Sonic The Hedgehog 3

THE BAD:
Series going slightly stale on the third time round

SUMMARY:
This game was the sequel to the extremely popular Sonic 2 and was released a couple of years later. This game still has Sonic and Tails and introduced a new character called Knuckles (an echidna) into the game. I used to read Sonic the Comic so I know whereabouts he came from, otherwise he just appears in the game without much explanation.

Sonic is still battling against Dr Robotnik and trying to stop him from capturing the animals of Mobius and trying to get all the Chaos Emeralds. But this time Dr Robotnik has got some help because he’s managed to convince Knuckles that Sonic is in fact the bad guy and Knuckles sets out to try and make your life as hard as possible. Since Knuckles knows the area very well he succeeds in slowing Sonic’s advance quite a lot.

This game is still basically the same, and Sega knew that. So to try and keep things fresh there are new enemies and more traps to try and catch you out. Sonic also has a few new moves to combat this. When you jump into the air, pressing jump again will give you a force field for a split second. This might not sound like much, but for enemies with spikes, using that can be enough to get you past their defences and kill them without having to wait for them to lower their defences. Also, instead of a normal force field, there are now different types of shields all with major advantages and disadvantages. First off there’s a fire shield. This will allow you to go through lava and withstand fire attacks without taking any damage whatsoever. When you jump in the air and press jump again you will shoot forwards in the air, allowing you to hit an enemy or jump a larger gap. But you can’t go underwater with this shield as the water extinguishes it. Next is a water shield. This allows you to breathe underwater indefinitely without having to look for air bubbles so this can be invaluable in underwater parts of the map. When you jump in the air and press jump again you will shoot towards the ground and bounce off it. I never figured out any major use for it except dropping down faster, but when you bounce off a badnik you fly high into the air. Last is my favourite, the lightning shield. This automatically will attract nearby rings to you which I found extremely handy. Jumping and pressing jump again will propel you higher into the air allowing you to get to places either unreachable before, or just quicker. Downside is you can’t go underwater with this shield. Apart from the extra effects they act as the regular shield, protecting you from one hit.

The special stages have again gone under a revamp. This time you are in a 3D world and you have to run along and turn every blue sphere on the map into a red one. But you can’t run into any red spheres, both ones you’ve turned and other ones, or you fail the mission instantly. There are also bumpers for you to bump off which will take you back in the opposite direction from whence you came. There is a counter telling you how many spheres you’ve got left to turn, but finding them may prove slightly hard. There are 7 chaos emeralds to get in all. Should you manage to get all 7 there is a handy feature which was only accessible in the last game through cheats. If you get all 7 chaos emerald, and get 50 rings in a level, pressing jump and jump again (without a shield) will turn you into Super Sonic, who is bright yellow. This is a version of Sonic which is like he has picked up red sneakers from a TV, and invulnerability and can jump higher than usual. You do lose one ring per second in this form, you can still die by falling down a bottomless pit and by being crushed, and once you turn the only way to get out of it is when you run out of rings. But in a tight spot, Super Sonic is extremely handy, especially if you’ve got well over 100 rings.

Another thing is that the second player could still control Tails. But this time you could make him fly by jumping and pressing jump again in the air. If you flew right over Sonic you could pick him up and carry him up to a high part of the level or over treacherous ground safely. He could only do this for a short period of time before becoming tired and starting to descend.

This was the third outing for Sonic on the Mega Drive/Genesis so some people might argue that the series was starting to become stale and boring. Personally I think Sega did an exceptional job of keeping the series fresh with the new additions. If you have Sonic and Knuckles then this fitted in the top and allowed extra play, which I will explain in my review of Sonic and Knuckles. If Sega hadn’t made such a mess of future consoles then I think the side-scrolling Sonic games would have continued to do very well until side-scrollers went out of fashion.

THE BAD:
Occasional Glitches that can freeze the game.

SUMMARY:
This is my favorite Sonic game in the whole series. While is still has the same fast gameplay as the first two Sonic games, you can also use some strategy in this game to help (it isn't required though.) The shields are really interesting this time around. The bubble one lets you stay underwater without drowning, the fire one makes you immune to fire attacts, and the lightning one makes you immune to electrical attacks. When you are playing as Sonic, each shield also gives you a special move when you hit the jump button twice: Fire makes you become a fireball, lightning makes you jump higher, and the bubble can make you bounce rapidly. You have to be careful with the fire and lightning shields because they will go away if you go into water.

In terms of gameplay, it is still pretty much the same as Sonic 2 with an exception to the shields and Tails ability to fly and swim. If you play as Sonic and Tails at the same time, you can get someone to play as Tails with the second controller and help you out by flying you to areas you couldn't reach. If you play as Tails alone, you can swim out of water or fly to areas you wouldn't normally be able to reach.

With the first three Sonic games each one (for me at least) seemed to get better than the previous one. If you have a Genesis, nomad, or any other device that plays genesis games, this is one game you shouldn't miss.

Bottom Line:
A must have for those who own the Sega Genesis.