LET'S PLAY SONIC 3 COMPLETE - The Agony & The Ecstasy & Knuckles

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Let's Play Sonic 3 Complete!

Sonic 3 Complete is a Romhack of Sonic 3 And Knuckles, with the most recent version released in August 2013. It adds a whole mess of changes and options, but if I had to nail down a single primary goal of the hack, it would be to create the Sonic 3 that would have existed if the game had never been split in 2 to create Sonic & Knuckles. There are a lot of little differences, most of which I honestly couldn't care less about, but I'll try and point out the big ones when they come up. Mostly, I'm just happy for a version of the game where I can get Tails to give Sonic a Lift without juggling two controllers.

All footage for this let's play was streamed live to my Hitbox channel... wait shit I mean... my Smashcast Channel? What the fuck is a Smashcast?! WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?! Well whatever it's called now, you can feel free to watch live and join in the chat whenever I'm recording. You know, if you aren't immediately driven away by Hitbox's TERRIBLE new name. "Smashcast" I mean fucking seriously.

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

PROLOGUE BONUS POST!
STRUCTURALLY SPEAKING, SONIC 3 & KNUCKLES IS HELLA WEIRD.

So as everybody on earth already knows, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally supposed to be one massive game, but got split into two smaller video games at some point in development. Sega could have just said "fuck you it's two games now deal with it" but instead they quickly patented LOCK ON TECHNOLOGY, so we could literally smash the two games back into a single whole. The resulting Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles is absolutely a better experience than playing either one separately, but it's not without some side effects that are, well, weird.

Take the "story". Sonic & Tails head over to the island where the dastardly Dr. Robotnick crashed his Not-Death-Star, only to discover that it's a totally magic island inhabited by a red fellow who's about as smart as a bag of rocks. Starting in a pleasant wooded area, they make their way to Robotnick's emergency launchpad, fuck up his stupid space station, and save the day!

And then they fall back to the surface and end up in another pleasant wooded area, make their way to another emergency launchpad, and fuck up his stupid space station again. Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to fuck up Robotnick's stupid space station, but "save the day twice" isn't exactly the most sensible way to structure a 16-bit platformer.

The other obviously impacted area is the series's traditional optional content, the Chaos Emeralds. In the first 6 levels you can find big rings, which take you to special stages where you can get your cool rocks. Get all 7 and you're rewarded with Super Sonic... until level 7, where going into a big ring means losing your 7 cool rocks and super form, and getting presented with another 7 special stages. There's no justification for why level 7 is the cutoff point, that's just where the Sonic & Knuckles half of the game starts, so that's where it happens.

Wierdly, Sonic 3 Complete's attempts to restore the original version of Sonic 3 makes some of the instances of 2 games in one more noticeable. One of the things plugging the two games together does is make the S3 levels easier, to make the sudden drop in difficulty between the last level of S3 and the first level of S&K a little less Jarring. Sonic 3 Complete restores the layouts to their original Sonic 3 Difficulty. It also drops one of the S&K levels between some S3 levels, because that's where it was before the games got hacked to bits. That's undeniably cool, but since the special stage situation I described in the last paragraph remains unchanged, it means more time spent with Chaos emerald set 1, and drastically less chances to get set 2.

I must stress, none of that stuff I just pointed out makes the game I'm playing bad. S3&K is a timeless classic because it's fucking awesome and the changes this romhack adds are all totally optional and largely excellent. Besides, Chaos Emerald Availability isn't even going to matter with the way this LP is gonna work.

HOW IS THIS LET'S PLAY GONNA WORK?

You see what I did there? With the SEAMLESS TRANSITION? That was slick as hell man I'm good at this! Where was I oh right the let's play, right right.

This playthrough will be done using a 100% complete new game + file, meaning I already have both sets of emeralds. That means I'll be able to ignore the special stages, which I feel break up the flow of things in video form. It also means I'll be able to use the incredibly game breaking Hyper Sonic whenever the hell I want. Fortunately this hack gives the Godmode version of Sonic something Sega never thought you'd need: A way to turn him off. So instead of just using him to totally remove any semblance of challenge, I'll just drag him out whenever I wanna show off the dumb shit you can do with him.

Commentary will still consist of me shooting the shit with a bunch of cool internet friends who don't give a crap about the game itself though. Some things never change.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 01

ANGEL ISLAND ZONE
BACK WITH A VENGEANCE
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Rebelfire

IT'S BEEN SO LONG, YOU THOUGHT I LEFT YOU
BUT I WAS IN JAIL WITH MY NEPHEW.

NOTES

• ONE MIGHT BE TEMPTED TO THINK OF ANGEL ISLAND ZONE AS A BOG-STANDARD GREENHILL CLONE. But it's actually a pretty radical departure from it's two predecessors. The blocky Checkerboard walls and perfectly manicured grass of the first two games has been replaced with something that actually looks kind of like a real jungle, with dirt that looks like dirt, plants that look like plants and rocks that look like rocks. It's a great use of the Genesis's limited graphical power, and just darn pretty to look at!
• THEN THE WHOLE STAGE GETS BURNED DOWN LESS THAN 2 MINUTES IN. Haha eat shit nature.
• I FUCK AROUND WITH HYPER SONIC A BIT, SO LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT. In vanilla S3&K, Hyper Sonic is activated whenever you do an insta-shield with 50+ rings, and will stay powered up until his ring count reaches zero or you enter a bonus stage. S3 Complete improves upon this immensely by making it so hyper sonic Will only be activated by the A button instead of all 3 of em, and gives you the option to switch back to normal Sonic the same way.
• THE BIT AT THE END OF ACT 2 WITH THE BLIMP DROPPING A MILLION BOMBS IS AN AUTOSCROLLER. All you have to do is hold right and you'll never get hit. Well, Sonic will never get hit. Tails will suffer like no man has ever suffered.
• BRIDGE JUMP GLITCH. For some reason the game gives you control when Knuckles blows up the bridge in the post-boss cutscene, giving you a one-frame window to jump back to land instead of fall into the next level like you're supposed to. It's the dumbest trick ever, which means I have to do it every single time I play.

BEAT: I'm gonna hit soft reset, and that'll be the official start of this let's play, and I'll do like an official introduction and tell all you assholes to shut up. So yeah.
MarsDragon: I refuse.
BEAT: I know you refuse.
MarsDragon: I will speak up, just to fuck up your own introduction.
BEAT: I know Mars, and that's why that entire thing was a ruse because we already started! WELCOME TO SONIC CLASSIC HEROES! FUCK I MEAN SONIC 3 COMPLETE

While it is not currently Sonic 3 & Knuckles Awareness Month, I still very much appreciate this LP. ... Where's that TT "like" button?

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 02

HYDROCITY ZONE
SPLASH ZONE SEATS
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Rebelfire

Behold, the only good water level in video game history.

NOTES

• HYDROCITY ZONE IS FUCKING FAST. The water levels in Sonic 1 and 2 are not really that well-liked, partially because of just how painfully slow they can get. Hydrocity sidesteps that particular pitfall by making sure that you're at close to top speed as much as possible. I don't think I had to wait for a bubble at any point in this video.
• TAILS SPECIFIC ROUTE. In this case Sonic's intended Route right after landing in the beginning is straight to the right and through a lengthy underwater section, but if you're playing as Tails, or just have him to give you a lift, you can reach another-above water path. In standard S3&K, that means getting your brother be player 2, but Sonic 3 Complete lets you pull it off with just one controller.
• FUCK THE ACT 1 MINIBOSS. Just... fuck em.
• KNUCKLES & HIS COOL BUTTON. There didn't have to be a bridge there. The game could have just let us drop down that shaft and continue to the boss with no fanfare. Instead it takes a completely ordinary drop, and uses it to make sure nobody forgets that Knuckles is a total asshole.
• I CHEESE THE BOSS WITH HYPER SONIC. Because lol fuk u.

BEAT: That was all I wanted to say. You may resume pissing me off with your bullshit conversation that I hate. [...] It's not that I'm mad at you, but I have to be the center of attention at all times.

God, the water slides in that stage that send you flying up the entire vertical height of the stage are just awesome. It's exhilarating just to watch.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 03

MARBLE GARDEN ZONE
ANCIENT RUINS TOURISTS
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Rebelfire - Trynant

I dunno about you but I love pillars. All holding up old buildings and shit? Yeah that's the stuff.

NOTES

• WE BRIEFLY DISCUSS THE SONIC ROMHACKING/FANGAME COMMUNITY. Total Aside here: the first forum YOUNG BEAT ever lurked on obsessively was the Sonic Fan Games HQ way back when I was 13. Some of the members of that community went on to make their own original games. A few of them are now employed by Sega, where they're currently working on an actual Sonic game. But the one I remember as the coolest guy on the forum... became a tragic case study on why you should never care too much about a cartoon hedgehog.
• EARTHQUAKES! Most Sonic 3 Levels have setpieces or gimmicks that distinguish them from the others. Marble Garden Zone has earthquakes, where the level will continually rumble and shake until it doesn't. In one instance this will actually change a solid floor into a slope, and if you're quick enough you can outrun it and get Sonic onto a secret path! I miss it on the video though. Oh well.
• THE SPINNERS. The other thing unique to this level are big blue top-looking spinners that Sonic can run on top of. I don't think we ever brought them up in the voice commentary, which is weird because they're famously a giant pain in the ass.
• FLYING BOSS! This boss is the only instance in vanilla S3&K where player one can control tail's flight with their d-pad. Of course Sonic 3 Complete just lets you do that whenever you want so it's much less special here. Also, beating this boss in a Tails-only game is only difficult if you're a stupid idiot who's dumb brain is too stupid to see obvious solutions, MuteKi.

FanboyMaster: Like, BEAT I believe routinely threatens to murder one of our friends. like every year. And they're still friends too.
BEAT: Oh! You're talking about Fugu, right?
FanboyMaster: Of course I'm talking about Fugu.
BEAT: Haha FUCK FUGU! I hope he dies.

To slightly attempt to make up for the lack of spinners mentions, remember that time they added those into Sky Sanctuary for Generations? that was odd.

I think they were just in the optional challenge stages?

I kinda dug them there. Like a big "oh man they brought that back haha awesome" moment.

I like how you kept the hydrocity zone description in marble garden as of this post, despite marble garden being the only (vanilla) sonic 3 level without water

I used to hate Marble Garden because I would miss the opportunity to get on the top route for cool kids and fall all the way to the bottom at the beginning. I knew from commercials and screenshots that the boss fight took place in the sky, so as soon as I got to Act 2, I just tried to find the highest point in the stage—because that was where the boss would be, right? I was confused and a little disappointed that it ended up being all the way on the right, as usual.

UHHH YES!

YES THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT TO DO AND WAS CERTAINLY NOT A RESULT OF ME USING THE TEMPLATE FOR HYDROCITY ZONE AND FORGETTING TO UPDATE IT

Unintentional but great snark. The only good water level because it doesn't have any.

Or communities.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 04

CARNIVAL NIGHT ZONE
PARTY PEOPLE
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Patito

DAAAAAAA DAA DEE DEE DAA DAA DOO DOO DAA DAA DAAAAAA DAAAAAAAAAAA

NOTES

• CARNIVAL NIGHT IS PROBABLY THE MOST HATED LEVEL IN S3&K. Every time it comes up, people got shit to say about either the music or the barrel. The weird thing is I kinda... don't hate it? Like, it's not my favorite S3&K level, but it's not that bad you guys. Lighten the fuck up.
• THAT SAID, I'M NOT A FAN OF THE ACT 1 MINIBOSS. He's a weird puzzle boss deal. You don't hit him to damage him, you hit him to make him damage himself. also his dumb top thing slowly destroys the floor you're standing on. I don't feel bad about cheesing him with Hyper Sonic at all.
• ACT 2 IS WAY LONGER THAN ACT 1. It's also got way more stuff in it. Like everybody remembers the barrel, but let's not forget that it's also got a big huge underwater segment and a totally unexplained portion where Knuckles turns the lights off just because it was there and he could. Oh man Knuckles. You're such a dick.
• FAVORITE DUMB UNANSWERABLE LORE QUESTION: So did the Floating Island always have a gaudy-ass theme park on it? like did knuckles ancestors from way back build this thing? Or did Robotnick make building this thing a priority over his emergency launch pad? WE'LL NEVER KNOW!
• NEW POST-BOSS CUTSCENE! What's this big airship thing doing here?! Find out... Next time!

MuteKi: He may not chuckle, but he sure does giggle.
BEAT: He totally chuckles. Everybody knows Knuckles chuckles. Like, anybody claiming Knuckles doesn't chuckle is a fucking liar.
FanboyMaster: What about when Knuckles Claims that?
MarsDragon: Knuckles is a liar. Come on.
FanboyMaster: Also "Knuckles chuckle" sounds disturbingly similar to "truffle shuffle"?
BEAT: No. No no. Get out.

I love how you can use the Insta-Shield to extend Sonic's hitbox just high enough that you don't need to wait for the Carnival Night boss to come down before you hit it. I'm always running up against the ten-minute limit in Act 2, and the last time I played, I finished with less than a second to go using that exploit.

Also pretty important:

Hell I'd say VERY important.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 05

FLYING BATTERY ZONE
MOVED TO THE SEQUEL
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Patito

Wait a second! You're not supposed to be here!

NOTES

• SONIC 3 COMPLETE CHANGES FLYING BATTERY'S PLACE IN THE STAGE ORDER. Flying battery is a Sonic & Knuckles level but was originally intended to be a part of Sonic 3 before the game got cut to bits. So the ROMhackers sort of just shoved it in between two of the Sonic 3 levels.
• THEY ALSO MADE IT NIGHTTIME. I see WHY they made this change. Marble Garden ends with the sun setting to set up Carnival Night. It makes sense for it to still be dark outside in the next level, but the whole thing just looks off to me. I feel like they just changed the color of the sky, but all the level geography seems like it's the exact same shade in the original. It hardly matters as 99% of the level is solidly indoors, but still.
• I LOVE THAT THERE ARE END-OF-LEVEL BIRD CONTAINERS JUST SCATTERED ABOUT THE LEVEL. It's like Robotnick keeps a bunch of em onhand in case he needs and extra and hasn't had time to place them behind his designated BOSS FIGHT spots yet. And when you pop em some of them have birds but some have enemies and at least one has rings and one turns into the act one Miniboss! That shit is awesome and I love it.
• THE BACKGROUND MUSIC IS SICK AS HELL. I wish you could hear it better in the video. Also, check out this sick remix by Benjamin Briggs.
• LOL GARFIELD CAUGHT IN THE ACT. I'm not going to Google GARFIELD AS BIG/BLAZE THE CAT" at work or at all. No. I leave that to YOU, dear reader.
• FOR SOME REASON THIS LEVEL HAS A PUZZLE BOSS BEFORE THE ACTUAL BOSS. It's not much of a puzzle, just avoid Robotnick's giant fuck-you laser in a room that gets smaller each time he fires it until he's damaged his own airship enough to start panicking. Just a cool little setpiece and it sets up the rumbling SHIT'S FALLIN APART finale. It's the first time a level's had more than 2 bosses in this playthrough. I wonder if anything like that will happen again hint hint.

FanboyMaster: I just love how 90s that concept is. Like "Finally, Sonic and Garfield, together at last!"

I see the pre-boss mainly as a shout out to Wing Fortress, since Flying Battery is the same type of zone. Changing it to nighttime also has the side-effect of making it look more like Sky Base from Ancient's 8-bit version of Sonic, which was technically the first airship zone in the series.

I've never thought about the musical connection between Sonic 3 Death Egg and Metropolis before, but I'll never be able to unhear it now that Muteki's pointed it out.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 06

ICE CAP ZONE
MEMBERS OF VANILLA ICE'S ENTOURAGE
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Patito - Smiler

It's taking all my willpower to not MSpaint Ice-T and Ice Cube into that youtube thumbnail and rename the video "Ice Rap". The sacrifices I make for you ingrates.

NOTES

• SNOWBOARDING BECOMES SNOWDOORING. So in standard S3&K, the kickass little snowboarding intro has no in-story justification. Why is there a snowboard just randomly sitting at the top of a mountain for Sonic to grab, shred upon, and then trash? Because it's AWESOME and because FUCK YOU, that's why! But apparently that answer wasn't good enough for the ROMhackers, so now the snowboard is the door from Flying Battery Zone that Sonic crashed through in the end-of-level cutscene. Points for continuity but I kinda miss FREE SNOWBOARD WHY NOT all the same. I mean Sonic Adventure didn't give its FREE SNOWBOARD an origin story.
• I FUCKIN LOVE ICE CAP. I love it's music, I love it's artstyle. I love it's infinitely looping drops that you gotta grab a big stupid half-snowball to ride down and the way it shows the passage of time by having the backgrounds get lighter after the act 1 boss and everything. Just, fuckin Ice Cap, you know? Gogdam.
• VOICE CHAT JUST KEEPS TALKING ABOUT JAYARRPEEGEES. Normally I'd yell at them to quit their shit, but I'm just so content playing ice cap, I don't even care.
• THAT DEATH RIGHT AROUND 4:20 THOUGH. Hahaha holy shit. Also 420 BLAZE IT.

BEAT: Phantasy Star 2 is bleak as shit. I love it.
FanboyMaster: By the time that you are aware there's a problem, it's too late to stop most of the things that it's going to do.
Smiler: Wow they ripped off Dark Souls, huh?
FanboyMaster: Please go to hell.

Not as good as the one in Carnival Night where you got crushed by an item monitor.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 07

LAUNCH BASE ZONE
ROCKET SCIENTISTS
FanboyMaster - MarsDragon - MuteKi - Patito - Smiler

So hey, remember my POLOUGE BONUS POST where I went off on how S3&K was kinda weird as hell and how S3C's attempts to "fix" the game just sort of made that weirdness more glaring? Well Launch Base is where all of that comes to a head.

So in the original Sonic 3, Launch Base Zone is the Grand Finale, a job it's actually pretty good at! It's punishingly difficult, has some really cool setpieces, and ends with 3 back-to-back bosses, the last of which is a menacing fuck-you robot that feels appropriately final bossesque. But then then Sonic & Knuckles came out and all that final stuff was suddenly a lot less final.

So what do you do when the level you made as the ultimate challenge is suddenly followed by the one you designed as baby's first steps? Well Sonic Team's solution was to make combining the games not just add S&K levels, but also patch S3 ones. All the levels got a few tweaks here and there, but the ones made to Launch Base are the only ones I ever noticed. There's a genuine effort to knock down the difficulty by removing some cheap traps and gotcha moments, and the level's 3rd and Final Boss is removed entirely. It's not a perfect solution, but it's a good effort to make the combined games a more cohesive whole.

So since Sonic 3 Complete's mission is to create the most cohesive version of S3&K ever, logically the ROMhackers would continue that trend and try to smooth things out more right? Nope! They just restored everything to the way it was in S3! Why? BECAUSE ROMHACKERS!

It's fine though. I mean it's not like anyone other than Sonic nerds like me are playing these kinda romhacks just roll with it.

NOTES

• FUCKING PUYO PUYO. Yeah I don't know how the fuck the commentary got on that. Just roll with it.
• IT'S PRETTY EASY TO GO THE WRONG WAY IN THIS LEVEL. There are loads of instances where it's not super clear if you're supposed to go right or left. I think this is actually intentional though, because every time it happens going either way will eventually put you on a different level where you'll find yourself going in the correct direction. Sonic 3 has pretty good level design you guys.
• GOGDAM LAUNCH BASE LOOKS COOL. It's a bunch of old, crumbling ruins that have had loads of high tech launchpad shit hastily built on top of them. Sort of like a much more explicit version of what Sonic 1 did when it implied that Scrap Brain Zone was just sort of hastily built on top of labyrinth zone. It looks super cool and there's a feeling of getting close to the launchpad as your walkways transition from old buildings to cooling pipes and you can see the death egg in the distance and AAA I FUCKING LOVE THIS GAME.
• 4X BOSS COMBO! There are four bosses in this level! One that spins it's arms around, one that shoots balls at you, one that is just hilarious easy, and one that used to be the final boss! That's a lot of bosses! Thank you extra bosses. Thank you.
• KNUCKLES IS SUCH A DICK. He shows up twice in this level. The first time he uses a bomb to blow up one of the few standing structures built by his noble ancestors, of which he is the last of his kind. Then he shows up again during the neat "YOU JACKED EGGMAN'S RIDE!" bit to just sorta... shove your car over a little bit. And then the death egg takes off and the shockwave topples the pillar he's standing on, throwing him into the water moments before the booster rockets flash-boil the entire lake, killing him forever.
• BONUS CUTSCENE! The romhackers added a little cutscene of the Death Egg crashing back into Angel Island. It's literally just the Sonic & Knuckles title screen but without Sonic or Knuckles or the game's title, but it's still a really nice little addition to the game!

MuteKi: 255 [displays on the life counter as] Y and then 5. It's literally the max number of lives you can have. Otherwise it would loop back around to zero because of the way numbers on computers work.
BEAT: Yeah yeah. 8-bit.
FanboyMaster: Let's all talk about signed integers!
BEAT: Let's not.
MuteKi: Well if it was a signed integer it-
BEAT: WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!!?

I've never thought to use the Insta-Shield to hit Big Arm through its spikes like that. Then again, I haven't fought Big Arm much in general since its role got reduced in S3&K.

Used to hate the boss because it hitting Sonic out of the super form always drove me nuts. That doesn't happen in this version.

I didn't like it, but it's probably fair for final bosses to defend themselves against game-breaking super forms. Sonic 2 gets around it by not giving you enough rings to get there, S3&K accounts for it by requiring a super form to even show up, and Big Arm simply dunks you.

SONIC 3 COMPLETE 08

MUSHROOM HILL VALLEY ZONE
MYCOLOGISTS
MarsDragon - MuteKi - Patito - Smiler

NOT EVERY ABERRATION FROM THE SONIC 3 LEVEL SELECT IS A BAD ONE, ROMHACKERS!

NOTES

• SO IT'S MUSHROOM VALLEY NOW. Cuz if you go into the Sonic 3 level select, that's what it's called instead of Mushroom Hill. That said it's got blocky patterned walls, 2-tone grass and plants with disproportionately long "trunks", and is the first level in it's (uncombined) game. Why, it's almost like Sonic Team renamed it to better follow some kinda intro-level precedent set by the first two games or something.
• THE BIG RINGS NOW FLASH A BUNCH OF DIFFERENT COLORS. Because that stuff I said in the PROLOGUE BONUS POST. If I didn't have Hyper Sonic, this would take me to a big room with a bunch of deactivated emeralds that I could jump on to take me to one of the GET BLUE SPHERES special stages. But I do have Hyper Sonic, so it just gives me 50 rings, same as the non-flashing ones in prior levels.
• KNUCKLES IS STILL ALIVE AND STILL A DICK. He somehow survived falling under an ignited solid rocket booster, found it in his heart to forgive Robotnik for igniting said booster with him under it and made it all the way over to Mushroom Hill Valley in the time it took Sonic to fall back to the ground. His Act 1 appearance is the only time in S3&K that we see him unaware of Sonic's presence, so instead of making a big show of how much of a dick he is, he keeps things really low key while sneakily hiding a big ring by uh, closing a giant, out of place-lookin door. By pressing an enormous switch located on the ground right in front of the door. In Act 2 he's back on his bullshit, gleefully pumping some kinda magical lever that sends us to... Autumn?
• ACT 2'S GIMMICK IS THAT THE "SEASONS" CHANGE AS YOU GET FURTHER INTO THE LEVEL. Act 1 is Summer green, the first half of Act 2 is an Autumn brown, and the second half is a winter Gray. That said the actual graphics in the level are the same in all 3 seasons, the only thing that actually changes between the three of them is the color palette. It's simple and effective!
• THEN IT GOES BACK TO SUMMER WHEN YOU REACH THE BOSS AND BREAK HIS STUPID SATELLITE DISH. So I guess it was never really changing seasons, Robotnik was just making it look like it was with a satellite dish for reasons. Also the boss is one of those running-away-from-you fights! Pretty sure it's the first of it's kind in the whole series.
• NEW END-LEVEL CUTSCENE. In S3&K this level would be followed by Flying Battery, and the stage would end with Sonic and Tails just jumping aboard the airship as it passes overhead. Since we already did Flying Battery, the ROMhackers needed a new way for Sonic to get into the next level. Their solution: Just have him sort of jump... into a big hole... that has a strong updraft blowing out of it for... some reason. Wow. You know, for a second there, I was afraid that was gonna be an obvious cop-out.

Smiler: You know, it's really sad that Sonic dies after this game and there's no more Sonic Games.
BEAT: It is really sad.
Smiler: I mean, I feel like he had, like, 20 years of bad games ahead of him! But he just gave up the ghost after this one.
MuteKi: "Enjoy your future Sonic! It's gonna be greaaaat!"
Patito: Sonic Forces proves that you don't need Sonic to make a Sonic Game.
Smiler: Here. You can just make your fan character.
BEAT: You can make your fan character or you can make Sonichu.

I feel I'm falsely credited as a mycologist, I don't think I was there at all.

Whoops my bad lemme fix that real quick.

For the record, while they don't exist as configurable options in the game, there are patches to return to the Sonic 3K boss gauntlet (i.e., no big arm for sonic and tails) and keep the Mushroom Hill name available here.

I also like to enable "Sonic 3 Credits music for Hidden Palace" since I think it gives the level a little more distinctive character to do so, set "include lives and continues" for the save screen display, and set "Collect a total of 50 rings (one ring if you already have 50)" and "remove continue progress HUD" for the slot machine continues options (this is the same behavior as vanilla S&K/S3K; I think the continue HUD clutters the screen).

("Continue Knuckles fight music through hidden palace zone" is a nice option, but it only works if you use the original sonic 3 music for Knuckles, since that's a much longer loop than the song that replaced it in S&K)

HEY WANNA SEE THE NEXT BATCH OF LEVELS LIVE? CLICK THIS LINK, JACKASS.
https://www.smashcast.tv/beathatesall