Sonic 3 & Knuckles Part 6: Launch Base Zone (Super Sonic & Tails) + Infinite 1-UPs Trick
1,309Launch Base's music is also a song that got changed in S3&K's PC version due to it's connection to a Micheal Jackson song.
11/17/2019 UPDATE: I just learned from a recently-released beta of Sonic 3 that this MJ track was a replacement track for the PC music that was the original version of Launch Base's theme all along!
Act 1 only has 3 Special Stage rings. One of them are easily found when Tails is used, because the Act's first elevator will take him to a different route where it can be found from there. Sonic and Knuckles can reach this big ring, too, but they'll have to take a long way around to get there.
Act 2 has at least 4 rings. One of them can only be found in Knuckles' route. There should be one in the Sonic/Tails route that I missed.
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Back in Sonic 2, Sonic was last seen destroying the Death Egg and the Death Egg Robot Eggman used there. Turns out that through this game, the Death Egg was only harshly damaged, but not entirely destroyed. It can be seen in the background of Act 1 getting tremendous repairs so that it can be relaunched back into space.
Near the very end of Act 2 and its massive plumbing system (and thus, the FINAL level in this entire game with water in it!), Sonic uses Eggman's Egg Mobile to board the rocket carrying the Death Egg into space after it has completed its repairs. When the Eggman boss on the rocket is defeated, the Death Egg falls once again.
At that point, if this game was just Sonic 3 on its own, the Death Egg would explode and the game would end from there. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, this only means that the first half of the game is over. The rest of the levels lead the ones featured in the standalone Sonic & Knuckles. This also means that this is the last you will see of Super Sonic in this playthrough, but for what will happen in the next video for this playthrough, that's gonna be made up for in a very good way.
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Did I already mention that Launch Base Act 2 is also the last level in this game with water? After this, the rest of the game will be completely dry after witnessing that 5 of Sonic 3's six zones have submerged areas in one or both of their acts, which also thankfully means that you'll never have to worry about hearing that damn drowning theme for the rest of the game.
This ends up making Sonic & Knuckles on its own one of the only (if not THE only) mainline Sonic games in existence to completely lack any water themes and hazards. The Water Shield will still have some use, though. It can deflect projectiles and it lets you bounce like a basketball if you're Sonic.
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A few seconds into the video, to activate the "Infinite Lives" trick, just stand between those sirens and charge a Spin Dash. A Flybot767 will always appear and nosedive at you, knowing that it'll just kill itself.
First, the points will go from 100 to 200 to 500 to 1000. After the first twelve 1000 points, they will then rise to 10000, the highest they will go!
From there, you can quickly gain more lives from every 50000 points into your Score by continuing this streak. What the game does to build up these points is to keep track of how many enemies you jump on without landing, or how many you spin through without stopping. You can even carry your tally from rolling into jumping, but it all resets back to 100 points as soon as you hit the ground.
For that, I consider this more of a trick than a full-on glitch. This is pointless in Sonic 3 by itself, since its game data doesn't save lives. I'd only consider it handy for that game if you're not good at getting beating Launch Base (which is, for the record, a bit harder than it is in Sonic 3 & Knuckles).
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If you want to see the standalone Sonic 3 version of this Zone, which is the final part of that game, check the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E77K-FMyImI