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Hidden Palace Zone
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Some mysteries are solved! Robotnik makes his big play, and Knuckles finds out who the REAL bad guy is!


— Description, Sonic & Knuckles[1]

Hidden Palace Zone[1] (ヒドゥンパレスゾーン Hido~un Paresu Zōn?) is the fifth overall Zone in Sonic & Knuckles and the eleventh of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It is the shortest zone in the game, featuring a single brief Act. Hidden Palace Zone is the resting place of the Master Emerald and the Super Emeralds, and is thus considered sacred territory only Knuckles can enter.[2]

Description[]

Hidden Palace Zone takes place in a massive subterranean cavern populated by plateau-like formations of crystalline rock that line the floor and ceiling for as far as the eye can see; far in the background, a large, luminous entrance shines light into the cave. The Death Egg, face-down, sticks through the entrance so that it is visible from the player's perspective. The Death Egg is present in Sonic's story, but absent in Knuckles'.

The Hidden Palace itself is depicted as a large castle-like structure. Sonic & Knuckles' image of the palace is a castle-like stronghold that houses the Master Emerald and seven smaller gems known as the Super Emeralds. The palace's architecture is adorned with pillar walls and a multitude of bright neon colors. The room of the Zone's boss battle is particularly notable for hosting a large stitched mural abstractly depicting what appears to be Super Sonic confronting Dr. Eggman in a large robot, holding the Master Emerald.

Story[]

Sonic's story[]

After defeating Dr. Eggman and his Egg Inferno in Lava Reef Zone, Sonic and Tails arrive in Hidden Palace Zone. There, Sonic encounters Knuckles the Echidna, who still believes Eggman's claims that Sonic is evil, and the two proceed to fight each other. After Sonic wins the fight against Knuckles, Knuckles flees the scene, quickly followed by Sonic and Tails. The protagonist moves into an open-air room of the palace where he finds Knuckles, angrily cursing Eggman. The furious echidna watches spitefully as Eggman tears the Master Emerald from its shrine with his Egg Mobile (which reveals to Knuckles that Eggman is the real villain) and begins to escape. Knuckles attempts to attack Eggman and grasps desperately onto the stolen Master Emerald, but cords snake down from the Egg Mobile and latch themselves onto Knuckles. Knuckles gets zapped and knocked unconscious, and Eggman gets away without any further resistance. The floor underneath Sonic and Knuckles then suddenly collapses and sends them plummeting into the palace's basement. Knuckles regains consciousness and leads Sonic/Tails to the palace's Warp Point. He then jumps into the active device, quickly followed by Sonic and Tails, into Sky Sanctuary Zone to stop Eggman.

Knuckles' story[]

Entering Hidden Palace Zone from Lava Reef Zone, Knuckles uses this location to reach the Sky Sanctuary Zone via the local Warp Point.

Gameplay[]

As a playable level, the layout of Sonic's/Tails' version of Hidden Palace Zone is very simple, due to its small size. The player only needs to jump up to scale up stairs or utilise hidden springs on the ground to reach higher areas. When playing as Knuckles, the level layout is further simplified and contains no gimmicks or obstacles. The level is simply a straight shot to the right to reach the Warp Point to transport Knuckles to Sky Sanctuary Zone.

In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Hidden Palace Zone serves another purpose. Upon using a Super Ring, the player is transported to Hidden Palace Zone where the Chaos Emeralds are transported to the Hidden Palace Zone's shrine and transformed into Super Emeralds, although they have lost their potency and are a discolored gray hue. Gameplay-wise, Hidden Palace Zone effectively acts as a Level Select for Special Stages which they can then jump onto a gray Super Emerald will transport the player to that Emerald's Special Stage, the completion of which will grant the player a Super Emerald and restore the null Emerald into its original color. When all seven Super Emeralds are restored, the player unlocks Hyper Sonic, Hyper Tails[note 1] or Hyper Knuckles, a more powerful form of Super Sonic, Super Tails or Super Knuckles.

Overview[]

Sonic's story[]

Upon arriving in Hidden Palace Zone, the player has to navigate several Springs until they reach a Warp Point that launches them up to where they can see the Death Egg looking down from the mouth of the volcano. Proceeding further in, the player will encounter Knuckles, leading to a fight with him. After the player beats him, a short cutscene will play. Once it is over, follow Knuckles to the right, and another cutscene will play that shows Dr. Eggman stealing the Master Emerald with the Egg Mobile. After that, the player must follow Eggman. The player can attack the Egg Mobile, but it will not make a difference. Meanwhile, another sequence will play, showing Knuckles' futile attempt to get the Master Emerald back. After Knuckles falls to the ground, the floor underneath the playable character will be destroyed, leaving them to fall into a pit. After Knuckles recovers, he will break down the barricade on the left and tell the player to follow him. From there, they'll follow Knuckles to a Warp Point. There, the player is automatically taken to Sky Sanctuary Zone.

Knuckles' story[]

Being the penultimate Zone of Knuckles' storyline, his version is a very short level where Knuckles simply runs in a straight line with no enemies or obstacles being present. The Act ends immediately when the echidna jumps into the Warp Point, teleporting him directly to Sky Sanctuary Zone.

Other game appearances[]

Sonic Mania[]

The Hidden Palace Zone returned in Sonic Mania and its expansion Sonic Mania Plus as part of Lava Reef Zone. The Hidden Palace has two different entry points depending on if the player is controlling Sonic/Tails or Knuckles, leading to two different versions of the area, much like in Sonic & Knuckles. The rocket bound for Little Planet near Hidden Palace serves as the location for the boss battle of the Zone, with Sonic/Tails fighting the Heavy Rider, whilst Knuckles faces off against the Heavy King in front of the Master Emerald.

In other media[]

Animation[]

Sonic Prime[]

ITOTNP 269

Knuckles in Hidden Palace Zone.

When meeting Knuckles the Dread in the episode "It Takes One to No Place", a flashback is shown when Sonic encountered Knuckles in Hidden Palace. Being previously tricked by Eggman, Knuckles believes Sonic is the enemy, and starts throwing rocks at him.

Books and comics[]

Sonic the Comic[]

In the Sonic the Comic series published by Fleetway Editions, Hidden Palace Zone appeared as "Hidden Palace", an ancient underground building holding the Master Emerald.

Archie Comics[]

In the Sonic the Hedgehog comic series and its spin-offs published by Archie Comics, Hidden Palace Zone was originally an enigmatic Zone on Angel Island that housed the Hidden Palace stricture.

After the Super Genesis Wave rebooted the timeline, Hidden Palace Zone became a location on Angel Island, with a past virtually identical to that of its game counterpart. It was where Chip spoke to Tikal.

Trivia[]

  • When playing as Knuckles, Hidden Palace Zone is the shortest level in the game, as it is possible to effortlessly complete the level within 10-13 seconds. It is also the only act in the entirety of Sonic 3 & Knuckles that is possible to finish in under 30 seconds without exploiting glitches, Debug Mode or cheat devices like the Game Genie. This also makes it one of the shortest, if not the shortest, Act in the Classic series if not the entire Sonic series in general. However, it is also one of a handful of Acts in the game that does not tally up the players score upon completion.
  • Hidden Palace Zone is based off of a deleted zone of the same name from Sonic the Hedgehog 2, although that is considered a separate location as it would have likely been located on West Side Island (as the 2013 remaster of the game reveals).
  • The prophetic mural in the background when the player is fighting Knuckles actually foreshadows the final boss fight in The Doomsday Zone.
  • In the original version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, several glitches may occur throughout the cutscene where Eggman steals the Master Emerald if the player looks up to pan the camera upwards, then proceed to fight Knuckles with Tails airlifting Sonic to keep the camera at this raised postion. (When Tails tires, Sonic should jump off of Tails and use the Lightning Shield's Double Jump ability while Tails should land, then immediately fly back up to catch Sonic to keep him airborne). If the player immediately moves into the emeralds' shrine where the cutscene begins, Knuckles will be absent from the entire scene and Eggman will be hovering in place at the location where he would normally electrocute Knuckles. The player character can hit Eggman as many times as they want and if the player hits him 256 times, he poofs into a Flicky like his Badniks. Whenever the player jumps or if they use Debug Mode and put an object in, Dr. Eggman's sprite will be displayed on it. The game is still effectively softlocked by this point, preventing the player from completing the level regularly.
    • If the player waits for a small period of time before moving into the emeralds' shrine, Eggman will either "steal" nothing, or either the magenta or aquamarine Chaos/Super Emerald instead of the Master Emerald. If the player has not obtained that emerald's corresponding Super Emerald, they will be taken to a Special Stage if they try to jump onto Eggman and land on the emerald. After the Special Stage, the game will place the player back on Angel Island Zone Act 1, the game will buzz and the ground will rise up before turning red. The sound of the Flying Battery will play, and the game will crash and reset itself.
  • If the player uses Debug Mode to reach the emeralds' shrine without fighting Knuckles, they can still jump onto a gray Emerald (if any) to play that Emerald's Special Stage. Upon finishing it, the game will place the player on Angel Island Zone Act 1. The Act is initially is filled with water, which drains out over time, while Sonic's sprite is garbled. This visual oddity lasts until the end of Act 2 (even though Sonic will still appear as his normal self when entering a Bonus Stage). In this phase, the game is very prone to crash (which is indicated by the graphics distorting and covering the screen) and reset itself. If the player enters Debug Mode then descends downards, the game can reset (without any visual cues to indciate the game is crashing), return to the title screen then upon selecting Sound Test, the player will be able to play as "blue Knuckles" (represented with the character number 80).
  • In the Sonic Origins remaster of Sonic 3 & Knuckles (specifically the Nintendo Switch version), a softlock glitch can sometimes occur during Mirror Mode: when fighting Knuckles as Super/Hyper Sonic, upon defeating Knuckles, the screen will remain locked in place even after Knuckles runs off, completely halting the players progress until the act is restarted.
  • After the first Warp Point, there is a secret area that only Tails (or Sonic with Tails) can reach without using Debug Mode, consisting of two ledges either side of a large gap. This contains 20 rings, invincibility, an extra life, a speed boost and all three kinds of shields.
  • In the Sound Test option, it is considered the fourth act of Lava Reef (the Lava Reef boss fight area is coded under "Lava Reef 3").
  • This Zone uses the same theme that plays during the second act of the Lava Reef Zone.
    • In the beta versions of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, this Zone uses Sky Sanctuary's theme.
  • The Hidden Palace Zone appears as a part of the Sonic the Hedgehog Adventure World in LEGO Dimensions. It contains a puzzle in which the player must memorize the order that the Super Emeralds light up in and mimic it.
  • In Sonic Mania's Debug Mode Level Select, the Hidden Palace Zone portion of Lava Reef is listed as Act 3 of the Zone.
  • This is the first of 4 zones in Sonic & Knuckles (and Sonic 3 & Knuckles) to not feature Giant rings.

Gallery[]

Concept artwork[]

Screenshots[]

Gallery


Music[]

Name Artist(s) Length Music track
"Lava Reef Zone Act 2" Masayuki Nagao 1:43

Notes[]

  1. In the original version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Tails' transformation with the seven Super Emeralds was referred to as "Super Tails". In the Sonic Origins remaster, this has been renamed as "Hyper Tails" to avoid confusion with Super Tails, a transformation achieved with Tails having all seven Chaos Emeralds. The "Super Tails" transformation in Sonic Origins was not present in the original version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 Sonic & Knuckles (Sega Genesis) United States instruction booklet, pg. 14.
  2. (in Japanese) ソニックジャム オフィシャルガイド. SoftBank. October 2, 1997. p. 86. ISBN 978-4797303377. "From Sonic Team: From here, it's sacred territory that only Knuckles can enter. Hidden Palace is the resting place of the Master Emerald, and Sky Sanctuary is above Angel Island, no one has gone there. On a side note, the Eggman Robos coming from the back is an expansion of the software."

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