Is Sonic 3 Just supposed to be an updated version of sonic 2 because they are-other than the updates- exactly the same!

... Sonic 3 is a completely different game.

Their's plenty of differences between Sonic 2 and 3. The only game that's a LITTLE simalar to Sonic 3 is Sonic and Knuckles. That's because Sonic and Knuckles has the same graphics as Sonic 3 and the same power-ups and stuff.

all 3 sonic's sort of felt the same, but they were all unique in a different way.

They arn't the same game that's for sure.

quote drmario

all 3 sonic's sort of felt the same, but they were all unique in a different way.

Sonic 1 - You couldn't spin dash, there were only 6 Chaos Emeralds.

Sonic 2 - 1 more Chaos Emerald was added, Super Sonic was introduced, but NO Super Tails.

Sonic 3 - Super Sonic returns, 3 unique shields were there (fire, water, electric)

Further more, graphically and sound-wise, Sonic 3 is far superior to Sonic 2.

sonic 3 has new game engine inside
so it can't be same as 2

S3 also supports 3D graphic and Image resizing on the fly
(zoom in/out) which S2 can't, also S3 engine removed the
lag that plagued S2 not to mention improved graphic sprites