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Trivia / Sonic 3 & Knuckles

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  • Ascended Fanon:
    • The Sonic Origins version adds several features from Sonic 3 Complete, a fan made Game Mod of Sonic 3 & Knuckles:
      • Big Arms is reinstated in Sonic and Tails's campaigns.
      • A modified version of the Sonic & Knuckles title animation (in which the Death Egg falls back down to the island) is included as a transitional cutscene in between Launch Base and Mushroom Hill in Sonic and Tails's campaigns.
    • This version also adds in the ability for Tails to turn Super using the Chaos Emeralds, and Hyper using the Super Emeralds, a feature originally found in Fan Remake Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited.
  • Ascended Fan Nickname: The infamous barrel in Carnival Night Zone Act 2 was humorously nicknamed the "Barrel of Doom" by the fandom. Sega caught on to the nickname when a mug of the barrel displaying the same name was made for the Sega Shop.
  • Blooper: Because they didn't bother replacing Eggman's front-facing sprites, he still shows up for the Flying Battery boss fight in Kunckles' game instead of the Eggrobo that takes his place in every other encounter. This was fixed in the Sonic Origins release.
  • Christmas Rushed:
    • This was such an ambitious game, it became clear that it would be impossible to finish it as a whole in time, forcing Sega to split the entire game in half. And even then, Sonic 3 arrived later than expected (February 1994), with Sonic & Knuckles arriving eight months later with its Lock-On Technology added to allow Sonic 3 to be played as it was originally planned. It didn't help that McDonald's, who had a tie-in deal with the game, ended up pushing Happy Meal toys before the game was released, forcing Sega's hand in the entire thing. On top of that, both games are loaded with glitches and polish issues, some of which are game breaking, to the point where the manual had to Hand Wave these issues (such as Sonic being liable to accidentally get stuck in certain scenery or Tails sometimes being unable to complete Hydrocity Zone in standalone Sonic 3 due to the screen locking up) as "diabolical traps" set up by Robotnik.
    • According to Simon Thomley, the Origins remake was made under very strict deadlines and he and his team had no time to properly polish it, with Sega outright shooting him down when he requested more time. While the remake is fortunately still playable when it was released, the rushed nature of it is apparent as there are plenty of bugs and issues to be found within the remake. Not helping was Sega's sloppy integration of the remake into Origins, which only introduced more bugs that allegedly were not present when Headcanon submitted the remake to Sega.
  • Copy Protection: Pirate copies of the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge obviously do not have the lock-on slot. This means a huge chunk of content will be unavailable, so even though the game is still fully playable, it's a lot less interesting. Likewise, coming from the time where SRAM chips are expensive as they are, pirate copies of Sonic 3 often lack an SRAM chip and the corresponding battery, forcing players to start from the beginning every time they want to play the game.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka have both publicly apologized for the infamous "Barrel of Doom" found in Carnival Night Zone Act 2, as seen here.
    • Simon "Stealth" Thomley (the lead developer at Headcannon, who developed the remastered version in Sonic Origins) is not happy about how the remake turned out in Sonic Origins, with him going on to criticize the unpolished state of the remake and the many bugs that according to him, were not originally there when he and his team submitted the remake to Sega, but were introduced as a result of the remake getting poorly integrated with the rest of Origins by Sega.
  • Cut Song:
    • One resurfaced prototype of the game reveals that the tracks for Knuckles, Carnival Night, IceCap, Launch Base, the credits and the competition menu theme were incredibly different from the final tracks in the game. Interestingly enough, while they were cut from the final Genesis release, these tracks actually did get used in the game (albeit in a slightly rearranged form) through the Sonic & Knuckles Collection, a PC compilation featuring recreations of the standalone versions of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles as well as the locked on Sonic 3 & Knuckles and the Blue Sphere bonus game and for a while, they were thought to be exclusive to the collection until the prototype resurfaced.
    • The vast majority of the soundtrack for Sonic & Knuckles is still present within vanilla Sonic 3. Notably, the S&K miniboss theme can actually be heard in standard play through a glitch — activate the drowning timer then jump out of the water during either Hydrocity Zone boss, and it'll play instead of the intended music.
    • Besides the aforementioned tracks, there was another unused theme in the prototype/Sonic & Knuckles Collection that never got used at all. While its exact purpose is unknown, many in the fandom speculate that it was originally planned to be a unique theme for Super Sonic à la Sonic 2, until it was replaced by the invincibility theme. It was used in Sonic Origins as the level completion theme for New Blue Spheres mode.
    • Sonic 3 Limited Edition, a cancelled Updated Re-release of the game, featured an updated credits medley which included the standalone Sonic 3 tracks, alongside the Sonic & Knuckles tracks.
  • Dummied Out:
    • Much of Knuckles' content for the original Sonic 3 zones is present in the Sonic 3 cartridge, but can't be accessed without attaching it to the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge.
    • A reversed example: in the combined game, when you play Launch Base Zone (the final level of Sonic 3) as Sonic or Tails, the game skips over Big Arms, the original final boss of the level (including the awesome ending music). The boss itself appears as a second phase in Launch Base for Knuckles instead (with standard boss music and no darkening of the sky), while the final boss music is repurposed for the opening phase of each of their respective final bosses (second boss of Death Egg Zone Act 2 for Sonic/Tails, Mecha Sonic for Knuckles). The Game Mods Sonic 3 Complete and Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited both re-implement the full three boss gauntlet for a Sonic/Tails game, and Sonic Origins does so officially.
    • Another reversed example: the infinite oxygen of the Water Shield is useless in the standalone Sonic & Knuckles, as it does not contain a single underwater section.
    • All Sonic & Knuckles music is dummied out in the Sonic 3 cartridge. In the sound test, most of the Zone music that exists in track 9 onward is from Sonic & Knuckles. You can hear the Sonic & Knuckles miniboss music via a glitch during both the Hydrocity Zone Acts 1 and 2 boss fights if you wait until the drowning music starts, then jump out of the water. This glitch also works for the Act 2 boss in the combined version.
    • The standalone Sonic 3 cart has Mushroom Valley,note  Flying Battery, and Sandopolis listed in its level select. None of these Zones are accessible without locking onto Sonic & Knuckles, though the incomplete Flying Battery is accessible via hacking. In 2019, a prototype with a playable "Flying Battery" leaked, which is hardly developed at all (no more than Sonic 2's dropped level Wood Zone), suggesting that the developers had already decided to drop it at an early stage and never implemented the other two levels.
    • Tails in Sonic & Knuckles, and the glitched "Super Tails" form in Sonic 3 (which suggested that Tails was intended to have a Flicky-less state similar to Super Sonic and Super Knuckles, which eventually happened in the mobile version of Sonic the Hedgehog).
    • Standalone Sonic 3 has an eighth Special Stage that can only be accessed via a cheat code on the level select screen. It consists of an extremely difficult spiral layout, with no rings nor room for error due to its shape. However, it was eventually used in Sonic Mania. Sonic & Knuckles also has an eighth Special Stage that was also included in Mania.
  • First Appearance: Of Knuckles, the Master Emerald, and Angel Island.
  • Flip-Flop of God: Are the Super Emeralds merely upgraded Chaos Emeralds or are they a separate set of Emeralds altogether? While the game itself implies that they're the same Chaos Emeralds (which is supported by Sonic Mania developer Christian Whitehead) and the Japanese Sonic Twitter account outright states they are enhanced Chaos Emeralds, interviews from Sonic Team have suggested the latter instead, with series head Takashi Iizuka saying they're currently residing in "another dimension" in one interview and art director Kazuyuki Hoshino stating that they've vanished in another. According to series head-writer Ian Flynn on the BumbleKast, the Super Emeralds are a "gigantic question mark", explaining this inconsistency.
  • God Never Said That: Takashi Iizuka only said that the Super Emeralds were a late addition to Sonic 3 & Knuckles due to wanting a bonus lock-on incentive, not that they are non-canon as some fans believe. However, he did indicate that they won't appear again, supported by Sonic Mania replacing their appearance in Hidden Palace Zone with stone replicas.
  • Kids' Meal Toy:
    • The 3 half of the game received a set of four McDonald's Happy Meal toys; Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Robotnik. Tails and Robotnik's toys in particular had different designs depending on the region. Tails' North American toy featured a string that could be pulled to launch him into the air, with his tails being designed like helicopter blades, while his European toy had a plastic ripcord and 3D molded tails. Robotnik's toy used his Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog character design in North America and Europe despite its bag using a stock image of his character design from the games, while his Japanese toy used his character design from the games.
    • In 1999, Jack in the Box released a set of four toys based on Sega PC games. Besides Sonic & Knuckles Collection, which recieved an articulated figure of Knuckles, there were also toys based on Sonic 3D Blast (Sonic), Ecco the Dolphin (Ecco), and Bug (Bug).
  • Manual Misprint: The two Badniks from Flying Battery Zone in Sonic & Knuckles first showed up in the Sonic 3 instruction manual, though it's understandable given Flying Battery's last-minute removal from 3.
  • Meme Acknowledgment: Sega has acknowledged the Guide Dang It! status of the Carnival Night Zone oscillating barrel, and sells coffee mugs styled after it.
  • Orphaned Reference: Although the Drop Dash was cut and had to wait until Mania to appear in a game, a remnant of it can still be found during the fight with Mecha Sonic, with an attack where he slams down into the ground and dashes forward.
  • Refitted for Sequel:
    • Sonic & Knuckles consists almost entirely of material that was originally intended for Sonic 3 but was cut due to time and hardware constraints. The two games can, however, be locked on together, which creates the official full game, and the longest in the original Sonic trilogy.
    • Hidden Palace Zone was an idea developed for Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but cut from the final game. The name is reused for an otherwise completely different level in Sonic & Knuckles. The idea of the level being a place where the player would unlock a Super Mode may also have been reused, as the player visits Hidden Palace Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles to collect the Super Emeralds (and the transformations they bestow).
  • Screwed by the Lawyers: While re-releases of the game were common through the 1990s and 2000s, due to various licensing and legal issues related to the tracks by Michael Jackson, Brad Buxer, and their team, Sega largely stopped re-releasing the game throughout most of The New '10s, resulting in plans for a remastered version of the game by Christian Whitehead and Simon Thomley getting shelvednote  as well as its glaring absence in numerous compilation rereleases, including the Sega 3D Classics and Sega Ages lineup of games, and plug-and-play units such as the Mega Drive/Genesis Mini. Fortunately, it seems like the issues preventing its re-release have been resolved, as after a full decade, Sega would go on to announce a full remaster of the game, spearheaded by Thomley no less, included with Sonic Origins. Unfortunately, Sega confirmed that the company was unable to use the Jackson/Buxer tracks for the remaster, and all the tracks were replaced by "remastered" versions of the songs featured in the 1993 prototype and the Windows 95 remake by Jun Senoue. That said, emulated rereleases of the game are still unlikely for the foreseeable future due to the legal issues.
  • Shrug of God: The Super Emeralds only existed in this game and they simply vanished after the events of the game.note 
    Kazuyuki Hoshino: "They're gone. I don't know how it happened, but they're gone."
  • Troubled Production:
    • As noted in Christmas Rushed, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were once planned to be one big game. However, time restraints forced Sega to split the game in two in time for 3's release, leaving many fans to wonder what these other stages were once they put in the insanely difficult Stage Select code.
    • Michael Jackson's rumored involvement in the game's music is a whole story of its own, which ranges from anonymous credits and dropped finished tracks because of his child molestation allegations, to him being dissatisfied with the Sega Genesis sound hardware.
    • Apparently, the troubled production of Sonic 3's soundtrack has led to SEGA being unsure who composed most of its songs; whenever arrangements appear in later games or albums, they are simply credited to "SEGA Sound Team", in contrast to the very specific composer credits given for most Sonic games. Only a few songs are known to be exceptions.note 
  • Uncredited Role: Michael Jackson contributed to the soundtrack, but he was dissatisfied with the sound capabilities of the Genesis and decided to go uncredited. Brad Buxer later confirmed that Jackson only contributed to a single track, likely because of this.
  • Urban Legend of Zelda:
    • There tends to be confusion as to why Sonic 1 could not be locked in with Sonic & Knuckles. The two most popular explanations are that Knuckles would have dramatically altered the color pallete or that Knuckles gliding on conveyor belts in Scrap Brain Zone would cause the game to crash. Both of which were solved by the famous ROM hack Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog as well as any future ROM hacks starring characters other than Sonic.
    • Despite what your friends (and basic logic) told you, it's impossible to beat Fire Breath the first time you see it and stop it from burning Angel Island. Its health is set at 255 for this scene. No matter how fast you hit it, it'll successfully set off the firebombs and escape with its robotic life.
    • Sega Magazine (UK) claimed in its issue 11 (page 70) that there was a secret character hidden in Sonic & Knuckles: "Rankles, the green otter with outsize sparkly ankles and Knuckles' sidekick." They offered a million pounds to the first person to send them a photo of Rankles. At the end of the paragraph, they outright admitted that they just made him up, but some kids at the time missed the addendum and thought it was all real:note 
      Anyone who sees Rankles should call Alcoholics Anonymous because Tom Guise just made him up. And we're afraid we couldn't give you the million pounds anyway.
  • Word of God: When Yuji Naka (the game's producer) was asked about the pronunciation of Hydrocity (which is a frequent source of debate amongst the fandom) on Twitter, he stated that it's "Hydro-City".
  • What Could Have Been: Has its own page.

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