Sonic & Knuckles Review

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:50:01 +0000

Sonic 3 shipped too soon. It was originally meant to have twice as many levels, another playable character and a whole separate storyline — but that all got the axe when, in the interest of getting the game out quicker, SEGA shipped it to stores half-finished. Now, even in that state, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 was an incredible game. But SEGA wanted to do right by the Blue Blur’s fans, and so all the extra content cut out of the first release was completed, polished up and sent out as a follow-up product — Sonic & Knuckles. And, now, that follow-up’s available to own once again through the Wii’s Virtual Console.

The crazy thing about Sonic & Knuckles was that it didn’t ship on a traditional Genesis cartridge in its first release, back in 1994. It came out on the world’s one and only “lock-on” cartridge — it plugged into the Genesis system itself, like normal, but on top of its casing was another slot that you could plug a second game into. If you just had the Sonic & Knuckles cart, you could play the new game just fine. But if you plugged your older Sonic the Hedgehog 3 cart into the top, the two games combined code and let you play “Sonic 3 & Knuckles” — which was, essentially, the full product Sonic 3 was originally meant to be. Tons of levels, separate storylines, Knuckles playable back in the older Sonic 3 levels and more — ridiculous, awesome stuff. The lock-on cartridge was a crazy, weird and ultimately very impressive technical achievement, and one of the absolute pinnacles of the Genesis experience when you first saw it in action.

And now it’s impressing me all over again. The vast majority of retro re-releases through the Wii’s Virtual Console are straight emulations, given no extra effort or features. Sonic & Knuckles, though, has gone the extra mile — through an inventive software-based solution, SEGA’s managed to re-create the hardware lock-on experience in virtual form. So if you download Sonic & Knuckles by itself, you again can play its content just fine. But if you’ve also downloaded Sonic 3’s Virtual Console re-release, you can again “lock them on” through a new sub-menu and get the full experience, all over again.

What’s more, Sonic & Knuckles’ VC edition also locks on with the Virtual Console re-releases of Sonic 2 and the original Sonic the Hedgehog, too, giving you the same results as it did in the ’90s — which Sonic 2, you open up a new version of that game that allows you to play as Knuckles and access new hidden areas. And with Sonic 1, while you don’t get to play as Knuckles in that game, you do unlock a game called “Blue Sphere,” based on the Sonic series’ psychedelic Chaos Emerald bonus levels.

That’s a whole lot of game for just 800 Wii Points.

Sonic & Knuckles is pretty slick Sonic stuff itself, gameplay-wise — it’s just as fun to play today as it was over a decade and a half ago, as you’re given the option to take either Sonic or Knuckles through a fresh set of spinning, looping, high-speed levels. Sonic plays the same way he did in 3 — you should know what you’re getting with him. But Knuckles is the new variable, equipped with a glide technique that lets him sail slowly through the sky after a jump, and a wall-climbing ability that lets him scale sheer cliffs with his claws. Both character run fast, blasting through the loop-de-loops and bouncing off the springs that you’re certainly familiar with from Sonic titles, but their movesets beyond that are different enough that it makes playing as Knuckles feel like the new experience it’s supposed to be.

The red-bodied Echidna also gets his own separate storyline sequences, taking a different plot path through the game even when the stages he’s blazing through are the same as Sonic’s. That may not mean much to many of you, but old-school Sonic fans from the Genesis age will be thrilled to relive every classic, dialogue-less story bit — and it’s nice bit of timing, too, that this reminder of Sonic’s simpler days has shipped into the Wii Shop right when everyone’s getting their hype levels built up for the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

Now some negativity might be leveled against Sonic & Knuckles here for not doing enough as a standalone game, and only really being worthwhile when joined to Sonic 3 — after all, each one is admittedly incomplete without the other. I think I’ll leave that discussion back in 1994 where it began, though, because while it’s got some truth to it, the modern fact is that most people considering a download of S&K today have probably already downloaded S3, since it’s been available on Virtual Console since 2007. The only real complaint I have against the game myself is the length of time we’ve had to wait for its re-release — I wanted to get my lock-on on two and a half years ago.

Online Games » Games

Sonic & Knuckles Review