Mario the Plumber 3 & Donkey Kong

"Sonic races through the green fields. The sun races through a blue sky filled with white clouds. The ways of his heart are much like the sun. Sonic runs and rests, the sun raises and sets. Don't give up on the sun. Don't make the sun laugh at you."

- Sonic & Knuckles' tagline

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is a platform video game which is the result of locking-on Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with Sonic & Knuckles using the former cartridge's unique lock-on technology. It is essentially a large combined game of its two lock-on components which contains all Zones from the said games and also contains special features unique to this game. This would have been the original Sonic the Hedgehog 3, as the developers intended but time constraints by Sega resulted in the game being split into two.

Why It Doesn't Give Up on The Sun
NOTE: This article will refer both games as one.
 * 1) The game features "LOCK-ON TECHNOLOGY", which allows the game to connect to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3, so that elements of both Sonic & Knuckles and the locked-on game are combined.
 * 2) You can play as Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles (who was introduced in this game), each with their own abilities.
 * 3) *You can now fly as Tails. He can also now float Sonic around a level when playing as both Sonic and Tails.
 * 4) *Knuckles can glide and climb walls and can also break walls by walking through them, but has a lower jump and is slightly slower when compared to Sonic and Tails.
 * 5) Sonic has a new ability known as the Insta-Shield, which is helpful when used correctly.
 * 6) This game introduced the elemental shields, which gives Sonic a new ability when the player taps the jump button a second time:
 * 7) *Flame Shield protects you from fire-based attacks and lava, and you perform the Fire Dash when tapping Jump in midair.
 * 8) *Water Shield makes you breathe underwater and allows you to bounce like a ball.
 * 9) *Electric Shield protects you from electricity attacks, allows you to double-jump, and attracts rings to you like a magnet.
 * 10) The level design changes depending on which character you play as. Playing as Knuckles will also give you a new story exclusive to him.
 * 11) The game is much bigger than the first two games, with more secret areas to discover.
 * 12) The graphics are quite the step-up from its predecessors.
 * 13) An awesome soundtrack, notable for featuring songs that are composed by Michael Jackson and Brad Buxer, the keyboardist of the band "The Jetzons".
 * 14) *Launch Base Zone's "Go" sound effect is actually a sample from Run-DMC’s "Peter Piper".
 * 15) *Many songs are inspired from Michael Jackson's songs such as the Miniboss theme being inspired from the instruments of Blood is on the Dance Floor.
 * 16) An excellent storyline that uses transitions and in-game cutscenes, as well as hints in the backgrounds of levels, to tell the story.
 * 17) * In Sonic's story, Knuckles is an enemy at first but after he realizes that Robotnik teamed up with him only to steal the Master Emerald, he helps Sonic and Tails by leading them in to the Sky Sanctuary, a relaxing, beautiful zone that leads to the Death Egg.
 * 18) *Knuckles also has a unique storyline that takes place after Sonic's events, where he mostly fights Eggrobo and also fights Mecha Sonic in Sky Sanctuary as the final boss.
 * 19) While each game has the typical optional Chaos Emerald sidequest, both games combined unlock the Super Emeralds, making 14 Emeralds to collect. Getting them all unlock the Hyper form for your character (except Tails who gets a Super form, since he can't obtain a super form with the Chaos Emeralds alone)
 * 20) There are two bosses in each zone. One is a miniboss in the first act that is one of Robotnik's machines, and the other boss is Robotnik himself. For Knuckles, he fights an EggRobo instead of Robotnik.
 * 21) The Doomsday Zone is one of the coolest zones in the entire Sonic franchise. You control Super/Hyper Sonic in space, collecting rings while avoiding missiles and meteorites while trying to defeat Robotnik's Getaway Craft and Egg Bomber. You can even boost with Hyper Sonic to go faster.
 * 22) The Bonus Stages are introduced inside checkpoints, being accessed in a similar fashion to the Special Stages from Sonic 2, except requiring at least 20 rings instead of 50. There are three types of Bonus Stages:
 * 23) The Gumball Bonus Stage, where the player can collect powerups in a gumball machine.
 * 24) The Glowing Sphere Bonus Stage, where the player has to rise to the top as quickly as possible using glowing spheres while collecting powerups along the way.
 * 25) The Slot Machine Bonus Stage, where the player can gamble away their rings with the possibility of earning a continue. This Bonus Stage plays like a cross between the Casino Night Zone slot machines from Sonic 2 and the Special Stages from the first Sonic game.
 * 26) The Special Stages are accessed from Giant Rings scattered in hidden areas of the levels. They involve the player collecting blue spheres and avoiding the red spheres in a pseudo 3D view, and collecting a blue sphere automatically turns them red. Collecting every single blue sphere rewards a Chaos or Super Emerald. Additionally, if the player collects every single ring in a Special Stage, they earn a "Perfect" bonus, adding extra points to their score. While these Special Stages may sound easy, some of them can get quite challenging, especially as the movement speed increases and the music starts going faster.
 * 27) *The Special Stages can be accessed as a mini-game if the player connects any other Sega Genesis game to Sonic & Knuckles. Locking on the first Sonic game results in over 1 million different Special Stages.
 * 28) It's the first cartridge-based Sonic game to have a save feature, allowing players to continue from the zone where they last played in if they decide to quit playing or get a game over, rather than forcing them start the entire game from the beginning once they quit out or get a game over.
 * 29) In 2022, it will be re-released for the first time since 2011 as part of the Sonic Origins compilations for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. It will also be available for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S via backwards compatibility.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Getting a game over in Act 2 of a Zone requires retrying from Act 1, unless you have a continue.
 * 2) The standalone version of Sonic & Knuckles lacks a save feature.
 * 3) The infamous Barrel from Carnival Night Act 2. How is anyone supposed to know to press up and down to move it?
 * 4) Sandopolis Act 2 as Knuckles is one of the hardest stages in the game, including the Hyudoros (Ghosts) already being at their final phase at the start of the level (due to Sonic having already freed them, canonically) and ambushing Knuckles immediately, which is dangerous since you start with 0 rings. The level also takes a very long time to complete.
 * 5) The Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 port by Backbone Entertainment does not have the original Save menu, which removes the ability to select levels after completion of the game and instead you have to use save states for saving.
 * 6) Big Arms, Launch Base's final boss, can't be fought in the & Knuckles version, unless you're Knuckles.
 * 7) The miniboss theme from the original Sonic 3 cannot be heard in S3&K.
 * 8) The super and invincibility theme in both versions can get repetitive to listen to due it looping for 10 seconds in Sonic 3, or 5 seconds in S3&K, while also sharing the same theme rather than having its own music.
 * 9) The transformation sound effect for Sonic in The Doomsday Zone sounds really cheesy, like it can be performed on a slide whistle. Fortunately, this was fixed in Sonic 3: A.I.R. and Sonic Origins.
 * 10) Competition mode has problems too. The only way to make it a fair game is for both players to be Sonic and Knuckles and for Tails to not be played by anyone. He can fly, giving him an advantage over Sonic and Knuckles, who have useless abilities in the competition mode.
 * 11) The music has changed in Sonic Origins, like Carnival Night Zone, Ice Cap Zone and Launch Base Zone, which are the prototype music intended from the start before Michael Jackson entered the project.

Reception
Reception for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles was extremely positive, with many fans still regarding it as the best Sonic the Hedgehog game of the franchise.

Trivia

 * This is the first and only Sonic game composed by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. However, he is not credited in game as Jackson didn't appear in the end credits, despite the acknowledgement he got elsewhere. As it turns out, the music from the Sonic & Knuckles Collection release was the intended music this entire time as revealed by the prototype build.
 * This was the first Sonic game to have Takashi Iizuka's involvement.
 * The Drop Dash originated from the prototype build of this game. Years later, it would return in Sonic Mania.
 * There are two Giant Rings in each zone except for Marble Garden (which has twelve), Carnival Night (which has ten), Ice Cap (which has five), Launch Base (which has seven), Mushroom Hill (which has five), Sandopolis (which has ten) and Lava Reef (which has six) having to find them by pushing a spike, or jump into a certain wall, and there are 77 in all.
 * This is one of the games to be represented in Sonic Generations. Sky Sanctuary returns as the third stage of the Classic Era in the home console version, while Mushroom Hill appears as the third stage of the Classic Era in the Nintendo 3DS version.
 * Christian Whitehead made a proof of concept prototype of the game for mobile in October of 2014 for Sonic 's 20th anniversary, showing Angel Island and the Special Stages, but nothing has been heard about it years later, with it being presumably canceled due to the low interest of the public and other problems during development.
 * Eukaryot made a ground up HD rerelease of the game called Sonic 3: A.I.R. (Angel Island Revisited) for PC on April 6, 2019, and fixes all the bugs the original has, while adding additional features and modes that Sonic Mania had, making the game more fun, and adding a widescreen ratio while playing at a smooth 60 FPS. You'll need the Steam version of Sonic 3&K to play.
 * However, it is also possible to play it on mobile as on the iOS, you need to go to “Safari” and use this |link
 * However, you need a ROM to play it on iOS so you need to download a ROM of the game by searching it.
 * It spawned the "& Knuckles" meme.
 * Also the "& Knuckles" meme was referenced in Sonic Mania and even Minecraft: Bedrock Edition.

Videos
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