Retronauts - 668: Sonic 3 & Knuckles Part 5

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

We’ve reached the Doomsday Zone. At last, the final instalment of Gipp, Bulmer, and MacDonald’s investigation of Sega’s greatest game is upon us. 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 in Retronauts, Genesee Croix What Nintendesspa. or Retronauts Shut up, Dean you're not supposed to come in here. Idiot! I thought he said hello, so I just automatically said hello back. Idiot.

Shit. God. Why don't you make this so hard? This is the fifth part of the Retronauts ridiculously thorough. Some have said comically thorough in investigation

of Sonic 3 and Knuckles which is being done by me. Stuart Jip, who is the host, with the most. That was a Beetleju's reference because that's currently out over the way the time this goes out, it will probably be Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beatlejuice,

oh shit, there he is. Oh no! Okay, but yeah, it's not just me. We got the same crew back. Time after time, we got those guys. We reached out, we're like, you guys, you want to be on the next part? And they're like, yeah. So, um, let's start from the top, because I can see them this time,

which is up, which is fortunate for me, but less fortunate perhaps for them. Um, who's the stacked on the top of the retro nauts pile of assholes? Is it different for everyone? Yeah, well, yes. She just, on my screen, she just pointed in the one direction. Nobody is.

We've run into this. I don't think we can continue. Let's just go with Dave Bulma. Hey, Dave. Hello, I'm Dave Bullmer. Do you remember me? I'm from Sonic the comic, the podcast. So I talk about Sonic a lot, and that's what I'm here to do.

Hooray! And who else is with us today? I bet you can't figure it out, boomers. It's me. It's Shemey MacDonald, also known as Shugals, the man who made an 11-hour video on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond, and has somehow performed... Wow. Wow. So, okay, this is already become an incredibly good episode. Anyway, yes. Here we are again, and this is the fifth and hopefully final part of the Sonic 3Nuckles' rundown, the Cadill.

will run down. And I've got a confession to make. This is actually not the first time that we've done this. Oh, thank goodness. I didn't know if we were going to mention this. Yes. But now the tension is being broken. The elephant in the room. The elephant in the room has trunks the elephant has been exposed. Trunky the elephant. Which,

yeah, Trunkey the elephant or trunks, the elephant. You know, that would be what his name is. If he was in Sonic, if there's a sonic elephant. Well, this is retro game. So it'd be CJ the elephant. Oh, yeah, CJ the elephant antics. See the elephant antics. Well, his film name is Tronkey. hated. Oh, nice, good. Yeah.

God, those elephants are massive, aren't they? I forgot the point I was making. I ate too much chicken today. What point was I making, Shea? Well, we have actually recorded this podcast before. Yes, that was it. For the second time in about as many minutes, I'm finding myself having to say Mia Copa. That was my fault. It turns out that Adobe audition did not like me recording for a length of time, which is quite irritating. Yeah, exactly, considering that is its sole purpose. And also, we stopped halfway through.

It's actually two recordings. So, that was kind of, that was kind of my bad. But the result is, is that we have to redo this entire podcast. Again, what none of us are sore about, it seems, because we get to talk more about Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Knuckles. I forgot on everything that we said, so it's going to be great. But I just wanted to make it known that there is out there a great lost episode. Yeah, it could be better. We might do worse this time.

This might actually be worse than that, so I'm sorry about that. Where we left off, as was the subject of much heated debate earlier, is we had just finished off Lava Reef, which of course segues into We Think Hidden Phallus. And we're all ready to jump in there, aren't we? I mean, we've said enough about that boss and that sort of finale and how outstandingly amazing it is and how this is the beginning of the end of the game, basically, an end game that's about four zones.

before the end, because they've got some real pacing going on in this game. And of course, it's interesting in a way that the end of lava reef act two has sort of gone full circle from the original Act 1's kind of more cave,

rocky lava. Act 2 is the kind of more sort of hidden palace-looking, sort of unusual, cold interior, except ironically not cold at all because of the lava, ha. But then at the end of it, you're back in the floods of lava again. You're just in a sort of lava water for them and lead you into the Hidden Palace.

And how do we feel about that, lads? Very good about it. Oh, I also feel very good about it, yeah. It's, so, so hidden palace zone isn't really so much a full zone on its own. It's kind of like just a story interlude more than anything else.

Yeah. It's something else that they even have that. You know, it's, um, where else are you going to find that? Exactly. Like, it's, it's, it shows the dedication to the storytelling and the ongoing. in this game, which I think is pretty unheard of for a platformer in 1994, certainly, but even nowadays, you would very rarely get just an entire zone dedicated just to kind of moving

the story along. It would be a cutscene. It wouldn't be playable, most likely. More than an engine made. That's the thing. What we're here to essentially dip into now, like plunge into now is a pivotal cutscene, but when you're a kid playing it, you don't see it as something. The game is never taking itself away from you. You are playing. You're always playing. And it's telling you the story. It's a remarkable moment in this game, and we've all been looking forward to it. We have. And I look forward to it every single time I play it. And of course, as Sonic, it's not exactly long, but it's substantial. I think we should talk about the knuckles version to get it out of the way because the knuckles

version is, if memory serves, is essentially just you running right and jumping into a teleporter. Am I wrong there? I think so. I don't play as Knuckles that often, so my knowledge of the knuckles side is more limited. Yeah, I can't remember, I'm afraid. It will have been the 90s when I last tried that.

Because Knuckles is P.U. Stinky, and Sonic is awesome, so... I don't agree with that, but... I bet he does P.U. Stinky, though, in real life. I bet he doesn't. I bet he's very musky. well foxes are famously quite smelly aren't they so yeah but i don't give a shit about that little wank

no he sorry everyone it's it's just you run right into a teleporter which um bong a lot has been made of the the continuity of this like oh where does the sonic and knuckle story fit together which i think is i'm not really interested in it's it's you know it's

it's not invalid given there is a focus on story It's not invalid, and they have, yes, and they have put details in to go like, well, I guess it goes here. But it doesn't, like, when they made the game, they weren't like, and then we have in the Knuckles. No, it's just a thing that happens to also be. And, you know, it's, when we're talking about stuff like that, I mean, it's already been kind of, the gaff has been blown by the accidental use of robotic and the, the, but it's a little bit like, whatever, isn't it? What we're saying is that Knuckles' story doesn't make a whole lot of sense. but I think that's to be forgiven. Yeah. It's just an alternate play mode of a game.

It's Sonic that's got the story. Yeah, the knuckles mode is a bonus. Yeah, it's not cool. It's admirable. I nearly said, it's knuckles. It's admirable that they sprinkled bits of, you know, like if you're looking for storytelling here is some. But I don't think it massively matters. You can fill in the gaps, like kind of how you like.

Maybe he's like, oh, well, he doesn't associate the robots with Robotnik at first. But anyway, like, I suppose. I suppose, like, the thing we need to establish is that this is the, from Knuckles's perspective, I guess that's why it's so strange that Knuckles is so anemic because, like, from his perspective, this is

the heel turn moment. This is the moment where he realizes that, oh no, Sonic's the good day and Robotniks the bad day. Yes. Yeah. And to get to that point, I mean, Sonic stage isn't, again, it's not particularly long, but there's a substance to it, which builds up a sort of sense

of anticipation, because you're running through this sort of a zigzaggy you're sort of ascending through something aren't you? There's no like enemies and you're kind of like why is it the same music but the level has transitioned to something else it makes it feel the

continual there's that word again it makes the continuity all the more continuous because of that and it's interesting and it's unique in this game and I have to mention it because it's great there is a completely arbitrary secret area

in this level where if you use tails to fly Sonic up to the absolute peak that you can, there is just this long platform that has every type of power up in the game in a row which is, you always feel like you've stumbled across like a debug screen or something but what they're really doing is

they're doing one of my all-time favorite things in games which is going, well you really didn't need to do that but hey, I did so here's a bunch of you know, here's a bunch of stuff which is always likable. There's no clue it's up there there's no hint. It's just you have to be the kind of stupid to think I'm going to go up there and just got a bloody go up there.

But you make your way there, you make your way past some interesting background detail that we'll get into. And you yourself jump into and telling Porter, and you end up in an interior area of the Hidden Palace where you face off against the one himself, the man who doesn't chuckle, it's only bloody knuckles. Right, he flipping does chuckle. I don't think we said this in the first episode, but he chuckling is literally. his introduction to Sonic. That's the first thing he does. He does chuckle. Just because some idiot said in a rap

once that he doesn't chuckle, now the world thinks he doesn't chuckle. And he does, it's the main thing he does. He does chuckle. The rap is untrue. Well, I sort of feel like maybe the rapper was just kind of hired to do a job. Yeah.

And that wasn't him. That wasn't really knuckles. It was just thinking of ways to rhyme words with knuckles. Yeah. Yep. To be fair, given the circumstances, I think they did a fine job of rhyming.

it definitely rhymes I won't do it does I tell you what I've always said that actually it does rhyme yeah I can't think of a better one and I'm really trying like you can see the gears turning and there's nothing coming

yuckles the exploding mushrooms my name they call me knuckles into my tippy tea I'll get stuckle that doesn't work this is why I had to quit my rap career oh I've gone and left my shoes behind

I didn't do the buckles no that's not bad that's not bad that's not bad that's not bad Here I come Rougher than the rest of them The best of them Tougher than leather

You can call me knuckles Unlike Sonic I don't chuckle I'd rather flex my muscles On the heart is nails It ain't hard to tell I break them down whether they solid or frail Unlike the rest I'm independent since my first breath First test feel the right than the worst left

Yeah let's not do that anymore Just let it end Just let it go Just shut up And we'll just talk about the game But yes the fight with knuckles again, unique, because I think it's the only time he fights something that isn't made of, you know, steel

or metal. It's an organic fight with an actual man. Yeah, and you don't know how that's going to go. Because up until now, Sonic's whole way of fighting things is by physically destroying them just by the fact that you can, you just hit into them and all of his spikes makes them explode. Now we're fighting a guy. Is that going to be all right?

And it's a much more satisfying than Sonic 3's encounter with Knuckles where he punches the agamatic you're flying in in launch base and then falls off the thing until this point that had been your final sort of that's your down in one it's not very good is it

I mean it is good but you know it's not this is it and now it's Sonic and Knuckles Sonic versus Knuckles this is fucking Luke versus Darth Vader this is the shit right here it's absolutely amazing this is the yes at this point in the game Knuckles shows up and here's the thing until now all the way through Sonic 3

and all the way through Sonic and Knuckles whenever there's a like zone transition or just now and then, you will meet Knuckles and he'll be there at the side of the screen and you'll go, okay, and you'll just kind of sit back and see what he does. I think the most recent thing he did was he rolled a big boulder to down some stairs at you, didn't he? Now he's there and he's like, come on, and he attacks you, and it can hurt you. He can get you, and he starts gliding towards you, so he'll change what side of the screen he's on. And I think that's a big part of the communication here, that something's different.

It's like Knuckles, up till this point has just been a sprite. And now, assume, you playing the Sonic play through. Obviously, if you can play his knuckles, that's different. And here he breaks out of that confinement. And now he's a real boy. Now he's really there interacting with you. And yeah, you're fighting with him. And it is a huge moment. And you're fighting with him in front of this now famous, I won't go on about it, but this famous tapestry of interesting symbols. And it just, it looks so cool.

Shall we talk about the tapestry? Yeah, we've got to talk about the tapestry. I mean, nobody who's listening to this hasn't played through this game, I imagine. Yeah. If they haven't, they don't plan to. Okay, so what you have on this tapestry, it is like the moment where the beast of Bethlehem rises from his slumber and strikes down all the sinners. No, it's what you have is you have a mural of a giant like monster that looks like robotnik being fought by what is clearly a representation of supersonic. So that tapestry alone says so much. shadows the end of the game. It says that the echidna's obviously

had some incredible powers of prophecy or foresight and that they trusted these enough to like kind of write these down and try and warn people about them. It says that Knuckles might be a bit of a toolbox

but... He is canonically extremely stupid. Yes, but it's it adds so much. It adds a lot of intrigue. It adds a lot of of mystery, it adds a lot of background, and that's how you do it, man, that's how you do.

Like, add this kind of texture to a world in an interactive medium where you are oftentimes whizzing through it. It's like, it's like you're having probably the most personal battle in the game, that's sort of minor-o-mano Sonic v Knuckles. While in the

background, the tap is just depicting the fact that you don't know this initially, the first time you play this, you probably might not know this, but it's like personal stakes juxtaposed with cosmic stakes almost like this is much this is now myth

this is not just you versus you anymore but if you know you can't turn your head you are too deeps if you could just look to the left you would know that this is much bigger than you two and it really works I think it's really majestic it's also saying and this may be a bit flowery more flowery than what they were intending

but like robotnik is literally always in the background like he knuckles is not the villain of the piece oh yeah i wonder if that because i've always wondered why they put that there because it is a strange thing to be like we all think it's cool because we know what comes later in the game and you have to work to get to the bit that comes later in the game that this tapestry resembles but when you're first playing it no you don't know that and oh yeah what made them put it there and that might be why it's just to make like

to remind you that this is something this little fight between these two guys doesn't need to happen. There's something bigger. It's not necessary. It's all based on manipulation. Manipulation, presumably, that involves this whatever the hell, this cataclysm is that you're seeing in the background. Having just played through what is essentially

a cataclysm, when the lava reef got absolutely demolish. But nonetheless, when you fight knuckles, he doesn't pull any shit that someone playing as knuckles couldn't pull, except maybe jumping slightly higher, I think. Oh, does he really? You are essentially fighting...

It's like a dual boss. It's a duel. It's not a fight like Robotnik. It's not just he's there. You hit him eight times. He doesn't really react to you. Knuckles blocks you. He'll put his knuckles up so that you can't hurt him. He has a blocking move. And it's

actually really a pain in the ass, isn't it? When you're trying to get him and he's just like, you can't do it. Insta shield is your friend. Insta shield will break that block. Oh, will it? I think it does. Yeah. That's how I usually beat him. But then once you defeat him, he doesn't explode.

You know, he slumps down on the ground and you're like, oh shit. Yeah. I find it really... I find it really sad when you get him because he's just there on the ground, like flat on the ground on his back, nose up in the air. And he was just a guy that was... And we know, like, and we're about to find out in the next scene, basically, what Knuckles is here for, why he's being aggressive,

and what his job and meaning of his entire life is and you just Sonic just beat him I find it sad, you know, he's just trying his best Well, he got in Sonic's way, didn't he? You know, you well. Because like, it's quite a deaf trick to kind of turn animosity into sympathy. Yeah.

But, and again, it's kind of like, I think it reinforces, like, you see, for the first time, like, Knuckles's culture is really in focus. And so you see, oh, I am a trespasser here, or Sonic is a trespasser here. And so is robotmic, like, even more religiously. But, I mean, not but, and, I mean, not but. And that's reinforced so much, obviously, when you do move to the right past knuckles

and realize, oh, I've been nicking his stuff. Yeah, because what happens now is, as Knuckles is, but Knuckles basically is awoken by a great rumbling. and all these sort of puffs of smoke are going up and down the screen you can tell things are going wrong here

and he suddenly doesn't care about Sonic anymore he's got little surprise lines around his head he runs off to the right and you go with him and you find out that you have this whole time

been right next to the flipping only the flipping only the flippin emerald chamber where we've been going whenever we jump into those rainbow rings

now now that we're collecting the super emeralds that room where all the chaos emeralds are on there stands growing out of flowers and the giant master emeralds the super emerald the super emerald what did i say chaos emeralds that's interesting because i really deliberately said super emeralds and evidently the wrong word came out yeah and there they are and like that that's where you are you go in this room and you're like oh this is in a place i've gone there the long way round this time it's a it's a really cool moment of just kind of full circle like oh shit oh shit oh shit And, of course, you know, it explains him coming out of that area in Rushroom Hill when he pokes his head around the door, so make sure no one's looking, shuts this. It's like, this is him, he's hiding his stuff, he's burying his little acorns for, for the winter. Well, that's, because again, that gives the whole thing a lot of, here's that word again, continuity. Because up until this one. I thought I was worried you're going to say something else just then. Go on.

You don't. I know which word you were thinking. Because you don't, before this point, you don't know where you've been going. You jump into the giant ring. For all you know, this could be a magic dimension. But no, it's a real place. And now, like Dave says, you've come the long way around. You've literally just gone there by running across the whole island.

It gives you this great feeling of recontextualizing the whole context of the whole thing you've been doing up till now. I mean, it's one of the many, just like, I don't like using this word because it's shit and stupid, but impactful moments in this game. What's wrong with that? Sorry, what's wrong with Paulie impactful? It's rubbish. It sounds stupid. Oh, this was impactful. I disagree. Some idiot, an idiot made that word up in like 2003 to describe, to describe Batman Begins or something. And everyone just went, oh, yeah, let's keep using that. It's like people saying out of pocket. That doesn't mean what we think it means. It means. I haven't got any money.

Right. I'm with you on the out-of-pocket win. We'll continue this debate later. I think Impactful does mean that, yeah, yeah. Oh, that was impactful. Well, I couldn't think of a better word to say, so I'm just going to go with Impactful, not having it. The only time I want to hear about something being impactful,

if it was my bowel. You could set your watch by that. Unfortunately, you can't set your watch by mine, because it's impacted. The Retronauts, Difference. So it's difficult to find the words other than what we've already used, I suppose, because... It's huge. It's huge. It's very impactful, yeah. But it's huge, this shit. It's absolutely huge. It's like, it's seismic. It's seismic, the hedgehog.

Oh, very nice. Yeah, yeah. It's just that coming off larva reefs, just incredibly intense. intimidating endgame, what they're doing there is they're establishing, that, that establishes the threat, and this establishes the stakes. And when you put those two things into, you know, when they tell together like this, and you realize, again, oh, that fat bull egg guy isn't fucking around this time, is he? He's really on one. He's gone off on one, ain't he? And how does it do that? What happens here is, we see the egomatic come along, or whatever you want to call it the Eggmobile, whatever you want to call it. And

not used to, you don't have to do that face. And it comes along and out of it comes a little grabber and it grabs the master emerald and it wrenches it. Like a weak claw machine. Yeah. And it rips it out of its moorings. It's kind of growing

out of a cluster of other smaller crystals made of the same stuff and they start to like rain off it and spray away and Knuckles can't believe what's happening. So he does some air guitar it does a really cool yeah it is air guitar

but obviously what he's doing is he is furiously shaking his massive fist yeah at Robotnik no it's I make fun

but it's genuinely dead good and Robotny does it's great he runs off with the Master Emerald on his on his claw and Knuckles

is trying to hit him and he's kind of that encourages you so you start to hit him as well but you don't know that's what I love about it Knuckles can't jump high enough

it's canon that that's what I absolutely love about this bit is that like robotnik Knicking the Master Emerald. And sure, it's a scripted sequence, so you can't actually stop him from doing this. But I defy you every single time you play this level, not to be jumping into Robotnik with all your might. Yeah, because you've cast you're playing,

it's like seen it. It's saying you've put yourself into the movie and you are acting what you want to be happening, what would be happening, which is that Sonic and Tails would be leather in that fight. This moment makes you, as an adult, but especially as a kid it makes you start to like half act half actually feel the drama of the moment and go like no I'm gonna

because Knuckles is such a noble figure and he's being so betrayed here and he's dushing Robotnik with his spin attack fist and Sonic you join in to try and get him and Knuckles in this moment of last desperation

Knuckles like just grabs bodily onto the Master Emerald he just like flings out both his arms grips onto it and just clings on like that's all he's got it's ineffectual because Robotnik's machine has got this thing in its grip but he's on there he's like you know you have to kill me then can I just interrupt and have a slight woke moment

because I've just realized that I keep calling Robotnik a fat idiot and there's actually nothing wrong with being fat so I just want to apologize to all my fat friends and you know I've embodied my model my own appearance and you know wait on that of Dr Robotnik but I probably shouldn't use that as like an archetype like that, you know. I just want to have a little work climate there. That's very good. It's unavoidable, though, that all of the media at

the time massively used that, didn't it? That was... Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. The main thing that was wrong with Robotic. He is fan. He is an idiot, but he's not an idiot because he's fat. No. Is he an idiot? I mean, he's like a really genius. He's got a IQ of 9,99. 99. 99.99. It's really high. Yeah, I don't No. But, yeah, Knuckles jumps onto the Master Emerald, clings onto it for dear life, and he gets 500,000 volts up his ass. Out of the, out of the egomatic snake, snake, these weird little snaky cables that jabbing through. Yeah, and they jab into Knuckles, and he gets zapped, and you see his whole little skeleton. Whoa, you and tails are both smashing the thing.

And he, and that makes, that makes him fall off to the ground again, sort of unconscious. and then you feel so bad for him. It's such a scramble. It's like all of you just like wailing on this guy while, oh, very good. This is why you're the host who the most. Yeah. Like you're all jumping at him and like Knuckles is jumping at him. And then like, oh, oh, Jesus.

And then like better electrocute this one guy. You know, like, you know, like, robotnik's like, oh, lumbinx. Like, you know, it's, it's frantic. It's effective. It's like, God, we haven't even got to the really good video, have we? But it's that portrayal communicated flawlessly with no dialogue. And we've only just got it started, basically. You know exactly what's happening.

I mean, you know, the fact that the game is called Sonic and Knuckles are not Sonic versus Knuckles does already kind of clue you in that he's going to end up being a protagonist. Like Sonic and Tales, you know, Sonic and Knuckles, it's obviously his new buddy. But, well, I mean, somebody's some extent. I think it's worth noting. Yes, I don't remember feeling like it was a, this is a head-to-head. to the finish kind of game. So following that, you're still,

if you're me, you've now gone next to Knuckles and crouched as if you're looking at him. Yeah, oh, hell yeah. Absolutely. You are fully puppeteering using the up and down keys. It's full on, like, Windows 3

and movie maker stuff going on right now. And then Knuckles eventually gets up and, no, no, is that where the floor collapses? While he's unconscious, the floor collapses. Because that was evidently a load-bearing master emerald that is stolen by robotic

so the floor collapses and knuckles still I mean that would be really dangerous still out for the count falls down Sonic and tails fall down you end up in this sort of similar sort of basin kind of chamber

you can't get out of eventually he comes around he has his little where am I kind of thing then he goes over to like the left wall looks at you and like beckons you

he's like come on come on and follow me And it's like the lights going on, isn't it? You've gone like, Jesus, the efficiency of the storytelling to do all of that with no... It's a powerful moment of friendship between these characters. They all realize... All of them have realized now what's actually going on that Knuckles has been fooled all along. He's not a bad guy after all.

This is the moment where Sonic and Tales know this. This is the moment where Knuckles realizes that these guys are against Robotnik. And Robotic just stole the Master Emerald. So wait a minute. He was lying to me all along. Now they're a team. And no words are used. It's all just a puppet show with these little sprites.

It is brilliant. So then Knuckles, he thumps down the wall with his mighty strength. You follow him through there into another chamber with the teleporter, like the one that you've already used, which I don't remember if it activates or if Knuckles sometimes on a switch to activate it or something. Knuckles just jumps into it and then you follow him in. He doesn't tell you to, but you just. do obvious. And he's like, he's on the floor panting. He's like,

flaring. Yeah, his owl. Like, this is taking all his strength. And then he jumps into this thing and you go into it and the screen goes black and it says, Sky Sanctuary Zone. And as the camera fades back in again and you're like, what's the Sky Sanctuary Zone? You are looking at the beam of the teleporter. As the camera pans up following this beam of light into the sky, the clouds parallax down to show how high up you're going. And you end up in, what I can only describe as heaven.

you do da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. No. It's no serious for that now, yeah. You didn't succeed. You didn't pass. Yeah. It doesn't matter. All of that's gone out the window.

Mechanics, those mechanics don't matter anymore. Isn't that great? Isn't that so good? Absolutely. To communicate the urgency by forsaking the fluff completely, basically. Yeah. Another way in which they tighten it. So you're launched under Sky Sanctuary Zone, which is the music kicks,

and the music is just like, Oh, my God. It is beautiful. Yeah. It's like hearing crash test dummies for the first time. And you land

and you can see in the background the death egg has launched. You can see all the egg robos which is the robots who fight in this level. Powering off this thing. Yeah, you see the death egg

come up through the clouds in the background and launch these little guys and you don't know what they're going to be but yeah, they're egg robos. It's amazing. I think I may have made this comparison already so I'm really sorry of Retronauts fans

if I have. But I sort of compare this to the part where he kills you in Portal 2 in terms of the fact that when you get to that part of Larva Reef, the end of the game is, that's the end of the game. You're in the end of the game. And this is another like half hour or 45 minutes of game, but that's all ending. And that's what I think the part where he kills you through to the end of Portal 2

genuinely compares to, because it's another, everything happens in the game while you're doing stuff. I think it's as good as that, if not better. It's more efficient, certainly. But quite like Portal, so you go to the moon now. You go to Sky Sanctuary and Knuckles hits a switch, doesn't he? To raise a bridge so that you can continue. And then if you crouch in a certain area, he'll start pointing for you to go,

but it's really hard to trigger in a really specific spot. It's just a little Easter egg. Little Easter egg there for the fans, yeah? But it's like that moment where the day, death egg like rises up in the background it's like once again the scale the threat's been contextualised and I just I just love

that it's like all these like sorties of egg robos just like pouring off it and for the rest of the level as you're rushing through these egg robos are like crashing in from the background isn't there one that the first one maybe might be the first one

there's like a tunnel that you take with all the animal friends running out of it, like as if they're escaping from it, and then it kind of first up. It's like a little tower, and you go like, well, why are the animals running out of this tower? And now it comes this egg robot, yeah. Yeah. An egg robo if you've played the knuckle side, you'll recognize as what the piloting robots is.

Oh, yeah. Well, we're being disgusting fanboys and saying egg robos. Guys, they're like robots that look like Dr. Eggman. What it is, is it's an escalation. Why are we calling them egg robos, isn't that what they called? Isn't that what they called, but it's just listeners won't know that? Oh, sorry. When you said we're being disgusting fanboys, I thought that was wrong No, it's right. It's just that normal people listening won't know what we mean by

Egg Robos. And anyway, but there is a point to be made here, which is that this is a... No, normal people are listening to this. No, okay, you're right there. This is a point of escalation in the story, though, because up until now, in Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3, Sonic CD all the time, Robotnik's robots have always been, like, what if I made a robot of a crab? What if I made a robot of a bug? This is what if I made a robot of me and gave it a gun. These are soldiers. These are soldiers.

These are egg and soldiers, is what these are. Very nice. That's what it should have been called. Yep. These are robotic soldiers and it's, and it's, you're on a higher plane now. You're fighting for real. That sense of, um, just breakneck pace. Like, you are still, though that the sort of the cutscene portion has ended, you're

still playing the story. You're always playing the story. Yep. Up until that, up until that, you're just, you're just playing, you're still playing a game. But now you're playing a story Now you're doing something And oh, it just works on every level, doesn't it? You are desperate to get this story finished

To get this guy avenged to sort everything out You've seen the thing that just launched a minute ago You saw it blink and everything turned to lava So you know what it's going to do to the planet And I think this is what makes the death egg Still Like, I'm trying to avoid saying the word impact now.

No, but don't just ignore me. Please just ignore me. It's like, this is what makes allows the death egg to still have a sense of tension and threat despite being a very, very obvious Star Wars spoof. Yeah. Right? Like, not a particularly

clever Star Wars spoof, but just... Silly. It's the fact that the game is treating it seriously. Like, it's... It could not be a Star Wars pastiche. Yeah. And if the game treated it in exactly the same way, way, you, it would, like, it would retain

its impact. I, um, I, I, I think also it might be worth noting, though we may have already noted it. And again, I apologize. The, um, the fact that it is a continuity, it's continuing the Sonic 2 story to an extent. Like, this thing's back and it's bad. You know, it's return of the

Jedi, isn't it? I mean, it's better than Return of the Jedi, but it's Retirement. Yeah, but yeah. And Sky Tamsary itself, the actual zone, I think there's, I mean, I think it's a, I think it's, not the most I mean it's one act isn't it it's just one stage

you go through several segments of and what I love about this if you don't mind me slightly skipping your head is I don't think we can talk

in too much macro detail about the actual stage design because it's very vertical it's very bounce on clouds run up collapsing walkways

but what I love about this is you're like holy shit the death eggs back robotic's playing for keeps there's no way they can get any worse mecha sonic

yeah no introduction no explanation, he's just set Megasonic on you. And it's got that sense of climax, because you're doing Sonic 1 boss again, like, oh shit, it's a deliberate throwback.

That's right, yeah. Weirdly, old robotic bosses come back, but they're driven by this warped version of Metal Sonic instead. Well, because I think Metal Sonic himself is tying it back to Sonic 2 and Sonic CD. And the old boss

is coming back is, obviously, Like, you know, the Sonic 1 boss is a tie to Sonic 1, obviously. But what that is suggesting is that this is not just the end of this game. This is the end of this era of Sonic Hitchell. I make no hesitation. I think of this as the final, like, the end of the trilogy. And like, since this game, they've just kept making Sonic games, but, like, these guys haven't. This is the end.

Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. It's that sensation of just, like, as well, for me, it reminds me a little bit of I'm sorry for the obscure comparison Gradius 5 on the PlayStation 2 a shooter by Treasure the fifth game in the Gradius series

on very early in the game you face Big Core which is the boss of Gradius 1 and you take it apart with consummate ease and I think what they're doing here is they're going you see this shit this isn't even good enough to be a final boss anymore the real final boss

is going to stand right you don't even know what you're about to see Watch out, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look how far you've come. And I think it's awesome. It's just like, you beat the Sonic 1 boss. You beat the Sonic 2 boss, which is the Metropolis zone boss, with the all being satellites, which isn't an easy boss.

I just want to throw it out there. You beat them. They only take six hits each, so they're not full boss material. And then you're like, okay, so number three is going to be like the big lad, isn't it? And they make you wait a long time, because this level doesn't have a final boss, unless you're playing his knuckles, you know. And

not to skip that far ahead, obviously, but every time you beat Mechasonic, it is Mechasonic, isn't it? There's like three different ones. Oh, people call it if I can. It's Silver Sonic and Sonic 2, Metal Sonic and CDM, Mechasonic, and that's right. You just want to make sure I get that right. Yes, but this level does

have. It's no longer Silver Sonic in Sonic 2 either. It's also... I know, they've changed that now. Oh, is that like a retcon? Okay. It's like a recon that the fans have done. It's, I don't know. Silver Sonic was something on the master's terms. Yeah, I think that's the point. I think they needed to separate now.

We've got to get this stuff right. Otherwise, they're going to destroy us on the 4chan. Yeah, but they're wrong. It was called Silversonic, and we all know it was, and we've got the guidebooks on the magazines. It was called Silver Sonic. It was probably just that probably Sega Power was wrong, and everyone else copied them or something.

What I really respect about this as well is that this throwback is not itself the climax. Yeah. And that is something that I think a lot The pacing there is immaculate It knows when to drop This throwback that like makes contextualises like the last three games

And makes you realise that you're building up to the climax Of these three games And make sure that that itself is not the ending Because that would be very disappointing And that's the thing With Sonic advance, sorry go on That's the thing that I think a lot of games or a lot of different things

kind of, that's a trap that they fall into. It's going, oh, nostalgia gets people. Bam, that's it. That's your ending there. It's very unobtrusive nostalgia. It's just, it is nostalgia. It's nostalgic.

It's also forwards the story, and it forwards the stakes, and it forwards everything. It's just, from now on, you're just a complete kineticism, just all the way to the end. There's no, okay, stop. everything is informing the panic that you're facing

and the danger that you're facing and the way that every time you beat one of those bosses you then get onto a teleporter and ascend further up and up into the heavens you're not on the back of a biplane now you've got to make your own way up there you know you there is no plane like price is good isn't it a good game

it really really is and the entire time you're doing this this sky sanctuary which is it seems to be like this construction of floating stones like Laputard, castle in the sky constantly floating up and down and as you are running up it the egg robos are destroying it behind you

and the whole thing is collapsing and that culminates in the end when you destroy mechasonic and the impact of it exploding destroys the last vantage point on the island so this ancient beautiful like floating city has been destroyed

There's not a trace of it You literally You get to it From literally the last brick As it's falling through the air You leap from it And it's like It couldn't be more exciting

It would be impossible It would be more exciting Absolutely fantastic I'd actually forgotten That you fight Mechasonic Probably Yeah I was going to say You said there isn't a final boss

Of the level But there is it's him But the reason why Just to slightly sidetrack Is when you play it as knuckles obviously you don't really get the sky time to you get like one screen, but I think they sort of make up for that by doing something

really cool with Mechasonic. We should talk about this. You do fight Mechasonic. You fight Mechasonic and you beat Mechasonic. Not easily. He's not even easy in his original form, I would say. I mean, he is for me because I'm skilled, but it is quite hard. But then when you beat him, the frigging Doomsday theme kicks in. He revs up and jumps on the Master Emerald

and becomes super MacaSy. And you're like, oh, he's invincible now. That ain't good. And then he's literally flying in the air, blasting enormous energy balls at you that make the most terrifying, like, noise of I am eliciting enormous power. It's like, wow. It's awesome. And you've got to avoid him or evade him until he turns briefly back into normal Sonic, sorry, normal mechasonic, in which case he has to then jump back on the master's arm, power up again. And that's also kind of storytelling for the Sonic side

If you end up doing that first You know, it's explaining something That the Sonic side doesn't explain Which is what this thing does I mean, you know it makes you super By collecting all the super emeralds But you might not have them at this point You could get there and not have them

So Well, what I love is that Super Mecha Sonic Is running on the same rules As every other super character As like Super Sonic and SuperNuckles It's like you have to power up and then you have to collect the rings and the rings constantly

tick down, your power constantly drains until you revert back to normal when you hit zero. So Supermecasonic is also doing that and so it's like if you've unlocked Super Sonic or Superknuckles before this point, you kind of instinctively know how this works.

Yeah, or indeed Seabasonic from Sonic 2 when he's first appeared as well, it's playing off that as well. And that's, I really enjoy that bus fight and in a way I think it's kind of shame that you can't play against him as Sonic normally. But that's, you know, Viva

difference. It's great. I think that's, I'm trying to think there's anything else I want to say about Sky Century. I feel like we've covered it quite effectively, to be honest. So it's, it's only one act. It is a very memorable act. There's not much in the way of sort of secrets, because at this point the game is, again, it's eschewed that kind of fluff. This is a very pointed, you have to go now. This is important.

it would cut yeah that's exactly it would feel kind of wrong of you to be picking and poking about you've got to be running and that's why you have this feeling of things falling apart and what i like is the way i haven't been back to check if this is true but i always get the sense that the collapse of it is gradual and happens in phases where like at the start you just seem to be in this beautiful place and then gradually like big foreign background parts of it just starts going up and down and sinking and like it's splitting apart without necessarily collapse And then by the end, as you go up, you do start finding more collapsing platforms, running up more collapsing bridges, those grey platforms that collapse when you jump on them. It's probably worth noting, because we're not going to have a chance to otherwise, that if you do somehow accidentally fall down and land on solid ground, you can end up having to fight Mechasonic again, which is quite funny. Yeah, you can, yeah.

Yeah, I've never done that. Yeah, I have, because I'm rubbish, but as opposed to being skilled earlier, now rubbish. But, yeah, it's an ex- Yeah, they do it. They do eschew, I'm a man of much hypocrisy. They do eschew the secrets, as I mentioned. And then, of course, once you're in the death egg, while you are still racing against time, there are the secrets kind of return. It's much, because it suits the theme of that, which is like you're in this huge industrial maze,

you know, where you can pick around and find nooks and crannies. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself, the death egg is the next zone. And this is not your granddaddy's death egg. This is not two screens and two bosses, okay? This is enormous. This is like the rebuilt, terrifyingly vast, Spike Bunker festooned death egg. Spike Bunker. Yeah.

And this is the bit that starts with you running up the final crumbling tower of the very last brick, as you said, you jump off that. And you jump onto the dev egg as it's rising. It is baller. It's a really, really good bit. You jump fully off screen. It fades to black, and then the death egg music kicks in, and you're on the death egg. And it's like, you fill in the blank yourself. You're like, okay, good, they made it.

I know, and I always think you see them, like, jump in and cling on and crawl in, but you don't. Well, it's interesting, because most of the game, you do actually get a more direct transition than that. But this, I think, makes perfect sense for the tension as well. If you see the fade to black, you're like, oh, shit. And then, oh, it's like, oh, go, I forgot. There's a good two or three seconds.

After you've jumped off that final brick of just empty sky, including no Sonic and Tales, because they've jumped off the screen, you're like, what happened? And this happened. you're in the death egg. And of course, you're thinking, geez, I hope knuckles is okay now. Yeah.

Because there's no more knuckles till the end of the game. You don't see him again. I guess he just glid down to... He glid down. Yeah, he glid. But then the death egg, yes, God. Yeah.

It's... It starts no way to start, isn't it? The death egg is full of gimmicks you've never seen before that are odd. Strange things. Lasers that become platforms. Lasers that don't become platforms,

but carry you through the sky. anyway and just this real outrageous sense of like okay now I'm in the shit like I am this is the Viper's Den laser technology missile hell zone isn't it

and I think that with this music that's like we've heard it enough times that we're like oh yeah we can hum along but the first time you hear it you're like is this even music it's just like aggressive and nasty and attacking it's like pretty much like nothing else in the game it's perfect to that level

I'm very fond of the sort of I think that there is a very deliberate play on your memories of Sonic 2 here because Sonic 2's Death Egg, as I've just said, is just about two screens as an extension of the Wing Fortress Zone where you fight Mechasonic or Silver Sonic or Metal Sonic or whatever the fuck

and then you fight the Death Egg robot and when you get here and you see Death Egg, you're like, oh, it's the final boss maybe. You might just think Final Boss time. And then you realize, oh no, there's quite a bit of game left here oh boy and it's a full two actor right

it's a big and two big acts and also one of the levels where you could genuinely run out of time if you're not careful it is enormous and it's confusing and it's overwhelming and like it gives the impression of being in the belly of the beast and that sensation

is driven home I think by the scale of the background like I think it's especially in act two it's like we were talking about Return of the Jedi earlier and it's like the Death Star Reactor at the end of that film and just the scale of it,

how absolutely incredibly enormous. That's clearly what it's based on, isn't it? It's that. It seems so far away with a very subtle curve to the back wall that implies that everything you're doing is in the wall of the death egg. It's like it goes all the way around

as there's absolutely a huge world. I think also though, it really does do a good job of communicating that sort of you're not supposed to be here sort of feeling because there are segments where you're, I mean they're not air ducts but they feel like air ducts where you're flying

through almost the walls hitting junction points and pressing down left down. Yeah, yeah. Right. And it's like, you're not, you're breaking, you're storming this place. This is not like a casual stroll through the death egg where he's waiting for you. He doesn't want you there. He doesn't maybe know you're there yet.

People aren't meant to be here. This is for me. machinery. But then I get the sensation and this is me skipping head but we can come back. The boss of the first act to me is the representation of like, oh shit, he knows you're here now because that's like a big security eye. It's an eye. Just a big red eye.

Yeah. Because the way you get to it of course is you go through that unusual segment where you're floating and you have to bounce and hit the switches on each side of this oh yeah, gravity is a gimmick here which is quite appropriate, isn't it? Yeah, very much so. Yeah. And that comes into play much more in act too.

of course, but like it's gravity plus magnetism is a thing here there's electricity everywhere and if you have a thunder shield you can take quite a lot of not shortcuts but it really helps you out and it's actually one of the few places in the game

I think where the thunder shield is directly beneficial in that respect I mean it's the best shield because you double John with it but well your mileage may vary on that one and drawing rings as well yeah and drawing rings but here it's like oh if you have the thunder shield you can walk on the line of electric flaws. Of course

you can. You can, yeah. Otherwise, you would have to wait for a little trolley to slowly go across it all. What I was saying? Just go over. Sonic 3 and Knuckles is, I talked about this on the last episode a little bit, but they don't ever break the very similar to you. It's like the world's best GM. They'll never say you can't do

that, because if it makes sense that you could do that, they'll let you do it. That's what's so good at one of the things that's so great about this game. It's, you know, I mean, yes, it's got glitches up the butthole, and they've all been found and heavily documented, but a normal play-through of this game, you're going to run into bits where you think, oh, there's no way

I'm doing this right. Oh, I am doing it right. But it's just like this enormous, like, unknowable, like, cosmic factory. And you don't know to what purpose. You don't know to what end, but it's just like it really is like the heart of what Robotnik

is about. And the hostility is unmatched as well from the levels, from the sparking electricity to the small conveyor belt flying platform. forms that go back and forth while they are running as conveyor belt, so you have to constantly move, not to be pushed off them, while they go across deadly electric while you're being shut out by gun turrets on the walls. This is not an easy level to play at all.

It has those astonishing bits where you get picked up by a, I don't know what to call it, but they launch you in the rings at yellow rings. The ear, ear, ear, ear, ear thing. Weep, weep, weep, weep, weep for 15 minutes, which is, if memory serves, on the last recording of this. I did complain about that, but I've since decided I was wrong and the good actually, so it's fine. It's worked out. But everything about it is just very

sort of unknowable and hostile, I think. And the sensation of that is built so well in that too, which obviously will get to. But yeah, it does a great job of not just communicating this isn't going to be like you think it's going to be and it's so much

more besides. It delivers as a final level in every regard. And And, you know, if you haven't got all the chaos and rules, this is the final level. Yeah. But let's not get into that yet. So Act 2 then, actually, the background in this one, it's not the reactor anymore, you disappear. It's just the planet deep below now.

It's like your... Oh, yeah. Do you remember the way it starts is perfect because you defeat the very... I'm going to say it, this boss is hard. That defect security robot is nails. I think it may be the hardest boss in the game. I don't know how to do it. I do it every time, but I don't know how.

I do it by, you know, losing. rings and grabbing them again. When you defeat him, you run to the sort of middle. Again, the floor explodes and you fall down and you land on a small platform in space. Yeah. Like you can, you realize I mean, you knew you're in space, but now

you're really in space. You can see that you're in space and you were just one, like an inch away from horrible death. Yeah. And then the game roop launches you up again. The music kicks back in, except this time they've picked, I think it's pitched up slightly. It's got a different mix.

Which sounds even more urgent than the last one. It's kind of like, it's more hollow. It's kind of a little deeper and a little, like, kind of, the mix is less full. It just feels a little more, like, kind of, like, sinister. Like, again, it's kind of, like, building to something. This isn't quite as energetic now. This is a bit more like, okay, like, you're really, really heading towards the final confrontation here. And act two, act two throws into the mix gravity again by having segments.

where gravity is simply reversed and you are running on the ceiling and now I want to say this is the first time this crops up in the Sonic game. I think so, yeah. I think so. Because it does make its return in the advance series and such, but this time. They do it a lot in advance and rush.

It kind of becomes just kind of the staple thing which I was like, after a while it was kind of like, yeah, okay, we get it. But here, here it's perfect. Well, here it makes sense because you're in space, you can see you're in space. The backdrop is just space and a planet. So, yeah, you spend about half the level, in my memory, upside down.

But it, contextually, it makes sense because you're in a place with no gravity. It's, and also, of course, is setting you up for the boss, which we'll get to. It's establishing the rules for that as well, to some extent. But, gosh, the segment that I always remember in this level is that there's a part where you have to bounce up a quite high

shaft while going from side to side and springs just pop out of the wall. They're not there initially. But you're upside down. you are going up but going down at the same time and it really does sort of communicate this kind of oh my what this is crazy

like what is going on like we're through the looking glass here you know it's it's like a cherry on top of this perfection it's so perfect doesn't it now we haven't talked about

some of the sort of smaller elements of this stage like the bad mix in these stages are sort of fairly aggressive as well and have the comic there's like these ones that are sort of like upside down drills with eyes that have spike balls. They're a bit like the

orbinauts from Launch Space Zone, you know, the guys with four spike balls, they don't have one. And they're called Spike Bunkers, and that's really funny, isn't it? Because it has a little bunk in it. There are also these birdnakes that are a bit like the Astorons, the starfish from Metropolis Zone, except they sort of teleport.

Yes. They go like, and they're just there, and you can't hit any of their Cardinal sort of sides, because you will take damage. And there's something quite brilliantly threatening about that. I, the thing about this, the comparison with Metropolis, I think, is spot on. It's a really, really good comparison to me. Because I hate Metropolis. I dislike playing that level immensely. I love this level. Yeah. Like, they have found a way, I think, to balance difficulty with Sonic's move set, you know? Because like in Metropolis, the way that they managed to get you, the way that they managed to get you, the way that, managed to make it difficult in that level is essentially by ambushing you all the time. You can't move two feet without something coming out and going, ah, gotcha. And so it's just this

constant slog, this start, stop. The death egg zone is not like that. I always feel like when I take damage in this level, that it is my fault. Yeah. I agree totally, yeah. I mean, I feel that about more or less the whole game. I think it's perfectly designed, basically. With very few moments where I think, oh, come on, that's not really fair. The thing is, despite all of that, it's quite tough to know what to say about it, because it's so good. There's nothing to pick up.

It's just the quintessential finale, you know, and it's not even the finale. You know, they actually do top this with something completely insane. But we should talk about the boss, I think. The final, I'm doing air quotes. The first of four final bosses. The first of four final bosses, yeah, quite slow.

Each finaler than the last. and what it is here is a big egg and it's yeah you like that didn't you do I like that yeah it's always like this it's always like this here it's always like this and what it does is it essentially hovers from left to right dropping off these little kind of rolling landmine things yeah little car up guys

and the way I used to do it is on each side of the level there are transporters that will put you on the ceiling and back on the Terra Pharma and obviously vice versa. Yeah. I don't know why I said vice versa. I don't already cover both, but it's okay. It doesn't matter. It's just a directional difference.

And if you did point out that it was obviously vice versa, so I think... If you zip your way up to the ceiling and one of those bombs is underneath it, they will take damage. Because normally, they're following you with these little bumper things, so you can't jump in and hit it. They're just stalking you with them. There's no way to damage it directly. The big guy in the middle, you can't spin attack him because of his shield. There's no way to damage it directly. So the way I used to do this is like we just go in a...

out of the doors until it's sort of coincidentally being killed. And then I found out possibly during the first recording of this when someone told me that you can spin dash them when they're on the floor and they'll jump up and hit it. I have no idea you could do that. When they're on the floor one way up. Yeah.

Because this is a thing is like they pop out because you're constantly reversing gravity they pop out and they land on their wheels. But if you reverse gravity while they're on the floor, they go up to the ceiling and they're on their back. And you can spin dash them then and knock them up into the boss. Yeah.

And what that, but the thing is, is that if it's the other way around, if they're the correct way up, spin dashing into them, bounces you back. It doesn't damage you. Yeah. And so what it means is it's this really kinetic kind of puzzle boss. You know, it's like a puzzle boss. There's like some logic to it that you need to figure through

and figure out the rules of it. But it's not like push these blocks into place. You know, it doesn't destroy the pace to make your thing. It's not the first. It's not the Sandopolis Act 1 boss, basically. It's a good puzzle boss. And what I like about that is that it does actually... I mean, I've timed out there before, you know,

and that is the last thing you want when you're trying to save the world is to run into a puzzle boss. And it's the perfect way to end the level that's been complete high-octane platforming and speed is suddenly there's something vaguely cerebral to deal with. It sort of mirrors the... the switch from the first act as well in the sense of like well how do I do this for love of price I need to move forward um but also you can do it

the way I used to do it which is not to solve the puzzle at all but just to be frenetic and frantic and so what I would do is I would just spin dash shoot through any of the little guys on the floor and if any of them happened to shoot up that was fine if it if it bounced me into the lift that was fine because I'd just do it again on the ceiling do it again on the floor and if you do that for a couple of minutes, you'll get him because you're going to hit enough guys, guys, you know, the little

fellas, the little, little trondly things, to take him out eventually. And we lose. But as you're doing that, you do start to get a knack for, even though that's what you're doing, even though you're going, this is a pshu, boing, this is a pshu, boing. Nevertheless, you get a certain sense of timing for that, and you are,

you are manipulating that to deliberately hit him with these things. And it's a bit of a gimmie. It's a bit of a Give me, it's pacing because obviously you're not done when you beat him. You've got more bosses to fight, but this is pacing it out and giving you a bit of a breather in a way because you're not going to get one from now until credits, basically. I think it's a good idea to have this here. And I think every time I come to this boss, I'm usually quite happy because I'm like, oh, thank God, I can stop worrying.

I can stop worrying about dying for a bit because this bet's not that hard. when you know how to do it it's not hard I mean even if you don't know how to do it it's quite hard to take damage from it but you'll figure it out I mean you're going to hit him by coincidence eventually they're zipping around

I don't think this is going to be a stumper for anybody no and it puts you in a false sense of security really you kind of go like oh there we go was that the final what's happened what am I about what's going to happen now

and luckily what happens next is amazing Yeah, when you Yeah, when you defeat it, you then walk up to what is, you then walk up to what is, It's presumably the dead egg, the top of the death egg. I don't know what you would call that. Yes, no, I've never figured out. It seems like a landing platform.

Yeah, yeah. Like, that's sort of like the egg carrier and Sonic Adventure, you know, when you're out on that a bit, except better. Well, what you find is that Robotnik is right there with some controls. He's been controlling this big egg. And then he... Sort of like the Wing Fortress spots. It's a little bit, like a little bit of a callback to that.

And then he runs away, and you're into a good, old-fashioned, we are running after Dr. Robotnik along this platform. What's he going to hop into? And what he hops into is big. Well, it's the thing from Lava Reef that you then know

what Lava Reef Act One's big hand was. Yeah. Because this thing's called the Galactic Egg Robo. Is it? Awesome. And yeah, well, apparently, yeah, hang on a second. Let's make sure I'm not. They haven't changed this. Yes. Silver Sonic.

Anything that Sonic does after 2000 is like just two cares. Like just don't regard it whatsoever. Whenever STC ended, anything after that, just like who gives a shit? Here we go. Oh, it's called Giant Eggman Robo. That's even better.

That's even better. It's not better. That's not as good as if it was Galactic something. Yeah, I liked Galactic. Giant Eggman Robo, no. Well, so we finally found a flaw with this game. It's not called the Galactic Egg Robo. From this moment on, it is called the Galactic Eggman

Robo, if anything. But, of course, what it does is it obviously deliberately cools back to the lava reef by slamming its hands down on the other side of this bridge or whatever you want. Robotic runs into a door. The door closes behind him and it starts

to rise and it's this metal dome and you see very quickly that, yes, it is an egg robo but the size of the whole screen. And it comes smashing along with every footstep. There's a few footsteps where the screen is shaking before it even appears. And then it comes sidling in sideways.

What is it standing on? What's its stand? Oh, no, the death egg. I think it's just walking around on the surface of that thing. And it's got its fingers up. And it starts to just like smash them down onto the platform you're on and try to squash it. Exactly like the lovery fan. It's a direct, it's directly like, oh, so that's what that is.

It's a great moment. I really like it. And what's really fun is what you've got to do is you've got to destroy all his UBES. You've got to destroy all his little fingers. So what I like to do is get in between them and then do a spin dash and do a big boing. Bung, bong, bong, bong, bong, yeah. Although you can sort of trivialise it by just doing a spin dash And when he slams them down

He will just take damage, it doesn't hurt you at all I always start, I think if it's like a pool or snooker You know, you have to, the first strike spreads the balls out That's what you're doing here You're doing a spin attack in the middle of his hand To just like, see what happens, just ricochet everywhere See what fingers you take out After that, I'm keeping the spin dash going

While he tries to squash me and take it off Dave, he just said spreads the balls out I know Ah balls. And in a sense this as well is just kind of a prelude to the real

final boss which is about to happen because I don't have much to say about this because I think that's its only attack. I do. I do. Because after you're done with the fingers, then you've got to deal with the nose and the mouth. That's what I mean. That's the real final boss to me because this is when it starts to get

actually difficult. So now it becomes like side scrolling and he's chasing you from behind destroying the platforms that you're standing on precariously over outer space. Yeah. But the thing about it is, is that, like, you know, he's got a few attacks. He, like, you bonk him on the nose and then, like, he can fire a big laser out of his mouth, which contains the final piece of the puzzle, the Master Emerald. He needs the Master Emerald to power this one robot.

Yeah. And so what you do is you bonk him in the nose and then, like, which is big of the fire. which is just funny It's like a big loogie Like a big like a snot Of fire coming out of his nose I was thinking more like a dragon But oh yes yeah

It's a snot Well it kind of hang on Let me look at the video Because I've never thought of this before But does the big flame jet resemble his moustache in any way Not really Oh well

Bonking his nose Causes all of his clothes to fall off And spread his balls It does Like the sort of the body bit falls away, as if his clothes have fallen off, to reveal the mechanism inside which is the

master emerald and this laser. I thought it was like his mouth was opening. Honestly, I've never looked at it that way, but you may be right. But what I like about this is exposing the weak spot actually makes the boss exponentially more dangerous. Yes. Because he starts powering

up this laser. Oh, the laser that he does is amazing. We all know the sound. Whirp, whirp, whirp, whirp, whirp, yeah. and in that moment it's like a half the screen fat laser but this is the thing about this

laser and I'm absolutely fascinated with this laser and it reminds me of it reminds me of the same laser that Commander Craft uses in Mega Man 04 oh yes in that it charges for exactly

the right time and then pauses for an instant and that's the instant where you know that you have to dodge. Yes. And then it fires. And if you've jumped in that instant, you're fine. You've got to be above it.

But you have to be perfect. It's very difficult. And it is, and it is, I said it was a big fat laser. The fatness that it is, is your jump. You've got to jump and be right above it by one pixel when it goes off. Knuckles couldn't do this. No. No, he couldn't.

I couldn't. I'd be dead. I'd have died ages ago if I was in this game. Probably like, honestly. Angel Islands. Like second act of the first sign, it probably be dead. the first loop to the loop and just going, oh, fuck this. Yeah, well, I don't have just walked around it.

Oh, yeah. Well, okay. But the Hydro City, I would have just drowned, and that would have been the end of old stew. Yeah. Found a bloated body, and they'd be like, did he actually drowners? Is he just moving on? I want you to imagine, listener, like, just smash cutting to Angel Island Zone with me and the family guy death pose on the ground. Meanwhile, I've managed to find a giant ring, and I've had a breakdown.

I've just got mental in that. I don't know what's going on. It says get blue spheres. I'm like, I've got enough of those, mate. Spread out. But the, for God's say, but it's just the timing of that. Like, it's, again, it feels very instinctive. It feels very like, if this is your first time, if you're kind of panicking a bit, I feel like that is very, very good audio-visual communication.

Yeah, there is that bit, there's like silence right before it fires, right? So that's what, that's another cue to jump. And that's kind of the point when you go whoop, whoop, whoop, who, boop, and you know what that sound is, and then, like, it's like, oh, Jesus, and you just, like, hit the jump button. Well, you've heard it before when you're fighting the laser on the flying battery.

It's almost like that was teaching you what it's going to do. That's how you know, right? It's immaculate. It's so incredibly well-designed. Because isn't the one on the flying battery? Isn't that a repeat of, like, a Sonic 2 bus or a previous? It's similar-ish, but the the Sonic 2-boss is more just like you've got to get up to

where it is here. Except here, it turns out to be like, wait a minute, what if we put this in here because now it's part of a story? It is storytelling. He's invented this laser thing that he's trying out, ready for the final boss. But I also love, I also love just like that you can see the machinery and the pipes and the cables and stuff inside. Like, you can see that he's made this massive lens to focus the Master Emerald's Power. Really great art. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So something I'd like to mention as well. Once you've got it open, you've got time for two hits, maybe three if you're nasty. I haven't.

I can do one. I mean, I did this on stream recently, and I had no rings left because I was an idiot, and I had so much trouble with this boss when you haven't got that safety net. But something I would like to mention is if you're playing with Sonic and Tails, this is exponentially harder

because Tails will hit it, and when it's been hit, it's no longer got collision. So you if you hit it and Tails hits it, for before you hit it, you will be straight through it. Yeah, I've died to that before. Which is why the first thing you should do whenever you start any Sonic game

is go to the menu, find the option that says tails alive or dead, and choose death. No, but then tails won't be there, though. Good. Little tails! He's a stupid, stupid man. Listeners, I want you to imagine, I want you to imagine a smash cutting to the Angel Island zone

with tails on the ground in the family guy death pose. And me over and with a club just battering, fuck out of them. So anyway, Tales, dead. And you take that down and you're like, oh, surely, oh, surely, this must surely be over. But it's not, because robotnik comes out

and you get what I guess I would call a bit of a... Breed? No, not for me. I think this is surprisingly difficult. The death egg starts crumbling much more rapidly to the point that you really have to be going. If you slow down for a second, really, you are going to die. Yeah, you'll fall off them.

A wee blue legs need to be going like the clappers. Yeah. And Robotic is flying away. It's like the end of Final Zone and Sonic 1. That's what I always think of, you know. Except this time it's not just one casual, leisurely hit. You've got to get a good few hits on him. But when you hit him, your momentum drops and you will slow down and you'll go like, whoa, right to the edge of oblivion.

Even if you do it, if you do it perfectly, you are still going to go slightly down the crumbling, collapsing platform into oblivion. and you're going to have to run out of it again. And the reason this is happening is because Robotnik has saved the Master Emerald. He's what, this is brilliant because it shows you desperation on screen. You can destroy his death egg. You can destroy his big robot. But he wants the Emerald. And the game has done everything to prove how urgent that is for him.

He is clawing onto, like anybody else would have given up by this point. But he is just clawing onto victory. Just like, I will take this. at all costs. Because he's just in his normal little eggmobile now. He's just puttling along.

With a little claw again, lifting the master emerald with a cute wee bubble around it because he's in space. And like, again, the challengingness is the momentum physics.

It's the absolute pitch, perfect application of these physics that this team have had three games to get to grips with that every time you hit him, you almost slip off into the void because you hit him with such ferocity

that you bounce backwards. It's more storytelling. As you've said, it's just more and more storytelling. And that's how you do a tense, interesting, like just exciting action sequence

in a game. Like this is the thing, it's so often nowadays that would be a quick time event. That would be like press L&R to like balance or something like that. It would be heavily scripted and choreographed, and it would not make me feel anything close to the same excitement as I do

at the end of Sonic 3, a 2D Sprite game made in 1994 with less processing power than you get on your fridge nowadays. It's, I mean, the thing that made me briefly sad when you said that about nowadays is it's not even really nowadays. It was within about 12 years later, you'd be doing the QTEs, you know, we, We fell as a species, unfortunately. But once you've defeated him, once you've finally managed to get that last hit on a botneck,

and I do think they are deliberately calling back to final zone there. I do think they are giving you, like, saying, as if just throw communicate as strong as they possibly can, you're not going to get this that easily. This is a real skin of your teeth thing, and it is absolutely a real skin of your teeth thing. If you jump for that boss too early, and you're not going fast enough,

You'll die. And then you'll have to fight the other two bosses again. Not because the boss will hit you. He can't do anything to you now. But you'll fall off because you've destroyed the death egg and you'll go down that chasm. Yeah. And once you do defeat him, you can sit back and rest on your laurels because the game is now definitely absolutely over. The end.

And there's no more of the game. Oh, wait, there's more of the game. But not much. If you've played it properly, there is. This man's tenacious. You need to absolutely respect this man's determination, you know? He is not giving up. He's not going down. He's got another

shit. Yeah. It looks like him. This is like Tengen top agur and lagging. It's just like a ship inside a ship, inside a ship. It's like a matroshka doll. Yeah. Egg matroshka. Does not work. Not really. Imagine cracking an egg open and just finding

another egg inside. And that happens again. It's like, that's my hell. That's my hell. A boiled egg you can never enjoy. It's like Sisyphus, isn't it? And then one day you find crack the air open and it's not runny and yeah it's like the twilight zone you know that's the twist But anyway, um, Doomsday happens.

The Doomsday Zone. I think this happens if you've either got all the Chaos Emeralds or all the Super Emerald. You don't need to get all the Super Emeralds to do the, you only knew the chaos cymbals. Just the chaos samples are fine. What happens now is you are supersonic and you are flying in space. You know what we didn't mention?

The music for that whole boss sequence is the best music ever. Oh my God. It's the best. It's so good. Well, we must have already mentioned it. When you're doing, no, we didn't, but when you're doing that final chase after a robotnik in the background,

do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do it says, oh. Because it was the Sonic 3 final boss, and that's like, yeah, but now you actually get to hear it. probably mentioned it then, right? We probably did, yeah. Although you don't fight that in Sonic and Three and Knuckles, so maybe not. Maybe not.

You do. You don't. You don't fight the squeeze tag machine in Sonic 3Nals. No, you don't. Just the little guy that goes up and down with the... It ends up to uppies, yeah.

Yeah. Unless you're not... I think you might fight it as Knuckles. You do. That doesn't matter. That's not important. No, sorry. But no, we had to just at least acknowledge

the boss being amazing. Okay, but it does. But it is important because it means that they've gone, we're saving this music till the end of the game. This is one of the best boss music anyone's ever written. I assume it would be in an interlude,

but seriously, like, go and listen to that. It's such amazing music. But what you get is a transition from that when, like, you finally chasing off Robotnik, you hit him enough times, he disappears off the edge of the screen, it cuts to black, and you think,

is over? Is it over? Have we done it? Have we finally done it? And then, Doomsday Zone. And it's like, okay, this is it. This is the Doomsday. This is the end. And again, it's like a marathon.

It's like at the end, it's just a constantly escalating because Robotnik will just not give up. He will not stop. He won't give up. He's so frantic. And the music is amazing. When you hear the Doomsday Zone music, for the rest of your life, you're like, it's a two-fer.

The two end-boss tunes are equally good. So at this point, the death egg has gone. Yeah. The giant egg robot, the robotnik's giant egg man roboman machine. Which we ought to say is also itself a callback to the Sonic 2 big robot boss that he was in. Oh yeah, the death egg robot. These names are rubbish. Galactic egg robot.

Come on, man. You know, like, it's gone. Everything has gone. Sky Sanctuary has gone. You've not been in the island for a while now. you don't even have a platform to stand on and just the last Hail Mary as Robotnik is getting away in a yet another machine with the Master Emerald

is you turn into Supersonic and you start flying through an asteroid belt after it smashing through the Asset, you don't even have to dodge those asteroids you can smash through them and destroy them Super Sonic has not been able to fly before this This is like SuperScients, this is like SuperScients, whatever I don't know what you would call it. Sorry, I've just

remembered that I really love this series. I've just remembered how exciting that was. It's easy to forget when you look at like, for example, everything made after Sonic Adventure and like everyone who likes it and you go, look at me for God's sake, I like it, I'm like that. Jesus. I mean,

I like it and I look like this. You can work on those guns. Shea is so annoying ever since he started going to the gym, honestly. Because it worked, it worked immediately. The only, yeah, this is the only thing,

it's the only thing that's giving me that much of a bus so it's dead 50 on the, oh, dude, on the bench press, is going to the iron church.

But, like, I know, I know, I know, Sonic is a laughing stock, and I'm not saying

that that is not deserved. And I understand that that's going to get people on Twitter coming after me, but here's the thing, you guys have been really, really nasty

to me, so I don't care what you think. and this is the thing it has been a laughing stock for song but I need you to understand that at a certain point Sonic team were one of the most respected developers in the industry

because they just kept putting out this kind of stuff I'm taking the credit of the second technical institute's work Oh yeah yeah of course yeah That's yeah that was I'd have to throw that in there You know, like, they were respected. You know, this series was respected.

Yeah, this one, Sonic 3 and Knuckles, it's not like what it is now, which is this kind of like, yeah, big Sonic fans and old Sonic fans bang on about like, oh, but this was good ones. When this came out, it was the hottest ticket on the Mega Drive. Like, everybody wanted this. It was good. Like, this is the thing. It's like, if you want to know why we are not normal about this game and this series, it's because it has given us that, like, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. Raiders of the lost arc of video games just in terms of constantly escalating

exciting set pieces. And this is the climax, of course, of the game, is that it throws you into a situation that's not familiar, which is Super Sonic flying, but you immediately, you get it, you press the arrows, oh, I'm flying now. It's got a keypad and one button. You instantly get it. And if you've got to this point, you've unlocked Supersonic, you know how the ring system works. Exactly. Yeah, it doesn't need to tell you that you're racing against time because you know you're racing

at its time because you're in space and if you run out of rings and tell back to normal Sonic, you're like, I don't think normal Sonic can fly. Yes, that's the other thing. In future games, even in the Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, when you're supersonic in those games and in one of those, you're in space, you know,

because there's a comparison, the whole game changes completely. Whereas in this case, you're like, oh, so I'm this, and it rings and they're going down, and I can't let them go down, or I'll turn blue and die, All right, here we go, and you start playing it. And the only surprise is that you do think to yourself,

well, what if I hit this jump, but it just happens automatically. Your finger is used to hitting the jump button. And you find that what happens is you kind of like, bit, bit, bit, bear forwards a bit, don't you? Is that just hypersonic? Because I always plays this. Having said that. Literally that sound every single time, it's fair.

Yeah. Having said that, I believe the first time I did this, I didn't know that, and I was really struggling with it because I was just like surviving and, like, how the hell do I progress? Oh, yeah. But then once I did obviously know that, I can do it in like 30 seconds now. No, that's what it is.

Let's talk about what actually happens, which is that you're flying through this asteroid belt. You have 50 rings, I think, initially. But you thought more rings are flying past you in clusters of either three or six. I'm not sure if they're random. They feel random. No, I don't think they're random.

And there are huge asteroids that when you hit them, well, to be honest, they barely slow you down. that's communicating how powerful you are at this point It's just going straight through. Just pure game feel. And initially, you are just making a way through them. You are pursuing Robonic, but it's just a period of adjustment of getting used to it,

let you collect rings more or less at your own pace. Then once you get through that, you reach sort of the mid-boss of this stage, which is this enormous armor, like this big square shield almost, that is then firing home in missiles at you, which by accident, probably, you will figure out you need to lure them

to hit their head of this robot which is exposed. Yeah. Because it's essentially wearing a big metal cloak so you can't hit it. And it's a sort of like one man vessel that he's flying along, but the man is I believe this section doesn't have more rings. So you have to reach this with a decent

number or at least be confident enough to I could be wrong about that. No, I think you're right. And I'm kind of looking at a video out of the corner of my eye. I think you're right. But also, this is the first time I've noticed that. because I think I always have got enough rings for this bit. The thing is, us

describing it, I think, makes it sound like it's very overwhelming and intimidating, but I think this part is very, very well pitched to create as much tension as possible, to give you that last burst of adrenaline and excitement to go out on.

Because the doomsday, I don't think, is particularly difficult. No. No. You might die once or twice. I mean... Well, he's figuring it out. Yeah. Controls, but yeah. Why don't you reach that mid-boss?

Because the first section of memory serves, I think, is just asteroids, maybe a few missiles. And the missiles will not few backwards. You don't know you're chasing Robotnik at first. You're just going through space and then missiles start coming. You see him fly past you, don't you? I don't think you do. I'm not sure you do. Do you?

Oh, you might be right. You might be right about that. I thought that the first thing you saw was him flying up from the corner, but I could be wrong. Possibly. But what you definitely see is... I mean, it's like that. You've got a very advanced brain to be able to do that. But as you're going, you start to see these pairs of missiles coming towards you.

So you know there's something firing at you up ahead. And you just progress. You just go on ahead and find him there. And yeah, it is. It's this... It's not overwhelming. There's just enough on the screen for you always to be able to dodge it. It looks like it's going to be a bullet hell R-type sort of a game.

And it's... Except you're... You're the bullet. You're invincible. Yeah. Well, yeah. You're hypersonic now. They're not going to do anything to you with those.

I just, I do love the, I know we've mentioned it already, but I want to flag it up again because I just really love it. I love the fact that it teaches you the stakes entirely organically. Yeah. Because you already know what happens when you run out of rings. Yeah. I think that's brilliant. Like, that's just, hmm.

Maybe I'm not overselling it, but I really do love that. No, it's absolutely brilliant. But once you've made your way through that initial, gauntlet, and it's sort of the not hand-holding, but it's that sort of, this is what this is. Because that initial gauntlet sort of crops up again in the final pair, except

then there's much more tension, because you probably don't have many rings left at that point. I usually don't. But once you defeat the Humming missile thing, which is done, but more or less, is firing bullets at you as well, and if they hit you, they will send you spiraling backwards and lose control for a second,

which is not good when you're taking. So you guide these they're guided mit they're homing missiles and you see them going towards you they're home on you and you i guess you kind of realize i've got to get these somewhere and you figure out eventually it's the head of this thing um i would say he's got a shrunk down version of the same face that the big boss had a minute ago i have this weird idea that you that he hits himself on purpose once to get to alert you to that but i could be wrong about that um that would be silly of him it would be silly of him but it's robonic he

writes you with a robot where it's made out of wall jump material so that you can hurt it, he's an idiot. Have you seen the egg gamble thing in the shadow of the hedgehog? He's a moron. Anyway, egg dealer, that's it. You, um, get you, we make a way past that and you shatter this armour. It comes off and then you've got the flying

at death egg robot. Yeah. With the Master Emerald in its claws buggering off at Max speed. He's kind of shrunk down now. He's either further away or smaller. But he's going after him. You can see all of him. He's gripping the Master Emerald and he's like, right, I'm off. The last gambit

These death their robots are small These are far away And you zip after him And at this point you are chasing him And if you mash the button That's how you catch up with him That's the only way you catch up with him Otherwise it's just an endless level

If you match the button If you match the button It's harder to control you Because you are zipping even far too over the screen While he is launching these kind of plumes of grenades at you That will knock you back And at this point You're also maybe low on rings

so there's a bit of a risk-reward thing of like, do I hang back, play it safe, and get more rings, and then push the offensive? That's it. Or do I just go for it? And I play it now, I usually just go for it, and you can get him in a few seconds. But this is the end of the game. This is the final challenge is that

weaving through asteroids, missiles, plumes of grenades, and your own mortality, impending. Your own impending mortality. And the most frantic music possible. It's great. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. It's a bit more frantic than it sounds like, coming out to do it.

But yes. When I did it, it sounds like the Coronation Street theme, doesn't it? And... This is just the podcast. That's Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, do you. Anyway, you zip through there, and that's the finale. You hit it enough times.

Deathug robot bursts into flames and falls off the screen, flash to white, I think. Drops, well, nearly. As he falls off the screen, he drops the Master Emerald, and you, Super or Hypersonic, blast forward and grab it. And you grab it, yes. That's right, yeah. And then it's flash to white, I think. and still no-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-do-do-do.

No. Because we're not playing the game anymore. We're out of the game, and this is all real. You know, you die in this, you actually die in real life. Sonic bursts out of the television. And just shakes your hand personally. Burst out of the television, grabs your kids, bursts back in, never see him again. Well, it does fade to white, but it very quickly fades back in again on the atmosphere of the planet.

You're thinking of the other guys, Stu. knuckles he a kidnapper i think that was actually Michael jackson the music contributor and you're watching now uh who's super hypersonic falling with the master embold through the atmosphere of the planet and you see layers of it and clouds pass

you by as you transition the sky sanctuary theme is playing right yeah like this kind of like again maybe too flowery but it's like you know it's kind of given that very uplifting feeling because it's an uplifting song yeah it's like this wrong has been

righted these like you know that they like knuckles is people like everything's restored and put right yeah um and i believe after some time tails flies by in the bioplin he had it the whole time what the hell yeah you land on it and it shoots out a little magnet or a grab or something and grabs the the emerald to tailor it behind you and then you've got your little birdies the flickies or whatever it's actually remarkable i've i'm looking at it now and i've never thought this before The thing I was just talking about Where you see starting from space The outer atmosphere of the planet

Going down through a deep blue As clouds pass you by Then tails comes and catches you And you continue to descend And you go all the way Until you are now at the sea level With more clouds going along in the background of that And as you fly along

The island comes into view It's like one of those impressive You know This was all one single shot In a film or something But on the Mega Drive It's just remarkable what they've done. Orson Wales played this

for inspiration. He did. That he did, yeah. I'm actually a bit lost for words now because we've finished it, and I just feel so bereft. Because the ending is they fly it out, that happens. You get the Flavitian is centred in the middle of the screen, right?

In the water. You then appear in the background, I think. Well, you fly. The tails is playing. Flies all the way back there, and they basically must put the Master Emerald down because it starts to raise out of the... They put it down in, like, Angel Island. Yeah, it starts to rise out of the sea, and then you do.

The water cascading off it instantly. That's right. It's gorgeous spray work. Yeah. It's amazing. And then you cut... Yeah, like, it's a big sprite that takes up most of the screen, but they animate this thing. And you can see little details. You can see, like, little buildings and things all over it. You can see a pyramid, all of that. And then, yeah. Which feels so goddamn long ago now, doesn't it?

That you're on Angel Island. And, like, I mean, I'm sorry, but... like once again, do you get why we're not normal about this? Because when we were children, what we were exposed to was this great big exciting adventure that had like these little cartoon animals, super exciting, high octane, high speed gameplay. But it's also about a magical floating island being like occupied by a mad scientist who had created a space station and needs this super magic artifact to power it. without a single line of dialogue.

F to a child, that's catnit. Yeah. Because Sonic 1 and 2, we're like, you know, here's some game mechanics. Do you like them? Okay, here's that Sonic 1. Sonic 2. Okay, how about we refine that? Arguably make it worse.

Yeah, yeah. But nevertheless, how about we focus that onto a kind of play? You're going to be running through it. You're going to have a tremendous time. And it's mostly, Sonic 2 is mostly about iconography. It's about the colors and the way it looks. I mean, we've done a whole episode about Sonic 2, but Sonic 2 is, what if Sonic 1 but too much?

Yeah, and then Sonic 3 goes, right, what about everything we've learned? What if we just present the ultimate game with that? Yeah, what if we just made the best game ever made? We've made the best game. Using that, and it's like this incredible finale, and so what happens next in the ending is the perfect final scene, which is that you cut to Angel Island,

and Sonic and Tails on their plane small are going by in the background, there's the Master Emerald where they've put it, and knuckles just kind of comes out and watches them go. And it is beautiful. It's smiling, isn't he? He's got a little smile as well. A little grinning knuckles. And he's got this stance,

which is to say like almost respect. You know, it's very good. And that little glimpse of the Angel Island tiles again as well to remind you that you've done everything, you've been everywhere. That's where you started. You've come full circle. The Angel Island is not on fire anymore.

It's back to normal. it's back to how it was supposed to be. Yeah. And then... Meele-bill... Meebibu-d-d-d-d-d-dun-d-d-d-d-dun-d-d-d-d-d-d-d... It's big and joyous. That should be the whole podcast from that.

The rest of it should just be us doing the music. Okay. Then you get the medley of all of the amazing music that you've heard, not one single chit-track in the whole thing, all bangers, wall-to-wall. No. Sadly, it's not... not all the music you heard. There's a longer version out there from a prototype edition,

but I think it's just, I think it's just Sonic and Knuckles tracks, isn't it? Yeah, I guess because by that time Michael Jackson was in the old, in the old doghouse for the old non-sinct show. I think the Sonic 3 credits theme is beautiful. I think it's a gorgeous composition. It's the one that like

was later, like, you know, it sounds very similar, shall we say, to Stranger in Moscow. I think what it is is that Brad Buckser had that chord sequence and just went, oh, that's something new out of this. It's not, it's not the same, but it's... No, but it is excellent. Sort of how it...

Yeah, and it's interesting. Well, look, if... I mean, listen, it's a fairly universal thing you can say, isn't it? Like, it's a shame about the bad things Michael Jackson did. I liked a lot of his music. That's a fairly mainstream opinion, but it extends to Sonic the Hedgeron. I was a huge fan. I love...

I love Lois music. I listen to it all the time. Me too, but only on headphones. Bad lad. Oh, bad lad. Smackhand. You know, not good. No, some of the best pop songs ever recorded. You can't just, like, not admit that they were good, yeah. And the same with Sonic 3, like, his music on Sonic 3 was good, or his there, the team. Air quotes, his music on Sonic 3, yeah, which we later found out was not the original music, which was mind-blowing.

Yes. Mind-multing. Did we mention that already? I bet we did. We did, yes. We already mentioned that. That's still one of my all-time most mind-blotting things that ever happened. Even seriously, including amazing actual life events.

I slightly ranked that above a few of my most major life. The birth of my first child. Loss of virginity is there. Finding out that the Sonic 3 music was originally, the music used in the PC version is there. Give me time, that might change. But for now, no. Anyway, yes, amazing game, war to wall to all.

Anyway, yes, amazing game, war to all. We've talked about it for now, for like a thousand. hours, I would say probably, except, I don't say more hours than anyone's talked about any game on Metro Nauts ever, but that honestly probably isn't sure they've probably talked about some rubbish Final Fantasy or something. Yeah, or something like that, or Mega

Man or something. Nuts. Yeah, Castlevania. Hey, in the credits, it's really nice of them that they credit who their enemy artist is. So, you know, they're not even just crediting the artists they like and good stuff. Enemy artists, Satoshi Yokakawa gets a shout

out as well. That's nice of them, isn't it? I mean, while he is a villain, he deserves credit for his work. Yeah, and I suppose you could say that it's them rubbing it in his face. Like, look, we made this, enemy artist, Satoshi Yokikawa, yeah. And, yeah, this was the last good game ever made, unfortunately. Exactly, yes. It's just wall to all shit from here and out. But having now done this, I mean, do we have anything else to say about this game now that it's over?

We haven't talked about the two-player. Well, should we give those the off-way swirve? If you like. There's a two-player mode. You play against two players. Yeah, it's fine. The music's great again. Yeah, you play it a couple of times and never again, but the music's really nice, so you listen to it.

You add that to your soundtrack. You'd rather play Bomberman or Dustin Desperada. I'm sorry. Whiz and Liz. Whiz and Liz. The best two-play a game on the Mega Drive? Well, Jackson Desperators exists. Whiz on Liz?

Yes, whiz on Liz. I need to play that. I bet you drew that in geography class, didn't you, Dave? TV's a joy, Zool, mate. Call back there. Call back there. Zool back. Yay! No, this is, I mean...

Zool with two backs. It's immense words. Let's give... Literary illusion there. Yeah, it was very good. That's what people tune in for is that kind of clever material and literacy. Shakespeare and Phil. Well, we have rinsed this, I would say, as we have rinsed it, no doubt, many times by playing it in our lives.

Yeah. And the reason... I'm going to be slightly... introspective enough, that's okay, because I'm normally ever so, agree, and gregarious. The reason I did this is I wanted to do this, I said the reason we did this, but the reason I wanted to do this,

I called this triad, order of the triad. If we were the order of the triad, I'm the alchemist, I think. David is probably orpheus, and that leaves you as, well, it's not going to work, is it? Let's just leave the whole thing. No, I don't, like, I'm not comfortable, with this on it.

Yeah, forget it. Just cut the whole thing. It doesn't matter. Oh, no, you can be the Outrider. There you go. Problem solved. Oh, good. Yeah, pretty sweet. Anyway, I wanted to do this because rightly or wrongly, I had this perception

that a lot of the Retronauts gang aren't particularly Sonic fans. Fair enough. You don't have to be a Sonic fan. It's fair enough. Well, I think we've established that there's a very good case to be made that you shouldn't be a Sonic fan. Yeah, that's right.

I mean, it is against the rules to be a Sonic fan, but, like, I'm a Sonic fan, and for my sins. And what I wanted, I suppose, was to create something that was, it wasn't just, oh, it's really good, mate. I wanted to get into the weeds, and I wanted to really get the enthusiasm across, and I feel like we did that, so well done, everyone. Well, done, yeah, yeah, good job, good job.

If you've listened to this whole thing, and you've come away from it going, I wonder what they thought of that game, then you've made a mistake, and you must listen to it again. there's some subtle clues scattered that. Taken together what I would have what I like is just the idea of

having other than the occasional ribbled jokes and tangents a fairly solid block of real appreciation and criticism of a game that sometimes seems to get written off from the best ofs

because I mean it's pisses on O'Carena of time and Mario World to use another literary allusion like this is my white whale I think yeah because I have to be blunt with you I'm the white whale I have fallen very much out of love

with Sonic over the last few years just a lot of stuff like I found myself constantly alienated from the community I found myself like it'll probably be back up by the time this goes up But, like, I took down Sonic Spitball, which was, like, my first real successful video series on YouTube. One of the reasons I wanted you to do this. Best Sonic videos on the internet.

Because I knew you could talk about Sonic. Well, yeah. Like, I took it down because it was just, like, nastiness for comments. Like, I made these comments literally a decade ago. These people are, like, boxing my after image. And it's, like, and the thing is, as many of them are coming in and disagreeing with it, which I'm brilliant. Please, genuinely, I'm being so sincere about this, please, take this conversation away from me. Go further with it. Tell me why you disagree. Absolutely. I love that.

But it's just, they're not doing that. They're just calling me an idiot. You know, they're calling me ignorant. They're calling me an idiot. And it's like, okay, I like, I don't. You could not have made the case any more clearly that you are not an ignorant idiot about Sonic the Hedge. I've watched, I've been in the weeds, I've been in this whole Sonic thing for way too long, uh, since I was, I don't know how long I've been in it. It's been forever. I mean, Sonic was the first game that I can remember playing. So I've been a fan since I was like, what, four? And I've sort of watched in real time this, this community that I was very fond of. And I'm not saying it's all of the community. And I'm not saying these people, it's all of them because I have lot, you know,

it's not. It's obviously not. But I've watched the face of it turn very, ugly um you know and you'd think i'd fit in more that way but no actually um like you leave sonic fans alone without a trailer for a month or so and they just cannibalize themselves like it's like i like not i'm not sitting here going oh someone was mean to me on twitter so i don't like sonic anymore it's just genuinely like i'm not that interested in the games anymore i still haven't played superstars or frontiers or anything like that because they're just i haven't seen the second movie or the third one because it's not out yet

it'll be up by the time this goes yeah a time recording it's not out yet fourth one will probably be out by the time this goes up I didn't watch it's not bringing me very much joy and the community just being that caustic has just made me go right well I don't

I don't need to be part of this Twitter in it I guess giving them a twister in it I mean yeah I don't want to end this on a negative sort of no I don't mean that I'm having I don't mean that I'm having I don't mean that Oh, don't do that shit. I don't mean like that.

I just mean, like, it would, that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this is to have something that was just, you know, it was suggested after episode one, there was a sort of criticism, which I'm open to the, again, I'm open to it, but it was like, you should have someone who doesn't like it. No, that's not the point of this.

There's always someone who doesn't like it. You can find that, if you want somebody who doesn't like Sonic, you have got so much else to be. Without the window, you'll see about four of them. And if you find, if you find someone who doesn't like Sonic 3 and Knuckles, you've found someone who hasn't, giving it enough of their attention to be on the podcast, frankly.

This is, this is like, so all of, all of that was to establish that I think there is a very strong case to be, like, you know, I think if you're not a Sonic fan, absolutely, because let's be fair, it's been more duds than misses. Sorry, it's been more duds than hits.

It's been more chumps than plumps. Well, it's been more duds than misses because a dud is worse than a miss. The miss is all right. But on the other hand, like, the thing that the white whale the thing that frustrates me is that there is a narrative

and I'm assuming it's from people who didn't grow up with the games and who are used to a very different style of platformer which is fair enough but it's from people who aren't really giving these games a chance they're like playing through it once or they're losing all their lives once

because they're trying to play it like Mario or they lose their rings once and immediately get angry and... Like absolutely the ring system is so forgiving and just dismissing it You know? And that really frustrates me because I think we have demonstrated that there is, at the very least, even if you don't agree with absolutely everything we have to say, fair enough, absolutely. Again, please take the conversation away from us. But I think we have demonstrated that there is a lot to appreciate here. There's a lot of really fantastic game design and narrative design as well. Like, the idea to me that there was absolutely never any reason to get excited about this series at all at any point is absurd. It is like saying, to use a pertinent example, oh, it's like saying that thriller didn't really leave much of a splash, you know, or going and saying that, like, grass is pink.

Knuckles is pink. I've got a bit of a hobby horse. gypism that I keep bringing up when it relates to this, which I'll mention now. I've probably done it on Retronauts before. I used to be quite loath to mention it, because I think it used to sound insane. And as time has gone on it, I think it's been proven so right that it is completely sane thing to say, which is we are in a post-truth era of gaming, especially gaming history, because any old wank can go on YouTube, no offense, Shay, and say anything, and people will believe it.

And it's like when I wrote, when I would write for Nintendo Life, when I wrote that thing about Sonic that was full of what I believed were majority opinions, and then got it in the neck. And it was the grudging realization of both, A, people

who weren't there for this are telling me what happened at the time, and they're wrong, and I know they're wrong. And B, holy Christ, in this fandom, I'm older shit. I'm like, Ancient. I'm like, freaking Steve Jackson. Like, oh my God, am I old in this fandom? Why would?

Nobody wants to hear from me. Well, someone, someone explained to me why it is that the internet has just decided that this game is not good. And it's because in the console wars, when that was going on, which is for, that's all it is. There was just a marketing gimmick between two companies. And some kids came down on one or another side of it. And as it happens, and I don't. didn't. I loved both. But there were kids who were into Sega. There were kids who were into Nintendo. Now, Sega was aimed at the like cool leather jacket kind of crowd or kids that were, yeah, or kids who want to identify. Yeah, it had a counterculture image. Yes, and Nintendo was not the counterculture at all. That was the mainstream thing. And that was for softer kids. And those are the kids who built the first foundations of internet culture at the end of the 90s. And we just still have their own tablets that we still read from now. It is also worth

noting as well, but we're all British, sorry about that, listeners, and I'm sorry, I'm not. Sega, okay, you're not, sorry, two of us are British, and you're something, God knows what. No, no, I'm not sorry. I am British. Oh, okay. What you need to remember is that I know, I know I speak funny. I know that I speak funny, but remember that Scotland is just England's hat. He's talking funny talk. No. He say an R and then he see another R very quickly afterwards. Honestly, mate, I'm really sorry, but that is really funny, though.

Like, it's hilarious. I sometimes wake up laughing because I think about that. Anyway, being British, Sega won for that generation. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I'm not going to go with the narrative that nobody had a Nintendo because they did. I know several people with Nintendo's, but Sega won. Sega owned up that generation. And there's a reason why these things live large over here so much, you know, and quite a lot of major Sonic content is British.

And I wonder if, I mean, there's also that factor is the fact that gaming history is where is generally dominated by American perspectives, because it's enormous America. Oh, the crash of 83, yeah. Like, that's exclusively an American phenomenon. It didn't happen with the Euro Awards right there. And, yeah, of course, for us, it was. you know, the era when gaming was thriving. And it came to prominence in UK during the crash. The height of the UK gaming, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, which we'll get to in a spectrum episode at some point, I imagine. And, hey, foreshadowing. But is it foreshadowing? If you just say you're going to do it? I don't think it is. I don't know. But we need to wrap this up. A retro spectrum.

A retro spectrum, very nice. And a chocolate sinclair's crap. It means nothing. So it's a game that very clearly means a lot to us and lives, wild and free in our heart of hearts and hopefully you've listened to this and you've gone oh this is a very sincere thing

like this is not us trying to this is not us trying to be contrarian or trying to convince you of anything it's just us in telling each other why we love what we're speaking is not just the truth or not just our truth it's like it's there's a feeling of incredulity that anyone doesn't already know or believe it

and we're constantly up against waves of people who for some reason just don't know one of the main things about gaming history because they don't care because there was a cartoon on the telly about something else and that seems

to there was a breakfast cereal or something else and that seems to me all they care about like because we all get so wrapped up in the internet discourse and oh why is he saying this and why is he saying this and who's saying like what's he responding to there and like

and all of it. But I think that's it. I think that is the beating heart of this whole ridiculous endeavour, is that we, the three of us, truly love this game and we truly have meant everything that we have said and has been a true joy. Just

getting to go through it with these guys and discover so much more to love about one of my favourite games. There's been revelations through this things I've never even thought about. So, yeah. I'm still thinking about Sandopolis. Yes, good.

thank you for listening if you've listened to all of this or even just a bit of it i'm really grateful thank you for giving it the time i want to thank everyone for the reception this is how because this is the more than any other thing i get people saying to me like when's the next one coming when's the next one coming and i'm glad they've been spaced out in a sense but i do want to do more sort of deep dives like this but in all honesty this is the only game that i feel i could do that for so yeah we can't go into this amount of detail than anything else but um yeah sonics uh a series that I do love. It's a series I recognize an enormous number of Fulton.

I think quite a lot of the games are just genuinely shit. Sonic 3 and Knuckles, though, is not for a Sonic game, not for a Mega Drive game, not for a console game. For all games, is in the top 10, if not the top 5, if not the top 3. And I think that,

now that you've listened to us, say why, for 17 hours, God, I hope you get it, like in that song. even if you don't agree I hope you understand like where we're coming from yes yes I hope you understand thank you for trying to understand

and I think that's it I think we're done I think that's it I've still a bit of breath now yeah thank Christ thank goodness we don't have to be friends anymore I've hated every second of this it was an ordeal

I've loved it and I think anyone listening to me going on as we'll know that I loved it so thank you very much much, Dave, Shea, for doing it. No, thank you for most of the fun. I'll have you, I'll have you back for more things. I'd love to.

Thank you very much to Retronauts as well for, for like allowing me to come on. Yeah, those guys. Thanks Retronauts for allowing this to happen. Thanks for retronauts for not, for when I said I want to do 20 hours about tonight three on knuckles not firing me instantly out of a cannon. We all know it's because none of us knew how long this was going to be when you pitched. We had no idea. That's my favourite thing about it, the organic realisation that we've done two zones or one zone and we're in two hours.

That's why I knew it was going to be gold standard. You know, I hope people listen to this in the future and they go, this is a seminal work of Sonic 3 and Knuckles criticism because they bloody well ought to. There's nothing that anyone has done that's been better. Suck it. Thank you. I've been Stuart Jip. Dave, they already know, but where can people find you on the internet? Sonic, the comic, the podcast. If you like, if you've liked listening

to us go on about Sonic, hair jog. Both of these guys are on Sonic the Comic, the Podcast, you know, one episode. Can you again? You should? Yeah, you should. No, come back on again. I'm always on it. A friend Chris McFeeley from Transformers The Basics on YouTube is always on it. I would love to. Can we...

Yeah, come. Get us both on it at the same thing. Yeah. And just just ruin it. Yeah. And you should go and listen to it. Sonic, the Comic, the Podcast. When this game came out and America was fiddling about in not

hole and doing Princess Sally and all of that. Yeah, exactly. Our comic, we had a totally separate comic in the UK that followed

this stuff. There is an adaptation of Sonic 3 and Knuckles. We find, and you can listen to us go through the whole series, find out things people never knew.

Did you know? We noticed the tapestry. The tapestry is in Sonic and Nocels flight. It's in Sonic the comic. They just covered it up with a speech balloon. Whoops.

Yep. Nice going, Debbie. Whoops. Anyway, yeah, come and listen to that, you'll find out loads about this sort of Sonic, and there's just loads of joy for it. If you liked this, you'll like that. STCTP.Zone.

It also, if you're interested in this, I've got another podcast called Serious Disney, and it's about Disney stuff. It's really good. It's good. I was actually, I was quite moved by it once, because who's the other guy going to keep forgetting? Jahan Rann Singh. He said something that was so insightful, I actually got emotional, how smart clever it was. That's going to happen constantly

on Serious Disney. Go and listen to those podcasts, they are good. And you'll find me on all the stuff Just search my name I'm a guest on stuff quite a bit sometimes You've ruined many podcasts I've listened to Demon Tomato Dave

Oh god no not this guy again YouTube as well Demon Tomato Dave Dave's first game And Demon Tomato Dave Dave learning to settle Those are two good games About good videos about retro games

I've made That's me Shay You can find me on Hey I'm the one who cues in Shell You're not the host Okay All right that's me then Now introduce Shay please too

Shay. Yes. You can find me online at... Shake him away, toys. Most... That was a good word. I think my favourite one that you've ever come up with was 50 grades of Shay.

But you can find me online on Twitter and YouTube and everything. Just type in Shugals. That is spelled how it sounds. And... Like Google with a Sh. Exactly, exactly. Shugles or maybe Shugles

underscore, depending on the availability of names, on most social media, especially YouTube. That is where I do incredibly long deep dives into video games. I have got one. It's 11 hours on Pokemon Brilliant Diamond. It sounds like a joke. I'm very,

very happy with it. I put a lot of When you've been online and you've seen those articles that are like, debased Lunatic makes 11 hour Pokemon video, he's the DeBased lunatic. It's me. I try and make sure it's not just, like, I know these things have a bad

reputation. If you need something to sleep to, I think it's good, but it's... They shouldn't have bad reputations, though. People should just learn that you can pause and resume. Yeah. Well, they have a bad reputation for just being overlong plot summaries, but I've done my best to ensure that that's not what this is. I am a passionate

watcher of very long YouTube videos, and it is because it means I never have to worry about what will distract me when I'm on the toy I know there's the next few minutes of whatever the long video I'm watching is. On the toilet? On the toilet? What is that?

On the toilet? It's a special installation I have in my house and I will show it to you one day. You can come around here. I'll show it. I'm really excited to see it. You're going to love this. Wow.

But I've also done an hour long video on Zelda 1, which I'm very proud of. Oh, that's very good. Yes. Can I recommend the crash video? That's probably one of my favourites. Oh, yes, thank you. I'm really happy with that crash video. as well. I watched it again

the other day. It's good. It's all still good. This isn't become shit. It's still good. Now tell me if you have to take this one down as well, but the introduction to classic Sonic gameplay and how it works and how not to be all American about it. That's very pertinent. Yes, if you're having to try

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at the end of all this and you're having a bit of trouble then there's a video I've got called a beginner's guide to classic Sonic that will kind of take you through it and how I think when I play it's only 10 minutes and I think

I hope I've gotten a lot of very positive feedback on it so I think it is a useful resource it's really good it's really good it will stop you from thinking that the way to play classic Sonic is to hold right and also not enjoying that you'll know what to really do

so now you know where to find these fine folks you can find out how to give us loads and loads of your money so if you go to patreon dot com 4 slash retronaut If you haven't already, you can subscribe for a mere $5 a month, at which point you will receive diamond fights this week in retro columns, which are also recorded as podcasts, and they're very, very good.

You will receive a bonus episode every week, a brand new episode for you, or is it two bonus episodes every month? I've forgotten, and I've done this at 10,000 times. It's one of those. It's very good. And you can also listen to the weekly episodes early as well, a week early. so to quote Richard Herring you'll be the coolest kids on the playground I don't think kids listen to the show

and I really really hope they're doing because we say fuck a lot and talk about but you know It was one time I'm really sorry I've done it loads of times Oh okay Moving on Good company then

Yes lots of good things on the Patreon I should by the time this goes up I'll probably have started my Patreon thing which I'm not going to say what it is because it might not have started yet because I'm being a bit crap Whatever it is, I bet it'll be a real banger. Now to end the podcast, which I'm really bad at.

Have a supersonic tacular day. There you go. How about that? No. Oh, yeah, it wasn't very good, was it? Yeah, seriously, though, this has been good. I've had fun doing this. Thanks very much for listening. I'm going to print the entire transcript and turn it into the world's most tedious book.

Thanks very much, again. It really does mean a lot. It's been interesting. It's been funny. And you know what? I'm going to say it. I've been a bit emotional at points because of, things that this has brought up so uh yeah cheers for that um let's hope there's another sonic

game that's as good as this again there won't be but let's hope anyway uh it's like the people who went to see alien romulus they're like well this is the 12th shit one in a row uh maybe this one will be good though because that's what it's like to be a sonic fan sonic game there is not there's never been and will never be and anything as good as sonic three and knuckles and that feeling of being like in my case 14 and just obsessively playing or 13 or whatever I was. It's just one of the happiest times I've ever had. You ever have that eye slowly

that was called Mr. Long, and it was like really long. Long, long, man. Do you remember Mr. Long? I know what you mean. I would say that was like a maybe two-thirds of the way towards being as good as Sonny of Three of Knuckles, and that was amazing. I'm a boo-y man.

Did you ever have a boomy? I had one before the show. Oh, three fruit made out of sculpted sorbet on a stick, a strawberry, lemon and orange. Oh, wow, amazing. God. Yeah, that sounds really good. You cannot be a classic 99.

I was eating a boomy while I was playing Sonic 3 in Knuckles, I think. I think the time's overlapped, maybe. Yeah, that's pretty. Yeah, I'd imagine you were, yeah. Oh, danger. Danger. I think we've overlapped the time where we've basically finished and are now just blithering. Sorry, I think that was my fault.

Well, I think there's no better way to end this than with some blithering, because it's what we do best. So thanks very much again. And all the best. and have a lovely time. Thank you, everyone. Hey, keep listening to Retronauts, please. That was meant to sound pity,

but it just sounded like a genuine plea. Goodbye, everyone. Bye-bye! Thank you. Ida-da-da-da-do-da-do-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-do-do-do-do-da-pda-poh. Okay. That was the nuclear warning. Oh, it was either the Pips or you'd flatlined and died. Thank you.