This article has a talk page!This page details bugs of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
Endless Spin Dash#
This glitch can only be done in Carnival Night Zone and Sandopolis Zone.
When the player is performing a Spin Dash charge on a breakaway platform, they may fall into the sand. When the player manages to get on land, the character will automatically spin dash and will continue doing so for some time. In Carnival Night, the player has to perform a spin dash on the ledge next to a spinning barrel. If the barrel comes to the player while charging the spindash, the dust will stay behind the character and the same thing from Sandopolis will occur.
Four-Tailed Tails#
At the end of Launch Base Zone Act 2, the player automatically turns to face the Death Egg, which is falling in the background. Tails' tails aren't hidden as his animation changes from looking up to the standing rotation, resulting in him having an extra set of tails for the duration of the sequence.
Sonic & Knuckles#
Go to a level (excluding The Doomsday Zone) with Debug Mode enabled, then place a large number of S Monitors down. Roll into the lot of them to enter Super form while gaining a large number of rings. If done enough, one of three things will occur; From most common to rarest, the game will freak out and eventually crash, the controls will become locked, or the controls won't be locked. At this point, press Start and the game will reset in Sonic & Knuckles mode. Interestingly, this enables debug mode for Sonic & Knuckles, which isn't possible normally.
Blue Knuckles#
In Hidden Palace Zone (with at least one Super Emerald special stage unlocked), use Debug Mode to bypass the Knuckles miniboss and enter a special stage. Once exited, the player will enter a glitched Angel Island Act 1, spawning at the top-left corner, with the water level lowering from the top of the screen. Attempting to go beneath the water as it's lowering, using Debug, will crash the game. At this point, reset the game and go to the Level Select. The character ID, if successfully pulled off, will now say "80". Select any level and the player will be playing as Blue Knuckles. He plays like regular Knuckles, but has Sonic's gameplay attributes and spawn locations, making some levels like Angel Island impossible to complete.
Event Execution#
Like many other games, Sonic 3 & Knuckles attempts to limit damage caused by out-of-reach data boundaries by clamping the data to a certain point. This holds true with the dynamic level events index, however it is way too strict, limiting it to Balloon Park 2. Starting with Desert Palace 1, the game loops back around to the beginning of the table, making it possible to trigger (especially with the Sonic & Knuckles stage leftovers in Sonic 3 Alone) early game events with late-game stages.
Eggman in Knuckles' Story#
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This needs some investigation. |
It's fairly well-known that upon reaching the end of Flying Battery Zone Act 2 as Knuckles, the Hang Mobile is piloted by Eggman, rather than Eggrobo. However, there's another instance before this zone where the doctor can be seen out-of-place: in Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2, should you die to the Jet Mobile as it takes off, Eggman appears to be piloting after you respawn. This works in both Sonic & Knuckles standalone and when locked onto Sonic 3.