Sonic CD, 3, 3D: Similarities

Interesting.

A good case for "great minds think alike" perhaps? Not sure what to think. I also have no (immediate) recollection of that giant Eggman statue in 3D (though it seems kind of familiar?) and it's kind of freaking me out lol.

 

It's in Panic Puppet 2. Sonic Retro doesn't have level maps for S3D, but someone else does.

 

7: They all feature Sonic

 

Ahhh ok. Upon second glance it definitely sort of rings a bell. I honestly don't even remember the last time I fired up this game so that's probably why I'm all Brainfart City Zone in my recollection of it.

 

I got a good laugh out of this. But I mean, this wasn't always a given back then. See: Chaotix, Tails' Adventures, Mean Bean Machine. Imagine if 3D Blast had been deemed full spinoff. Knuckles 3D Blast!

They also all got ported to the PC back in the day.

Definitely a lot of interesting coincidences going on there that I never thought about. The ruins level one is the only one that has an easy explanation: They were all following in the mold of Sonic 1's Marble Zone. Same idea as starting with a GHZ-esque level, in the case of SCD and S3D.

 

These are interesting coincidences, but I wonder if they don't actually reflect a larger pattern throughout the entire classic series. Seeing as Sonic CD has level themes mostly borrowed from Sonic 1, you could say Marble Zone is a distant cousin of Rusty Ruin too -- and for some reason "second level" almost always equalled "ruins" for Sonic developers back in the day. That, and "giant Robotnik" is notoriously a thing in Sonic 2 too: maybe it was described in some very respected design document that Eggman would always try to express his megalmania through his machines.

 

Despite what people might think Classic Sonic had some underlying connections going on.

For instance, Subspace was where Fang the Sniper resided in Sonic Triple Trouble and the Flickies of Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island travelled to and from.
Espio was jealous of Knuckles for residing on Angel Island since he wanted to see the Ancient Civilizations' ruins in Chaotix, lo and behold he's on Angel Island in Sonic the Fighters.
Tails' Skypatrol saw Tails leave Sonic for his own little adventure, and Sonic Labyrinth notes this as why Tails isn't around to help Sonic during that game.

So I could see these connections as having some intention behind them.

 

Worth noting that Labyrinth was originally the second level in S1. Still, ancient ruins themed all the same. I always kinda felt like Hydrocity being second in S3 was possibly inspired by that. And actually, Marble Garden being third is much like Marble originally being third in S1, so maybe it really isn't coincidence.