Together Retro: Sonic & Knuckles

[Gunstar Green]

Gunstar - No comment on Launch Base?

Oh woops.

I have mixed feelings on that one actually. I'm not a big fan of the color palette and as a "final zone" it's pretty weak though it works well as a transition into Sonic & Knuckles with the Death Egg crashing back down onto Angel Island.

As I recall that version has some different music in certain zones, most notably (and disappointingly) in the Ice Cap Zone.

There's a lot of speculation around licensing issues especially surrounding Michael Jackson involvement theories. Since the removed songs had voice samples the speculation is somewhat warranted. It didn't seem to be a problem in future releases so I'm not sure what was actually going on.

With Ice Cap there wasn't any voice samples but now we do know that it was actually a real, albeit unreleased at the time, song.

[Xeogred]

Looking at the levels I have to say one thing that always impressed me about the Sonic games is variety. Yes they could have made the games bigger if they had re-used assets but every Zone is unique with its design, enemies and gimmicks.

Sums up one of my things against Sonic 2. Some of the levels are just straight up way too similar visually and all. I probably would have liked longer levels and the 3 stages per zone thing more here (though Metropolis being an exception to that rule, being 3 stages, makes it stand out a bit more and I really dig it).

That said, I kind of want to play Sonic 2 the most right now. It's one of those cases where it's the one I can knock on the most... but you put it on and make me start playing, I'll have a blast.

[alienjesus]

I am terrible at Blue Sphere. Tried it about 8 times in my run so far, and failed every time.

Also, I noticed that the giant rings disappear even if I failed a stage. Is there a way to go back and try them again? Using level select or something?

[dsheinem]

Well I was hoping to play this on original hardware and cleared the first 1/3 or so of Sonic 3 last night on my Genesis...only to find the saves didn't take

Guess I'll be playing on the Retron 5 with save states. I assume it recognizes the game as S3&K when locked together?

[alienjesus]

Well I was hoping to play this on original hardware and cleared the first 1/3 or so of Sonic 3 last night on my Genesis...only to find the saves didn't take

Guess I'll be playing on the Retron 5 with save states. I assume it recognizes the game as S3&K when locked together?

On my retron it comes up as 'Unknown game' but if you click to start anyway it'll load as Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

[dsheinem]

Well I was hoping to play this on original hardware and cleared the first 1/3 or so of Sonic 3 last night on my Genesis...only to find the saves didn't take

Guess I'll be playing on the Retron 5 with save states. I assume it recognizes the game as S3&K when locked together?

On my retron it comes up as 'Unknown game' but if you click to start anyway it'll load as Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Does the save feature work?

[alienjesus]

Yup, both the save states of the Retron5 and the games actual save feature work fine. I reloaded the game then reset it and it was still there

[SpaceBooger]

Well I was hoping to play this on original hardware and cleared the first 1/3 or so of Sonic 3 last night on my Genesis...only to find the saves didn't take

Guess I'll be playing on the Retron 5 with save states. I assume it recognizes the game as S3&K when locked together?

Here are some patches to use on your retron that will turn either S&K or Sonic 3 to Sonic 3 Complete. This is a working, and saves, version of S3&K.

Sonic & Knuckles to Sonic 3 Complete
Sonic 3 to Sonic 3 Complete

*these are R9delta's patches

[Gunstar Green]

Well I was hoping to play this on original hardware and cleared the first 1/3 or so of Sonic 3 last night on my Genesis...only to find the saves didn't take

Guess I'll be playing on the Retron 5 with save states. I assume it recognizes the game as S3&K when locked together?

On my retron it comes up as 'Unknown game' but if you click to start anyway it'll load as Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

The stock original software won't recognize it, but anything after the first update should recognize Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It might take a few attempts but it should get it.

Just make sure you're not running version 2.2 software for the Retron or Sonic 3 will crash back to the menu occasionally.

[Luke]

Sonic will only move left to right when jumping off fans. Spent over a half hour trying only to go right to left.

Apparently I'm stupid. I've even tried "timing" with a stop watch, still, no lefties.