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Sonic the Hedgehog 3 "Barrel of Doom"


canderson

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If this isn't worth discussing, feel free to lock it.

I just want to know if any one had difficulty getting past that certain barrel in Carnival Night Zone Act 2, in Sonic the Hedgehog 3? I asked because in the other topic I created asking for your worst stages, a decent amount mentioned this stage just because of that 1 obstacle.

I wonder if there are hundreds, even thousands who had a problem with this. I'm guessing this wasn't a huge issue. XD(correct me if I'm wrong)

Also is there anyone who got through this obstacle with no problem?

Edited by canderson
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Yep, it totally stumped me the first time. It was a really bad piece of game design. The puzzle itself was fine, the problem was the game had given us not a single incentive for or example of what we had to do prior to it in the stage. Mainly because all the previous incidents of the barrel were passable by jumping on them, thus the game reinforces the idea to you that this is the only way to manipulate them.

I can't remember, was it ever mentioned in the manual that you only needed to push up and down?

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I can't remember if I had to wait until a magazine posted the solution, or if I accidentally found it out.

I think it was Sega Power that published the solution eventually since I collected it back in the day, I remember them saying that it was their most requested solution of all time. So I was happy that I wasn't the only one with issues. But I did attempt to restart the game just to see if there was another path around it, just because it frustrated me so much.

There really was no clue to it, and with the collection games out there and new people playing... I bet theres a load of people who are still stuck on it sine there was literally no clue as to how you did it.

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I just want to know if any one had difficulty getting past that certain barrel
Everyone had problems with that barrel, and if anyone says they didn't, they're a damn dirty liar.

It's an amazingly simple little device, and yet the way it was set up made it one hell of a problem.

For one, Sonic has a very limited number of consistent abilities. Run, jump, roll, spindash, insta-shield, and that's basically it. Most of the game can be "solved" with only these abilities, so these tend to be the ones you try first.

Second, jumping seems to work. You jump on a barrel, it wobbles, you jump with the right rhythm, it wobbles more. And while I've heard it is possible to do it like that, it's damn near impossible. Still, it looks like it should be possible, so there isn't much reason to look for another method.

Third, compared to a single jump, the effect that pressing up or down has is very small. You've got to wiggle it a bit before you actually see significant movement, so even if you do hit up or down it's very, very easy to not notice that it does something. The fact that Sonic doesn't respond to the button presses reinforces that; if he still did his ducking/looking up animations, or hell if they would've given him unique sprites for that, people would be more likely to try it out further. As it is, Sonic does nothing, so you expect the button presses to do nothing.

Fourth, like Jez said, nowhere else are you required to do this or informed that it's even possible. The barrels were mostly an obstacle, and in the few other cases where you needed to move them just jumping was enough. Then they lock you in a small room and force you to do something that you didn't even know was possible.

I suppose I can understand how it got through, as once you know the solution it's completely trivial, but if you don't, it's a solid steel wall right in the middle of the game.

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Is this a barrel where, when you jump off of it, there's a star-chain or something like that?

I... actually don't remember having a problem with it. I remember seeing Ice Cap and Launch Base as a child, before ever using the internet. Then again, I was never playing as Sonic, so it must have been one of my siblings that figured it out. I remember doing the up-down thing, myself, probably because someone told me, because I remember it going high and me being scared that I'd get squashed on the ceiling part. :lol:

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I will admit I got stuck on the barrel, only way I knew how was to use the bubble shield and bounce down, therefore I never got to Ice Cap as Tails.

However, once known it's pretty easy, and it's not enough to ruin a fantastic zone and people do go on about it a bit much.

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The "Barrel of Doom" was definitely one of the more memorable puzzles of the Sonic franchise lol. I remember hammering down the jump button because it looked like I was making progress. Took me a week to figure out that you had to press up-and-down by randomly mashing it.

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I would like to see a little cameo of it in another game at one point... how great would it have been during Sonic Adventure or Sonic Unleashed when we're inside robotniks base to see in the background the giant bouncy barrel with the a sign by it saying something like "Almost got him, needs work!"

Edited by Casanova
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Oh yes, I did have problems with that stupid barrel when I first played Sonic 3. O-O I tried jumping 'cos that seemed to work a little but to no avail. So then I looked up on Google to see how the hell to get past it, and then I found out you just press up and down whilst on the barrel! Gosh SEGA, that's sly. D:

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Hahaha, I played 2-player with my girlfriend back in the day and we spent forever trying to get past that crafty bugger. The only thing that got us even remotely close was having Tails fly Sonic up and drop him, while having Sonic press down.

O'course, Tails would often slip through and leave Sonic behind XD Which was pretty amusing. My girlfriend (playing as Sonic) would be all >( at me.

Eventually we looked up the solution and both face-palmed. So simple. Arg.

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I would like to see a little cameo of it in another game at one point... how great would it have been during Sonic Adventure or Sonic Unleashed when we're inside robotniks base to see in the background the giant bouncy barrel with the a sign by it saying something like "Almost got him, needs work!"

It did! The same barrels appear in Circus Park of Shadow the Hedgehog. They're auto contolled, however.

I was always able to pass Carnival Nights as; Knuckles, because he took a different path unless you forced him that way and Sonic, cause I abused the buble sheilds bounce ability to get down there. Tails on the other hand... Well I was so pleased to finally get him past the Marble Garden Act 2 boss, but I had totally neglected to think about Carnival Night Act 2. Ah, what a sad time for the poor fox. =(

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I had to pawn that month's issue of Gamepro from a classmate that told you how to get past that barrel. And unfortuantely that led to a deadly cycle of me buying magazines I couldn't get myself from friends. I was a stupid child in grade school.

Damn barrel.

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The only way I was able to pass the barrel was by glitching through it. My brother discovered this method by jumping on the barrel a couple of times until it got low enough, short jump, transform into Super Sonic, and the barrel would pass over Sonic and push him down below. Because of this, we could not beat the game unless we had all the Chaos Emeralds and had no shields, and at least 50 rings by the time we reached that area.

Alas, since Tails couldn't go Super, we weren't able to beat the level as him. Though again, my brother was actually able to pass the barrel as Tails by jumping on it. It took a long time, and eventually, with a bit of reflexes, he was able to make the barrel go down far enough so that it'd spring up high enough for Tails to just barely squeeze under. Of course this method was found much longer after the Super Sonic method, and possibly after finding out the real method.

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When I was playing this game in Sonic & Knuckles Collection, I would simply use level select to bypass it and skip straight to Icecap Zone. I used the 8th Special Stage trick to reclaim those seven Chaos Emeralds I got in the first two zones; I didn't really encounter Carnival Night Zone's act 2 boss until a couple years later.

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That barrel made me cry, think I'd taken a wrong turn, my cartridge was bust..... I forget how I figured it out, I think my mum might have suggested it to me! It was nice to hear it flummoxed most people! SEGA, that was a very cruel obstacle!

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The barrel- my old arch nemesis. Maybe some could figure it out and some couldn't, but fact of the matter is it's one of the biggest dick moves in game design, mainly for every reason Diogenes said. But still, the rest of Sonic 3&K was godly, so I don't hold anything against it.

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Holy crap, I actually remember that! I never remember random little things like that, so the fact that I do probably says something in itself. Oh my god, that was terrible. I got so frustrated about it, and it bugged me until I finally figured it out. I don't even remember how I did figure it out.

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Wow, I didn't know this was such a huge issue. So this was mentioned in a couple of magazine??....Just...wow. XD

I'm just glad to see that I'm not alone.

I just looked at the manual, and I don't see anything on how to get past it.

Edited by canderson
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But I did attempt to restart the game just to see if there was another path around it, just because it frustrated me so much.

This. Back in the day, Ice Cap was by far my favorite zone. Because I had a save of the game completed (from my parents), this wasn't a problem. But I found out that my save was deleted due to age, and that I had to play through the game again (this was around 2001 or so). It took me years of playing to figure it out (I tried that jumping idea as well, and because I usually played Sonic and Tails I always had to connect a second controller to get Tails to stop being retarded) in order to get back to Ice Cap, not counting the times where I would just sit down and try and figure it out before the save vanished, and I would constantly time out on Act 2 looking for an alternate path. Even then, I only found out how it worked by accident, and on a different barrel at that.

I can see it being a well done puzzle very easily (simply make it so jumping has more of an effect), but the problem is that the way that you probably solved the easier, earlier barrel puzzles just doesn't work. Quite frankly, it is a horrible design decision.

Edited by Tornado
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Wow, I didn't know this was such a huge issue. So this was mentioned in a couple of magazine??....Just...wow. XD

I'm just glad to see that I'm not alone.

Tons of magazines, I still have a couple of them. Sega Power constantly called it it's most requested solution of all time, even several years after the release of Sonic 3. Games master would constantly call it one of their most constantly demanded solutions.

Several magazines that would give away cheats books always had the solution in bold and standing out from the rest of them. I think that Sega Powers Dirty Rotten tips book dedicated a huge section to it, just so people knew the solution. Even the TV show Gamesmaster had it in one of their tips sections if I recall.

The hysteria about the solution was wild... the only thing that I can recall having as much hysteria was ironically from Sonic 2. Everyone recalls seeing the level select and the cheat code on Bad Influence, only to fire up their Sonic 2's and go... Where is the options menu!?

Due to very few people reading the manuals, the Sonic 2 level select code for a long time was another unknown. nobody knew where the options screen was. I found it by accident one day, and it was such a comotion that Bad Influence had it on their show as a special feature the next week and mentioned it again the week after!

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When I was first confronted by that barrel, I naturally attempted to use jumping, which was a long process. After a few tries, I managed to reduce the time to 1 minute using carefully timed jumps. To this day, I still use these jumps to get me through the barrel, even if using the real solution would net me a lower clear time.

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It stumped me for a bit when I first played Carnival Night and I was toying around with the first one I could jump on. It took me all of a good solid 30 seconds to figure it out.

I'm more confused how you can't figure it out, mainly the at the part where it traps you in the room with one. By that point you've needed to figure out at least one.

Really. It's not even a puzzle.

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Second, jumping seems to work. You jump on a barrel, it wobbles, you jump with the right rhythm, it wobbles more. And while I've heard it is possible to do it like that, it's damn near impossible. Still, it looks like it should be possible, so there isn't much reason to look for another method.

Yeah, i did that ONCE))). But it took me a looooong time..

I didn't solve this puzzle myself..( Somebody told me what to do or i read about it somewhere..

Edited by ArtFenix
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I never got past it in the 10 years I had the game until about 8th grade, when I remembered I never beat Sonic 3 and Knuckles as Sonic. I eventually gave up and just did Knuckles's route instead. Thanks to revisting it in my later years I figured it out and kicked myself so hard the bruise scarred.

As a result, anything that is cylindrical, colored red and white, will make me want to punt babies off sky scrapers.

Edited by Rauzaruke
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It still puzzles me to this day that so many people never would have considered pressing up or down on what is obviously a loose definition of an elevator. It still confused me the first time, I'll admit, but I find the concept that a puzzle like this would take years to solve is, quite bluntly, ridiculous.

Sonic 2's final boss, though? THAT's some trial and error to cry over. At least it's far less likely to die when you're jumping up and down on a red/white cylinder.

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