldn't of been done. Like Knuckles theme in S3 is far more fitting in my opinion.

 

Sonic 3 was there fore me in my teens, when I wouldn't socialise with other children my age. I dare say I've played it more than anyone here (I didn't have S&K back when).

Needless to say, I'm pretty sick of it these days, but I can't deny that it had a massive effect on me.

 

I finished Sonic 3 courtesy of my local library rental service, in between loads of Megadrive RPGs and a few other games. Didn't actually buy it until years later, after I'd bought and cleared S&K. I didn't expect the combined game to flow so seamlessly - obivously not knowing it was one game hacked in two back then! I also remember it seemed a much more casual game - after fighting for ages to get past Chemical Plant in Sonic 2, again then struggling on the Death Egg, Sonic 3 was a breeze. Only six stages, a save system and free ring boosts for Super Sonic via the special stage rings made it a piece of cake - still loved the game though!

 

Love Sonic 3, especially with S&K. Love it. It's probably the one game that balanced story and gameplay exactly right (Sonic CD and Sonic Adventure are two others.)

Compared to S3K, I love Sonic 3's miniboss and Knuckles themes more. They both gave Eggman's invasion of Angel Island, and especially Knuckles, some character.

 

<!--quoteo(post=275498:date=Feb 2 2009, 02:15 PM:name=SOTI)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (SOTI @ Feb 2 2009, 02:15 PM) [/quote]
I still can't believe so many people couldn't figure this thing out. Nobody could think that all you had to do was gain momentum on the damn thing with Up and Down? Seriously, bad community.

 

Just finished the game again today.

Happy B-Day Sonic 3.

 

Knowing to build up momentum wasn't hard to work out, but knowing to press up + down was, there was no indication in the game that you had to do this!

 

Sonic 3 was epic.

1000 plays in 15 years and I am still playing it today.

I love the special stages especially, all colourful and quite addictive.

 

Funny, the other night I was bored and I randomly decided to play through all of Sonic 3 & Knuckles (in the Sonic & Knuckles Collection) for no reason. That was the first time in my life I played through the whole game in one session. It's a nice coincidence that I did that just a few days before this anniversary.
I ended up with ~1.5 million points, 66 lives and 22 continues. And yeah, all the emeralds (and all perfects). That was long, but epic.

I always liked Sonic 3 a lot more than Sonic & Knuckles, except that it doesn't have a real ending. They should have put more effort to add an ending in LBZ when they decided to split S3&K in two games. Oh well, Sonic 3 is still the best. And Marble Garden is still my favorite zone ever.

 

I'm with 16BT on this, it boggles my mind how so many people could not get it. Up goes up, down goes down - why would you need in-game help for that? Even if you don't make the obvious connection it's not like there are a lot of buttons to try, three of them do the same thing even!

 

S3&K remains my favorite game in the series. Just recently I have been beating the save files again ever since I got my Genesis and Sonic 3 for it. I can't play Sonic 3 alone because it's a Japanese import, but it is the only game I have bothered to import so far (I love the boxart :D)

Fun stuff. To this date I've clocked more hours in that game than probably every other game I've played combined.

Also I prefer the Sonic 3 stages to the Sonic and Knuckles ones. Carnival Night Zone, Marble Garden, Angel Island Act 1, Launch Base are all brilliance! Ice Cap and Hydrocity are pretty fun too. No failures in that game

 

Launch Base, Ice Cap. Can't beat those. Sonic 3 IMO is the best Sonic game to come out.

 

Because up and down are usually ruled by gravity, not the d-pad. Most people try jumping first, see that it very nearly works, and proceed to never think that the solution would be something quirky like pressing up and down.

 

I played it today without even realizing it. Destiny, mayhaps?

Also, I'm just glad that I played CNZ2 with a friend, and we got past it after 7 minutes of trial and error, timing jumps together perfectly before Sonic just barely slipped out. Two months later I play with Robjoe and he presses up and down.

By the by, yes I got past CNZ2 with 9:58 on the timer. No big bonus and a lot of stress. God I love this game...

 

Of course, Sonic 3! I remember this one well. Let's take it back to the start...

The year is 2000. I had just moved to New York from Florida, and I was just getting to know the neighborhood. My old friends back in Florida had a Genesis with Sonic 1, Sonic 2, and Sonic 3D Blast, but alas—I had none of my own. My mother, feeling both the push of nostalgia and a concern for then-nine-year-old Tweaker's level of comfort in this strange new home, went out to a garage sale and picked up a SEGA Genesis packed together with Sonic 1 and 2! Overjoyed, I delved in and would play these two games to my heart's content.

Fast forward to about a month or so in—I'm settled in promptly and decide to go around the neighborhood and meet some of the other kids living around the area. I meet one in particular—Mike—who becomes more or less my best friend throughout my entire stay in the 4th grade. This kid had a great family, uplifting personality, and great stories to tell. His mother in particular would support me when I was down, and I really appreciated that. Great bunch of people. In fact, as far back as I can remember, Mike was the one who first introduced me to masturbation. Couldn't quite nail it at that point, though...

Anyway! One thing in particular Mike had stashed about was a nice bunch of game systems; while I don't recall all of them, I do remember that he had a top-loading NES and the ill-fated Genesis 3 model. More importantly, however, he had a Model 2 Genesis with the entire collection of "main" Sonic games spanning from Sonic 1 to Sonic & Knuckles! This was my first introduction to Sonic 3. I remember bringing up a mention of a "Super Sonic" I had seen in a magazine before then, and he knew exactly what I meant (though the magazine in particular was in reference to Sonic Shuffle, which to my knowledge was either out already or was about to come out at the time).

He flipped on the game and I watched him play. As he played through the game, I was met with extremely colorful graphics, fantastic music, and gigantic, fun-as-hell levels—all packed with the blistering speed and grace with which he blasted through the levels as Super Sonic. Needless to say, I shat as many bricks as I was physically able at the time—this was fantastic! I begged for a chance to play and I totally immersed myself in the game. I wasn't very good at the time—Special Stages especially—but I kept on trucking as long as I was at his house. I had lots of opportunities, after all—his parents would give me a ride to school each morning, and I'd hang out at his house after the fact. Plenty of time to build up my skill.

Eventually, I decided that I wanted a copy of my own. Since I had developed a habit of obtaining money through various means—selling Yu-Gi-Oh cards, doing random things for random people, et al—I finally scrounged up enough money for my own copy of Sonic 3, which I picked up secondhand from the local Game Craze. My face lit up and my hands shook with glee—now I could finally play this fantastic game all day, every day! And believe me, I did exactly that. :v:

Time went on and I got better and better at getting through the levels. I was able to breeze through the Special Stages like they were child's play, and the final boss was more or less a pansy to me; by the time I got Sonic & Knuckles, I was making full savegames with all of the Super Emerald for each character purely out of sport! And believe me, when you're in that general age range, the first thing you go is brag to your friends about your menial accomplishments in video games. And they ate it all up. =P

Even as I continue to replay this game today—lock-on nonwithstanding—I find new paths, new secrets, and the same tried-and-true qualities that keep me coming back for more. Sonic 3 and its subsequent predecessor are not only some of the best Sonic games to have ever been released for any game system, but quite possibly one of the best Genesis games ever. I say that with full confidence and without a doubt in my mind. It's that good.

I think I'm going to do what I did with Sonic 2 and play through the game in its entirety over Skype. If anyone would like to join in, let me know—it'll be a blast!

Happy 15th, Sonic 3! Thanks for all the great memories. :v:

 

So now its been 15 years since the franchise was good. Thats almost a 75% failure rate on SEGAs part

 

Happy birthday, Sonic 3; pretty much my favourite Sonic game, with the exception of CD.
I, for one, think it's much better on it's own.