It hurts how unfinished Sonic 3 is

[Bramsworth]

I agree with above, I always found it exciting to think there was hidden paths and more than what you could normally see that wasn't normally accessible. Made it more fun, I especially always liked going to Marble Garden Zone since it has a lot of those paths that were pretty high up that you couldn't get by.

I get a feeling if everyone here didn't know that S3 and S&K were originally one game split into two, no one would be calling it incomplete.

[Growl]

I like Sonic on the xbox 360 more, the graphics are too hot.

[Smii]

^ Heh.

I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter how unfinished Sonic 3 is, because S&K exists. They're not meant to be played independently of each other. I was a bit disappointed with Sonic 3 at first, but that was a mere few months in the mid-90s. As others have said, pretty much every Sonic game since then has been far more disappointing.

Besides, without Sonic 3 on its own there would be no Doilus stage, and the world would be a much sadder place.

[kool kitty89]

The decision to split the games in two, although "necessary" according to Sonic Team (this is the prime example of SoJ never wanting to invest in anything bigger than 24 MEGA POWER carts) hurt sales for both games, as Sonic 3 came out during a lull period in early 1994, with S&K coming out just 9 months later. With the latter, the gaming media was already giving off the vibe that they were tiring of the Sonic formula, as opposed to the near-universal praise that they gave S3. Then DKC came out a month after S&K and single-handedly spanked both games' total sales.....if that S3&K cart hadn't fallen through, they should've released it that '94 holiday season to compete against DKC. Me thinks that Sega got too cocky off of the success of Sonic 2, and pulled off this stunt. That or the aforementioned "no carts bigger than 24 MEGA POWER" unofficial rule that SoJ had for Mega Drive games.

I thought it was confirmed that S3&K could have been done within 24M (a ton of redundant sprite and tile data -and sound samples- between the 2 games that could be removed) and that the planned (but unreleased) merged game would have been 24M.

Of course, Sega themselves published several 32M games, but none developed by SoJ. (and all after 1994, I think)

If it was just the size issue, there would have been no delay from the release of S3 and knuckles anyway. (and a single 4M game should have been less than 2/3 the combined price of S3&K bought separately -due to added manufacturing costs, separate distribution, separate advertising, etc)

[metro2005]

The music on sonic 3 is awesome but i think the levels are too long and get boring after a while. Sonic 2 hits the level-lenght sweet spot in my opinion.
Sonic 3 also has levels which i don't like (carnival night zone and launch base zone ) whereas sonic 2 has no levels i dislike and sonic 1 only has one level i don't like (marble zone)
So out of the three i think sonic 3 is the least fun to play. S&K begins great but i never even finished it because of the same problem that sonic 3 has : too long levels, it gets boring.

Am I the only person here that thought that Hydrocity Zone was absolutely full of kickass?

Hydrocity is a kickass level. Great parallax scrolling and bloody awesome music.

[Kogen]

People still having a hard time just pressing two carts together?

[Mr Smith]

Also, I love Hydrocity Zone, and Marble Garden Zone too.

How is that possible? If you claim to like Carnival Night as well, I think you should submit yourself to medical science to be studied.

[QuickSciFi]

I just noticed the poll option. It's like Sophie's choice over here.