As a kid growing up in the early 90’s I loved video games. That’s probably pretty obvious. By 1994, I was a heavily in the Sega Genesis scene, having gotten one for Christmas of 1993. It’s kind of surprising how late I was to get one, now that I think about it, but I don’t recall even playing one until maybe 1992 when a friend down the street had one.
In any case, quickly grew to love the Sonic the Hedgehog games, playing Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 to death in those few months which, back then, felt like forever. This would mostly be through 1994, which happened to coincide with the releases of Sonic 3 on February 2nd and Sonic and Knuckles on October 18th.
It was an interesting time for me, to say the least. This is when I got into gaming magazines, for example, with the October 1994 issue of Game Players. In a sense this was what triggered me to really pay attention to the scene on a whole. Think about it, a 9 year old me trying to grasp the electronic entertainment scene in the mid 90’s. I was ambitious even then.
Remember, this is a time before the internet. Hell, if I didn’t have a friend with a given game, or see it in a place to buy or rent, there’s a good chance I’d never hear about it. Seeing Sonic and Knuckles on that magazine caught my attention and made me aware of the fact that there was more to gaming than what I, or my friends, knew.
Let’s take a step back though, and focus on the game itself. I can’t recall for sure which game I got first – Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles; I know there was a gap between me getting one and the other and that it annoyed me that I had one and did not yet have the other. I believe the order was 3 the S&K, but again, I cannot be certain. Needless to say, I got both after the release of Sonic and Knuckles, so we’re talking late 1994 to early 1995 range!
In any case, it goes without saying that the two games were tied together — the “lock on technology” used as a marketing method for Sonic and Knuckles was really just a way to “complete” the originally intended Sonic 3, which had run far over scope during its development.
In its base form, Sonic and Knuckles let you play as, well, Sonic and Knuckles, through two related but slightly different paths. Sonic’s game was largely the same in feel as it was in Sonic 3, and was a pretty long path. Par for the course though, and a great way to complete the story started in Sonic 3. Knuckles game, however, was where things got interesting. He accessed different paths through the levels from Sonic, and at the end of the game had a different final battle set. His set of levels was fewer, but generally his path through the game was more challenging. Still, his was what I played most of the time with the game — his gliding and wall climbing were unique and very fun additions to the already solid play style that Sonic 3 had.
Once you put Sonic 3 on top of Sonic and Knuckles, however, things got interesting. This gave you the entire experience, 12+ levels with the ability to play everything as Sonic, Knuckles, or Tails! Yep, the complete Sonic experience, with a few level changes and additions, while also being able to play the Sonic and Knuckles levels as Tails, or, most critically, playing all the Sonic 3 levels as Knuckles!
This, as mentioned above, was how Sonic 3 was originally intended. Sonic and Knuckles was, in a sense, a means to an end, a way to finish what was started early in the year, and the culmination of Sega’s work on a game series that was my favorite as a kid, and still one I love (in its classic form) today.
There was nothing really like it, in both the experience or the broadness of the game. It felt more massive than anything else out there. I’d spend hours upon hours playing the games on their own and together, once I had both. They weren’t without their flaws (Sonic 3 had the infamous barrels in Carnival Night Zone, for example) and some would say that the formula was stale by this time, and that Sonic 2 is where the games peaked, but to me, as good as Sonic 2 is, Sonic 3 and, most importantly, Sonic and Knuckles not only completed one of my favorite games series ever, but came at a time which made me realize gaming itself was a bigger thing that just me and my friends.
A quarter of a century later, I still play the games, and look fondly back at that time when gaming was, honestly, still exciting. It was just one of those perfect storm moments, and to that extent Sonic and Knuckles is forever associated with happy memories, not just of the game itself but of me discovering how vast gaming was, and getting hints of what was to come during the “32-bit” revolution over the next year.
If you happen to want to read that very issue of Game Players, you can grab it from the Internet Archive here. You will need software capable of reading .cbr file formats.