S&K + Sonic 3 questions SOLVED

[o.pwuaioc]

Normally in Sonic 3, if you get all 7 Chaos emeralds you can turn into Super Sonic. Now with S&K + Sonic 3, there's 14 Chaos Emeralds. Do you have to get all 14 to go Super Sonic, or will 7 still do?

If I recall correctly, you lose all your emeralds and your ability to become super sonic once you enter a big ring in the S&K levels.

not true. see CFFJR's post. the emeralds are like octagonal in the sonic 3 levels, then they turn into diamond-shaped, larger emeralds as you collect them through s&k. you'll see how many you have around your character in the game selection screen.

I'm...I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing...

[aaron]

If I recall correctly, you lose all your emeralds and your ability to become super sonic once you enter a big ring in the S&K levels.

not true. see CFFJR's post. the emeralds are like octagonal in the sonic 3 levels, then they turn into diamond-shaped, larger emeralds as you collect them through s&k. you'll see how many you have around your character in the game selection screen.

I'm...I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing...

we are. in sonic 3, you collected 7 chaos emeralds through 7 special stages, which allowed you to become super sonic. when you connect S&K to sonic 3, you have 14 special stages. the first 7 special stages will net you the normal, sonic 3-sized emeralds, whereas the sonic & knuckles stages will give you the larger, diamond-sized emeralds. these are the ones you see in the hidden palace zone from S&K. you don't lose your emeralds in S&K if you have all 7 octagonal ones by the time you reach the mushroom hill zone. you simply start acquiring the diamond-shaped emeralds one by one.

i'm not 100% on if you lose your ability to be super sonic, but you definitely don't lose the emeralds in terms of them showing up on the save game screen. the bigger emeralds just take the place of the smaller emeralds one by one.

this is the screen from Sonic 3 i'm talking about:

[Ziggy]

i'm not 100% on if you lose your ability to be super sonic, but you definitely don't lose the emeralds in terms of them showing up on the save game screen.

You're right, you don't lose them on the save game screen. But you actually do lose them in the game. Once you reach the S&K levels and go into a giant right, the emeralds get sucked out of Sonic and land on podiums. This room...



They'll still show up on your file on the save game screen, but you wont have them in the game. And since you don't have them in the game, you wont be able to turn into Super Sonic anymore (except for the Doomsday Zone). Check my second to last post before this one, I explained how it works. I literally just experienced it, that's how I know it's true.

And for example, I had 4 emeralds by the time I first reached Mushroom Hill Zone. I went into a giant ring and lost the emeralds. They still showed up on the save game screen, but when I played a bonus stage, they were no longer on the white screen at the end (where it will normally show the emeralds you've collected). They're not on the white screen because you don't have them, they're on the podiums.

[o.pwuaioc]

I'm...I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing...

we are. in sonic 3, you collected 7 chaos emeralds through 7 special stages, which allowed you to become super sonic. when you connect S&K to sonic 3, you have 14 special stages. the first 7 special stages will net you the normal, sonic 3-sized emeralds, whereas the sonic & knuckles stages will give you the larger, diamond-sized emeralds. these are the ones you see in the hidden palace zone from S&K. you don't lose your emeralds in S&K if you have all 7 octagonal ones by the time you reach the mushroom hill zone. you simply start acquiring the diamond-shaped emeralds one by one.

i'm not 100% on if you lose your ability to be super sonic, but you definitely don't lose the emeralds in terms of them showing up on the save game screen. the bigger emeralds just take the place of the smaller emeralds one by one.

Ah, ok, I see what you're saying. By "losing the emeralds" I mean you lose their power. Once you get to the super emeralds, you no longer can turn into super sonic. I mean, if you can't turn into super sonic, what difference does it make if they're on the save screen?

[aaron]

got it. we were talking about the same thing and a totally different thing at the same time. i haven't played through S3&K in a while so i totally forgot about the emerald theft scene, ziggy.

[theclaw]

I think there's minor layout changes for the Sonic 3 levels when locked onto S&K. Spikes and item monitors in different spots, or something like that.

[Jrecee]

Dammit they need to make Sonic and Knuckles 2. I remember discovering all this hidden stuff years ago and it was amazing.

Tracking down the special stages in sonic and knuckles is way harder than in sonic 3 though. I didn't even find the special stages in flying battery until about a year ago when I thought "hmm, I've never seen one in this level before" and then looked in the guide book I had. You have to take some route that you almost never take, and then push a set of spikes to the side and fall underneath them! wtf!

[Ziggy]

Not only are they harder to find in the S&K levels, but they're harder to beat too. I think I got 3 Super Emeralds right now, I'm trying to get all 7. The Sonic 3 emeralds seem really easy to me now, but some of the S&K stages, it's like they were just trying to be annoying.

When I played through as Knuckles, I found it easier to find the giant rings. Not only in S&K levels, but the Sonic 3 levels as well. It seems like every stage has at least one giant ring that only Knuckles can get to anyways. But at this point, I'm just playing Mushroom Hill over and over on my cleared Sonic file to try and get all the Super Emeralds.

[Sideroller]

The special stages in S&K are harder because technically they're the next step up from the regular chaos emerald stages. The way it's supposed to work is that you get every chaos emerald by time you reach Mushroom Hill - and then you're supposed to collect every super emerald which gives hyper sonic. They just ramp up the difficulty because the reward is slightly greater (hyper sonic)

Another place that tails can get to that Sonic can't is in the Hidden palace zone. The path with all the hidden springs in it (leading up to Knuckles if you're Sonic) has a tall ledge that you can fly to as tails. I think there's just a bunch of power-ups there and an extra life or something, but still cool to check out.

I will say the locations for special stages are harder to find as well. You can pretty much get every emerald in Mushroom hill but after that it's difficult. Your best bet is to get the rest in Flying Battery (if you know the spots) or Carnival Zone because that stage has lots of rings as well (just watch your time in that stage because it's really easy to die due to time over if you screw around trying to do stuff for too long)


Special stages in Sonic 2 are just a pain in the ass. I'm lucky if I can get super sonic at all. OH, it's also possible to get Super Knuckles in Sonic 2. I believe the first time I ever got all the emeralds in 2 was with Knuckles, only because he doesn't have tails following him everywhere.

[Xeogred]

I think the special stages are way easier to find in S&K, as CFFJR said earlier there were times where I could get all of them close to the end of Mushroom Hill Zone or into the next zone.

But I owned S&K for years and never really owned Sonic 3, that probably goes without saying. I know S&K like the back of my hand, but even if I've played Sonic 3 dozens of times it still feels a bit more alienated to me since I don't know it as well, lol.

I could probably agree the S&K special stages are tougher though. But still not nearly as frustrating as those dumb special stages in Sonic 2 to me, ugh!