Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Playthrough with Knuckles, using the version of the game included on Sonic Origins Plus. Of all the games included on this collection, S3&K was the most anticipated, as it had gone without a rerelease for many years. Unfortunately, it ended up being the most disappointing part of this collection.
One of the main reasons is the music. It’s believed the reason this hadn’t been given a re-release is because of legal issues with some of the music tracks, the main ones being the Carnival Night, Ice Cap and Launch Base tracks. For the Origins release, these have been changed. The music used now is based on the PC Sonic & Knuckles Collection and the Mega Drive Sonic 3 prototype. Only they don’t sound as good. Carnival Night’s replacement tracks in particular sound terrible compared to what was in the Sonic 3 proto.
The next thing wrong is the sheer number of little annoyances and problems everywhere. This game had a lot of glitches when it came out, some things got patched but a lot of stuff still remains. Like how your character runs off screen at 36:34 -this isn’t supposed to happen, compare it with the Xbox 360 version here:
youtube.com/watch?v=UYyG9zrRRTA&t=2266s
Or how about the camera not moving properly at 31:00? Tails’ picture flashing like the super emeralds at 1:47:08? The music resetting every time you get a coin? They aren’t major things but as someone who played S3&K religiously as a kid it’s annoying they still can’t get these games right on modern systems.
Speaking of the coins, I suppose I should explain them: in anniversary mode, you don’t get lives, you get coins. You can spend coins in the museum on stuff like art. You can also use them in the games, if you fail a special stage you can use a coin to retry it, like what I did at 53:29. The reason I failed that special stage is because of another glitch which totally threw me off my game. At 53:22, only one set of blue spheres changes to rings. That’s not what’s suppose to happen, again, see my Xbox 360 playthrough:
youtube.com/watch?v=UYyG9zrRRTA&t=3501s
Overall this is still playable, and it does have some nice additions, I just wish it had received extra updates to fix everything.
Playthrough with Knuckles, using the version of the game included on Sonic Origins Plus. Of all the games included on this collection, S3&K was the most anticipated, as it had gone without a rerelease for many years. Unfortunately, it ended up being the most disappointing part of this collection.
One of the main reasons is the music. It’s believed the reason this hadn’t been given a re-release is because of legal issues with some of the music tracks, the main ones being the Carnival Night, Ice Cap and Launch Base tracks. For the Origins release, these have been changed. The music used now is based on the PC Sonic & Knuckles Collection and the Mega Drive Sonic 3 prototype. Only they don’t sound as good. Carnival Night’s replacement tracks in particular sound terrible compared to what was in the Sonic 3 proto.
The next thing wrong is the sheer number of little annoyances and problems everywhere. This game had a lot of glitches when it came out, some things got patched but a lot of stuff still remains. Like how your character runs off screen at 36:34 -this isn’t supposed to happen, compare it with the Xbox 360 version here:
youtube.com/watch?v=UYyG9zrRRTA&t=2266s
Or how about the camera not moving properly at 31:00? Tails’ picture flashing like the super emeralds at 1:47:08? The music resetting every time you get a coin? They aren’t major things but as someone who played S3&K religiously as a kid it’s annoying they still can’t get these games right on modern systems.
Speaking of the coins, I suppose I should explain them: in anniversary mode, you don’t get lives, you get coins. You can spend coins in the museum on stuff like art. You can also use them in the games, if you fail a special stage you can use a coin to retry it, like what I did at 53:29. The reason I failed that special stage is because of another glitch which totally threw me off my game. At 53:22, only one set of blue spheres changes to rings. That’s not what’s suppose to happen, again, see my Xbox 360 playthrough:
youtube.com/watch?v=UYyG9zrRRTA&t=3501s
Overall this is still playable, and it does have some nice additions, I just wish it had received extra updates to fix everything.
