4.5/5 ★ – Zimtiki's review of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles.

Oh no! Doctor Ro-fuck-bitch has convinced Knuckles, an Echidna who’s dedicated his life to protecting the Chaos Emeralds, that Sonic and Tails are trying to steal the crystals, and the two set out to STOP our heroes, our heroes who must STOP the villains! Everyone wants to stop eachother! So what’s interesting is that this game is the ENTIRE Sonic 3 experience. You see, Sonic The Hedgehog released as a standard cartridge for the Genesis, and several months later, Sonic & Knuckles was released, though the cartridge had ANOTHER slot on the top of it! By putting Sonic 3 in the top of Sonic & Knuckles, you get the FULL ASS experience, with double the levels, triple the bosses, and fifty times the funk. This game has EVERY kind of Sonic level we’ve seen in the past, and they’re spread out BEAUTIFULLY. There are only TWO LEVELS here that require platforming sections, and they’re so spread out that it feels earned. The levels also let you go fast as FUCK boi, with even more traversal options than we’ve seen previously. The levels are bigger too, with some of them having entire secret passages that lead to entire hidden areas, it’s a genuine blast to explore these well thought out maps. Each map also only has two acts, with many of them having one boss PER act, meaning there are TONS of bosses to fight, and they’re all really fun. They’re pretty easy for the most part, but you’ll definitely have some “oh shit, I don’t see a weak spot” moments that’ll keep you on edge. The special stages are also a lot more fun this time, having you run across a grid grabbing blue spheres and avoiding red ones. It slowly goes faster and faster, making it pretty tough, but not tough enough for me! This is the first game I’ve collected all the chaos emeralds in, and playing as super sonic is a BLAST. You get to stay as super sonic for as many seconds as rings you have, meaning you can stay as him forever if you keep picking them up. The ending battle is dope as hell too, having you fly through space attacking Robotnik’s ship as super Sonic. In the end, Robotnik betrays Knuckles, who then realizes that Sonic and Tails were the good guys all along and joins the Sonic team! :D But yeah, good ass platformer, this game slaps. The soundtrack is also killer, it even has some riffs from old MJ songs thrown in there. Play this one once in your life please, it’s a FUN FUN FUN TIME!