The game was released for the Sega Genesis in the United States on February 2, 1994. The European Sega Megadrive release came later that month. The game was released in Japan for the Megadrive on May 27, 1994. Re-released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002 as part of the Sonic Mega Collection.
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2 Overview of play |
At the end of "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", the evil Dr. Robotnik (Doctor Eggman in Japan) had his Death Egg destroyed by the heroes, Sonic the Hedgehog and his companion Miles "Tails" Prower. Having not been completely destroyed, after all, the Death Egg has crash-landed on Angel Island. This island has special properties - not least the ability to float - which it gets from some magical jewels called the Chaos Emeralds. When Dr. Robotnik learns of the Master Emerald, an all powerfull jewel upon which the Chaos Emeralds base their powers, he tries to steal them to repair his Death Egg.
Of course, Sonic and Tails have to put a stop to this, collecting Chaos Emeralds as they go before Dr. Robotnik does. Unfortunately, Dr. Robotnik has tricked the guardian of the Chaos Emeralds, an echidna named Knuckles, into thinking that Sonic and Tails are the thieves, so he tries his best to stop them.
As the player, you control either Sonic or Tails. Your aim is to guide them through six zones, collecting all the Chaos and Super Emeralds on the way via special '3D' stages.
The following zones are in the game:
A closer inspection of the ROM by fans provides some details on the marketing scheme pulled by Sega with the release of Sonic & Knuckles. While Sega orignally stated that the new "revolutionary" lock-on technology literally transformed the secondary game (i.e. Sonic 3 or Sonic 2), the analysis of the rom reveals that Sonic 3 was produced with full knowledge and possibly having most of Sonic & Knuckles already completed, as it provides a whole second version of the game, not an "add-on".Plot
Overview of play
Techinical Specs
Sonic 3 had the, unseen so far in the Sonic series, to record the game level where a player had been and resume it at a later date - which increased the replay value tremendously as several levels sport secret passages and, although not vital to the ending of the game, allow the collection of 7 Chaos Emeralds at a later date.