Retronauts - 542: Sonic 3 & Knuckles Pt. 2

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

The deepest dive ever undertaken into this prickly masterpiece continues with Stuart Gipp, Dave Bulmer, and Seumidh MacDonald. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

This week's Retronauts is brought to you by Notion Projects. This week in Retronauts, we continue our dark descent into the deep dive of Sonic 3 and Knuckles that you requested and are now deeply profoundly regretting as you realize the extent to which we're going to pick the bones of this shit. I prefer to think of it more as a celebration than an obituary. It's not a celebration, Shea. It's not a celebration at all. There's nothing celebratory about this. It's a chronicle of wasted lives. Hello, I'm Stuart Gip, as you probably have guessed already, and I am one of the presenters of retronalists of what you're listening to right now, which you probably already also know. But I am joined today by two lovely people

who have joined me recently, in fact, for part one of this possibly 18 or 19 parts series. Let's go over this to Scotland first to meet our Scottish friend. Correspondent. Correspondent, yes. Hello, I am Shamey. I have a YouTube channel in which I have talked at length about subjects like Pokemon and Sonic the Hedgehog and Metroid because I stopped maturing when I was like six.

I got to six years old and I felt like I've been 30 years old since. Yeah, I like that, yeah. I feel like I identify as a 60 or 65-year-old sort of chap, you know. Oh, God, did I just ask that? do a right-wing joke. Oh, Jesus. I think I accidentally did a right-wing joke just then. I don't think you did, did I not?

I'm going to have to flog myself. He said the word identify. I said a joke about identifying as something. Isn't that a bit rough? Oh, my God, I'm going to get fired. Well, it looks like that I'm the new host of Retronauts now. Hi, everyone. Hello.

Well, you're doing very well at it. You've just let a period of dead air occur, haven't you? Anyway, yeah, let's get back away from that. yeah, fuck turfs. Let's talk to our dear friend Dave Vulmer. Hello, Dave. Hello, hello, I'm your dear friend, Dave. There he is in the shed.

Hello. It's a little sprite, his little pixie. I'm a little gnome. I've got a pointy hat. He does have a pointy hat. A thing I found out a very unpleasant way that I wouldn't get into. Sorry, that's awful as well. I don't know which is worse.

This is the episode where I lose. like everything. This is the day that everything ends. It's the day where you lose your marbles. Ah, oh DJ catch that. Oh my goodness. Oh man, yeah, that's good. That's good. He is a good host. Yeah, he is much better. He's doing way better than I am.

I'm terrible at this. But no, let's give a little bit of a prissy, a prissy, you know, a presis, a presi. I don't know how you pronounce it. Eventually, I figured out what you were trying to say. A pre-C. What we did previously is we started talking about Sonic 3 and Knuckles, one of my favorite games of all time.

You know, on some days, arguably my favorite game, it depends what mood I'm in. It's certainly a game that I would personally regard as more or less perfect, and I have a lifetime of playing the goddamn thing and almost an infinite amount to say about it. Every time I do play it, I usually find at least three things that I didn't know about

or new angles to approach things that I already knew about that give it all the more interest. I don't know to what extent that was intentional, or to what extent I'm just being very fortunate. But, yeah, we began analysing this, and I remember thinking to myself, this is pretty big kind of game, so this could be two or three episodes. And in the first episode, we managed to cover two of the 14 zones, I believe, is the...

Yeah. To be fair, we did have a quite long preamble of more general discussion of the game and our perception of the game. So I'm hoping that today would be able to get through at least three. But I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't. No, me neither. And that's a problem with us rather than a thing about the game by that. stage, I think, because obviously the first, you know, we're talking about the first couple of levels, that's going to take longer because you're introducing listeners to the

very concept of the game. But, oh, I don't, I don't trust us not to just wit her on. I think if we can get to the end of the Sonic 3 segment to date, we can call that a success. What, that would be, of course that would be a success. I don't see that happening. No, there's no way that's happening. It's a huge success. I won't allow it to happen. If that happens, I'm entering the Olympics. There and then.

I'd like to see that. Would you be entering the Olympics with Mario and Sonic, though? Oh, it depends if they're there. Imagine if you get entered into the Olympics and you've been training your whole life and you're like, oh, here we go, time for the Olympics. Here we go, 200 metre dash. And you're standing next to Sonic the Headshot,

you'd be like, for Christ's sake. You'd just go home, wouldn't you? Yeah, what's the point? What's the point? I forfeit, I'm out of here. I've never played those games, but I... Me neither, and for that reason. What's Mario here?

I assume, like, this is what confuses me about the whole premise is that surely Sonic just just wins. Just wins. And that's not like a power level thing. No. That's not a fanboy thing. It's just the premise of the character.

Well, I mean, these people are familiar with my history of being a Sonic fan, aren't they? They know I hate him to death and also love him. That's all right then. Anyway, by the way, I wanted to apologize Shay earlier for doxing you as being Scottish. I apologize for that. That was not okay of me. I was a little uncomfortable. I don't think there's any other way that they would have been able to sniff that out.

Yeah. I mean, I'll put out of full and frank apology in the near future. But speaking of full and frank apologies, I don't know what has to do with that segue whatsoever. I don't know why I said that. Marble Garden Zone, the third zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Now, what we've got here is essentially something rather familiar, which is kind of a big Babylon, isn't it?

It's a big Babylon. Well, we don't have Babylon in this podcast. Hey, it's a big hanging garden of Babylon, except there's robotic in it, isn't it? there's rings in it. So what do we make of the marble garden zone, folks? What do we make of that one? Well, it's lovely, isn't it? Marble Garden Zone.

You want to be there, don't you? Yeah, here are the things I want to do about the Marble Garden Zone. I want to be there. I want to be reading a comic set there, and I want to be looking at the stickers of it that are on my childhood bed because those are the things I did about the Marble Garden Zone, and that's what the Marble Garden Zone makes me think of.

So you would put stickers of the Marble Garden Zone on your bed, and then when you got on the bed, you would think in your head, I'm in the marble garden zone. Yeah, and I would fall off the bed thinking I was going down the big thing, the big slidey thing. And the big drill would go up your ass.

Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. That was why I came up with the fantasy about the marble garden zone. It just helped me to cope with that. Oh, God. Dave, the only person in existence who's delighted to hear road works

out of his side his window because he's like, that increases the verisimilitude. Yeah. He closes his eyes and he's just like, I'm there. Oh, a big mantis jumping up and down. Love it, mate. This is probably my least

favorite of the Sonic 3 zones? Like, yeah, and that doesn't mean to say that I think it's necessarily bad. I think it's two acts don't do much to differentiate themselves particularly. I agree. I agree. I think this is the worst of the Sonic 3 portion of the game.

Well, look, I might agree with that as well. I haven't really thought about it, but it's that good that just tells you about how good the game is. I don't think it's great. You haven't... Sorry, Dave. Yeah. I sent out the activity sheet and you haven't done it. Have you? No.

Oh, my, for goodness sake. I am. I'm busy. I mean, well, I've even solved the maze. He solved the maze, Dave. He solved the maze. I did the crossword.

I did the word search. I didn't do the crossword. I can't do a crossword, but I did the word search. Well, crosswords, for example, it's like six letters, spherical toy that could be rolled across a room or into a run,

especially made for it. Ball! Correct. Thank you. I'm now looking through the zones, and yeah, I think I agree. I think Marble Garden Zone is the worst one. And I flippin love it. So, like, that tells you about the game.

Well, that's the Sonic 3 in Knuckles experience. It's just you playing bits of it and going, this is my least favorite part. It only kind of rules. Like, it's, yeah. I love, I'm a sucker for ancient ruins and ancient ruin levels. So this is automatically a favorite. But I also love, I love the music. I love that it's not like all choirs and somber.

and, you know, like, oh, this is an ancient, long-gone civilization. It's just a funky baseline. I completely agree with you, and I'm so glad that we never got a Saturn version because it would have been, wouldn't it? It would have been exactly what you described it being good, that it wasn't. Speaking, I'm a big fan of the Sonic 3. That's another podcast. I realize that I just said we didn't get a Saturn version.

We did. But you know what I mean? With a different soundtrack, like, at the other game. You know what I remember. But now you're dissing Rusty Ruin. though right now. You don't just... Well, yes.

Oh, yes. Krusty ruined like... He based it on principles of lust and sadness by Enigma. That's choice. It's choice. It's choice, but what he's replaced there is the soundtrack to Sonic 3D,

so I can't be having it. Which is also excellent. Yeah. Listen, you're spoiled for choice with the Sonic series when it comes to soundtracks. Absolutely, or at least it used to be. Yeah. I mean, absolutely.

Oh, hang on, no. Well, nowadays, what, don't you like it? When music just is just... just kind of like... New, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, I'm running, new, new, I'm fast, new, new, new, new, that's all, be positive, yeah. Dave, I've not played Sonic Frontiers yet, so could you maybe cool up with the spoilers, please? Sorry, sorry.

I mean, where I mean, where do you go to go from now? Honestly. You've just destroyed the entire series, basically. It's all ruined now. Well, she likes that, so... He does, yeah. I've got a theory about Mamba Garden Zone. Okay. While it is not my favourite zone, there are things about it that I actively sort of dislike, which is that I think there are a few areas that are a little bit sloppy in terms of almost encouraging you to spin dash or run into instant kill, smashing, crusher things. I feel like there's some placement of those where, for example, spin dashing past them

is the easiest way to get past them, but then there might be another one right past it. It's not at the same rhythm. And I think that's a little bit sloppy, but that's it really. Okay. I have a working theory that a lot of the time, whether you like or dislike something, is based on

experience rather than, like, it's objective values. I say that to preface what I'm about to say here because this if I heard somebody else say this I would think it was complete nonsense. Lampum. But

I sort of think that works for kind of like an ancient treacherous ruin. You know it's like an Indiana Jones like traps to catch you out thing. I get you I do. If somebody, if you are sitting there thinking to yourself that is BS because he likes this game, I think

you're maybe right. I think you're maybe right but also I believe it. I mean The thing is, despite that, this isn't a very difficult zone, I would argue. It's quite straightforward. And in a sense, the fact that it has a sort of a slower pace than even a water level that came before. Yes. I mean, we talked about this before, but Hydro City is the water level that does not slow you down.

Like, you are barreling through that. But in this one, Mubber Garden, it almost feels like you get in a kind of a bit of a breather after those two fairly... I mean, for our first zone, Angel Island is kind of intense. Marble Garden has some bits where it goes, here's the bit where we're going to speed you up. But actually, it's a bit frustratingly slow, those bits. Like, you have to wait for the ground animation to collapse, and you have to wait for other things.

Well, it's just to kind of back up what I was saying, it's that it's got the spring enemies where, if you, I love this so much, this is so goofy. you jump on the springs and they're actually bouncy so you get sprung back up. You mean spikes. I do mean the spikes.

Sorry. The spikes are a spring. Embarrassing display from Shaita. Well, the thing is, is I'm just glad that that was a display of my illiteracy rather than my passion for Sonic. Yeah. You jump on top of the spikes

and they're a spring. And then it's actually a badnik and you need, but it's the side that's treacherous because it pops up and it shoots at you. It shoots it, yeah. That's such a cheeky and silly little detail. I love it. And then you have the mantises that jump up from underground.

Some people would be tempted to call that cheap, except it hurts you less, the spikes. So it's like the opposite of cheap. You go, oh, no, I'm going to hit these spikes. Badoing, oh. Now I get to use my little swish. Oh, I bedoyed. Very nice. I do really enjoy that there is a different flavor and paste to this level.

And like I say, it is probably my least favorite because it is a bit slower paste. and it is a bit, it does deliberately try to catch you out a lot. There's a lot of times you will get hit, and let's be fair, there's basically no chance you're going to see it coming in your first playthrough. Like those huge spike balls swinging side to side, they often place them with the way that they just come into the screen and hit you. And when you know that they're coming, it's like you play a bit more cautiously, you slow down, you kind of work around them.

And I think that really feeds into a different feeling for the level, which feeds into the theme of like an ancient treacherous ruin and just so even if it is it's like I say it's my least favorite level in the sonic three portion and you know if it's also your least favorite level I totally understand but I appreciate that there is just a different flavor to it that's just I would I would much rather it is the way it is than we had another hydro city or another angel island I mean I think it's a great pace sort of changer um because it up hums right before a really mad zone. I like a really pox, propulsive, sometimes irritating zone, but with Marble Garden I guess for me it's just this like

both acts are very similar and they're both very big and I believe across both acts there are 13 super rings hidden in them. There's eight in at least one of the zone which is more than you need to become super Yes, but I don't, I very rarely find that many of them on any given go.

I don't think I've played it in a long time and not got them all by the end of Hydro City, to be honest. I must just, I must just be bad. No, I'm talking about specifically in this level, in Marble Garden. I don't normally find that many rings. I know where a few of them are, but I just don't really need them by that point, so I don't sort of seek them out. But it just to me, there is that degree of kind of sameness. I don't like the fact that you've got those, um, those, those, gimmicks that are those revolving platforms that you run on them to make them go up and then stop

running to make them go down. That's so slow and awkward. It is fun when you figure out how to do it. Do you mean the spinning top? Yes. And then when you land them on the ground, they launch off, which is really cool. That's the thing. That's what those are really for. You start off thinking, oh, okay, I can kind of fly on this, but then you find out that if you put it down on the ground, you go faster than ever. But there are sections where it's necessary, or at least theoretically necessary I'm sure there's another route around that doesn't require it but there are sections where you need to pilot

them to get to the next area that's above you and that's a bit kind of I don't know it's fine whenever I criticise something in this game you've got to understand that we're talking about like 9.9 instead of 10 like I really do love it that much but I'm trying to I've got to pick holes in it because it's you know that's what you do to the things

that you love there's a lot of weighting in the level the bits where you sort of grab onto a ring and let it pull you up the hill. There's weighting involved in that. There's a lot of platforms that you have to actually stand on and wait for them to go up or down. There's platforms where you...

Well, I like this, but there are platforms where you have to physically come to a complete stop and then rev up on the little gimmick to make them rise out of the ground. And that's really cool. Oh, yes. That's really cool, especially when you find out that if you stand on it and do a spin dash,

you go... You go honk and you go... So this is, hey listeners, what we're talking about here is there are these kind of like... It looks like a blue record, doesn't it? It's like a disc sticking out of the ground. And in order to activate some stairs that are hidden,

you do a spin dash on it, and it goes round and it goes, and up comes some stairs. But if you're standing on it when you do that, then Sonic, it's the only time you ever see this in the entire game, Sonic is revving up for a spin dash. It's not the only time you see it. It's not the only time you see it.

You see it in the gumball machine bonus stage when you bounce off the black gumbulls. It goes, bach. Really? What? And it does the animation? No, no, it's the, Dave's talking about the spin dash. Oh, I see.

I apologize. I thought you went. You know when you do, yeah, oh, no, I know what you mean now. Yes, I think of it as the black ball, because I called them the ones the tonk. So yes, I agree. But normally, when you're Sonic and you rev up for a spin dash, there he is on the ground with all smoke coming out of him. The only time you get to see him without his smoke coming out of him as just a spinny oval is then, because you get launched up into the sky. And you get to, I'm about to do it now.

I'm playing it now. You get to wiggle about in the air. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. It's really good. You love your wiggling. You must all do that. It's always going on a pole wiggling. It's a German here again, and you know, I love making things.

Podcasts, videos, books, I live for all of that stuff. But when making things collides with the realities of making a living, that's a different story. Sometimes it feels like I spend more time. juggling schedules and coordinating materials, then I do actually being involved with the creative side of things, which is not what I signed up for at all. I mean, look at my NES works and say guide-in videos. Each one involves a multi-part process that includes capturing game footage, photographing packaging, writing and recording a script, filming lofi live segments, and eventually editing it all together to post. It's a process that often got away from me until I found Notion to help

me keep track of details and avoid scrambling at the last minute. Today I'm excited to share that they've just launched Notion Projects, which includes new powerful ways to manage projects and leverage the power of their built-in AI features, too. Notion Projects combines project management with your docs, knowledge base, and AI, so you can stop jumping between tools and stop paying too much for them, too. With Notion, you can do everything you need to get your projects over the finish line in a single workspace, creating from brainstorming in a wiki, creating a collaborative database of info, scheduling assignments, and tracking deadlines.

Notion is super customizable, too. It offers extensive filtering and automation features. So you can work exactly the way you want. Of course, some people love organizing and keeping track of details by hand for some reason. But for the rest of us, there's Notion. Do your most efficient work with Notion projects. You can try it for free today at Notion.com slash retro. That's all lowercase letters.

Notion.com slash R-E-T-R-O. When you use our link, you're supporting our show. So go right now to Notion.com slash retro. So a cool thing about this zone, Dr. Robotnik is systematically destroying it as you make your way through the level. Very, very cool. Get a quick preview.

A few two seconds snatch of the boss theme where he swings up, Cosette gets stuffed and it flies off again. I always, we didn't really talk about this before, I don't think, but isn't it great how you can still hit Robotnik during those it's like he's just there you know what I mean you're not being pulled out of the game there's no like cutscene it's just like no attack him he's there

you can't beat him unless you're using a cheap device it doesn't add to his it doesn't add to the number of times you've hit him for when you meet him as the boss it's just allowing you to do something it's almost like letting you craft a story isn't it it's like it's fun to smack him yeah like but the thing that I really love about that as well is that Robotnik has

more of a presence in this zone than pretty much well any other zone in the Sonic 3 portion at least I mean that's not even not to mention the boss for God's sake I mean we will get to that obviously won't me yeah but it's it's like again another angle to kind of like

the destructive industrialisation theme of Robotic is that he is destroying these ancient and supposedly fairly shall we say culturally significant ruins he is just going to town he's just completely demolishing them all trying to get Sonic. And it kind of, yeah, now that's

interesting that you say trying to get Sonic, because it does invite you to be like, oh, what's he doing here? And as a kid, what I thought he was doing, was searching for the source of that really big emerald power he's detected, because he hasn't found it yet. Oh. That's, I mean, you say, oh, I just made it up, but that's

what I used to think it was because he... That's cool. Because he finds the master emerald later, but right now, he might not know about it. And so, he's drilling. He's noticed something's up. He's got to drill out. He's drilling everywhere. And it's destroying the zone as he does it. He's got the wolf at the door and he's trying to find the bogs and they're in any

there, I brought the tone down. Let's move on. I don't think I understand that... No, sorry. Is that like a song or something? No. Are you saying that it needs a toy or look? Yeah, that's right, yeah. Oh, I see, wolf at the door. Yeah, bogs. Sorry, I think he's had box. I should have said the turtle's head, shouldn't I? He's not the turtle's heard. Oh, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. See, if the Redenor's listeners, what I'm referring to, of course, here is a log of feces emerging from the oasis.

Yeah, that's what you're here for, baby. Retronauts listeners, I want you to understand that Stu has told me before this episode to maybe tone down the swearing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I thought that he did. But that's acceptable. Yeah. It's okay to talk about a log of phoesies emerging from human anus. That's fine.

Well, you've self-sensed that, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're not saying vulgar, like a great big poo coming out of a bum bum. Oh, my God, no. Oh, you're going to have to cut that now. Oh, for goodness sake, it's supposed to be a PG-13 podcast. You can't say bum bum, honestly.

So, yes, the marble garden, we've actually covered quite a lot of it. The thing is, I'm trying to think of what else to talk about besides the bosses, because the first boss, the mini-boss, is essentially a kind of a redux of the Mystic Cave boss from Sonic 2. It has more or less the same attack pattern, which is to disappear, drop rocks on you, some of which are sharp that can hurt you,

and then sort of come down at you, although I don't think that the Mystic Cave one dive-bomgy quite so ferociously. Well, worth mentioning that it ties in with what we've seen of robotic going around drilling things. It's his little autonomous drill

that goes and drills by itself. He loves drills. He's obsessed with them. Yeah. Before we move on to the final boss, the second boss, there was one thing I wanted to say is, are we okay to talk about

the sonic origins free release? Yeah, yeah, why not? Yeah. Right. This was the level where I was like, okay, something's seriously up with the physics here. I thought it was maybe just

wonky muscle memory or something like that. But it was, there is a set piece. What happens is, is at the end of Hydro City, there's a big geyser of water, shoots Sonic up into the air, and then he comes back down in the Marble Garden Zone. You know, he's traveled a fair distance underground.

Yeah. He comes down in the Marble Garden Zone and there's this great big series of hills that you just can't resist rolling down. And like, the first one is a huge, very, very steep slope. you whizz down it and then there's a little

horizontal platform at the end so you shoot off into the air to the right it's really cool the moment I understood that there was something wrong with Sonic Origins physics was when I played this level

I curled into a ball because you can't resist whizzed down it launched off the ramp at the end and clattered into a ceiling rather than carried on into the next hill oh no

and that was the moment I was like, right, okay, there's something wrong with this, and I refunded it. They've done it wrong. They've done a mistake, haven't they? Yeah. I thought you were going to say that the moment you realized it was wrong as when Sonic fell down and he just slammed into the ground and it instantly died. Like, instead of, and then his corpse slid down the hill and just kind of sadly fell off.

No, that was just kind of the story of how I buckled my arm. I remember that would be an interesting addition to a Sonic re-release if they added, like, a Sonic realistic death mode. I get a kick out of it Like the Tomb Raider reboot If you put a foot wrong It plays an elaborate animation Of Sonic getting spikes up his day Yeah Lara Croft

She's walking along She accidentally stumbles And then the next is a cutscene Of a spike Going fully into her face Yeah Yeah good stuff Yeah this is why I got into this

This is why it jumped on here Nice one And you have to see that a million times Because it's actually quite a tricky bit And the directors at the back going No no no we should really linger on the pain in this Like this is what people want They want to

People who like There's a Venn diagram of Tomb Raider and saw and they kind of come together. I don't know, man. I like that, but yeah, yeah. Probably still better than most of the recent Sonic games, at least. You know?

There is that. And then speaking of tomb raiding, Sonic in the marble garden, that's probably got some tombs in it, hasn't it? You would think so, yeah. But we should probably talk about the finale of this because in a way we're burying the lead because to say this is the worst zone when it probably has the best, almost,

memorable bus fight. And I wouldn't call it the best boss fight. It's kind of tedious. But it's very memorable. It's pretty memorable. Like you can't, the set piece is pretty incredible. It's a spectacle to look at.

Yeah. If you're a younger listener and you're sitting there like, they're just trying to defend that this, and they keep describing it as tedious or annoying. And they're saying it's still the greatest thing ever. Listen, this is what you need to understand is to us, this is basically. just running across an empty field

hammering A to pick up weeds Like this is What we like You know Give it 20 years And there's going to be a new generation That are wondering why you are just Walking across an empty field

Gathering weeds so that you can craft one arrow Is that what the kids are doing these days They're walking along fields and picking up weeds That's the Well then I should invite them into my garden Yeah they do Pull it up for you wouldn't they? Then you kill them after

don't you? You kill them. You put their bodies in the back. Look, this guy would be a bloody garden. What a tory. Imagine having a garden. Christ. I mean, yes, I don't have a garden.

But for the purposes of that, I have to pretend. Oh, oh, oh, Shay, he was just doing a joke and we've just troddle over it, mate. Oh, no. Just as a wee laugh, I voted for Boris Johnson. I can't tell if we're doing all right with this episode or if it's an absolute shambles. I think it's the best episode we've ever done. Oh, good.

Yeah. I think we're on fire with this episode. I mean, you know, you can't expect people to stare directly into the mouth of Sonic like this and not go insane, can you? No, good point. And not get a roast. Well, yeah, I mean, come on. Of course we're aroused.

How could I not be looking at you guys' faces on? Jesus. Oh, boy. What were we talking about? Yes, the boss. Now, what happens? I'm going to describe it for people who don't know. Because I'm sure there are lots of people who don't know this.

Robotnik goes right, I've had enough of this shite. Comes down in his drill machine, slams it to the middle of the screen, and just completely... I think he might have hit a load-bearing floor or something because he just completely... He hit a stud. He hit like a stud. And he takes out the whole zone.

It's just gone. It's tip-up, mate. It's gone. It's enough of it. You fool to what seems to be your inevitable death But then suddenly who should emerge But little tails Little Miles'i prowler

Miles tails per hour Yeah Miles Tails Prower How old were you when you got per hour Because I was probably about 20 I was like 23 Some listeners might not realize

It's actually a pun on the phrase Tails per hour But never knows that Yeah So anyway Robotic destroys the entire zone own. Tails grabs you, pulls you up. You know, we haven't actually explained that this was the first gaming which Tails could manually pick Sonic up with his hand. I think we must

know. Okay, well we're going to explain it again anyway. Well, we are now. Basically, as you may or may not know, Tails in this game can be controlled, as in Sonic 2, with a second player's controller, and he can fly in this game, which he couldn't do in Sonic 2 outside of sort of cutscene flying, you know, uncontrolled flying. That's really weird. Every time I remember. I'm like, no, he could, but he couldn't. He couldn't. But he could pick Sonic up and carry him, which is a new

and really cool mechanic, quite frankly. It's a little bit undercooked, but a bit undercooked because there's no way for player one to actually reliably use it, unless there's another player there until, until realises. Oh, there is. Yes, there I'm, oh, no, you're thinking of... You think it's like three complete? You think it's like three

complete? No, no, I'm fairly sure it was in the original as well. You know what? Really? It wasn't. Well, original listeners, I don't think it was but I'm prepared to be wrong I mean I've been wrong before at least once yeah it could have been and it's just that we never just tried pressing those

buttons in that order I thought it was that you have to stand with tails next to you you have to like hold up and tap jump and they keep tapping it that was a fan game made that up I think I think that was Sonic 3 Air or Sonic 3 Complete I really do well those

those have it but I think it came from Origins might have it as well you know we're going to get to the bottom of this I'm going to build up Sonic 3 just that. Oh, here we go. Here we go. This is the real stuff. Sonic Mania has it.

And when Sonic Mania got it, I remember people going like, oh yeah, like in that fan game. Yeah. And that fan game might have been Sonic 3 complete or it might have been from a game before that as well. But Sonic Mania is a fan game, effectively. Well, yeah. Anyway, while Shade is looking this up, I'm going to keep talking about this boss fight, if that's

okay. Please do. Please do, yes. Tails, now airlifts, the plucky young tails, airlifts, the wizened elderly sonic into the air. And basically what you've got in the background is just the fantastic parallax

like remains of normal gardener, which is next to nothing. Now, Robotnik will now sort of dive at you from various directions. It's a bit of a simplistic boss because you need to be able to dodge it from all directions, but you can now use the D-PAD to fly around the screen,

jump away from Tails and then if you're skilled, hit Robotic and land back in his hands. You don't have to do that. If you miss, Tails will zip down and pick you up again. Yeah, you don't die from falling in it. Yeah, it's a bit like in Skychase where it's really hard to fall off the plane, but my God, you

can do it if you are determined. Can you fall off the plane? You can't. If you are determined to fall off that plane, you can absolutely do it. Oh, I'm going to get you. Yeah, it's worth it, yeah, because you get to, you know, watch something like die, which is always a treat. Love that. But, yeah, this boss is wild simplistic and very easy to kill.

It's an extremely memorable and cool and characterful setpiece that kind of gives tales a bit of a moment in the limelight, you know? Even if you're just playing a Sonic alone. Yeah. Yeah, because he rocks up for that, presumably. Must do, wasn't it? Yes, like if you're just playing a Sonic alone, yes, Tales still appears for that.

There is, I've had it happen to me once. I play a Sonic alone. And then because Tails appears for that, and then the little, the beginning of the next zone. Yeah, kind of one like that. I have had it where Tails started following me at that point. Oh, rude, presumptuous, I have to say. But, of course, once you've beaten this boss, once it falls, you'll get the usual pod with animals in it will come down and you can fly up and bust it.

But then something really lovely happens, which is that day turns tonight. Yeah. It fade, the colours, the palettes change. You fly all the way to the right and you get airdropped in the next zone, which is Carnival Night Zone. But before we move on to Carnival Night Zone, has anyone got any final thoughts on Marble Garden? I do want to confirm that yes, in the original release of Sonic 3, indeed you could not fly with tails. Oh, the way you said that, I was like, what? Now you can!

And I'm so glad that. If this has been who wants to be a millionaire and I'd find you, I'd have been screwed, man. I would never have got that tenor. Ridiculous. They don't ask questions about Sonic and who wants to be a millionaire. They talk about things like... Marri-Man. They talk about things like ancient Babylon and stuff.

They're about Babylon rogues. Ah, from Sonic, I see. They are from Sonic also. I have done an associate. well done Dave, have you got anything else to say about the level garden zone? Uh, no. Yeah, that's pretty much it. it, isn't it? Although I will say

well done, lads. I think that was probably the best critic of the Marble Garden Zone that anyone has ever done and it was in no way bogged down by nonsense. So well done. Great. Very pleased with that. I think we've got a good crew going on here. And speaking of a good crew, we're moving on to the Carnival Night Zone and of course a Carnival requires a crew

to set up, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. There we are. The most prevalent, the most clearly Michael Jackson-y competition in the game, if you're using the original soundtrack, I would argue. Yeah, a little bit of jam in there. Yeah, a little bit of jam, just like a sandwich.

And what happens here, you float in, and if you're, if you're me, you're immediately struck by the absolute ridiculous garrish brilliance of the visuals. It's amazing. It's kind of casino night zone, but better, with knobs on. And if you're me, then you get this feeling of like, ah, we've arrived. Because, I guess, because the European cover art was based on this level. That must be what it is.

But something about this level is like, this is the Sonic 3est level to me. Yes, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting that that's the case, because an argument could be made that this is a little bit creatively bankrupt, considering we already had Casino Night Zone in just the previous game. That was certainly something I remember thinking at the time. This is very much an iteration of that, though it doesn't play like it at all. No, it's nothing like it.

Yeah. But it's a welcome return, I think, because we love the Casino Night Zone, do you mean? Plus they've stripped out the gambling, thank Christ. so that's nice, you know, no more gambling. It was a sin. It is a sin, yeah. It's a shame they didn't take out the fornicating that happens later in the level, but we'll get to that. That's very important to the plot.

Yeah, it is, yeah. When those lights go off, oh, boy. Knuckles turns the lights off specially. It is, again, I much prefer this to... Casino Night Zone from Sonic 2, because, like, like we mentioned, it is like a bit obnoxious and it's a bit obnoxious by design. It's got, again, its own flavor that reflects the theming. You know, it's a casino. It's not a casino at all. It's a carnival. You know, it's a bit like, you know, you got the music going, do, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, do. It's a bit playful. It's a

cheeky. It's exactly how it goes. It's a little bit. You know, you're getting knocked around. There's lots of like roller coasters and kind of like, well, not actual roller coasters, you know, like them. More's the pity. Big spinny things and like moving glocks and balloons everywhere and bumpers. You know, it's supposed to be like a big pinball table or a playground. And it's got my favourite, my favourite aspect of any carnival I go to, which is the antimatter tunnel that sucks you up. Oh, yeah, that's cool. You mean the one that goes, roop, roop, roop, like that?

Yeah. Yeah, those are cool. I mean, what I think of when I think of this, the carnival, is it makes me think of the fun houses they used to have at the fair when I was a kid with the funny moving floors and all the weird, like, stuff like that. That's what it is. It's like a big crazy, crazy funny gospel. The really odd thing about it is that, and I'm playing it now, by the way,

I'm playing that level right now. And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking like, yeah, look at all this carnival imagery. But I don't know if it is. Like, what is any of this? It's just a dazzling load of shapes and lights and madness. It's absolutely bananas. I don't know whether carnivals look like this, but in my head they do because of this. Yeah.

Well, it's about like play and games, you know. Yes, but that's the thing, yes, it is, it's a different sort of casino imagery, isn't it? And you wonder if they wanted to call it casino again. Well, I think it's a very appropriate thing for Sonic the Hedgehog, both, of course, because of the kind of pinball association. But Sega, of course, were known for their arcades. Yes. You know, and that kind of play, like play as in you go to an arcade and, like, of course, before electronic games were big. Electronic games, of course, the latest thing.

Listen, I'm old now. Sorry. I've embraced it. I'm getting heckled. I'm getting heckled. Sorry, yeah. Before, like, you would go and there would be like ski ball and there would be, I'm drawing a blank on the actual name. I'm very sorry.

Wackamo. Like, whack a ball. Yeah. games like that and kind of Sonic is taking those and using that imagery which of course Sega were very famous for in his games as kind of

his like standout trademark levels you know very few other games I can think of have like casinos and carnivals certainly none as a staple but like very few even have that as a trope yeah yeah it's difficult to think

of a major Sonic game that follows this that doesn't utilize casino or carnival imagery in some respect because this becomes yeah I mean Sonic Adventure Casinopolis is a huge and that is very much

just literally saying okay go gamble kids it's gambling time go play pinball on this knight's table and watch this five minute interstitial animation every time you hit the ball wrong

a carnival night for me is one of the I mean they're all triumphs obviously but the difference the distinction in the field between Act 1 and Act 2 here is remarkable, I think. Even though you are dealing with many of the same obstacles, you really don't handle them the same way.

You don't approach them the same way. And in Act 2, I mean, this isn't really a problem for me now, but for the first few years of me playing this, it genuinely was. Act 2 is probably one of the few, maybe two acts in this game, where it is theoretically possible you might run out of time. Because you can get real turned around if you don't know where you're going. and what you're doing, which adds to the feeling of being stuck in a crazy carnival, like a maze, like a house of mirrors, that sort of thing, you know.

Well, there is, of course, also the Zone's most infamous obstacle. Those little electric guys that cling to the ceiling and floor, right? Knuckles. Knuckles, yeah, that's what I mean. He's an electric guy, right? No, right. I'll tell you what the most annoying obstacle in the Carnival Night Zone is. Your own hubris, your own hubris, mate, that's your most annoying obstacle.

On we. It's those unsatisfying... Yeah, I think it was on the way, wasn't it? It was on a virtual console. Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! I'd like you to please nominate retronauts for funniest podcast awards, at the podcast awards, please. The pod is the odd-pods. Like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If that's not worth a patron pledge, I don't know what is.

And we promise if we win, to shut up for a minute. Yeah. If we win, we will not make any more podcasts. The balloon platforms, the unsatisfying balloon platforms. them, they feel grossly. However, they go, what? They do go, braw. I mean, this is a zone that's full to the very brim with... Oh, those balloon platforms. Yeah, it's a platform covered in a load of balloons and you have to get on it and jump, and that'll make it go up a bit, and then you'll land on it, and it's nasty. You're no going to get any mealy-mouthed me talking my way around it there yet. It doesn't feel great, does it? No, especially when, especially when Tails hijacks it.

to me the sound effect is enough to justify it for me there's a lot of good sounds in this level it sounds a bit like Gandhi going say what yeah you're right yeah it does oh man it sucks that he's not in the new one this is now the clone high podcast they've been threatened to do a clone high podcast for like literally years and it's never surfaced

I think they realised that there's no much to say about it yeah that was funny that was a funny episode Anyway, Carnival Night Zone. Now, the difference between Act 1 and 2, so I really do want to laser in on that a bit. I always forget about Act 2. When I'm thinking about Carnival Night Zone, I never remember there's Act 2. Act 2, for me, like, two of my favourite set pieces probably in any 16-bit game, and they take place at the same time. Now, the simplicity of knuckles just going, you know what, turning all the lights off. I'm cutting the power. I'm cutting the power.

And then the whole zone completely changes how it feels. Yeah. The music even is more muted. I mean, that doesn't change the music, but the Act 2 music is a little bit more muted anyway to match that. But then not only that, there's water. The whole carnival's become... That is exactly the thing.

The Carnival Night Zone, Act 2, is a water level. And you never remember that when you're not playing it. Mm-hmm. Well, every single zone, I believe, for Marble Garden has water in it at some stage. It's true. It's a ice cap as well. Ice cap does, but only to kill you, I think.

I don't think you can actually run around on the drill on this as a secret I've missed, which is very possible because it's only three and knuckles. Okay, but I'm comfortable calling Carnival Zone Act 2 an actual water level. Oh, yeah, it's water features prominently, which is I really like about this. What I really like about it is that that is a level where you're kind of switching between the lightning shield and the bubble shield. This is why water features so prominently

because they have to keep the bubble shield relevant. Yeah, yeah. And it is a... Oh, yeah! And it's... And also for boinginging as well. Boinginging is also important. Doing a big boingie, yeah.

One? Big boingo. I want to ask now, when the water starts draining in kind of on that act two, does anyone else try and race it down and try and stay under it so they're not out of the water? Nope. Well, okay.

Well, I guess I'm just a horrible freak then. I'll do it. now. I'll do it tonight. When it starts draining, I try and stay ahead of it because they've put like balloons in your way that bounce you up so you end up out of the water. But if you're clever, you can like manipulate your way down and not go out of the water. It avails you nothing, but it's fun to do. No, it's just something to do. That's the thing. In this game, you keep coming up with things to do. You're like, well, I'm going to do this. I'm going to try and do that. Because you feel like you're in a real world and a real place. If a game, if the game isn't

going to punish you, then why not experiment? You know, that's the... you're in a playground in this game even though there is a way to go and there's a storyline and all that it is nevertheless a playground Yeah I mean I think we talked about in the last episode but I do see the levels in this game

as almost proto sandbox-ish While they are in a sense linear I enjoy deeply just dicking around of them and finding all the different routes they've carved through them I love that I mean Well this is this is the thing that has ruined modern video games for me

is the idea that exploration means there can't be any structure like for me you need structure for exploration to kind of be meaningful otherwise you're just not naming any names just running across fields for 60 hours yeah across a succession of different islands

yeah yeah kind of like you know and then it kind of comes in with a screamal music yeah and you're playing a Sonic and you're a Sonic right yeah okay Well, this is the thing. It's like, for me, like, exploration needs structure. You need obstacles and options, and you need, like, a way for your brain to hook on to them

and contextualize them and figure out what will I gain by going this way. What do I stand to maybe lose out on by missing out on that? You know, so, yeah, like, all the Sonic games are very sandboxy. Like, a huge amount of the joy in them is just mucking about. Yeah. People really struggle with that, don't they? They do. Of a certain generation.

And I'm not saying this to be like, oh, God, the Zoom is, you know, and I'm not trying to be like that. Like, I think I talked about this before as well, and I apologize for repetition, folks, but the realization I've had in the past year or two that I am no longer the Sonic audience. Like, my experience no longer matters. Like, the people are now fully grown adults who were born when Sonic Heroes was out. Yeah. You know. Everything about our perspective and opinion has been roundly and thoroughly rejected by the world. We're just, I'm an OAP.

I'm just an old man in this fandom. And, you know, I have to remember that. Because when I come out, when I think about saying like, oh, this is the best, this is rubbish, this is bad, this is good. I'm trying to think to myself, like, yeah, but like. What would the wrong person think about this? Yeah. What would someone who was wrong? Well, I'm not going to sit back and I'm not going to say like, oh, yeah, I'm wrong.

This is actually good. I'm not going to say something here is just good unless you give me like £100 or something and I'll say anything you want But um Just a hundred That's quite reasonable Yeah it is

I mean you know 100 That's a couple of slap up meals for me As far as I'm concerned Yeah Yeah tasty teas Oh I completely failed to stay below the water Because I got bonged around By the little triangle boingers

Happened to me at my baptism And that's why I'm a godless child You see you made the mistake of hiring The little triangle boingers as the band that was playing there that day. And they boing you around. Like the priest just bangs the end

and like, boing? Hey, here's a guy just like rocket into the roof. Here's a guy from the Carnival Night Zone. How about this guy? Year, year, year, year.

Oh, that guy. I love that guy. That's an iconic guy. That's a good guy. That's a platform that makes you hover. What about those tunnels that you pass through

that make you go really fast that go boom, hum, and you go, and when you're underwater, you pop through balloons and bubble of water.

Bubbles of air come out of the balloons So good. So good. And then you burst the balloons and they make the snap sound like just a very sharp sound. It's very nice. I want to point that something else. Sorry, Shrey, go on. It's just to carry on the thought you were saying about the zoomers, those awful children. Unbelievable. Like, how dare you be born

at a time that I was not? I know. What is it with your goddamn kids? They always say the stupidest thing possible every single second of the goddamn day. God damn. Just to quote Aikwood there. I love that. No, no, but my supposition,

and I hope this isn't, this doesn't come off as sour grapes or me throwing an entire generation under the bus because that would just be petulant. But they do eat their avocado toast, don't they? But, like, my supposition is, is that for a lot of these, for a lot of kids and for a lot of people,

that was a joke. Like, even people my age who just never grew up with Sonic, going back to play Sonic. That was an overcompetation. It's like ticking it off a checklist rather than something to do for genuine pleasure. I'm not, like, I am not saying that as like, you're an idiot. Like if I ever watched Bonanza or Zed Cars or something. It's like, well, I ought to understand the different generation.

Going back in time to experience the media of the previous generation, it's like the Sonic for them is like us going back and watching Bonanza or Zed cars, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Shea, I knew yourself a small child, isn't this... Well, this is the thing, is that, like, the stuff that you guys grew up with, I'm... Oh, you little.

Baffling. The specky. Like, the specky was before my time. And so if I went back to experience... This is a thing, is I'm not trying to say, you kids are idiots for not doing this. Like, I didn't... I didn't grow up with... Yeah, if you didn't have it, you didn't have it.

Exactly. Like, I didn't grow up with the specky. I didn't grow up with, like, super... Like, my favourite 2D Mario. is Super Mario Land too. Because I played it when I was a kid. I never got to play any of the other Mario's. So, like, when I go back

to play any of the old 2D Mario's, it's like checking it off a list for me. And I'm like, yeah, the quality of these games is evident, but I'm not really getting a whole lot out of it. Yeah, you can just be academic about it. The thing is for me is that, like, when I'm playing Super Mario, and I'm like, this is all right. But honestly, I think it would be better

if it was just an empty field and I were just gathering weeds to make an arrow. Yeah. And sometimes there would be a big thing with fly pass and it would steal the camera away from you and make you look at it. Just what annoys me is that I can sometimes see the screen. It's not just HUD.

Yeah. I get that. I want to feel like I am in a government radar room at all times. I want a mini-map. I want a barometer. I want atmospheric pressure. I do not want to see my character

or a single blade of grass. and I just want it to be empty fields that I can't see. Well, this is very interesting because genuinely I'm tying this into, because this is all relevant as far as I'm concerned. You may have heard it. Me and Dave did a Sonic Frontiers episode with Diamond Fight, in which I'd like to think my soul was rung out on the air, essentially. I got quite passionate in that one about why I really dislike Sonic Frontiers,

why it's the exact opposite of what I want from Sonic, and it's the game that made me go, you know what? I'm over this. Like, I just don't care anymore. Um, because unlike Sonic 3 in Knuckles, which is a game about exploration, it doesn't actually matter where you go. In Sonic Frontiers, it's just a checklist, as mentioned. It's just tidying up an Assassin's Creed ass, Far Cry ass mini-map of infinite, tiny, stupid, pointless, boring tasks to collect things that you don't even need because they fart them in you're up and mouth constantly.

How is that Sonic? What is that? You might as well just get one of those mobiles that you hang up above a baby's crib and they hit it with the hands. Do you know what I associate most strongly with Sonic? Pornography. Well, okay. Do you know what I, like, second most associate with Sonic? Pederasts.

Okay. Do you know what I third most of them? And so on. This could happen for a long time, yeah. Sorry, got. Melancholy music. Just sad pianos. Yeah, yeah. When I'm playing Sonic and there's not a sad piano playing, I'm like, who is this? Oh, oh, Amy, life is so futile and pointless. Yes, Sonic, it is. It is futile and pointless.

Sonic, oh no, Sonic, your ears are on backwards. Oh, no, I guess I've got to go and get my Sonic frontiers. Oh, no, no. Oh, no. What have you done? Oh, Sonic, I've become a computer man help. I'm a computer man. I can't do anything. I can't smell any flowers or touch my girlfriend's hair because I'm a computer man. I really hate being at the computer.

Meanwhile, what do I spend literally 60% of my day doing? My God. But the point there is, of course, tying it back into Sonic 3 & Knuckles is that is what we are missing. I would say that that to me genuinely speaks the polar opposite of this game in terms of both game design, storytelling, visual design, flat, boring, bunch of pissing sand. Nobody likes Sandopolis, okay? Which we're going to get to. I was going to see, I was going to say, hang on a minute.

But no. What's coming up? But to me, playing Carnival Night, again, relatively recently, it really did put hang a huge kind of lampshade on it. for me. I was just kind of like, you know what? I don't need more than this. I don't need to keep an eye on this anymore because they so clearly don't need me anymore. They don't want me anymore. When this game that can come out, that to me, to me personally, God help me, if you enjoyed it, that's on you. That's great. Have fun, you know? If this is what you want Sonic to be,

then you can have video games because I don't want them anymore, okay? I'll just stick with my old ones, man. The thing that I'm kind of performatively bitter about open world games. I don't really like them. But again, a healthy policy is I just tend not to play them. I tried Horizon Zero Don and I got through it and I was like, yeah, okay, I'm good for that for another few years. Well, like Horizon Zero yawn, that's what I'll call it. Nay. Well, and so this is why I haven't played Sonic Frontiers yet as well. That doesn't look like, that doesn't look good to me. You know, I've, I've seen the game play, I've listened to the music, I've seen the graphics, I'm just like, this doesn't

seem like the kind of game that I would play where Sonic not in it. And so I feel like I should, I will inevitably play it at some stage. I will. But the outlook that I try to have about this is that Sonic could die on its arse tomorrow. They could say, Sonic is cancelled. No more Sonic for anybody ever. Yeah, keep talking. Oh my God. And at that point, I think I would need to be struck by just how grateful I was. Like, what a good innings I've had with that series. Like, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, you know, that's an Ophia Beastie Boy game. That is like a 10 out of 10 to me.

That is like the best 2D platform I ever made. Then you have other games that I absolutely adore. Sonic Advance 2. Oh, yeah. Sonic Adventure, Sonic Rush. Sonic Generations, I'm quite partial to the bit of Sonic Colors myself. Yeah. God help me.

You know, a comic that I absolutely adore, the Archie comics, which were great for like a period of 10 years running. Damn, this could end tomorrow and it's like, hey, it's all good. You know, I've gotten a lot out of it. You know, and I try not to be bitter about the series not being for me anymore. I will bypass my bitter phase, but I do enjoy being a bit bitter. So I think I'm going to lean into it. But, yeah, it really speaks to me when I come to something as creative. And, I mean, and, you know, Carnival Night Zone is an iteration of a previous zone as well.

It's not even that fresh. And yet they still manage to do all this stuff with it, all of this new stuff. There are no repeated gimmicks from Carnival Night Zone that I can think of. You don't have the Pimble tables. You don't have your... It means casino. Slot machines. Accino Night, yes, sorry.

There are no repeated gimmicks from Casino Night Zone that I can think of. No bouncy disappearing things. no pinball flippers, no gambling. Though I mentioned that, the gambling does return in Sonic and Knuckles, but we'll get to that, won't we? You know, it's the bonus stage that you can get in the...

Oh, yes, yeah. Oh, God, I just do the music for the whole episode, don't we. Do you always clap? Because I always clap when it gets to that level. No, I usually immediately leave because I hate all gambling. No, no, I don't mean I applaud. I mean that I've got my hands on the controller and goes,

do-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-m. And I have to drop the controller. You drop the controller, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I usually do that, which is when I get through so many controllers. Yeah. This seems like a compulsive thing, Dave. There's a clap there in the music, and I like to do a clap. Like, does Abby ever take advantage of that?

Like, are you ever doing the dishes, and then, like, your wife comes in with an MP3 player, you drop the plate? Why would she want me to do that? What advantage would she be taking there? I would hate to speculate as to why. You're doing a push-up, but she just comes in and plays the music, and you fall flat in your face. Guys, we are not going to get to the end of Sonic 3. It's not going to happen.

No, we do that. Listen, listen. Carnival Night Zone, let's... The thing, we still haven't actually talked about the elephant in the room for Carnival Night Zone. Which is, of course, like, I think we alluded to it earlier, but it is that, like, the music does seem to, like, almost sample before it happened, Michael Jackson's Jam. Yeah, yeah. Like the glass-shattering sound effect and the breakdown, I wouldn't do them justice if I hummed them.

Look it up on YouTube, there's plenty of comparisons, but they are almost identical. Michael Jackson... It is a reference to jam for 100 pshaw. I mean, the thing about Michael Jackson is if anyone can have a breakdown, you know, it's him. It wasn't before it happened, though. God rest his noncy soul.

No. The constant stream, I mean, there are things in, interestingly enough, and I don't think it's a direct pull from it, but Carnival Night Zone sort of, in a way, reminds me of Sonic 2 on the master system. Let me make, let me get to why. There's a stone in that called Gimmick Mountain, which has these big discs that can rotate you around and then fling you up in the air. Oh, my God, go by then. They're so fun. Yeah, they are. Mind cards, all kinds of things. That's why it's called Gimic Mountain. But also, like Sonic, Sonic. too, on the mast system, there are probably more false walls than real ones in this zone. Almost every wall has a kind of a passage through it into another area with some power-ups in the middle. Sometimes below the power-ups is just a sheer drop so you will fall through a secret and go back and it's actually bad. And that, to me, really helps lead to this feeling that you're lost in a massive carnival.

Like, it all comes together so nicely. We haven't even talked about the cannons. The cannons, tickety-to-to-to-to-tok. Oh, you're having to time your shot out of the cannon. Yeah. Love it. And then what happens a couple of years later is a little game called Donkey Kong Country comes along. And they go, oh, we'll have that.

Wasn't that the same year? You're right there unless it was for later, yeah. Well, they probably started development on it after they saw Sonic 3 and went, oh, we'll have that, almost certainly. The thing, yeah. Back in the day, games only took a couple of months to make. Is this all sounds fantastic and all that, but I think it would be better if it was just an empty field. Yeah, agreed.

What I kind of like is instead of... What I do like is instead of having to find and collect rings, you just run in a circle and then they come out of your ass. That's what I like. Anyway, yeah, enough about that. I think we should definitely actually laser in now on the most pertinent thing about Carnivalry. I think everyone talks about,

when they talk about Carnival Night, right? Before you do that, wouldn't it be funny if we didn't? No, no, no, we have to. I'm sorry. I know it would be funny, but what it is, of course, is, you know, those bad nicks that are little blue clamshell things, and when you jump on them, they bounce you. That's what it is, of course. Yeah, that's the main thing anyone thinks about when it's...

Are they taken from Hydro City, or are they just very similar looking to the other clam-based badnakes? They are slightly similar, but no, they're completely different in both, like, function and form, although there is a slight similarity. Because the ones in Hydro City, obviously, will fire at you. They will fire upon you with their ballast or whatever.

Yeah, they go like, pooh, pooh, pooh, and then these guys come out. Oh, and they can't even remember to what they make. That's it, yeah. Yeah. And, of course, some of the hidden item placement just stands out to me, like, towards the end of Act 2, when you're flung into the air. and if you are clever and quick you can land on some balloons

that you can then bounce much higher up into this shaft that you're on into the side and there's a super ring there I love things like that There is a really good bit at the start of

I can't remember I think it's Act 2 but I couldn't swear it where if you get your jump right you can go sailing over the level and hit a balloon every time you come down and get really really far

and it's Green Hill Zone all over again if you get it right I do remember that, yeah. It's very difficult to do, though, of course. Yes, and I don't know what it is. I've never done it deliberately. It just sometimes happens, and it's really satisfying. It's interesting how, to me, Carnival Night starts you off in what strikes me as one of the more deliberate pathing things, in which it literally shows you, you're going right, you can go right, you can roll down this massive hill, or you can go up here, or you can go up here, and you will find a completely different route.

It's not like Hydro City, the initial alternate. routes are kind of obfuscated behind tails flight, you know. Marble Garden, they're not obfuscated, but they're not, you're basically funneled in one direction, and you have to actually physically stop yourself in order to get into the secret extra path. In this zone, it's, you're going right, and then suddenly it will just be like, do I go up or do I go right? And that, to me, that's the most direct statement of look, for God's sake, explore, that the game is giving you to this point. Oh, this level's got a very good one of those, which is that, You've got the sort of barbers pole candy cane things that you, they're like slopes, but you

whizzy whiz round them. And as you're going full pelt down these things, you keep seeing stuff on the other side of them than the one you're being propelled into naturally by the lay of the land. And it just gives you this sense of like, oh, I'm meant to be looking around. I'm meant to be going back and exploring things and doing interesting things. Of course, there is exploration previously. But to me, it's a statement of opening up a stage and immediately going like, look, go away that go up, go right,

like it's up to you. I'm very fond of that. The absolutely remarkable, like, magical thing about those candy cane, Barbara pole things. Is that, so when you are whizzing down them,

at listeners, what happens is that Sonic will rush down and then automatically, at a certain point, he will kind of like spin around them. The corkscrew around it, basically. Like corkscrew, that's absolutely the way. Cork screw around the outside of them.

What that means is, is that while you are You can, while you are rushing down them, you have essentially three choices. You can either just let the roller coaster take you where it's going to take you, which is a valid choice. You can jump off it on your way down with mega speed to, like, end up at the bottom and explore like a lower route. Very difficult to do, yeah. Or you can corkscrew around and as you're coming back up, if you jump, you get flung off upwards. to explore, like, I'm not sure I believe there is a higher route up there.

Yeah, there is. And it's cool as hell. It's so elegant and easy. And this is a thing, right? It's everybody says Sonic doesn't work in 3D. You can't do 3D Sonic. Here's, here is my, not really my counter. Here's my stance on that.

They've never really tried. We've never really got in a 3D Sonic game that just takes the, simple, I think very elegant, basic idea of Sonic and puts it in 3D. We've never had that. And I would love to see how that would work. I have to agree. I have to agree. This is, to me, it does feel like a sort of a transitionary stage in that it does kind of bridge too much harsher zones coming after this. Because this is, as I mentioned earlier, this is the first time I feel like it's feasible you could run out of time while not trying to run out of time, you know?

because of the second act and its absurdly long kind of gauntlet, so to speak. But I feel like we've rung out Carnival Night quite a lot, but we haven't mentioned the kind of an obvious thing about it, which is the bus, the first mid-boss. Well, it's quite a unique boss. It is quite a unique boss. And also, humorously enough, it's a boss that it is, in my memory,

possible to make last an extraordinarily long time if you're not quite fortunate. I'm not exactly sure how you would make it happen, because usually I kill that thing quite quickly. But what it is, is it's a bizarre, quite uninteresting-looking robot that has a little spinning-top attached, like a bay blade, and you hit it.

The spinning top comes off, no, sorry, if you hit it, it opens up, with electric kind of, like a generator sort of thing. But what's happening is this spinning top is flying around, and it's systematically destroying the blocks that are making up your platforms you're standing on. It's a little bit like an enhancement of, the robotic from Spring Yard

Zone, I guess you could compare it to. I suppose. Do you know, I actually don't know what you're supposed to do to beat this boss, because I always just sort of fumble about and beat it. That's how you do it, I think. Yeah. Well, you spin into it and

it becomes vulnerable, but it doesn't take any damage. You can't damage it directly. You need to make it vulnerable while the spinning top is about to crash into it. The little spinning top bit, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of a unique set up as far as Sonic goes, but I still don't feel it sacrifices any of that kind of

knockabout, no, in ball mentality. It's very knockabout because it is, frankly, I mean, the odds are nine out of ten times that thing's going to die in like five seconds, right? There has never been a scenario in which I felt like I was doomed through no fault of my own. You have got plenty of time to do it. I have failed at this boss. I definitely remember doing that. We're talking about when I was a child, but they've definitely been been times when I've been like, oh, I've fluffed this and now I'm too close to the ground. Something's going to go wrong here. I'm going to, or not to, you know, to making a hole for me to fall through. This is a little bit, this is a bit silly, and I know it's silly, but it has

always slightly niggled at me that when you destroy the boss, you just see what was below you and the whole time it was just normal floor. I know, I know, it's a video game, I get it, but it's a little bit of suspension disbelief, I guess, because it's a bit like the junk zone in Sonic 1, where every time you stroll the screen up, everything below you becomes death. And you're like, no, I was down there. There are rings there. There are rings and a bed.

And some snacks, and it's fine. And there's not death there. Oh my God. Like, before we move on, though, this is embarrassing. I can't believe we forgot to mention this. Oh, God, what is it? It's like something... It's quite a phallic boss, isn't it? Yeah, isn't it? When it extends its

shaft. Yeah, and you have to get it to kind of self-abuse in a way, don't you? In a way? Yeah. So in a way, it's a comment on masturbation, isn't it? When you hit it, it expands, it comes, the glands of the boss emerges from. Yeah, but it is though. Like, but it is though, isn't it?

This is what, you know, we joke, but do you see anything else when you look at that boss? Because that's, that's what I see when I see that boss. Well, I once put my, I mean, I'm not afraid to say this. I once attacked my own genitals with bay blades and I have to say I didn't enjoy it. Any good? Okay. Yeah, but our butt, was it, were you being electrocuted at the time? Yes, yes, I was, but that's standard to me. That's standard. I just used the inside of my foreskin as the arena. Yeah, lots of terrible things happening there.

But, I mean, really, other than the boss, the boss of the final boss, of kind of on the robotic. I have to say maybe a touch rudimentary. Is that fair to say? I mean, again, the bosses in this game, as we said in the previous episode, they are rewards for making a way through the level. You get to bop a bad man, you know? And of course, before that, you get the whole thing with knuckles then throwing you back up. I'm sorry, wouldn't bop a bad man be the most perfect name for a 90s mixtape? Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, I meant to say this today. because I bet he remembers this. You know those long red and white platforms

that you corkscrew around that we talked about? Do you remember the Mr. Long ice lolly? I'm afraid not, no. But, I mean, now that you've said it, I'm picturing a twister, but... There was an isolated called Mr. Long that was around very briefly,

and it was, in fact, very long, and it looked exactly like that. And I assume it was withdrawn because it looked so much like a wrecked penis, but I don't know. Well, what? Because it just looked like the curly-wurly? Because that's a famous kind of ice lolly, isn't it?

Is it twister or is it Twizzler? It's twister, isn't it? Yeah, but it wasn't ice cream. It was actual just pure lolly. It was full-on ice, like, lolly. Did it have a head on the top of it, is it? No, it did not have a shaped head. No, it peeter down.

I don't know what the problem was then. But, yeah, I don't know what the problem was either. Maybe it was too long. I've done a Google image search. And, listener, if you are like, if you are the center of the Venn diagram of doesn't know a single thing about Sonic the Hedgehog but is familiar with the Mr Long Ice Lolly For that one person

It literally looks exactly like that Yeah, that is why I came to mind I assume Dave would remember it because he is the remembering man I'm afraid no, that one's that one's Were you not allowed to have ice cream Because it made you so aggressive and frightfully angry To some extent you're right there But it was because I was allergic to it

Oh my God, allergic to ice cream Yeah, well, I was allergic to dairy, I was like to milk and eggs, until it was 12. So if it happened after... Oh, you stopped being allergic. If it happened after Sonic 3, I could have it. If it happened before, no good. That's fair enough, yeah. I remember having a conversation with Dave in which he revealed...

Oh, you've been having secret conversations with Dave, have you? Sorry, go on. No, no, this was public. This was on another podcast. You've been doing other podcasts, have you? Et cetera, et cetera. When he revealed that if he... If he gets like a packet of sweeties, it will last him a week.

Yeah. Like if he buys like a packet of where there's originals or something, he will have one and that's it. Let me tell you, that is psychotic behaviour to me. You see this bag of sweets here that I've got right here? Yeah, I'm looking at them right. He's holding on a bag of sweets. It's got two left in it. I'll now look up when I purchased it.

I want to know this. It was a long time ago. I'm realising now, not sure how I'm going to look at it up. I'm just going to check in my email. This may take a while. Let's just... No, no, sorry. It's not only has it taken

an incredible amount of time to eat a single packet of sweeties. He also has records of it. Well, because I ordered it on the internet. So it will have... They'll have sent me like an order shipped thing. I'm going to go ahead and say, it's not necessary to look that up.

I will just take you at your word that it was ages. It was ages. It was ages, mate. Ages. It was yonks. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Sonic.

That's what this is about, isn't it? Yeah. The Mr. Long Isolawley and Sonic. I'll rename it that. Sonic 3A knuckles slash the Mr. Long Isolle slash Dave's dairy allergy until he was 12

and subsequent purchase of bold sweets. Very catchy. Yeah, I mean, but if I ever buy some sweets, which I don't do very often for this reason, I will inhale them within 10 minutes. They will be gone. I just kind of like shove an entire packet tick-tacks down my throat.

Oh, yeah, same, same. And then I get very bad poos, I have to say, it's not good for your poos. I would recommend. I mean not doing that. It turns them all to the actual size, consistency and shape of tic-tacks, and they make the same rattling noise as they fall out. It's bad.

And they're also still white, which is weird, as if they haven't in any way been digested. Shall I go into any further detail, or are we happy with this? No, I think you should maybe go to a doctor. Yeah, yeah, that's not a bad idea. But yeah, so we got a, you know, the last boss of Carnival Night, I mean, I don't think is anything else really to talk about for Carnival Night? We've kind of rinsed it, I think. the final boss being this kind of

I'm going to call it rudimentary because of all the bosses in the game it's probably the most basic one in that all it does really is drop this big ball which is funny obviously because you know ha ha big ball but then he kind of elect the electric set and I think it kind of

it sucks you in doesn't it? It has like a bringing you towards it thing the problem is it never lives long enough to do this because I always kill it instantly. Yeah, it's, you know, it's not the greatest boss in the game, but which also means it's, like, completely inoffensive. It's fun to just show Dr. Robotnik what's what.

Yeah, given the old spank for his crappy carnival. Did you enjoy my carnival? Absolutely not. I tried, the guy tried to drown me. He tried to make me go up, and he turned all the lights off, and it was scared me very much. I did not like it. No, thank you.

Yeah, it's called the Graviton Mobil. which is a much cooler name than it deserves. The Graviton. Where have you got that from? Let me think Marvel's going to sue somebody. Sonic Retro. Oh, Sonic Retro. Yes, the repository of all knowledge.

Okay, I do trust them to be right. It just sounds made up. Like, where does it say that? It might have been in the crappy players guide or something, maybe. Well, it is in the Sonic 3 guidebook from Japan. There you go. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, but they also call Nack the Weasel Fang the Snippers.

Who cares what they think, honestly? Thank the sniper indeed. Thank you. Speaking of Fang the sniper, you get in a big gun, a cannon, to transition to the next stage. I remember getting stuck here for a while, because I thought you were supposed to blast yourself out of it, but no, you were supposed to sit there and watch it go back and forth for a while before it finally launches you, into what can only be described as possibly the showpiece zone of this game? Is that fair to say?

A lot of people I've heard have trouble with that canon in the Carnival Night Zone. A lot of people have trouble with that canon because they don't know what you're supposed to do with it. Even though there's a canon before it, you have to get past another canon to get to that canon. So I know what they're winging about. Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's so obvious what you do, isn't it? Well, it's, the thing is, is that that is the only really kind of obtuse time-wester in Carnival Night Zone, so I think it can be forgiven. Yeah, apart from that, it's pretty snappy, bang-law.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, there's nothing else like that, you know, infamous canon in the Ice Cap Zone, really. Ice Cap Zone is extremely focused on Ford Momentum, compared to almost, I would say almost compared to any other zone in this game. This is the speed zone, right? I mean, you are almost constantly... Ice Cap is my favourite. Ice Cap is my absolute. All-time favourite level in this game. Just, oh, mommy, daddy, what a level. I don't think it's my favourite one, but I'm aware that at least part of that

is because I now think of it as like Pass A because everyone likes it. So it's like, oh no, apart from that, apart from that one, obviously. I mean, one thing that pleases me greatly about Ice Cabsone, and everyone knows this, but I'm going to say it anyway, once it was discovered that the song, the music came from that Jetsons' protest, type song, beta song, whatever.

What do you call the song? It's not called a prototype. A demo. A demo. That's it, yeah. Hard times, which instantly slaps. Oh, is that what it was? It was just a demo song. That wasn't meant to be a released song. It was unreleased. I'm not sure if it was demo or it was just an unreleased song. It's probably just an very good song. It's very good, yes.

So what has actually happened now is that Ice Capstone has three separate music attached to it, which is that, the original theme and the beta theme, which goes I think. Also good. It's awesome.

So three extremely good songs there for Ice Cap. Not an enormous number of zones you can say that about, I would say. So well done, Brad Buckser. Well done. Yeah. Good stuff. And of course this zone opens up with the raddest, coolest thing that Sonic has ever done ever in all of his existence. Which is he does a big.

snowboard, doesn't he? He shreds. He shreds the powder. He comes blasting into a level. He does a, he flips a snowboard up so that it's spinning around like a big caffeine wheel. He lands on it. Probably some dead guys snowballed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a piece of trivia about that snowboard. Right. Could it be? So, I bet this is real. No, no, it's real. I genuinely. As we

established last time, the game was kind of split into two. Yeah. One of the levels that was not finished in time for the first half of Sonic 3 was Flying Battery Zone, which was supposed to, I believe, come between Carnival Night Zone and Ice Cap Zone. This is why you get launched out of the cannon. And Flying Battery is supposed to, like, I believe it's maybe supposed to be the way that night transitions back in today for the ice cap zone.

Quick introduction. Flying Battery is the bomb ship, the ship that bombed you in Angel Island, right? Yes, yes. Okay. It's also the name of a later zone that was in Sonic and Knuckles. Yes, yes, sorry. I just mean that was for that, because that continuity is there in theory if they wanted to pick up on it, basically. And so you get launched, I think what was supposed to happen is you would get launched out of the cannon.

He would end up in Flying Battery. He would go through Flying Battery. Knight would transition back into day. And then at the end, Sonic runs out of the Flying Battery and, like, knocks the door off. like he runs out of it knocks the door off and uses the door as the snowboard Yeah he shreds the powder on the door

Yes as at the beginning of ice cap zone I believe that is how it was originally supposed to go Because if you check the level select screen That's where Flying Battery is And yeah So that was originally how that scenario was supposed to play out But as they had time constraints And had to split the game in half

It just became directly canon to snowboard Sorry, I thought you meant canon, as in it was canon, that he could snowboard, like, as in story canon. It is. It's canon, yeah, he can snowboard. If it's a cool thing, if it's a cool thing, Sonic is just inherently good at it. I think that's how it works, right? DJing, breakdancing, snowboarding. Taking loads of drugs, you know.

Saying that trans rights are human rights. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, do you think that Sonic shredding powder at the beginning of this level was a reference to, Sega executive snorting enormous amounts of cocaine? No. I don't think that either. So anyway, once you make your way through there... It's the coolest thing.

Imagine you are 11 or 12 or 7 or whatever age you were when you first played Sonic 3. You've been playing Sonic for a while and you're like, you've got the handle of this. You know what's going on. Nope. Now you're snowboarding and you're just zipping down and you zip zaps up to it. There isn't much to do. You don't have much control over it. You can jump and collect from rings.

The best part is that he twats into a wall of it. at the end. Yes, it's really good and then an entire avalanche lands on his head. It's slapstick comedy. It doesn't compromise. That's what I love. That's what I love about like these old games.

And this is the thing is like Sonic managed to toe a very tight line of being cool without being obnoxious. The game knows not to take him too seriously. So it gives them his comeuppance, you know. That is a quality that is lost kind of going forward. As we went on, he kind of just veered into being more of a genuinely cool and infallible kind of shonen protagonist

and then recently it's kind of veered straight back into the other way to just kind of like the comic relief you know just kind of being somebody for you to point and laugh at I mean they shouldn't have never given him a sneering voice should they that's the mistake they made and I also

do think that that's how they ruined Sonic as they had him speak like I'm not dissing the voice actors very talented voice actors behind Sonic but with the exception of I would say Ben Schwartz in the most recent movie whose annoying nature is quite charming

he plays it very naive you know I think he does a good job of making Sonic while he is obnoxious by design he makes him very likable and vulnerable when he needs to be I think which I like a lot but look at almost any other Sonic voice and it's not their full they don't write this shit but the most

there was it Roger Craig Smith right a very fine voice actor but I don't want to hear that voice coming out of Sonic I don't want to hear Sonic snarking and saying baldy McNose hair and like trying to be, I don't want that. Why just shut up? Shut up, you fat idiot. Be quiet, you thick head chug. That was my pause to rant about Sonic's voice there.

Nothing to do with anything. I can just penetrate this little bubble of rage there for just a moment by saying that I've found the receipt. And I started eating this bag of sweets on the 9th of January. It's now towards the end of March. Oh, no. Outstanding work. frightening behavior. Really genuinely, like, shining ass, serial killer ass behavior there.

I had other sweets I was eating as well. It's not like I was sat there starving. Don't try and wriggle out of this, Dave. Don't try and wriggle out of this. You've been officially, you've been judged, my friend. I've been sweet cancelled. Guilty. Yes, sweet cancelled. I like that.

Round trees fruit cancels. Is that a thing? Of course, in America, in America they call it candy sold. Nice. Exactly. If only in that one moment we'd been American, we would have had no reason. Don't say that. Don't even say that as a joke. Imagine... You know what, America? This has really brought me around. I don't even want to think about what if I was American, not even as a joke.

I don't like it. I'd rather be British, a completely infallible British, or have never done anything wrong. Oh, boy. You know what? I think just to be unbelievably cheeky, we should actually wrap it off our Sky SkyScap. which we're not done with. We are not done with ice cap. We have barely scratched the surface as I'm concerned. Now, let's talk about the cool things in the ice cap zone, right? Okay.

For one thing... All the ice and snow. I do like... Yeah, the ice is cool. Actually, can we start talking about what there's not in the ice cap zone? What's that? Ice physics. Yeah.

Which I think was a very smart choice. I think that was very judicious because... You're right there. I never thought about it. Yeah, I never thought of that, you know. The whole thing about Sonic is his physics. and I think asking the player to learn an entirely new set of physics just for this one level, I can't see any way in which that would not be at least a little bit of a pace breaker

when this is supposed to be a very fun kind of, this is like one of the most well-paced zones in the game just in terms, like there's lots of speed, but there's lots of platform. The platforming is all very fluid. It all flows beautifully. And instead, the ice is more, the ice is kind of like more crystalline. Yeah. It's like a lot, it's about a lot of shattering ice rather than slip sliding around. Yes.

I mean, the, sorry, Dave, go on. Well, I was going to say that the thing about ice physics and, and any of these, you know, look, when there's a lava level in Mario and you get your bum burnt and when there's ice level and you're slipping around and you stop and there's a lot of inertia, you slide away. it's always bad, isn't it? Environmental control. I'm struggling to think of an example of a nice, slippy ice level

that I have liked, and I'm including levels that I myself have made in things in that. Well, this is the thing, and like, this is why I much prefer Sonic 3's approach to this sort of thing, rather than more extreme, superficial

and kind of like temporary mechanics, what a lot of people would call gimmicks, you know. I would call them gimmicks too. It's just I'm trying to define the term. Yeah, because the gimmick tends to, inaccurately usually is used as negative. Exactly.

Absolutely. There's loads of great gimmicks in games. But what I really love about Sonic 3 is that for the most part it kind of foregoes them, I think, for a more... Just kind of designing the level differently. Designing the fundamental underlying level design is different,

on the visuals, you know, thinking through what an ice level would be like, thinking through what a carnival level should be like, and so you're still playing with the same mechanics, but each zone feels different. I totally agree with that. I mean, with the ice cap, what they're capturing about ice and snow rather than the buffeting like blizzard or something like that, what they're capturing is the joy of it. you know, the sheer joy of snow, right? I mean, it's like you're going out sledding,

you're running around in the snow being a twat. It's great, you know? I mean, there are so many things in this level that I feel are just joyous. I mean, even those long... Yes, it's a child's eye view of snow and ice instead of an obstacle that's going to annoy you and make trouble for you.

Even those huge, like, the shafts, the infinitely repeat as you fall down them, they're kind of taken from labyrinth zone in Sonic 1 to a degree, but the solution is so much simpler, so much less finicky, that anyone could eventually figure it out and it makes you feel smart

even though you haven't really done anything clever these are guys that have learned from previous ventures as well you know these this is a team that really is at the top of their game in terms of scope in terms of polish everything

things even little things like the bits where you will be you run and then you will just be in some quite deep snow that you then have to spin dash to get it off you. Yes. Even little things like that are just cute and nice. It's nice, yes.

Something that stands out to me big time in this zone is once you reach the boss, and we'll talk about that later, but the Act 1 boss and Act 2, the ice flows in the background look astonishing. Like, it's one of the best Sonic backgrounds. It's absolutely beautiful. Is this the parallax of the bits of ice sliding along? Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

That's amazing. The thing is, with Sonic. A lot of people, because I say a lot of people, because I didn't do this, it's only in the last, say, I don't know, 10 years even, that I've bothered my ass looking at the backgrounds. Because why would you? And then one day, playing tonight 2, it occurred to me that the background for Casino Night be off the chain.

Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? It's absolutely insane. The detail, the sense of scope, of scale, the sheer size of the place. It's absolutely hog wild, and that was not pun intended. it never dwells in it it's just you're zooming past so much detail and the game is never like

you need to stop and look at that detail but it's not even just like it's different inside outside wherever you go you're getting a different perspective on this stuff they bother with things like weather changes and environment changes and thick snow in front of the screen I believe actor you get some actual snow

maybe misremembering that or is it the end of act one I can't remember I think you do the thing is that when you begin the level you're nowhere near the ice flows, but as you go further through it and you get through the caves and everything, the background changes. And it creates the illusion that you are running through this world. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's a fantastic moment where you go outside and you stop being in a crystalline cavern and now you're outdoors and you're like,

oh, look, look where I am. It's, I mean, act two of ice cap starts off with a very, very blatant three level, like three different stories like thing. There are three roots here, pick one. And it's almost arrogant. Do you know what I mean? By this point in the game, but at this point of the game, they're just like, yeah, this is so easy for us, guys. Because we'll talk about launch base when we get to launch base, but the thing about launch base for me is launch base doesn't waste, as soon as you get in there, it's almost

open world, straight up. You can just go wherever. And this is almost, this is like them transitioning into that by just kind of going like, this is the last tap before the final zone of this part of the game. Sonic 3 alone You know what I'm saying Pick a road You can go underground Overground

Wombling free Whatever you want You know I think The only reason I could say that this may not be my favourite zone Is simply because I love

Every other zone Like I love Hydro City But if I have to be In any way objective about it Which I don't And I refuse to be Um Ice Cap Zone is like

Peak Like Sonic isn't it? Like, it's operating on every level that Sonic is satisfying to operate on. Oh, oh, no. Hang on. Ice Cap's my second favourite level in the game. Are you talking about Sonic 3 or Sonic 3 and Knuckles? Oh, Sonic 3? The first half of Sonic 3, yes. Yeah, that is my favourite there. But in the entire game, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, there is one that I like more. It probably is for me as well, and I'm sure we'll get to it.

Unless we'll die first, which is very much a possibility, sadly. We may die from natural causes Before we reach the end of this conversation Yeah, that's my assumption Yeah Some of us sooner than others, David Very sorry about that That's all right

We're all pals We're pals We're just having a daft laugh Because we're mates The daft laugh with me mates Isn't it funny How one day all of us Will be dead and forgotten

Yeah Will we be missed? Of course not Of course not God Someone will find this podcast after we're all gone and go, why'd they do this? What's the point of that?

Waste the time. Someone will do that before we're gone. Yeah. I mean, someone's probably, someone, for all we know, we're going to put this out. We're going to be like, oh my God, this is our like 19 part retrospective on Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

And then someone will go like, yeah, but in 2008, like some guy did like a 20 part retrospective on Sonic 3 and Knuckles. So, yeah, he cares. And I'll be like, Dems the brakes. It was me. It's the Bronx, baby. a man in the eye.

Yeah, with embarrassment. Truly embarrassing. It's like bothering, like, to review every game game or something. What a waste of time. So, ice cap, though. I really do feel like we've... Good.

Yeah, it's good, isn't it? I really do feel like we've only scratched the surface because we haven't talked about the fact that there is a bad knit called a Penguinator, which is a... Oh, yeah, my God. Rockets at you on its belly because that's what penguins do, isn't it?

I didn't know he was called that, I must admit. that's real nice and I like it. Imagine waking up in the morning and going down the stairs and in front of your television is a Mega Drive. Inside the Mega Drive is Sonic the Hedgehog 3. You've got the instruction... Trying to imagine this so far.

Carry on. Playing this game knowing that the enemy you have fought is called a penguinator. The sheer joy of that. See, I can't imagine that because... You don't know who Donald Trump is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Despite the fact that everyone will insist later in your life that everything you watched had a parody of him in it. No, he didn't and you didn't know him. It didn't matter to you.

The only Trump parody or Trump comedy thing I've ever enjoyed is Brentle Floss's song that he did when he went out. Was it Brentle Floss? Was it? Yes, I believe he did. Do one, didn't he? He did this fantastic showtune style thing about Trump. It was brilliant. Anyway Ice cap Do you think we've burned out Do you think we've burned out the ice caps at this point? If I'm being honest with you

The thing is that I God, it's my favourite level But it is I don't really have very much To say about it Because it's just good I've got one I've got one

The ice cap zone is the zone That really codifies And it's been a thing you can do In previous levels That's been useful but it's in the ice cap zone that it really makes sure you know how to rev up a spin dash

and immediately jump as soon as you let go there's a couple of little puzzly bits in it where that's what you've got to do or hit a spring and immediately jump yeah there's the platforms where you have to hit them with enough momentum that they swing upwards those are really fun

and it's just it's fun on the thumbs it feels good to do one thing I want to mention a very small touch that I've always liked about this zone is one of those platforms platforms that you hit and then it breaks and it flies off and slides down at a tunnel. And you're still stuck in it and you're flying through the air. There is no need for them to have done that at all.

That is such a flex because then you have the pillars crashing down behind you and you don't needs to do anything but it creates this fun little set piece that again just uses the game's basic mechanics. It's not doing anything weird. You're not having to learn a new control scheme to get a different experience. Sorry, I said earlier that you had of course. course, the crystalline constructs of the ice, but also there's just a lot of slopes. There's a lot, a lot, a lot of downward momentum. There's that infinite loop that Stu talked about earlier, that is just sheer downward momentum. And if you've ever been on a slippery slope, you know how that feels. And it perfectly captures that, again, without having to employ any kind of garish ice

physics. Yeah, they have two of those, and one of them is solved in a way that instructs you on the second one. So on the second one, you're like, where the hell's that platform what you need? Very clever design, I think. Yeah, brilliant. And oh, oh my God, there are also those springboards where you have to press jump at the right time to launch into the air. How fun are those? Which ones are those, sorry?

No, sorry, tell a lie, you don't have to press jump. It's like that. Yeah, you have to hit them at the right so you get the right momentum, yeah. What? What are we doing that? There are these platforms, purple platforms that are chained to blocks. And when you jump on them, they spring down and bounce you up. and you have to hit them at the right kind of yeah oh your little trampoline each time you hit them you'll get higher and higher and tails can really mess with that yeah he really can trampoline trampoline is a word i was looking for there but like they're so much fun because again you can either stand on them and just jump to start to start that process of getting slowly bouncing higher and higher or if you have momentum by like launching off of a ramp first and then precisely land on it which they're

The game will often send you up past it so you know where to land coming down. You come out with it with so much momentum that it springs you even higher. What a fun game. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's the thing about Ice Cup to me that's just a care to me really is compared to Marble Garden and Carnival Night and Hydra City, it's quite titchy, isn't it? It's a bit smaller than those other zones, which makes it make it feel that much more. focused and not repetitive. You don't get bored of it. I mean, I don't get bored of this game in general, but you know what I mean? It's exactly as long as it needs to be. You're not sitting there

like if it was an extra two minutes long and it was just the same stuff. You know, it felt like they were like, okay, we have exhausted our ideas for this level, so we will gracefully let it end. I mean, it's just like a little adrenaline rush, isn't it? Culminating in the hardest bosses in the game, arguably? I would say so. I would definitely say so, although before we get to the bosses, I do want to say I love, I think it's the transition in Act 2

where it's like you go down all these loops and tunnels and everything and after an entire level of just like an exhilarating downward slope it's just got this nice kind of graceful little upward slope

that launches into the air very gently and then you land in the boss arena and that gives me the feeling of like when you're sledding and just your momentum decays at the bottom and you're just kind of like how much fun you've had and just kind of getting ready to do it again

it's a very simple, very innocent fun I really like that touch I think your dad starts throwing massive snow crystals at you and kills you sadly your dad starts throwing massive snow wobblies yeah it's funny you think my dad was there so anyway yeah The mid-boss, or the first act boss, is, I would say, fairly horrible in a challenging sense.

Thankfully, it only takes about five or six hits, but it is probably the most difficult of the mid-bosses in this game, I would argue. Yes, it is. Because you have to kind of reckon with a pseudo-3-D perspective. I mean, you do and don't, because you can just not do that. you can just hide in the corner and wait from him to throw the snowballs. And I think you get a chance to hit him then. It's been a little while.

It's like what happens is he draws in all these ice blocks and they spin around them and he kind of like, is it a parabola? It's kind of like, they spin around them in a kind of pseudo 3D way where they're like going in front of them and then behind them. It's like the orbs from Metropolis Zone Robotnik.

It's very similar to that. Yes. Yes. And it's like if you can time it properly, you can hit him, or you can wait until he has finished his attack pattern and then looses all of the orbs and then he's defenceless. And so, like, you know, it's actually a fairly easy boss if you don't mind wasting time. Yeah, but you do because you're playing Sonic. Yeah, so you just get hit on purpose, tank the hit and hit it while it's coming down five times. Boss over. Move on with your life. You know, the ice flows in the background, I've

already mentioned. This isn't going to go anywhere, but I'm going to say it anyway. Because when else am I going to get a chance? Yeah. They remind me of the Atari game, the Atari 2,600 game Frostbite. That's a great game, guys. You should consider giving that a go. I don't know anything about it. I've got one as well that I've failed to mention and all to now.

Ice Cap Zone, Act 2, has got beautiful glass, ice-pillared, beautiful ice loops in it. When you run around the loops, the special ones made of ice, and they're gorgeous. And then when you go onto the ground, you can see through the holes, in the cavern wall, you can see the ice flows. You are officially in a nice big crystal jumping across said ice flows, so you don't fall in the water and immediately freeze the death,

which is presumably what happens. We haven't even mentioned the freezing thing where the puffs of ice can freeze you and then tails can free you into a block of ice, yeah. Now I have to say Sonic Mania did some cool things with that, with the press garden sign, but that's for another podcast.

Is that the one where you can press the button a load of times to wiggle a little bit and eventually break out. You can break out that way, but you also can you, if you intentionally get iced on a slope, you'll slide down and break through things. It's another example of Sonic Mania being a fantastic sort of, you know, a out of 10 game for me with just too many goddamn things in it. Like, it's just, it's absurd.

The thing about that bit in Sonic Mania for me is that I'm still not quite clear on the rules. It's like I'm not quite sure what the ice can and cannot do and when. because like I find that like sometimes the ice will break and sometimes it won't and I'm sure that the rules are consistent it's just kind of like they seem arbitrary like I can launch at the ice with the same if not more speed and momentum and it won't break but then if I get frozen first and then go down the slope even if I've got less speed it will break yeah you know which is a little

confusing to me I don't quite get it whereas in Sonic 3 it's just idiot proof I know I have to agree with that I mean the sonic Sonic mania is just a bit of a we're not going to get into that fully but to me it's just an example of you know eyes bigger than the stomach in a way they just they want everything

in there they want all these ideas they've had there's not maybe the most amount of polis to sort of sit there and think hey maybe this is a bit much because it's like something like a freedom planet where nobody who was following the development at any point when this sucks you should take this out this is really bad

So you end up with this game Which there's about a thousand amazing ideas in it And like nine really, really bad ones That bring the whole experience down for me Because nobody ever at any point said Eh, not sure about this idea Because everyone was just super hype the whole time Good for them, you know, good for them

They made it a very impressive game I just, you know, I got to pick holes in it Because that's what I do Well, it was released after the year 1999, so it's bad Correct, correct So, released off the year 1999. I don't know. That's a segue doesn't make any sense.

Speaking of things released off of the year 1979, that's us. Technically, that's true, isn't it? We were released after the year 1979, yeah. I think that while it is a bit of an obnoxious place to leave the episode with one bit of Sonic 3 left, except it's not because we're thinking

of this is one whole game, aren't we? Yeah, yeah. And anyway, it'll mean the next one will, like, bridge us over into the next game, which is like a Scheherazard teaser for the next episode. Perfecto. It's the MCU style teaser Now, I think that this episode

There's a small chance That some of it may have been a touch silly And I think that we've gone a bit We've been a bit badly behaved at times But it's okay I forgive you both As you are the ones who instigated this Not me I've done nothing wrong

I am a full man with that I am not at fault here Now hopefully Hopefully listeners, you have enjoyed our deep dive into both Sonic and our own mental states. Thank you very much. Now, I think it's time to ask our dear friend, Mr. Balmer, where can the listeners of retronauts, should they wish to find you? And only then. Only then. Find you on the internet and look at your bits and bobs.

And I do mean your testicles and penis. Ah, right, well, they can see my testicles and penis on the fortnightly podcast, Sonic the Comic, the podcast, which they can find at S-C-T-T-P-P-Zone. It is a podcast in which, myself and my friend Chris McFeeley, off of YouTube's Transformers, The Basics, talk about the British Sonic Comic, and we do an issue at a time, and it's nice, and we talk about what went on in the past, in the 90s, and we take you back there to live with us there. Both me and Shea have been on that So this is a little bit, a bit neppy, isn't it? This is a little bit nippy. A little bit of incestuous. May I say something slightly tangential?

Yes, of course. A first for this podcast. Yeah. I kind of got a little bit addicted to the basics. I had no interest in Transformers. I've, like, I devoured the basics. And now I'm halfway through watching Beast Wars again for some reason. Oh, my word.

So thanks, Chris. You've made me even more. of a sad sack. I watched the Death's Head basics because I like Death's Head and I thought it was very, I thought it was very good. I shall not be watching any more of them, but well, maybe I will, I don't know. I'm vaguely interested in Transformers, vaguely,

vaguely, you know, I mean... Well, here's a clincher for you, Stuart. Yeah, go on. You see that lorry? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I mean, who cares? It's just a lorry. Like, it gives a shit. Right. No, no, no, no, no. Right. I thought that as well. Right. But it is just the lorry, though. Well, get ready for this way. It's a guy. It's a fella.

Hey? What? The lorry is a fella. He's a big fella. Shut up. What are you talking about? Right. So you have the lorry. Yeah. And it becomes... I mean, I'm with you on the lorry part. Yeah. Right. Okay. Now, imagine a big fella. Okay. I'm imagining a big fella.

He is also the lorry at the same time. No. He undergoes some kind of process of like transmogrification or something. I don't know what you would call that. You know what? You lost me? I need to end this podcast. We'll have to come back to this because you've really alienated me. And I don't know what you're talking. I'm really totally out. And I'm also to be found on Twitter at Demon Tomato Dave. And on YouTube at Demon Tomato Dave. Steel's heavier than feathers. Oh, stop. Anna Shea, where can people find you on the internet should they choose to? You can find me at Twitter on Shea May underscore. I'm trying to stay off of there after I spent a day arguing about Mr. Beast. And available.

myself not. But you can find me on Shamea underscore on Twitter. You can find me on YouTube, just type in Shem A phonetically, S-H-A-Y-M-A-Y, wherein I do excruciatingly long deep-dive analyses of video games. I try to make them entertaining. I tried not just make

it like a dirge, and I try not to just be moaning for two hours. Well, I interject and say, I have watched all of your videos that aren't Pokemon, because with respect, I don't give a fuck about Pokemon. I never will um absolutely so not respect to you i'd like to highlight your crash bandicoot video because i think that's very very good i want to say oh thank you the fact that you went through the crash one level by level and you gave it the perfect amount of like scrutiny i think because none of the levels were just boring rambling it was all actual pertinent kind of i thought it was great i really

like that video um thank you so i'm really happy with that video so i really like that one i think that's possibly my favorite it might be your magnum opus i i'm lactose and I'll admit, sorry. Thank you very much for listening. One thing I would like to ask before this... Guys, I apologize. I am bursting for a joby. Oh, really? Okay.

All right, well, I'm still going to ask. I'll do it off episode. I'll do it afterwards. I'll ask an absurdly stupid question. I'll ask it when we're done. What I will say, though, is if you have enjoyed this episode, God help you and your soul, but you can get lots more exciting retronauts

if you go to our Patreon. com forward slash retronauts you can get for five dollars a month two full-length patron exclusive episodes that's insane can you imagine that's so much entertainment for you for nothing just just five dollars which is a pathetic amount of money uh you'll also be getting the weekly monday episodes early so you can be the cool kids on the playground um and you also get the this week in retro columns and podcasts by diamond fight which are very good and the new this month in retronauts podcast with me in fight which is our community podcast very fun uh so So that's all that.

I hope you've enjoyed this. And we will return for more Sonic 3Nuckles unless Jeremy Parrish listens to this and decide we're not allowed to. Take care. Thanks very much for listening. And have a sonic-tastic day. See you soon.

Bye. Thank you. Thank you.