This is a sub-page of Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
Unused Sprites#
Sprite |
Description |
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An item monitor displaying static that harms you when broken. Change a monitor to subtype 00 to view the static monitor. Used in Angel Island in the November 3rd prototype. |
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A monitor that can transform Sonic into Super Sonic and Tails into a glitched "Super Tails" without needing to collect the Chaos Emeralds. This monitor is present in Debug Mode only. |
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Sonic in his signature "waiting" pose, but instead of pointing towards the direction he's facing, he falls asleep from boredom. Interestingly, this animation was used in the Game.com version of Sonic Jam, Sonic Classic Collection, and Sonic X for the Leapster. This animation is also used in Sonic Origins, after being idle for almost a minute. |
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Sonic whistling. This was also used in the Game.com Sonic Jam. |
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A black & white version of Sonic's death sprite, similar to the one seen in the previous two games. It's still not used. In the 1997 PC version, it can be very briefly seen through a glitch in Marble Garden Act 2. |
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This would be used for Flying Battery Zone's monkey bars in Sonic & Knuckles and Tails' sprites will be used in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic's sprites seem to match up better with his Sonic 2 sprites than his Sonic 3 ones, which wasn't fixed in Sonic & Knuckles. However, in Sonic Origins, these sprites were updated to reflect the Sonic 3 sprites better. |
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This would be used for the intro cutscene of Mushroom Hill Zone Act 2 in Sonic & Knuckles. |
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This would be used in Sonic & Knuckles when grabbing the swinging poles in Mushroom Hill Zone. |
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This would be used in Sandopolis Zone in Sonic & Knuckles when scaling down the towers. |
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Leftover continue icons from Sonic 2. These are still mapped to the original palette. |
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A leftover animation from the Sonic 2 continue screen. |
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Knuckles' life icon which would later see use in Sonic & Knuckles. |
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Knuckles text which would have been used upon Act and Special Stage completion. It can be seen in-game by making a save file with Knuckles as your character. |
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Unused Knuckles sprite for the continue screen. |
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Unused Knuckles sprite for the data select screen. It was later used in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It can be seen via the way listed above. |
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Unused gliding, climbing, and falling frames for Knuckles in 2-Player mode, despite him not having these abilities there (he uses Sonic's Insta-Shield ability, much like his single-player "slot" uses Sonic). Sonic 3 & Knuckles does not restore these functions (assuming they were ever implemented). |
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A set of sprites where Dr. Eggman has a panicked facial expression. One of these sprites shows him attempting to jump. Sonic & Knuckles didn't use them either. |
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This was used for the Flying Battery Act 2 Laser Prison. It was later used in Sonic & Knuckles. |
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Appears to be nothing more than Eggman flying away towards the horizon. This is actually another object with coding left in the game, but it's never called by any routine. According to concept art, this object would have shown Eggman flying towards the Death Egg during the transition to Mushroom Hill Zone. However, the Death Egg noticeably falls on the opposite direction of where Eggman goes in the actual game. Interestingly, the direction Eggman flies in-game matches up with the side of the screen that the Death Egg falls on in the concept art (with both being on the left side of the screen). This can be re-enabled using PAR code 05165A:04F2. This animation was restored in Sonic Origins, with Eggman now correctly flying to the right.
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Dr. Eggman poses intended for the unused Egg Hanger boss in Flying Battery Act 2 and would later appear in the lock-on game, however, the left-most sprite also goes unused even during the actual boss fight due to a coding error, and it was meant to appear when the Hang Mobile started swinging up and down. This was not fixed in Sonic & Knuckles. A modified version of the leftmost sprite would be implemented in Sonic Origins. |
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A smaller rendition of the Death Egg that seems to be part of a Death Egg hologram projector, which itself is unused in Sonic & Knuckles. |
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A unique star animation that is loaded into VRAM when transforming into Super Sonic. Several of these stars appear to have been meant to burst out of Sonic upon transforming into Super Sonic, as using PAR codes 004F6A:6000 0118BC:6016 01403A:6016 to load Tails' Competition Mode character into a 1-Player Act and then breaking an S monitor placed with Debug Mode will cause the effect to appear. These sprites still exist and are still loaded into VRAM in Sonic & Knuckles, but remain unused. |
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Diagonal frames of the Penguinator badnik from IceCap Zone. These can be seen for a split-second if you place a Penguinator on the large hill at the beginning of Act 1 using Debug Mode. |
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A save file icon for Flying Battery Zone before it was re-ordered to be in Sonic & Knuckles, which is different than the corresponding icon in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, displaying the interior part of the stage rather than the exterior. It resembles a part of the beginning section of the zone from the November 3rd prototype. You can view this icon in the PC and Genesis versions by hacking the save data to access level slot $04, or by using PAR codes 00C324:601E 00C338:6002 to view it in a completed game save slot while scrolling through the zones. (Source: Sonic Retro) |
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Unused sprites from IceCap Zone Act 1. While the teleporter pad ended up being used in Sonic 3 & Knuckles for Knuckles' transition into the stage, the unusually oversized ice boulder which actually fits in some of the cave's halls was never used. |
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An unused S gumball intended for the Gumball Machine bonus stage. It can also be seen hidden among the other balls at the bottom of the machine. Its programming is undefined, though a possibly useless ID of 08 might have been created for this gumball, if the S and the palette cycle which is nearly the same one used on Super Sonic is any indication, it might have been related to it. It's also unused in Sonic & Knuckles. It does, however, set an unrelated RAM address to 07. In Sonic Origins, it can be placed with Debug Mode and does indeed grant the player a Super Form and Rings. |
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Located far in the back of the gumball machine, obscured by the other gumballs and the glare of the glass, sits a blue gumball. The shade of blue seen here varies from the Bubble Shield gumball. |
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A sprite resembling a button that, based on its location at offset 18DB46, would have been used during the fight against Eggman in Angel Island Zone Act 2. The assembly and color palettes may be wrong, however, there doesn't really seem to be any other way to fit the tiles together. If it was indeed meant to be used in Angel Island, then the triangular shapes at the bottom may be intended to represent grass. As such, the intended palette may be one that replaces the yellow seen here with a shade of green. Could also possibly have been used as part of the Knuckles cutscene that appears straight after the boss. |
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Leftover sprites from early versions of the game that had a progress bar in Competition mode. These sprites can be seen in the Nov 3, 1993 prototype. |
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Unused lap counter digits. These sprites can be seen in the Nov 3, 1993 prototype, as the lap number has no cap, but they use an older style. |
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An unused font, located directly after the font for the timer in Competition mode. It was likely used earlier in development. |
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This graphic, which looks vaguely like a clock or medal, was located in the data for the font above. The palette is unknown. |
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A set of sprites resembling a shadow found within the graphics used for the Tornado. It would have likely appeared under the Tornado during the opening intro. |
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Two unused frames from the Angel Island Act 2 boss for firing the flame cannons upwards. It never does this in the final and no proper coding still exists for this behavior. |
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During the fight with the Egg Drillster Mk. II, at the end of Marble Garden Act 2, Eggman will fly towards the horizon before initiating his next attack. This effect uses a sprite software scaling algorithm that allows this to be achieved. However, the effect begins taking place before Eggman flies completely onscreen, and as a result the full unscaled sprite is never seen. Eggman uses the boss' palette instead of Sonic's, which is easily noticeable in the colors his head and face use, as well as how his eyes are a dark green instead of the usual black. |
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These sprites are used in Knuckles' unused Marble Garden Act 2 boss battle. |
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This sprite is used in the Egg Rocket battle, but it is obscured and cannot be seen. |
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While these graphics are used in Sonic & Knuckles, they appear in this game in a mangled form on Knuckles' unused, broken post-Launch Base Zone Act 2 boss cutscene. |
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These do appear in mangled form in Knuckles' unused, broken post-Launch Base Zone Act 2 boss cutscene. These graphics were later used in three Sonic 3 limited edition/Sonic & Knuckles prototypes; Sonic 3C 0408, Sonic 3C 0517, and Sonic & Knuckles 0525 respectively. This was a bomb chute that Eggrobo used to drop the bomb on Knuckles. Oddly, it is not used in the final game, but it might have something to do with Big Arm's graphics loading over the graphics of the bomb chute (Knuckles originally did not fight Big Arms). |
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The Blaster badnik from Flying Battery Zone still has its sprites and object code leftover in Sonic 3. The palette used here is from IceCap Zone because Flying Battery's true palette no longer exists. |
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The Technosqueek badnik from Flying Battery Zone also has its sprites and object code left over in Sonic 3. |
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Owing to its late removal, many assets related to Flying Battery's bosses are still in the ROM, unused. This is used for the Gapsule miniboss in Sonic & Knuckles, but with minor palette differences. The boss itself still exists and can be fought by hacking the game to load Flying Battery Act 1. |
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The laser turret in Flying Battery Act 2's mid-boss, the laser barriers on either side of the arena, and the Eggman control panel all still exist and are fully functional. Later appeared in Sonic & Knuckles, of course. |
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The Hang Mobile is here, too. |
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This light bulb is used in Carnival Night Zone, but it has an unused function: if the water rises over it, it will explode and show the unused frame seen on the right. This can never be seen because the light bulbs never make contact with the water in the actual game. |
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Palette and graphics data for the gold player-bouncing spheres that are present in the Sonic & Knuckles Special Stages exist in Sonic 3. The palette is loaded every time the player enters the Special Stage, but none of these spheres ever appear. Their coding is also nonexistent in the game. |
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Unused sprites for the Picky animal friend, for some strange reason, never appears in this game. Picky can be restored with PAR code 086032:308A. |
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An extra frame of a spark when the spinning top in the Carnival Night Zone Act 1 boss hits a wall. This frame was reimplemented in Sonic Origins. |
Unused Competition Mode Title Cards#
Unused title cards exist for Competition Mode and are fully programmed, but disabled. They can be re-enabled using the following patch codes:
Code |
Description |
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02CA90:6030 |
Enable 2P zone title cards |
02CACA:FE10 |
Pick title card by Current_zone |
02CB42:004D |
Set art_tile instead of render_flags |
02CB44:000B |
Set art_tile instead of render_flags |
When the title cards are enabled, VRAM issues with the level graphics occur, which may have contributed to their removal. Interestingly, the title cards are still using the old level order where Desert Palace Zone precedes Chrome Gadget Zone. This was changed in the final so that the zone names used alphabetical order.
Unused Super Sonic Frame#
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In-Game |
Intended |
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Super Sonic has an extra idle frame and extra colors in his palette cycle that end up going unused. The unused frame makes the animation a bit smoother than what is actually seen. The unused colors are due to a bug with the code (which also exists in Sonic 2, but is less noticeable), causing it to skip the last frame. The extra idle frame has been restored in Sonic Origins.
Oddly, the smoother colors don't happen with underwater palettes, suggesting it was scrapped early.
(Source: Sonic 3 Unlocked)
Green Bomber#
Only the bottom of the Green Bomber in Angel Island Zone appears in normal gameplay, with the rest of its graphics being obscured. More of it is visible in Sonic Origins, which lowers the ship.
Act Clear Signs#
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Early |
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Final |
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In Sonic 3, the sign frames are uncompressed and loaded dynamically over each other to conserve video memory. This said, also present in the game's data is an unused copy of the same art compressed like in Sonic 2, strongly suggesting it is from earlier in development.
Although Sonic, Tails, and Eggman are basically the same as their Sonic 2 counterparts, Knuckles appears for the first time, with a slightly different appearance relative to the final art. This early version is still present in Sonic & Knuckles.
Hidden Placeholder Tiles#
Various numbers and letters are loaded in and replaced with animated stage tiles. Curiously, they differ between zones, and some are written in Japanese characters. The Japanese characters in Hydrocity are an incomplete list of the katakana alphabet, up to the character "na."
Name |
Graphic |
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Angel Island Zone |
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Hydrocity Zone |
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Marble Garden Zone |
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Carnival Night Zone |
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Launch Base Zone |
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Unused Surfboard Intro#
Sprites for an alternate intro sequence in which Sonic surfs onto Angel Island, rather than riding in on the Tornado. This intro is a leftover from the November 3, 1993 prototype. In the final game, the surfing Sonic sprite can still be placed in Angel Island Act 1 via Debug Mode.
The sprites used when Sonic ditches the surfboard.
Unused Level Chunks#
Several chunks of levels are unused during the game. The chunks are placed starting at address FF8088, and can be inserted into levels by entering the given values into FF8088:XX. Most of them have no noticeable differences from used chunks.
Angel Island Zone#
Act 1:
Hydrocity Zone#
Act 2:
Marble Garden Zone#
Act 2:
Carnival Night Zone#
Acts 1 and 2:
IceCap Zone#
Act 1:
Act 2:
Acts 1 and 2:
Launch Base Zone#
Act 1:
Act 2:
Acts 1 and 2:
Launch Base Zone Unused Chunk Set#
At ROM address 0x1E2E40, just before Act 1's main 128×128 chunk set, is an unused archive containing 9 chunks. Its location and contents suggest that both acts of Launch Base were intended to share some of their chunk mappings to save space, dating back to the November 3rd, 1993 prototype, as the archive doesn't fit with the 16×16 blocks of the final version, but it does with the prototype's. The chunks themselves are just a subset of the ones that are common to both acts
Out of Bounds Backgrounds#
The background of Azure Lake Zone has a flower garden that can't be seen because the level gets in the way. In Sonic Origins, the larger graphics of the level make it easier to see.
Chrome Gadget Zone has a large portion of its background hidden by the stage and palette.
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With Hidden Details |
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In-Game |
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