Sonic CD vs Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Sonic CD and Sonic 3 & Knuckles are often considered one of the best games of the entire Sonic series. In this Arena episode, we are going to compare these two games, and decide which game is the better game.

These are the categories we will be judging in this fight.
1. Music
2. Overall Gameplay
3. Level Themes
4. Level Design
5. Special Stages
6. Boss Battles

We will start comparing these games starting from tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Guessing Sonic 3 and Knuckles, since it's my personal favorite.

Category 1: Boss Battles
Sonic CD's Boss Battles disappointed me a lot. Though they had some interesting attack patterns, most of them were just too easy that there was no real challenge of beating the bosses! I would like to say Tidal Tempest's boss as an example. That boss gives you a lot of water bubbles to make you able to breathe (Yes, it is an aqua battle), and all you need to do is eat all the bubbles and strike him once! Yes, he shoots some bullets, but it's easy to dodge them. Even the final boss is surprisingly easy, if you can allow yourself to get hit. The only bosses that gave me troubles are the boss from Collision Chaos and the Metal Sonic Race. While I like the latter, former involved a frustrating pinball challenge instead of a direct boss fight. Overall, I found most of the Sonic CD bosses disappointing.

However, the bosses from Sonic 3 & Knuckles are pretty great. They aren't as surprisingly weak as Sonic CD, so you will have a lot more satisfaction while destroying the bosses. This game also introduced the mini-bosses that will face you between two acts, so there were more bosses to go through. I liked that. I seriously can't name a bad boss in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, except for that one boss in Lava Reef Zone Act 2. The rest of them had nice attack patterns, and it was fun to beat them. Also, the final boss(es) are actually really challenging this time, especially that Super Sonic Doomsday Zone fight.

Sorry Sonic CD, but Metal Sonic Race can not beat the amazing bosses of S3&K.

CD 0: 1 Knuckles

I'm also going with Sonic 3 and Knuckles since it did most of those things you listed better and I enjoyed the game much more then CD.

Category 2: Music
Sonic games have amazing music, and both of the games did an excellent job in this category. The music I like the most from Sonic 3 and Knuckles are the final boss theme (not Doomsday Zone, the one when you fight the big Eggman robot) and the Flying Battery Zone theme. For Sonic CD, I especially liked Quartz Quadrant's present music (both JP and US), and its final boss theme.

Now for the actual comparison. While both games have such nice music, Sonic CD wins for executing the soundtrack perfectly. Since there's time traveling in Sonic CD, there are four different versions of music in each zone- past, present, good future, and bad future. I really like how all four versions are very diverse yet similar, depending on which zone you are. Also this is a bit biased, but since Sonic CD had more powerful audio system than the Genesis, the sound quality is better in CD.

Also, most of you will know that Japanese/European versions and the American version has different music. Most Sonic fans prefer the former, and dislike the latter. However, I find both of the soundtracks to be great. Also, this makes you able to play Sonic CD in two different packs of soundtrack! I found that to be especially nice.

This round goes to Sonic CD.

CD 1: 1 Knuckles

Category 3: Special Stages
Sonic CD had a special stage which made you destroy all the UFOs in the arena before the time runs out. Of course, there are some hazards that will slow you down or take time off the timer. You can increase your time by hitting a rare purple ufo, though.

Meanwhile, Sonic 3 and Knuckles had a special stage where you had to collect all the blue spheres while controlling your character by only left or right. However, hitting even one red sphere meant failure, and there are some hazards to make you bump into red spheres.

Now for the comparison. While I enjoyed both of these games' special stages, Sonic CD's special stage controls felt kind of stiff, and I found it hard to aim the UFOs sometimes. That made it pretty frustrating to hunt down the UFOs in the later levels. On the other hand, I never really had that much control problems in Sonic 3 & Knuckles' bonus stages. I generally found all the Blue Spheres stages very fun. Plus, I really like the fact that the speed of the special stage increases as you collect the blue spheres. It feels very frantic and it mixes well with the Blue Spheres stages, making them so fun. Granted, there is a speed shoes item in Sonic CD's special stages which increases your speed, but it felt more like a hinderance to me there.

Anyways, Sonic 3 and Knuckles win this round, since I prefer Blue Spheres to the UFO game.

CD 1: 2 Knuckles

I don't like the special stages in ANY Sonic game, but yeah, the Sonic 3 one is still better than Sonic CD's.

Category 4: Level Themes
Both games have a nice variety of level themes. Many themes were interesting and unique, like a diamond mine (Quartz Quadrant), a workbench (Wacky Workbench), a pyramid (Sandopolis), an airship (Flying Battery), and more. These games have such great level themes, that I can't really find a bad level theme in these games.

Now for the comparison. Sonic 3 & Knuckles had 13 zones (excluding Hidden Palace) which was much more than Sonic CD's 7 zones. That means Sonic 3 & Knuckles has more kinds of nice level themes. However, I really like how levels in Sonic CD have different themes for different time periods. Let's take Metallic Madness (the factory zone) for example. This factory can be either an undeveloped factory, Eggman's stronghold, a botanical garden factory, or a nearly worn out factory, depending on which time period you are in. That was my favorite thing about the time traveling- getting to see the various themes in a single level.

This is no contest, Sonic CD just had to win this category.

CD 2: 2 Knuckles

Category 5: Main Gameplay
Both games have the Sonic gameplay that you collect rings and run around, so I am not going to talk about that. I would be comparing the individual gameplay factor that the other game lacks.

Both games have gameplay which is focused on exploration. In Sonic CD, you will have to warp back to the past, explore and find the generator, and destroy the generator to create a good future. You can also warp to the future and explore the different time period as you want to. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, the levels are much huger than the other classic Sonic games, that exploring the levels themselves can be classified as exploration. Also, you need to find the ways to the special stages by searching the warp rings in the levels. The characters often got different paths, adding to the depth of the exploration.

Now for the comparison. While Sonic CD's time traveling was a very innovative idea, I didn't like how sometimes you had to backtrack a lot to find and destroy the generator sometimes. I HATE backtracking, so this can be a problem. In Sonic 3 and Knuckles, there was no real need to backtrack while exploring. Also, unlike Sonic CD, this game made you able to revisit the stages that you already completed, so Sonic 3 & Knuckles get bonus points for that.

A close call, but Sonic 3 & Knuckles win this round.

CD 2: 3 Knuckles

Final Category: Level Design
Both of these games have nice level designs. Though there are some levels that make me cringe, like Sandopolis Act 2 from Sonic 3 and Knuckles (where you can get attacked by thousands of ghosts)/Wacky Workbench(Traps which force you to jump up very hard) from Sonic CD, the rest of them had nice level design. Some levels even had nice gimmicks that were fun to go along with. For example, Sonic 3 and Knuckles had the infamous part where the wall chases after you in Hydrocity Zone Act 2, while Sonic CD had the interesting laser gimmick that could shrink Sonic in Metallic Madness Zone 2.

Now for the comparison. Both of these games have their own special treats in level designs. For Sonic CD, the level designs were slightly different for each time period. For Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic/Tails and Knuckles sometimes got an entirely different path to go to, which requires you to use their own special abilities. I found both of these treats to fit in their respective gameplay very well.

They did such a good job in level designs, so this one is a tie.

CD 2: 3 Knuckles

And that's it. While I really like both of these games, I found Sonic 3 & Knuckles to be a little bit better than Sonic CD. So, S3&K is the victor of this matchup.

VICTOR: Sonic 3 and Knuckles

Next episode- Prepare to see a video game peek, featuring a Japanese styled game which is very fun.

Prediction Votes
S3&K: 3 Votes
SCD: 0 Votes

I like how all of you got the answer right, lol.

Of course we did, it was obviously going to be Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

Sonic and 3 did more things right. I did not think CD would even win the level themes though.

^ Yeah, I also kind of prefer the level themes in Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but whatever, it still won.