Great Gaming Moments... Sonic & knuckles

I loved Sonic so much and my excitement for this game was reaching an almost zealous nature! After being introduced to Knuckles in Sonic 3, the opportunity to play as him was too much to resist!


As a result, I pre-ordered this game, costing me $120 back in the day. When the shop called me to tell me they had, I almost ran down to pick it up. I came home from and plugged it in, shunning my friends so I could have a go.

I opened the pack, it was in a cardboard box, which was the case. It was a sliding case. Wooo different. Then after opening it.. What the hell? It was a funny shaped cartridge! Designed for the oh-so-clever plug though ability, it made Sonic 1, Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 into new games! HUZAAH! This was brilliant I thought.

I now had 4 new games. Grab blue spheres bonus levels, but in a never ending game, Sonic 2 featuring Knuckles, where you could use his different abilities, Sonic 3 and knuckles and of course Sonic and Knuckles. Wow! I thought Sonic 3 and Knuckles was the best, it was an epic game of many many stages. Anyway, getting off track here...

back on now. Without trying the plug through options (I wanted to see what S&K was like by itself first), I plugged it into my Megadrive, flicked the on switch. SEEEEEEEGGGGAAAAA! Nice. Coool! Sonic and the Deathegg are dropping from the sky onto the now not Floating Island and he lands next to Knuckles. Awesome! What a great title screen, it completely blew me away (GGM #1). Little did I know more was yet to come.

So resisting the urge to play as Knuckles straight off the bat, I chose Sonic, so I had a fair comparison and raced through the Mushroom Hill Zone. It was hilly, it was mushroomy. It was so beautiful to look at.



Then I took Sonic for a run



Magnificent. Such awesome effect, nice speed and I almost cried with joy when I say the 'pollen' (mushroom spores?) bits flying up and floating down behind Sonic after he kicked them up (GGM#2). Although the game engine looked the same as Sonic 3, S&K looked a little better refined for some reason.

Amazing. There were many more, but those two parts were the ones that I was most impressed with, reflecting on it, I think its because the title was quite amazing to see in motion and the spore were impressive because they were included. Leaving them out would not have detracted from the game at all, but the fact they were there blew my mind!

And that is why Sonic & Knuckles is one of my Great gaming Moments