Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (Knuckles) Ending: Just a day in the life of a guardian
So the fact that during Knuckles’ campaign you face an Egg robo imitating Eggman has always been very weird to me
Because the obvious question is: where is the doctor? If I had played the game as it released I may have believed that he’d been killed for good at the end of Sonic’s story! Naturally nowadays I know that’s not the case and I doubt that was ever the idea…but hindsight also brings me to wonder whether we’re seeing the actual, first ever case of Eggman getting upstaged. Granted, there’s no proof of that and it’s much more likely that he’s recuperating from his battle with Sonic and sending his robots to steal the ME again in the meantime…but every time I see thatn short sequence of Eggrobo bringing Knuckles to Mecha Sonic, complete with the latter using the ME for himself…I dunno that gives me some “secret mastermind behind everything” vibes
Also I don’t like how the ME is just suddenly on Sky Sanctuary. The ME getting stolen is one of the most pivotal scenes in Sonic’s story, the fact that it gets stolen off screen this time and with no build up feels very shoddy given this game’s standards
Now let’s talk about one last thing: artstyle. This game’s
So when talking about Classic Sonic’s general aesthetic sense it’s usually stated that he’s got a very abstract feel. Abstractism mixed in with a small dose of “down to earth”. Green Hill would be a regular place were it not for the checkerboard ground, the totems, the twirling flowers, bright colors and of course all the springs and loops etc. Spring Yard is a city in the middle of a forest that just so happens to have a weird pseudo pinball theme going for it. Sonic CD is half an acid trip. There are certainly Zones that feel more grounded, like Scrap Brain or Chemical Plant, but generally speaking there’s a certain balance between zany abstractism and down to earth feel
However…I feel that Sonic 3 is an exception to this
Because when you look at most of its Zones you’ll notice that they are…real life places
Angel Island Zone is…a jungle. That’s it. No checkerboard ground, no super bright colors, no weird structures. Were it not for the obligatory Sonic loops and springs you could take this place, put it in another game and it would work just fine
Same with Marble Garden: it’s just a bunch of grassy ruins, nothing too crazy about it. Icecap has some interesting ice crystal formations in the background but for the most part it’s just an icy mountain. Sandopolis is especially egregious in being just straight up an Egyptian pyramid, because in Act 2 you can see in the background some hyeroglyps depicting humans…which will later create some issues what with the whole deal about the island once being inhabited solely (well presumably) by echidnas. Hell even SA2 of all games had a more interesting looking pyramid!
What I’m trying to say is that Sonic 3′s areas feel to me like they’re trying to veer more into a realistic feel when compared to what came before. There are certainly exceptions, like Carnival Night, Mushroom Hill and Sky Sanctuary, but for the most part the game just doesn’t feel as abstract oor “out of this world” as the others
No I’m not saying that this is Sonic 06 or Frontiers tiers of bland realism, but people tend to forget that Sonic Team’s attempt to make Sonic “live in the real world” was gradual, with the Adventure games already trying to go for more down to earth approaches, Shadow’s game going all gritty and even Sonic X literally putting Sonic in the “real world”. I’m wondering if this process hadn’t already been taking its first baby steps here?
Another difference I’ve always noticed is in how Eggman’s mechs are visually presented
Now the regular Badniks are as goofy as ever, but the boss robots look distinctly more…menacing. The game in general tends to use slightly darker colors and has much stronger “shading” on sprites belonging to bosses (and even the characters to a smaller extent), giving them a greater sense of visual depth. In general their designs are remarkably colder feeling, like look at stuff like the Hydrocity miniboss or Big Arms or especially the new Death Egg Robot when compared to the old one: yes, the latter was menacing but still remarkably goofy looking. The former looks scary. And in a way I like this, these guys are bosses, they’re supposed to look a bit intimidating, but I have a small issue in that there seems to be a bit of an artstyle clash between them and the characters, Eggman included. It’s like the increased level of sprite detail and shading on them makes them feel like they belong to a series with a darker artstyle when compared to the guys who actually inhabit this world. Again: it’s nothing extreme, but it’s foor for thought in hindsight
One design I absolutely do not like and never have is Mecha Sonic’s
Reemember when I said that what makes Metal Sonic’s design so perfect is how it manages to perfectly balance the menacing edgyness of his dark eyes, sharp edges and overall cold feel with the inherent goofiness of still having Sonic’s proportions, hence still making him feel like he genuinely is like a twisted version of Sonic?
Yeah well Mecha here didn’t get the memo. This guy’s design is ugly. He’s 100% coldly mechanical with absolutely no attempt at giving him that inherent Sonic-like cartoony feel. He looks so supet serious yet unlike other serious characters like Shadow he’s also straight up inelegant, with those super thin limbs and big ass head. Hell if it weren’t for the color blue and those metallic spikes (which look like a tacked on wig) I wouldn’t even be able to tell visually that this is supposed to be a robotic replica of Sonic!
Mecha Sonic looks just a few steps away from looking like one of Eggman’s robots from 06. No really think about it and compare the two, they feel relatively similar in artstyle!
Yeah sure he gets a cool boss fight here don’t get me wrong, hell kudos for being pretty much the only Sonic villain who’s had the brain cells (err processing power?) to use the Master Emerald to initiate a Super transformation, rather than to go hunt down the 7 Emerald. But beyond that I never understood the appeal nor the popularity…well ok let’s face it, they’re all due to a certain mid 2000s sprite animation.
Anyway I really like the ending: not only do we get to see Sonic fly his own plane for once, but we get to see Knuckles essentially thank Sonic for the save with a thumbs up and a smile! That’s really cool! It’s a nice little cap off to their relationship in this game: going from trolling him at every opportunity, to having to trust him to save the ME, to coming to respect the blue guy
This game has honestly my favorite depiction of Knuckles. The reason why he trusts Eggman actually makes sense given the context and character and is not just for a gag (though the fact that Knuckles is not tipped off by Eggman literally torching the island in the first stage is uhhh, but whatever it’s a 16 bit game, such story details were not generally the focus, I’ll let it slide), he goes from an irritating douche bag getting in your way all the time to an honorable ally (friend?) whose respect Sonic and Tails have earned and, above all else, we get a whole campaign dedicated to him just doing his job and doing a good job at it
I’m not a big Knuckles fan in general, mainly because I think that, even by the standards of this series, with character portrayals shifting in quality harder than the economy, Knuckles just doesn’t have much in the way of really good portrayals but he sure has quite a few crap ones. But his first iteration is a genuine win for the guy
