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S3&K or SCD?


The_Soul_Gauge

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Me? I don't know, haven't played CD, but S3&K is by far the best Sonic game (not that I don't have a few favourites in the 3rd dimension).

But if I had to base off what I know about CD and compare it to what I've played in 3&K... 3&K is probably my choice, but I won't form my final opinion until I actually play CD, but for now, 3&K.

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CD, while still a good game, was way too confusing at points- far more than a Sonic game should be. The addition of the time-traveling system, while interesting, only added to that. Let's not forget the awful soundtrack in the U.S version either. It was so off- especially in the vocal tracks(I'm looking at you Tidal Tempest).

Sonic 3 and Knuckles, however, I consider to be the pinnacle of Sonic games, and so far the perfection of the 2D Sonic formula. It had variety in the stages, characters and there was just a lot to see. I still regard it as the best Sonic game ever made, and one of the best games of all time.

Edited by The Soldier
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I'm more of a Sonic CD guy. I just love the overall design for that game. From the fast paced anime-opening, to the insanely cool 8-Figure peelout, that game just reeks of awesome. The level design is great too, huge levels which require a lot more than "hold right". I really love both soundtracks too.

I love S3&K, but CD just wins for me.

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Sonic 3 & Knuckles was honestly an awesome game (being longer, with the Airslash/Instashield, elemental shields, etc.), but really Sonic CD just about wins in every other category.

Gameplay / Level Design / Etc.

-----------------------------------------------------

Level design was brilliant (and wasn't confusing of flowless, because I've never had those problems when playing this game), full of platforming and made sure that speed was just a factor for Sonic rather than what he solely revolves around. Of course, it didn't flow exactly like how Sonic 2 did, but that's because Sonic 2 was pretty linear and the closest you could get to a "hold-right-fest" in the classic games. Also to note that Time Travel (while a little irksome to me) opened up the game with tons of replayability; not just for getting Good Futures', but also because of how every stage in their different timezones had slightly different layouts.

Sonic's moveset was at it's prime in this game as well. I'm sorry guys, I preferred Sonic's spindash of SCD, mainly because it wasn't a move you could spam to death. The Super Peel-Out, although somewhat useless, was complete eye-candy and nice for a speed boost. Top speed and jumping on this game had a slight speedcap in this game, which to me felt pretty natural, since having no speed-cap makes Sonic feel like he's rolling... without rolling. =P

Also the Special Stages. Ooh, those Special Stages, I can't say enough about 'em~ <3

Graphics:

-----------------------------------

Graphics were phenomenal. Everything was really psychedelic and trippy; almost like Sonic 1 meets LSD. Backgrounds flipped the higher you went, flowers came out of the robots (rather than animals / Flickies), everything seemed out-of-wack, but it was okay since we all knew that Sonic was on a different planet than the ordinary.

Also to note the anime opening & closing videos. You know you love them.

Music:

----------------------------------

I, for one part, have never liked saying which soundtrack was better (US vs JP). But each one of them was absolutely amazing, and while the peppy-techno music fit well with the mood, so did the mysterious, ambient music. Either way, I love the OSTs of both so much that I have both of them on my mp3 player. XD

Anyways, Sonic CD is my choice. Sure, S3K was really good (being probably the best of the original trilogy), but IMO Sonic CD still takes the cake as the best Sonic game ever made.

Edited by Azukara
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CD for me. It was visually prettier IMO, the music is the best in the franchise, and the levels are fun to explore and time travel adds more replayability.

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They are both great games but I have to say S3&K. CD was overrated IMO. It's still an awesome game. But not nearly worth being called the best Sonic game ever. I think it only got that title because back when it was released, a lot of people didn't get to play it much since most people didn't have Sega/Mega CDs. I had it back then and I still preferred S3&K although I loved them both.

Edited by Joseppi
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I'm going to have to go with S3K. It just has more substance to it, I feel. Sonic CD is a great game, but I can't stand the whole two-soundtracks confusion (especially here in Britain where we've gotten both soundtracks at different points), the visual style looks pretty rough around the edges (many part of the foliage and background look a little pixelly like they've upsized it an odd number), the bonus stages are abysmal, yet I can't be bothered to find every single fucking capsule thing just to get the good ending. Besides that, the layouts, whilst interesting, are often speed killing teases, which is awkward in a game where you need speed to travel through time.

It's like the whole Ocarina Of Time vs. Majora's Mask argument, with S3K being OOT and SCD being MM. Sonic CD was interesting as a side-venture, but it did little for the series, and made both good and bad deviations on the Sonic norm.

S3K has more going for it to me. It progressed the series forward massively, brought us consistency in theme (aside from Carnival Night - WTF is that doing on an ancient unexplored island?), had better music in my opinion, enough character differences to make each character feel like a brand new quest, infinitely better special stages and just better stages overall. Plus it made advances like minibosses, act transitions, zone transitions and crazy paralax effects.

But that's just me.

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S3&K all the way. I can't help but say that SCD is very overrated.

Gameplay/Level Design

S3&K felt a lot smoother in comparison to SCD. The speedcap in CD felt very awkward, and throughout nearly the entire game, your never able to go anywhere above a brisk jog because of how cluttered the level design was. Sure I'm all for having depth to levels, but SCD took it to an annoying extreme, and it never gave you any room to 'stretch your legs', so to speak. S3&K had a great balance of depth, platforming and speed, and the levels felt more open.

The mechanics in CD are just wierd. The spindash is hardly useful because it takes so long to charge up, and you always dash off at the same speed, defeating the purpose of getting a quick boost forward. The peelout, I will admit was a cool addition, but again, because of the level design and the speedcap, your rarely ever given the opportunity to use any of these effectively since you will always hit a bump in the road or fall off a ledge reseting your speed.

SCD is also a very confusing game. The time traveling gimmick, while a cool feature, was almost pointless in the long run, because getting all the Time Stones for the good ending was a lot easier and more convenient than scouring all over the universe to find a single object and destroy it for every single level. This is just the nail in the coffen for any sense of flow this game might have. And it also sucks that there isn't a feature to play through the whole game in the Past or the Good/Bad Futures. That right there would've added tons more replay value to the game.

As for the Special Stages, I'll admit, I did like the idea that SCD had, and I'd say that I like CD's special stages more, but one major complaint is that it feels very trial and error based in the later stages, and the lack of depth perception is also very annoying.

I can't really take sides in terms of graphics and music as I like moth equally, but I'm leaning more towards S3&K's music more since there's a larger selection of tracks that I like, and I'd say the graphics are also kinda better, though at least SCD takes advantage of what the system for it can do with the animated opening and endings which I like a lot.

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I like this question. S3&K and Sonic CD are both my favorite Sonic games.

They're two different types of Sonic game though, and I get why people might think CD is overrated. CD takes after the original, and 3&K is more like its faster predecessor Sonic 2. I really like the way CD feels like part 2 of Sonic 1, it's much more the sequel to the original than the numbered Sonic 2. But not many people played it on the Sega CD. In the end it's kind of forgotten.

While I love the level design and soundtrack in CD, I've gotta go with S3&K. But really only the S&K part of it. It's a tough call for me. S3&K also had a great soundtrack, and on top of it featured the longest classic (and the most) Sonic levels, the insta-shield instead of the mostly useless peel out move, and it's got a pretty epic story told through the levels themselves. And Knuckles.

S3&K by a hair for being more ambitious and succeeding. But in terms of level design and feel, I prefer Sonic CD.

Edited by Badnikz
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For me, S3&K is seriously overrated. Its design is overly clustered. Sonic & Knuckles doesn't even have a save feature, while sonic 3 does. And I don't like Sonic's goofy looking, shiny sprite.

Sonic CD is just more relaxing to play. No stupid object placement that I can think of at the top of my head. It's art style is more detailed and a lot more pleasing to the eyes. Music with a fresher vibe. And the best special stages. Unlike S3&K which has the worst, most boring concept for a special stage idea.

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Gameplay/Level Design

S3&K felt a lot smoother in comparison to SCD. The speedcap in CD felt very awkward, and throughout nearly the entire game, your never able to go anywhere above a brisk jog because of how cluttered the level design was. Sure I'm all for having depth to levels, but SCD took it to an annoying extreme, and it never gave you any room to 'stretch your legs', so to speak. S3&K had a great balance of depth, platforming and speed, and the levels felt more open.

The mechanics in CD are just wierd. The spindash is hardly useful because it takes so long to charge up, and you always dash off at the same speed, defeating the purpose of getting a quick boost forward. The peelout, I will admit was a cool addition, but again, because of the level design and the speedcap, your rarely ever given the opportunity to use any of these effectively since you will always hit a bump in the road or fall off a ledge reseting your speed.

I mostly agree with this, and will only add that the physics in general for Sonic CD are very wonky and unnatural. With exceptions, they mostly aren't bad enough that they get in the way of playing, but its clear that they needed a bit more time in the oven than what they got.

Edited by Tornado
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The battle of the retrofags. :o~

While I enjoy all of the classics, CD is not my favorite among the Genesis games. The level design is one giant clusterfuck full of excessive amounts of obstacles where you never have a chance to utilize your speed unless you're some crazy time attacker (which I'm not), and I wouldn't have minded that if I wasn't stopped in my tracks every three seconds for running just because I haven't completely memorized the level designs, which I don't really want to bother with. I like how there are different time periods in the levels, but I hate the time traveling system itself, because it requires you to maintain speed, when the game tries its best to stop you from doing it at almost every point. The special stages and animation sequences were pretty neat, though, and the bosses were very interesting - moreso than the usual "hit Eggman eight times to win" kind of deal with little effort put into them - but after a while it gets hard to stomach the confusing level design.

S3&K is my second favorite Sonic game. Everything about it is wonderful - the level design, the graphics, the length (and save feature to accompany it), and how much I can really replay it without getting bored of it. I really liked having a multitude of playable characters, and Knuckles's game was different enough from Sonic's to not seem so repetitive. The main problem I had was how everybody and their mother had a super form this time - I liked it better when Sonic was the only one who had it, since it made him special (and do Tails and Knuckles even need super forms? They have flying abilities that allow access to other areas that Sonic couldn't, so that honestly should balance out the roster as it is...). Hyper Sonic was pretty ugly, too, and it sort of strained my eyes with those big-ass sparkles flying all over his sprite and shit.

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Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I stand by my claim, since I have never really liked the Sonic CD (From what I've played of it on my now-gathering-dust Sonic Gems Collection, and I think what didn't help was my distaste for Amy, the fact that I'm terrible at it, and the fact that my head will explode if I see Metal Sonic or any other robot of Sonic again before Mario and Sonic At The Winter Olympics comes out. Sorry, but I'm just telling the truth. I don't mind if the majority of fans think differently, because I know they do.

However, I love S3&K. The lock-on Cartridge idea was cool, playing as playing as Knuckles, Tails or Sonic is cool, and Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic 3 was a good move far as I'm concerned. The save feature was more than useful as well. Oh, and I'm a bit of a Knuckles fangirl, by the way (As if you couldn't already tell)so maybe my views on S3&K don't really count, 'cause Knux could do almost anything and I wouldn't complain (Even though he doesn't exist).

Super :lol: Lombax

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Think of it like this:

The modern Sonic games and Sonic CD are on polar opposite ends of the spectrum, with the Genesis games in the middle.

The modern Sonic games pretty much give you high speed instantly upon the time you get to playing (hence the overuse of dashpanels and the Sonic Boost), and it takes no talent at all to get to high speeds. Genesis Sonic games were better, since you had to at least put some major input / effort into what you were doing to get to insane speeds (hence why the rolling dynamic existed). In Sonic CD, we meet the modern games' opposite; the game was truly a platformer, and getting to extreme speeds was an EXTREME challenge and all depended on your skill for moving past obstacles and such, and the pinball dynamic (which was what Ohshima intended for the Sonic games to play like anyways). In order to get true speed, you must earn it, and in SCD, it takes work rather than holding right and pressing down half-way through a loop (or better yet, it takes more work than collecting some rings and pressing the X Button).

So really, SCD's level design was the basic Genesis game level design, but made to the highest extreme possible. That's why it's so difficult to keep speed (I believe). ;)

Edited by Azukara
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When people say that speed must be earned in Sonic CD and that hard work is required for it, I think to myself: that's fine and dandy, but is it really worth it for this game?

I don't think it is. I'm not a fan of mindless hold-right speedfests, but I think the original trilogy did a better job at balancing out speed and complex level design than other games have. There have been times when I have been able to go pretty fast in Sonic CD for a certain length of time, and it didn't feel very exhilarating, because I didn't think it was worth the effort I put into it. Not so with Sonic 3 & Knuckles, which is still very platform heavy but it felt great to be able to go fast in areas that normally you thought you couldn't.

Sonic CD had awesome visuals, but the level design seemed all over the place. The game is still fun to play, but I have to be in certain moods in order to properly get into it. I'm not here to achieve the best times, I just want to play a game.

Also, Sonic CD wasn't difficult at all. I have an easier time with it than the first two games. D:

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Well, I meant to say it was difficult to keep speed in. I'm sorry, will fix. =)

I guess I understand what you're getting at though, Jake. If you're just one to play casually rather than memorize the levels / speedrun them, then yes, it is a pain to keep speed in that game. It's just hard for me to notice what you guys mean because I've memorized all the levels back and forth to the point where I know everywhere to properly jump and keep a consistent high speed. =P

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Haha, I've played all of the Genesis games lots of times (bar Sonic 2, which is kind of my least favorite of the classics), and CD was actually my first 2D Sonic game. Despite finishing it to end and back on several occasions, I still can't remember the majority of the level structure off the top of my head, save for a scant few areas that stood out. I still have reaction time when I come across areas with which I'm familiar, but I can't handle them expertly like hardcore time attackers can, and that's about it.

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Sonic was in much need of some new abilities to keep the games feeling new. And S3&K gave us just that. Allowing you to actually fly with Tails. I never understood why you couldn't in Sonic 2. Gliding and climbing walls with Knuckles. And Sonic's insta-shield really helped too in some places. But what really made S3&K so good was the different shields, mainly when you're Sonic. I love how each one has a different move you can do.

The bubble shield was really nice for the under water levels and who didn't enjoy bouncing around.

The magnetic shield made collecting rings a breeze and it made you invonerable to electric attacks and it made it easier to reach higher places.

The fire shield made thing a little easy in some parts of the game. Namely the Angel Island Acts 1 & 2 bosses. Not to mention Lava Reef. But it was awesome. And it allowed you to jump farther with the inta-fireball.

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Lol. I understand what you mean by that, Jake. I can never remember the layout to S3K's Flying Battery, Sandopolis OR Death Egg for the life of me. And I agree, Sonic 2 was my least favorite as well. XD I don't know what it was, it's just so... bland.

BTW, why isn't S1 in the title? The original needs more love. D=

Might just be haters hating on the lack of a Spindash. Back in my day we didn't need no stinking Spindash

Edited by Azukara
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I have a soft spot for Sonic 2. It was the game that made me a Sonic fan. It was also the hardest of the main Sonic games back then. It took me years before I could beat Metropolis Zone. Thanks god for the Level select code. Which I still have memorized. lol But S3&K is my favorite Sonic game of all.

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Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I'm of the sort who find Sonic CD to be fairly overrated, personally. Not that I feel it's a bad game, although a lot of the level designs seem somewhat cluttered and messy, personally.

And again with Jake's comment, I'll agree that Sonic CD's level designs were -relatively- unmemorable. The levels themselves were, but their layouts much less so. They seem too exploration-based, and as such they can be a bit of a pain to move around in.

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I was very dissapointed with Sonic CD after all the hype, but it's still a fine game. I prefer Sonic 3 & Knuckles for straight up platforming antics.

Sonic CD is just the sort of game you really have to get into to fully experience all of it's good qualities, whereas 3&K I can just pop on and have a garunteed blast with whatever my mood.

I'll keep things short and sweet, I'd basically be repeating the first page's posts otherwise.

General concensus = Sonic CD wins for style (great graphics/music with the movies being the icing on the cake - even if the ending movie usually crashes on me on Gems) and intricate substance, Sonic 3 wins for pick-up-and-play and obvious substance.

Edited by JezMM
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While I enjoy all of the classics, CD is not my favorite among the Genesis games. The level design is one giant clusterfuck full of excessive amounts of obstacles where you never have a chance to utilize your speed unless you're some crazy time attacker (which I'm not), and I wouldn't have minded that if I wasn't stopped in my tracks every three seconds for running just because I haven't completely memorized the level designs, which I don't really want to bother with. I like how there are different time periods in the levels, but I hate the time traveling system itself, because it requires you to maintain speed, when the game tries its best to stop you from doing it at almost every point. The special stages and animation sequences were pretty neat, though, and the bosses were very interesting - moreso than the usual "hit Eggman eight times to win" kind of deal with little effort put into them - but after a while it gets hard to stomach the confusing level design.

Well that makes two of us. Sonic CD was a good game but the thing is.....Its WAY OVERRATED. Like Jake said, the level design is a huge clusterfuck fest. I mean look at the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHGlKK0FY6Q. None of sonic's other games made you take forever in the first stage. Another thing, I personally HATED the jumping noice. It was terrible in everyway possible.

Sonic 3 & knux was like Sonic and co. at it's best. S & H sonic were beast (my opnion) and Hyper knux ROCKED harder that system of a down. I mean yeah sure he was pinkish/redish but still with the blur effeect and boosted speed+power had was....JUST AWESOME! the level's in this game to me were something to remember. Lava reef act 1 and 2, angel island, Doomsday zone, I mean really....who didnt enjoy any of those stages? And the boss fights...lets not get me started.

Edited by Shadic the original
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I thought for sure when I mentioned that I thought Sonic CD was overrated I was going to be flamed right out of here. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so. It is a really good game, but not worthy of the title of best Sonic game ever made.

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