Was the released version of Sonic 3 really just a prototype?

From a creator point of view, I feel as if that one Lucas quote on how "a movie is never finished but is only abandoned" kinda applies to video games as well.

I mean, even when they're "finished", they're arguably never really "finished". Kinda like how DLC and updates are handled like you get now-a-days. (Jon Burton's Sonic 3D Blast Directors Cut comes to mind)

Of course, technically S&K is the physical equivalent of DLC and updates that you can play stand-alone.

 

Nah, I wouldn't call it a prototype. But with all the ways that things can go left during gameplay, Sonic 3&K is —as I was telling my son some time ago— "basically one giant glitch". Especially the Sonic 3 portion.

 

No matter how hard you try, there is no complex software is that bug-free. I think there is no gamebreaking bug in Sonic 3 that the regular player might encounter in a regular gameplay, but if you are playing with your little brother and one of you is controlling the tails, you realize how bad the collision detection is. Tails cannot break objects(like monitors) while in AI control. While Tails is in a second player's control, things change. Object can be broken by Tails. If Tails brokes the object that Sonic is standing on, the physics engine still thinks the sonic is standing on the last object, but that object is gone. Then whole physics system and collision detection system go crazy. Sonic suddenly starts going through the walls.

They have noticed this, as i said Tails cannot destroy objects while in AI control, so they did this as a workaround but the issue is not fully resolved. Sometimes we would test with my brother how much we can break the game. Old days. For example fly with Tails and put Sonic on a monitor. Then use Tails destroy that monitor Sonic standing on. Most likely the game will start glitching.

 

Well, the problem with the boss arena in HCZ2 is quite easy to trigger if you don't slow down, and if you play as Tails alone you're going to die in ICZ1 unless you enter a special stage or a bonus stage.

 

You are right. Especially the HCZ2 boss. It is ridiculous that the screen doesn't lock in time if you go fast in a game you supposed to go fast.

 

Hmm, not sure I really agree with his statement there.

As soon as a creator says something is finished and it's put into the wild and presented as such, then it's done.

Now when an artist in the future changes his/her mind about some of the creative choices and wants to change it, then they are just adding to that finished thing.

The Star Wars special editions where adding to finished movies, and I think he probably just said that quote to justify him going back and adding unnecessary changes.

Sonic 3 on the other hand was technically unfinished, but released as 2 finished products.

 

In the games industry, the people developing the game rarely say it's finished before it's put into the wild. It's not as though it's one guy making a game, writes it and then says "I'm done, here you go!"

What happens is a whole bunch of people are working on a game, and there's a publisher that says "we're funding you until this date, get the game out by then"; the people making the game don't work until they're done, they look at what needs to be fixed and work on the biggest issues until the publisher stops paying them. They get to a point where they just say "this doesn't explode" and the publishers say "that's good enough, ship it".

 

Good points, but I think there are many factors as one dev team and publishers don't all do things the same way. That being said, from my experience, with an artist or creative point-of-view, work's never done. From a deadline point-of-view, yeah it's as done as it can be.

Is it safe to say it really depends on who's spear-heading the project?

 

Yes to be honest I think we just have opposing definitions of the word finished.

But I still don't agree with the 'nothing is ever finished' way of thinking, being creative myself professionally for the last 10+ years (sound design) (I don't think there's a way to say that without sounding arrogant) I definitely have to know when a project is done. Whether it be personal or professionally. You can't just tweak something for all eternity, you have to know when to stop (deadline or satisfaction with the work) and that is my definition of finished.

I'm assuming the same is for game design, although saying that you can update games after release.... and even more worrying is the trend of releasing games that are basically betas. I guess that's what you are getting at with Sonic 3. Or I'm probably reading it wrong again.

A bit convoluted and I'm starting to talk absolute shite but that's what sleep deprivation does to you. My brain is one big foggy mess at the moment and my words are full of plot holes

 

That's new to me. Not denying that persons personal experience, but that has never happened to me throughout my whole time playable Sonic 3 at all.

 

That's funny, because it always happens to Tails in Sonic 3 if you start from the beginning of the level.

This is almost pathologically wrong, which you would've known had you just checked. 2P Tails cannot break monitors in any situation, and furthermore, he can most certainly break every other kind of object, regardless of whether he's being controlled by a player or the CPU.

Finally, most objects are in fact well-programmed and do the right thing in the event that one player breaks the other's foothold (such as Tails falling off monitors when Sonic breaks them). There's just a few stinkers like the ICZ ice blocks which are busted in S3&K and even more busted in S3 alone.

 

I think once you die you can continue playing the level as intended. So it is annoying but not game breaking.

To elaborate, this is a video example I found on YouTube. Me and my brother loved doing this. @3.45

 

agreeing with this and elaborating: every game has a regret behind it. even in amazing games, TCRF usually has some fascinating cut content about it. games considered masterpieces like Ocarina of Time have numerous articles on that site, all consisting of stuff that didn't make it in, notes so you can find more stuff that didn't make it in, stuff that was changed on one screen but not another (OoT has a TOOOOON of pre-rendered assets that were not updated when the thing they are referring to has been), oddities involving physics, oddities involving the inventory system. I'd daresay that honestly that game has seen more shit get changed and cut than Sonic 3, but you wouldn't dare call it "unfinished" within most gaming circles.

 

Does this happen on every version of Sonic 3? Because my most recent playthrough of Tails was on the Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection on PS3 back in 2013 and I swear I don't remember that happening. Maybe I need to play the whole game as Tails again to see. It is pretty...interesting to see game breaking bugs such as those. And see just how rushed Sonic 3 was.

 

Only in vanilla Sonic 3. Sonic 3 & Knuckles fixed it.

 

Also, you don't die if you enter a bonus stage or a special stage, because they reset the Y wrap thing. Since Tails doesn't need it before because he doesn't ski down the mountain, they forgot to enable it.

 

It's not that they forgot to enable the vertical wrapping; that's the stage's default behavior as can be seen when spawning from a star post, Special Stage or indeed, Sonic's intro. It's specifically Tails' intro that disables it, and then it simply never gets re-enabled in vanilla Sonic 3.

 

Carnival Night says hi. The *manual* even mentions “diabolical traps” which was basically code for “places you can get stuck”.

 

What made it worse was I originally thought the damn barrel was one of those "diabolical traps."