Sonic Wiki Zone

Know something we don't about Sonic? Don't hesitate in signing up today! It's fast, free, and easy, and you will get a wealth of new abilities, and it also hides your IP address from public view. We are in need of content, and everyone has something to contribute!

If you have an account, please log in.

READ MORE

Sonic Wiki Zone
Register
Advertisement
Sonic Wiki Zone

This article contains a list of glitches from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Unless otherwise noted, all glitch names are conjectural. Many of them have not been confirmed by Sega.

List of glitches[]

Angel Island Zone music glitch[]

This glitch can be found shortly after the first encounter with Fire Breath. If the player enters and exits a Special Stage, the Zone's music would automatically change to Angel Island Zone Act 2's theme, although the title card states that it is still Act 1. Upon defeating Fire Breath at the end of the Act, however, Act 1's theme will play.

Vertical scroll[]

To perform this glitch, the player must press and hold down until the screen moves, then jump. This can be used to skip over bosses, return to the beginning of levels, and to go past the Knuckles-only walls in IceCap Zone Act 1 as Sonic (This is caused because the stage is so tall that it vertically loops infinitely, and instead of the stage's 0,0 in pixels being in its normal position (at the very top left of the stage), it is instead locked onto the camera. So when the player goes above the camera, it causes in a integer overflow, resulting in a very large positive number (65,535), so the camera rapidly moves to the players current position, and while in this state, all sprites are unloaded, allowing the player to move into them).

Upside down sprite[]

To perform this glitch, the player must be in Flying Battery Zone Act 1 as either Hyper Sonic or Super Tails, and travel to a point after the first magnetic section with two Blasters. Just before a Star Post, there is a switch which the player must fly/jump over to land on a raised ledge. Once there, they must continue forward until they get to a section where there are circles dug out of the ground with iron balls spinning around in them. The player should then push against the iron ball in the direction opposite of the one it is traveling in, and the character's sprite will then turn upside down.

Activate Tails's flying ability with Sonic & Tails[]

If the player holds the up button on Controlpadds with Tails standing next to them, jumps, and uses the Insta-Shield, Tails will sometimes use his flying ability. The chance of this happening slightly increases if the player has an elemental shield. With the Fire Shield active, Tails will fly very far up until his AI forces him to return.

Out of the Barrier[]

In a very rare and difficult case, it is possible to glitch out of the barrier for the Laser Prison in Flying Battery Zone. This glitch can only be performed with Hyper Sonic. After the player hits the laser, they have to perform the Hyper Flash. The timing needed for this is extremely precise, but if performed correctly, Sonic will glitch out of the left side.

It is also possible to glitch out the right side and move to the Egg Hanger, but this is more difficult to do. While on the path leading to the Egg Hanger, parts of the background sprites may be corrupted or the background may be all black. If this happens, it is likely that the normal background will rise up along with the platform.

Endless Spin Dash[]

This glitch can only be done in Sandopolis Zone and Carnival Night Zone. When the player is performing a Spin Dash charge on a break-away 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 Zone, 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 Spin Dash, the dust will stay behind the character and the same thing from Sandopolis will occur.

Speedy death in Carnival Night Zone[]

There is a corner in Carnival Night Zone Act 1 where, if Sonic is going too fast, he will clip into the floor and die.

Knuckles fights the Egg Gravitron[]

If the player takes the default path as Knuckles in Carnival Night Zone, the Capsule will not appear and the end of Act 2 and the player will not be able to go through the teleporter and advance to IceCap Zone. If this happens, the player will be forced to climb up the tunnel that Sonic and Tails take and must fight the Egg Gravitron, piloted by the Eggrobo. After the boss, the player can jump into the cannon and be blasted into IceCap Zone. Knuckles will still be shown entering the stage through the teleporter.

The Doomsday Zone with corrupted sprites[]

This glitch can only be performed using the Level Select cheat code. It is possible to enter The Doomsday Zone as Super Tails or Super/Hyper Knuckles, although their sprites will be corrupted, and Super Tails will not lose Rings. The only way to avoid the sprite corruption outside of hacking is to enter and exit Debug Mode rapidly (by pressing Sega Genesis B Button twice).

Tails' invisible air Spring[]

In Flying Battery Zone, if the player jumps on an Capsule with a spring on top, Tails will follow. When the player is launched upward, Tails will also be launched, even though he did not touch the spring.

Knuckles vs. Dr. Robotnik[]

When playing as Knuckles, the player can fight any of the bosses and then die. When they fight the boss again, the pilot will be Robotnik instead of the EggRobo.

This glitch was fixed in Sonic Origins.

The Hyudoros are ANGRY[]

Sonic 3 & Knuckles NES Hyudoros

Using Debug Mode as Sonic and/or Tails, the player must go to Sandopolis Zone Act 2, and activate said mode to skip the section where the player frees the Hyudoros in the Capsule; instead, they must go to the area where the Egg Golem is fought. Here, it should be noted that the room does not get light, and part of the golem is invincible, leaving Robotnik exposed, though the hitbox and the boss itself work as normal. Additionally, the player should note some Hyudoros appearing. These Hyudoros will have a broken color palette, giving them a red outline that makes them look rather uncanny-looking. The player can also use Debug Mode to leave the boss area, where they will notice some side-effects: the background will appear glitched and orage in color, and most gimmicks will appear broken. If the player activates a light switch, the background will return back to normal, but the gimmicks and the Hyudoros will still look glitched. However, both still work as normal.

This glitch cannot be performed using Knuckles due to him already having the Hyudoros free in Sandopolis Zone Act 2.

Blue Knuckles[]

Blue Knuckles

After entering the glitched Angel Island Zone, the player should activate Debug Mode, and follow the water all the way downwards until the game resets itself. Sometimes, the game goes to a blank white screen and later resets as well. After the automated reset, they must go back to the Level Select, and if the numbers 80, 81, or 82 are seen, the glitch is successful. They can then go to any Act and a blue Knuckles will appear. He cannot go through certain sections of a stage without the aid of Debug Mode, and when he reaches the Knuckles cutscene trigger in Hidden Palace Zone the game will crash. Blue Knuckles has an immediate transformation between Super and Hyper, but he will be yellow with glitched afterimages and lack the ability to breathe underwater. When he reverts to normal, he will become Knuckles with Red Sonic appearing on the signpost. He is referred to as Sonic in the live counter, but Tails, (with a glitched sprite to the side) in the completion blurbs after clearing an Act or getting a Chaos/Super Emerald.

Turquoise Knuckles[]

Sonic 3 & Knuckles Turquoise Knuckles

To perform this glitch, the player has to activate Debug Mode and go to Knuckles' version of Sky Sanctuary Zone (represented as that Zone's Act 2 in the Level Select). There, they must defeat Super Mecha Sonic Mk. II and activate the credits sequence. For some reason, if they activate and then deactivate Debug Mode, the playable Knuckles will appear, but will be uncontrollable. Once the Tornado is gone though, the player must place an S monitor with Debug Mode, break it, and then activate and deactivate Debug Mode. The result will be a recolored Knuckles, with the color palette of the clouds in the background, giving him turquoise fur and blue shoes. If the player breaks another S monitor, Knuckles will have his red fur back, but will still have the miscolored shoes. Additionally, the clouds will have a red outline, giving them a rather creepy look.

Score/Ring Sonic[]

This glitch can only be performed in Angel Island Zone with Debug Mode enabled. When the player is in Debug Mode, they can bypass boundaries. They can abuse it to bypass the Act 1 boss and move on to Act 2 without any boss fight. They must use it to enter the inside of a loop and cause their death. When they respawn, they will have a corrupted Ring sprite instead of Sonic. If the player beats Fire Breath using that corrupted character without any additional use of Debug Mode, Sonic's sprite will not return to normal. This means that the player can go on through Act 2 with him in this state. However, going to Hydrocity Zone changes him back to normal.

The glitched character has a Hyper Form, although there are no changes upon entering it outside of a blue spiky Sonic palette.

The reason this only works in Angel Island Zone is because there is no way to bypass the boundaries, since the Act 2 maps will be loaded on the character's standing position. Additionally, when the Fire Breath switches the sprites and colors of the Zone, Act 2 begins to load. This also explains the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 only glitch that changes the music to Act 2 when entering a bonus stage and exiting.

Level warp[]

There are two methods of performing this glitch. The first is to defeat Knuckles in Hidden Palace Zone while using Tails to help Sonic stay above the ground. After defeating the echidna this way, the player will have full control over Sonic in the cutscene where Knuckles tries to stop Dr. Robotnik from taking the Master Emerald. The other method is to use Debug Mode to bypass everything and reach this point. If the player jumps into one of the deactivated Super Emeralds, they will enter a Special Stage (there is a possibility that the eighth Sonic & Knuckles Special Stage will be loaded). If they touch a Red Sphere to exit, the results screen will show up as usual (or if the second method was chosen, the background will have four rings on each side of the screen), although after the score is done racking up, the game will warp the player to the last Giant Ring they touched.

Angel Island Zone warp crash[]

To perform this glitch, the player must first use the Level Warp Glitch. If no Giant Rings were touched, they will end up back in Angel Island Zone, but the screen will be positioned far above the normal starting part of Act 1. The camera will then glitch downward while the game plays a buzzing sound. After some time, the color of the grass will turn red and the sound for the airship from Act 2 will play. The game will then crash.

Bonus/Doilus stage crash[]

Dolius Stage

The corrupted title card, note the glitched Emerald sprites.

There is a small chance that performing the Level Warp without touching any Giant Rings will cause a strange sound to play, making a corrupted Bonus Stage title card saying "Doilus Stage" appear on-screen and crash the game. There is a possibility that the text displayed will be different, such as "Cohtil Ilrage" or "ROU*V V*ORSE."

Ring number glitch[]

If the player somehow obtains more than 999 Rings by breaking S Monitors, instead of going to 1,000, the game will pick a different HUD sprite in place its place ("i.e" E49 Rings).

Crashing into Sonic & Knuckles (S Monitor Overload)[]

To perform this glitch, the player must go to any level (excluding The Doomsday Zone) with Debug Mode enabled. They should then place a large number of S Monitors down and roll into them to enter their Super Form while gaining a large number of Rings. They must repeat the process until the controls become locked. After the controls are locked, they should push start, and the game will take them into Sonic & Knuckles. However, if the player presses Sega Genesis A Button + Directional-Pad-Up on the title screen, they will be taken to the Sonic 3 & Knuckles Level Select menu instead of the Sonic & Knuckles-only version. When activating the glitch, there is a chance that the game will make corrupted sprites appear, and will usually reset itself if this happens.

Loopbacks[]

After the ending of every Act is a loopback. In these loopbacks, the Acts have most of their objects removed, and the ones that are not removed do nothing; for example, spikes that are not removed do not hurt the player, nor does lava in Lava Reef Zone. Additionally, loops do not work, as well as some other glitches. Some loopbacks are normally accessible, while some can only be accessed with Debug Mode, and some cannot be accessed at all. After each loopback is another loopback, which continues until the character's coordinates max out. The game will then restart the stage at the proper location.

All other loopbacks are inaccessible, normally because the screen locks too early. One exception is IceCap Zone Act 1, where it is inaccessible because when the player moves far enough to the right before the Big Icedus, Act 2 loads almost immediately (this can be averted by performing the checkpoint glitch). Additionally, Lava Reef Zone Act 1's loopback may appear to be inaccessible, but there is a glitch that allows the player to move further to the right after the Act is completed; doing this will cause Act 2 to not load. Hacking with a Game Genie to remove the screen lock will allow all other loopbacks to be accessible.

Hydrocity Zone Act 2 clip[]

This glitch takes place in Hydrocity Zone, after entering Act 2. When the player gets to the section before the first 1-Up monitor, by jumping and rolling sporadically against some of the walls (specifically by using the invincibility frames one gets during the Insta-Shield), they can bypass them by having the moving wall push Sonic through them. The result of this is, however, is that the player will get stuck above the wall, and the only way out will be to either leave the game or wait for a Time Over.

Mushroom Hill Zone Switch Glitch[]

This glitch takes place in Mushroom Hill Zone. If, during Sonic's or Tails' playthrough, the player was to stand on the Switch to open the door immediately after the Knuckles cutscene in a certain way, they can make the Switch cycle between pressed and non-pressed every frame, which makes the Switch's animation and sound effect spaz out.

Angel Island Zone Airlift Sprite Glitch[]

During the cutscene where Knuckles steals the Chaos Emeralds, its possible for Tails to air-lift the player during the cutscene. When moving past Knuckles, it can cause some sprite errors.

Vice versa[]

It is possible for Sonic to enter Knuckles' second Act in Angel Island Zone. To perform this glitch, they have to first enter a Special or Bonus Stage as this will unload the invisible barrier that is preventing the player from backtracking. They must then go to the area just before the fight against Fire Breath, then go onto the last spike and look up until the camera pans up. Have Tails fly the player until the spikes are off screen and then lower down until they pass through the spikes.

Once the player lands inside the wall, they should be careful not to move much in the horizontal axis as the barrier that kills Sonic when they try to bypass this wall is right next to them. Wait for Tails to rejoin and have him fly the player just slightly below the grass on top of the barrier. It will only kill the player if they touch its side. Walk to the left and the player should end up past the barrier and in Knuckles' Act 2. However, due to the camera normally not being this low, the stage will cut off early and lead to a bottomless pit.

The same can be done with Knuckles. While assuming Super Knuckles or Hyper Knuckles, jump up to the highest spot and glide to the top of the next set of spikes, which the player should climb up. If the boss has not been defeated here, it then will spawn Knuckles into boss arena and the player will not be able to attack. If the boss has already been defeated, then there will be no water in Sonic's Zone. When they player reaches the auto-scroll section, it will not auto-scroll. The path back will be blocked off, and there will be a barrier preventing the player from progressing.

Incorrect Angel Island Zone background color palette[]

Method 1 - Debug Mode[]

To perform this glitch, the player should play Angel Island Zone Act 1 with Debug Mode active as Sonic. At the beginning of the intro cutscene, the player should enable Debug Mode and select the S Monitor and place a few of them. Then, they should jump on these Monitors to become Hyper Sonic, though corrupted sprites will be shown for him. Then, they must have Debug Mode active before Super Sonic gets knocked out by Knuckles to avoid falling into a bottomless pit. Once Knuckles shows up, the player should deactivate Debug Mode, where Sonic will have corrupted sprites while standing still, running, and crouching. It should also be noted that Sonic will retain Hyper Sonic's speed, making him much faster than normal. Also, if the player goes to the right and follow Knuckles the background will appear corrupted, before coming back to normal once the title card appears.

Method 2 - Tails[]

In Angel Island Zone Act 1, play as Sonic and have the second player plays as Tails. In the first encounter with Knuckles, Tails must fly and carry Sonic to the left (make sure Tails does not get hit by any enemy) until Knuckles run away.

Data Select glitch[]

To perform this glitch, the player should play Hidden Palace Zone with Debug Mode active as Tails (with a Super Emerald in a Save Slot). In Hidden Palace Zone, the player then has to enable Debug Mode and go down to the glitched area of the map with the last two Pillars before the fight with Knuckles. There, enable Debug Mode and select the S Monitor. After placing a few of these monitors, Spin Jump on them to become Super Tails. The player should then face Knuckles in his boss fight. After defeating him, this will trigger the subsequent cutscene. When Knuckles jump in the cutscene however, the player has to quickly enable and disable Debug Mode quickly, and then go to the top of an inert Super Emerald to trigger a Special Stage. After the Special Stage, the player will then be teleported back to Angel Island Zone Act 1. Here, the player can see water flowing on the top of the Zone, while Tails will spawn in the top of the left corner of the map. After that, enable Debug Mode and place about 40~50 S Monitors on the most of the left. After placing all of these S monitors, there will be some lag from the monitors. After that, the player should go to the halfway of the grass line of the beginning of Angel Island Zone Act 1. There, pause and exit the game immediately. The player will then be sent back to the title screen. Starting the game from there will let the player see the corrupted and glitched Save Slots. The save slots will have Dr. Robotnik sprites and the Delete sign sprites as a character, corrupted Zone numbers and there are no life or Continue icons. Some of the Save Slot pictures and No Save mode Characters will stay the same though. However, if the player switches character in the New Save Slot, the victory sprites of Sonic, Tails and Knuckles will appear instead. Sometimes though, the Bonus Stages of the Save Slots will crash the game. When playing as Sonic or Tails, the gameplay will retain same as normal. However, playing as Knuckles will turn Knuckles into the "Blue Knuckles". This character has the same gameplay and HUD as Knuckles, but the life icon and text will refer to Sonic. Also, the picture will be corrupted in some Save Slot pictures.[1]

References[]

  1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles Debug Mode glitch, by attltb. YouTube. attltb (1 May 2011). Retrieved on 15 February 2022.
Advertisement