Sonic the Hedgehog 3C (prototype 0408)/Comparisons/Bonus Stage

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At this point in development, the Sonic & Knuckles Bonus Stages are very unfinished. In normal play, Star Posts will randomly send the player to either the Gumball Machine or the Slot Machine when they pass them with at least 50 Rings. The color of the stars is always white.

Glowing Spheres

Sonic 3 final

Sonic 3C 0408

S3K final

This Bonus Stage is vastly incomplete and thus does not appear in normal play, therefore the only way to access it is via level select with debug mode active. Sonic 3 final had the groundwork laid out for the graphics in this prototype, which are radically different from later builds and are very preliminary. There is no collision nor are there any objects besides a few placeholder Rings, and as a result, the player can only really die here.

The palette used here is exactly the same as the one that remains unused in Sonic 3 final and does not cycle.

Slot Machine

Sonic 3C 0408

S&K 0608-final

The layout for this Bonus Stage is vastly different, with more Rings (a total of 64 compared to S&K Final's 24) and no GOAL blocks when starting the level (the borders still turn into GOAL blocks, though). The background is also completely static; the little objects don't rotate and nothing scrolls.

This Bonus Stage will see many more layout revisions throughout later builds before finally settling on the final layout in the 0608 build of Sonic & Knuckles.