What needs to be on the XBLA? #2 - Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Sonic 3. Sonic & Knuckles. Combine to become Sonic 3 & Knuckles!

Back in early 1994 Sega pushed out their flagship mascot in quite a hurry, ending up with essentially half a game. Sega then had a thought: "Can we make people pay one game for double the price?” The answer was yes, the product was Sonic & Knuckles, and we damn well enjoyed it.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles could be called the pinnacle of the Sonic series - it was the last true 2D Sonic game made by Sonic Team. The graphics got bumped up a notch, the music pushing the poor old FM chip was pushed to its limits, and the levels were gargantuan. Each level could be played by 3 different characters each have their own abilities and routes they take. Separately Sonic 3 had 6 levels, Sonic & Knuckles having 7, put them all together and you have a hefty package.

Sonic's classic shield system was upgraded - you now had Bubble, Fire and Electric shields which gave Sonic’ additional abilities such as making him impervious to flame or grab all the rings close to him. Players can now use Tails to fly around the level and find secret entrances, and Knuckles can glide and climb around every surface.


What makes S&K special was the absurd cartridge - it had a flip top where you would plug in another cart. Instead of just playing through the levels just in S&K, you could plug in Sonic 3 and play the game as it was meant to - Knuckles could be play in Sonic 3 levels and find brand new routes, and play as Tails in S&K, and you could collect the Chaos and Super Emeralds and become Hyper Sonic. This was the way the game was meant to be.

But what can Sega do about this for the XBLA? S3&K been re-released several times before it on all platforms, you can go and buy Sonic Mega Collection for the Xbox and it'll work just fine on your 360, so why even bother?

According to Major Nelson's Top selling XBLA games of 2007, the original Sonic the Hedgehog sold incredibly well on the XBLA through Backbone Entertainment's Sega Vintage collection. Sega could do the simple thing and release both Sonic 3 and S&K separately, like the have with Sonic 3 already on the Wii Virtual Console. Sega should be smarter than that for the XBLA service.


The original Sonic sold to those who haven't played the original in a long time. Those who never ended up buying the Sonic Mega Collections or the Gems Collections or the giant variety of versions released over the years. That's absolutely fine, but what Sega and Backbone Entertainment should consider is this - How do you appeal to both the casual Sonic player, and the hard core Sonic player?

Make the definitive version.


There are a huge amount of old Sonic fans out there who already bought the original game, then Sonic Jam on the Saturn, then the Mega Collection last generation. I'm one of those people - I have no need to buy XBLA versions unless I want some measly Achievement points (which have not been up to scratch in the Sega Vintage collections as a whole. What sort of person is going to play through Ecco 3 times?), so what could be done for minimal effort, and maximum gain?

The big addition - Time Attack modes Fans have forever been trying to get the fastest times in each level of the Mega drive games. Having Leaderboards for EVERY act with EVERY character (since some are altered between each) would be a way to prove this outside of emulation. Additional ones like “fastest overall time in game” would be great as well – with the time taken in Time Attack mode or in normal play compiled together to determine the ultimate Sonic player. Score is useless in Sonic 3 anyhow – there are glitches allowing players to accumulate large amount of points in Launch Base Zone. It’s be broken day one.

Vintage Collections are purely ROMs attached to a front end, but this isn't hard to implement. They've done this before - using save states, reading the memory state to determine the timer and if the level has 'finished'. It's the same way they make achievements work!


Currently the Sonic XBLA titles have only got one single player Leaderboard - the score. Score in Sonic was purely a remnant of the days of the Arcade; it only mattered to the player getting lives and continues.

Another addition could be ability to play a through a level select mode as well, outside of Time Attack. In this mode you could also have options like turning Super Sonic on, turning Debug modes on and whatnot, but by turning them on disables achievements until the game is reset. This mode could be a set as unlockable - unlock each level once it's completed with a character, unlock Super Sonic once you get him in Single player. Something to achieve outside of achievements!

A feature which isn't all that important, but would be a blast is Online Cooperative mode. In the game, the second player can take over Tails and help Sonic along the way by flying around and picking him up. You can play fine with just local play, but having a friend online help you on your quest, even if it's just in level select mode, would be a bit of fun for those who want to just piss-fart around.

And finally, remove all of those damn softening filters!


Back in September I was able to contact one of the producers over at Foundation 9 about this very subject - I expressed my thoughts on the current crop of Sega vintage games, and gave my own ideas what I'd like to see for Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It was passed on to those in charge of the emulation side, whether it was taken into consideration or thrown in the bin is unknown! Maybe whining and complaining will help things get done.

The chance of some sort of version of Sonic 3 showing up is quite high, whether or not it's both together is up in the air - hopefully Sega and Backbone will do the right thing and at the very least put the game together, but additional effort means it costs more - they could do the best thing, or the cheap thing. Considering some of Sega’s last choices, it may just be the latter.

Thanks to Green Gibbon! and The Green Hill Zone for the images