Headscratchers / Sonic 3 & Knuckles

• What the heck is in that giant mech's eye, shown from the front◊ during the second to final battle in Sonic & Knuckles?
  • That's a light. You could easily recreate that in real life.
• Why is there a carnival zone on Angel Island of all places? Did Robotnik have time to just build one? That always bugged me, the rest of the zones made relative sense in one way or another (despite, you know, radically different climates being right next to each other on a floating island).
  • I'd guess it was one of the most recent things that the Echidna civilisation built before they disappeared. Knuckles maintained it because he was all alone on the island; the carnival and its maintenance were his only sources of amusement.
  • It's the surrealism of the Mega Drive trilogy (+ Sonic the Hedgehog CD). Spring Yard didn't follow a level theme (It wasn't really a city level, it wasn't a casino level, and it wasn't a mountain level...), Collision Chaos is a pinball table... "On drugs", and Carnival Night looks out of place in Angel Island. Actually, Sonic 3 has the most "normal" levels in the trilogy, so Carnival Night looks even more out of place.
  • Spring Yard Zone appears to be explained in that Sonic The Hedgehog's zones are arranged incorrectly - the original game's level select screen has them in a different arrangement of Green Hill > Labyrinth > Marble > Starlight > Spring Yard > Scrap Brain, which seems to show the stages becoming less rural and more industrialised as they progress, matching the theme of getting closer to Robotnik's main base. This was better enacted in Sonic 2, minus the placement of Chemical Plant and Casino Night Zone.
  • Alternatively, Carnival Night is Eggman's primary base on the island, while Launch Base is just the subset dedicated to getting the Death Egg airborne again. The Flying Battery's gotta refuel somewhere, and the level order was originally going to have Flying Battery immediately after Carnival Night, anyway...
  • My bet is that Eggman built it too, but only because Eggman seems like the kind of guy who'd divert time and resources from his world-conquering agenda to build a gigantic theme park for his enjoyment.
  • That's the most likely explanation. It wouldn't be the only time he has built something like that. Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Colors, anyone?
  • Sonic Adventure's Mystic Ruins were stated in Sonic Chronicles to have been part of Angel Island before it was lifted into the air. Perhaps Carnival Night is built on another island that was once part of the same landmass, and when the Death Egg pushed Angel Island into the sea they fit back together in the same way as in SA?
  • I just realised this could also tie in to Knuckles Chaotix's Carnival Island, explaining Knuckles' presence there and why there are do-dads so similar in function to the emeralds, the Chaos Rings, on what is apparently an unrelated landmass to the home of the Master Emerald.
• Another question: why is the carnival level underwater?! It's as if Sega was going out of their way to put underwater levels in the game just for the heck of it, and making up for it by having no underwater sections at all in Sonic and Knuckles.
  • Apparently, Knuckles shutting off most of the area's power released the water. Somehow.
  • The water that appears in Sonic and Tails' version of the level is due to minor flooding. Notice during Knuckles' version of Angel Island Zone - Launch Base Zone, the amount of water in those levels has receded. This is because Angel Island is back in the sky and not the ocean at that point.
• Why do the spitting statues in marble garden appear human?
  • Without knowing who built them, it's impossible to say. Humans could have built them. Or, just as humans make animal statues, anthropomorphic animals could build human statues. They might be religious.
    • It was built by Echidnas who have probably never heard of humans.
    • Nah, it was most likely built by humans, along with the Sandopolis pyramids, whose walls feature carvings with human figures. Technically it was never stated that the Knuckles Clan were the only beings on Angel Island — only that by Knuckles' time he was the only inhabitant left. There might have been human civilisations that lived there in the past but died out. Or alternatively, Marble Garden and Sandopolis might have been built before Angel Island came to be.
  • Why wouldn't they? Humans definitively exist in this setting; Dr. Robotnik is one. There is no evidence whatsoever that the Echidnas were unaware of humans, so there's no reason some of their statuary wouldn't depict them.
    • Adding onto this, Sonic Adventure shows that the ancient Echidnas probably knew about humans. The present-day Mystic Ruins are just a train ride away from the present-day Station Square. And Tikal mentions how the Echidnas were conquering other countries, so the Echidnas most likely encountered and knew about humans. Don't forget they also made structures of animal people, specifically one that ended up being Sonic himself.
• How did Knuckles knock Sonic out of Super Sonic mode? He even did so hard enough to knock the Chaos Emeralds out of Sonic. Isn't Super Sonic supposed to be invincible, at least for the early games?
  • Better question. Why does he hide the stolen emeralds in poorly hidden giant floating minigame rings?
    • Knuckles might have hidden the Chaos Emeralds in the previous two games, hiding them in different areas of the Special Zone each time to make them harder to find. Each of the islands in the previous Sonic games could lead to different areas in the Special Zone (e.g. South Island (Sonic 1) leads to the rotating maze areas, and West Side Island (Sonic 2) leads to the halfpipes) and Angel Island happens to lead to the giant sphere area. The reason Giant Rings are even more common could be the high levels of Chaos Energy from the Master Emerald and the Super Emeralds. Knuckles could've also found the Chaos Emeralds at some point before Sonic 1 and after they scattered at the end of said game.
  • Maybe being guardian of the Master Emerald just let's him do h4x shit like that? For all we know, cancelling a Chaos Emerald-induced Super Mode is part of that power set, like sensing Emeralds - not like he's ever had occasion to do it again.
  • Actually, in one of the cut-scenes in Sonic and Knuckles, Knuckles knocks a giant boulder into Sonic, which can revert him back to normal from HYPER. Since he's an NPC in Sonic's story, he's invincible in cut-scenes, but a joke in actual battle.
    • Until you brought up the boulder, I assumed Knuckles struck Sonic in the family Chaos Emeralds. Hey, just because he's super doesn't mean he lacks many weaknesses (aside from falling in pits, getting crushed or running out of time).
  • When Knuckles punched him out of the super form you start the level with no Rings. Maybe the transformation was just about to end and Knuckles had an extremely lucky shot.
  • It's a canonical fact that the Master Emerald can cancel out the Chaos Emeralds' powers. Maybe Knuckles used its power to cancel out Sonic's Super form? He may previously have "charged" himself with the Master Emerald's energy in order to nullify Super Sonic, or maybe he simply had the Master Emerald with him and used it (remember, SA2 heavily implied that he can shrink the Master Emerald and carry it around).
  • This was answered by Sonic Channel: Knuckles was able to hurt Super Sonic thanks to a combination of having used a surprise attack and his tremendous strength.
• This game has Knuckles going through Sonic's Angel Island Act 1. Since his story takes place right after Sonic's, wouldn't it still be recovering from the fire?
  • Well, in canon, Knuckles' gameplay never happened in Sonic 3...I don't know.
  • ...Uh, no.
  • It could be thanks to the power of the Master Emerald, as the Master Emerald is dropped off in the jungle at the end of Sonic's story. The Master Emerald surpasses the Chaos Emeralds in terms of power, and as seen in the game that must not be named, the Chaos Emeralds have the power to revive living beings, why not plants too?
    • The good ending in Sonic 1 strengthens this theory. The Mega Drive ending shows the Chaos Emeralds making flowers grow in Green Hill, while the 8-bit ending shows them eliminating Eggman's pollution in the island. The Japanese Sonic 1 storyline also states that the Emeralds give energy to all life forms, which would include plants. It's probably not a reach that the Master Emerald has the power to restore the vegetation in the forest.
• Why did Angel Island fall from the sky anyway? The Master Emerald was still in Hidden Palace at that time.
  • Eggman's ship crashed into it, and the sudden force propelled it down.
  • Yeah, the game's backstory stated that the Death Egg knocked Angel Island into the sea, and its weight has been actively pushing the island downwards since then. As the game shows, the Master Emerald's power is capable of levitating Angel Island OR the Death Egg, not BOTH at once.
• Why did they show the Death Egg getting destroyed in the Sonic 3 standalone ending? They already knew that that story would be continued in Sonic & Knuckles. Granted, S3&K alters that cutscene to show the Death Egg falling rather than exploding, removing any continuity problems. But still, why wasn't the Sonic 3 version like that? For people that play the game without lock-on, the Death Egg's presence in S&K will make no sense.
  • To make Sonic 3 seem more like a complete game for those that were unaware of S&K or couldn't buy it. And to be fair, the continuity of the games was extremely loose at the time, meaning it was hardly that big a deal.
• So why exactly is Knuckles' story never even so much as mentioned in the Japanese material that details this game's plot? I get that even back then Sonic was still a bit more story-driven than Mario platformers or others at the time, but it seems kind of glaring that they would go through all the trouble of still making Knuckles playable as they intended when the game was intended to be on one cartridge, even going so far as creating a cutscene for the stand alone Sonic & Knuckles cartridge, and then not even mention his plot even once. Yes, the setup is basic and easy to get, but so is pretty much the Sonic games that came before it and even in-game Sonic's story is pretty basic when you start as well, but that still didn't stop me from taking a look at the Japanese material for the stories which still give a very detailed plot to the games despite the setup for these plots being basic and easy to get. I get that out of the classics Sonic 3 & Knuckles probably has the most going on for it in terms of story, but I wouldn't exactly say there's much you can spoil, as despite being the most plot-driven of the classic Sonic games we pretty much know Sonic's going to win in the end anyway. And even if it is the most plot-driven compared to other Sonic games that were released later on it's still light as most of Sonic's games back then were, and even if it was to leave out spoilers, well simply having Knuckles playable right off the bat kind of gives away some stuff in the little story they do have. Not to mention it kind of didn't make things at the end for me clear until at least watching Cybershell's finale for his Knuckles playthrough, I didn't know the Master Emerald had been stolen by Eggrobo and Mecha Sonic, mostly because I found it slightly hard to notice Angel Island falling in the background and nothing in the canon material was mentioning that it was stolen or that the Island was slowly falling. It didn't fall quite quick enough for me to pick up on that, not to mention the cutscene at the beginning shows nothing more than the Eggrobo trying to blow Knuckles up with a bomb and there's nothing that states at any point Knuckles was going to Sky Sanctuary to get back the Master Emerald. The American manual and story mentions some of this and despite the fact they get it wrong by stating it happens at the same time as Sonic's story, it's at least something. I could understand it if Knuckles' story was basically like Tails where it's just Sonic's story with Knuckles, but his is different enough to warrant calling it a different adventure than Sonic's story. I kind of don't get why no actual canon material from the actual Japanese story doesn't at least mention some of Knuckles' story.
  • Oversight?
• Why does everybody call that infamous obstacle in Carnival Night Zone "the Barrel of Doom"? It's clearly a cylinder, not a barrel.
  • That's a FANBASE headscratcher, NOT an official headscratcher.
    • So?
    • If something about the game caused confusion for the fanbase, that counts as an official headscratcher.
  • It kinda looks like a carnival barrel.
  • There are cylindrical barrels, such as oil drums.
  • The point is that a cylinder isn't a barrel unless it's a container of some sort.
  • And who's to say this cylinder isn't a container of some sort, and thus also a barrel?
• How does Knuckles get to Mushroom Hill Zone after falling into the water in Launch Base? This water goes deep enough to submerge half of the Death Egg.
  • When we first see him in Mushroom Hill Zone, he's emerging out of a Giant Ring. He probably used a Giant Ring near the lake to warp to Hidden Palace and then to Mushroom Hill.
• Something I mentioned under Realism-Induced Horror: we never see Angel Island Zone again after the beginning. Are we meant to assume the whole place just burned down?
  • You do see Angel Island Zone again: At the very end, when Knuckles is seeing Sonic and Tails off. Accordingly, all of the background vegetation is gone and a clear sky is visible... so it's likely that most of Angel Island Zone did burn down (but not all of it, since Knuckle's Angel Island Zone still has a jungle background).
• Also, what happened to the Flying Battery? It does seems to be falling apart just before the act 2 boss, so, are we meant to infer it just crashed shortly after.
  • You can infer what you like, it's not germane to the plot of the game whether it crashed or continued on flying.
• I never got whether act 2 of the Lava Reef Zone was meant to be a fire and ice level or if the blue stuff was diamonds (which are sometimes blue) or some other gemstone. Which is it?
  • Sparkling gems, just like the ones in Sonic 2's scrapped Hidden Palace (which seems to have inspired both Lava Reef Zone and this game's Hidden Palace Zone). Likely meant to tie in with Hidden Palace Zone)'s concept as the Chaos Emeralds' place of origin.
• Who made the mural in the Hidden Palace zone depicting Eggman stealing the Master Emerald? And how would they know he would do that unless they were psychic (in which case why didn't they just write "Eggman is a bad guy, don't trust him?")
  • It was a prophecy. Those are common in fantasy.
  • Yes but, why make it so vague it's basically useless?
  • Lots of real life ancient murals use similar drawings to convey events or stories. Kind of hard to be super clear with stylised drawings. Also, prophecies in fiction tend to depict visions of the future. For all we know, all the ancients saw was a vision of the battle between Super Sonic and Eggman for the Master Emerald without any context.
    • Adding to this, not only would ancient prophecies be cautious about using words, they may not even make sense in context at all. Messages are just easier to convey with art. Just imagine finding a bunch of random words telling you that, for example, Hitler was going to do bad stuff from before he was born. Not only is it incredibly confusing, but because it's in some alien language you can't read it.
  • Actually if you look closely at the mural, it has words written in some fictional alphabet. So it seems the ancients did accompany the image with text for clarification, but Sonic, Tails and Knuckles were presumably unable to read such an ancient writing system.
• Why does The Doomsday Zone happen? Eggman has lost the Death Egg by that point and Sonic even managed to reclaim the Master Emerald before Eggman runs off with it as the Death Egg collapses. Yet suddenly by the next stage Eggman has managed to recapture the Master Emerald in a better ship than he was trying to escape in originally and Super Sonic has to chase him through space to reclaim it again. Is it just Eggman trying to seize victory at all costs, even though he can't really make use of the Master Emerald anymore without the Death Egg?^note I would also ask how Eggman even got a ship that he could steal the Master Emerald with if Sonic so thoroughly thrashed him at the end of Death Egg but it is Eggman so I guess he could pull it off.
  • Eggman reaches the ship just as Sonic trashes his Eggmobile and boards it as the Death Egg explodes, then takes advantage of the situation to grab the Master Emerald and run off. Because of course he'd take what little victory he can get.
• Invisible Wall aside, why can't Sonic just... I dunno... attack Knuckles when they meet in Carnival Night? He's faster, he can just get in there and give him a good tonking before he hits that switch then runs away. There wasn't a physical separation between them, unlike their previous encounters.
  • The simplest hypothesis would be that said Invisible Wall is indeed an invisible forcefield that Knuckles put up just to blow a raspberry at Sonic and/or Tails so that he could flood the zone and make good his escape before they could try to stop him.
• When the Angel Island Zone miniboss first attacks, we see dozens to hundreds of other such robots in the background. where did they all go afterward? You'd think a bunch of fire-spewing robots would come in handy in the Ice Cap Zone, so why did Eggman apparently just abandon all of them as soon as they were done torching the Angel Island Zone.
  • Maybe they weren't designed for combat? Even though they look alike, they might have been less advanced or had less features than the one you face.