How to Cheat at Sonic 3 Using Sonic 2 

This is the type of secret that your one friend in the 90s did one time and told you about and you totally didn’t believe him.

Funny fact: The first X-Men game for Genesis requires you to press your reset button at Mojo stage in order to proceed to the last stage.

In Sonic 2, you can get all the Chaos Emeralds in Emerald Hill 1, doing the Bonus Stage and hitting the reset button over and over. The emeralds you got remain saved somewhere in RAM. I discovered it by accident pressing reset after the first successful bonus stage.

When playing the sounds in the sound test, you don't have to wait for the whole song to finish. I used to blaze through it as a kid - as long as you don't play each sound more than once, but that's not hard, even at speed.

If you have Sonic & Knuckles, you can input a button combo on the swing things in Angel Island Act 1 and that also activates the Sound Test/Level Select (IIRC it's the same directional inputs at the title screen of standalone Sonic 3 that you tried toward the beginning of the video). It's much safer than ripping cartridges out of your console.

to sum up this alternative route You're Too Slooow

The reason the timing is fucky is because the button presses during that Sega logo are accepted every few frames with the title loading

I am technologically illiterate but god damn does he make this sound interesting

The reset button only resets the 68K and Z80 chips. Ram is in a separate chip so when you press reset the main cpu goes back and starts from "address 0" but the ram doesnt get cleared so if the game itself doesnt check the address or set its value at the begining, it stays like that until it gets read. In that other game it would be weird if that behavious wasnt coded in. You cant predict the value of ram. Ram doesnt clear completely when powered down, it may or may not, it takes some time to reset entirely to 00000000 so most likely the game has a checksum to detect if its the first run from being off and if the memory is garbled it will fail and start the game normally, otherwise it will asume the current level value is correct and resume from that level. Its not so much that the ram stays between resets but that the game wasncoded to take advantage if that behaviours. You can do that on a genesis because it works with physical addresses, on a pc its all virtual addresses, so even if a program sees the same addresses it most likely isnt in the same place it was last time so you cant expect the same trick to work and modern OS even randomise thevvirtual addresses so it wont be in the same place and all the rwst of the things will also not match at all.

I remember trying this as a kid, and i could also never get to the test screen in Sonic 3. Even though i'm in a PAL region so the frequency is slower on the Mega Drive (thus the game is running slower), never got it. So i did the trick with Sonic 2 a couple of times, until my mom saw me doing it and thought it would destroy the game or console so i was in trouble :P.

When I bought my copy of Sonic 3 a few months ago, the employees at the store were trying to enter the D-Pad code. I bought the cartridge before they could do it

Help, there's a dancing hand in the video!

Terminator 2 for Genesis actually uses this quirk of the system: at one point you actually need to reset the console to get to the last level. So developers where very aware of RAM persistence between resets, I think :D Learned this trivia on a AVGN episode years ago!

19 65 09 17 so many memories. :)

just play sonic 3 and knuckles. That has an easier code.

I had no clue you could do the trick that way. That is really cool. The trick to this cheat code is to keep mushing Up after the Up Up Down Down pattern. I don't know the technical details but I think when Sonic is appearing on screen the game slows down and eats inputs. So as soon as the Sega logo darkens press Up Up Down Down quickly and then keep mashing up. Holding the controller the way you did in the beginning of the video helps a lot as well. I did the code repeatedly on a 6 button controller and since you mentioned input lag I should say that I pulled it off on a CRT. If that works for you I would love to know. Best of luck to you on pulling off the inputs for the code.

4:27 You really understated the importance of Yuji Naka to the Sonic franchise.

I used to be able to get the Sonic 3 sound test menu pretty consistently when I was younger. Maybe that could be down to me being in a PAL region, so the game is slightly slower, meaning the window of opportunity isn't as tight. A tip I once read about getting it to work is to keep pressing up after the initial up, up, down, down presses instead of just the 4 you're required to do.

6:50 That hurt my soul. I felt it's pain, poor Genesis.

Don't feel bad about not getting the Sonic 3 code. You may have tried it fr 45 minutes, but I've been trying it for 20 some-odd years and still haven't managed to pull it off successfully.

You can also get level select, by using those swinging things you can swing on, then pressing up up up, left left left, right right right, up up up. Then you should hear the ring sound, then press start, and then A. Do the same to get debug mode.

If you had time to try the normal level select button combo for 45 minutes, then in that time you could have played through most of Sonic 3. =P

What’s wrong with your Genesis!?!? It’s missing it’s 32X! 😰 interesting bit. Always blows me alway that this stuff is even discovered.

If you have a copy of Sonic & Knuckles handy, there's a far easier and less risky level select exploit when locked on with Sonic 3. When playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in Angel Island Act 1, swing on one of the vines (I use the one near the first Special Stage Ring), and input Left Left Left Right Right Right Up Up Up, you should hear a chime (the ring collection noise) if done correctly. Press A+Start to restart the game to Title Screen, and the Sound Test option should be there. The same inputs also work to activate level select when playing Sonic & Knuckles solo. While hanging on one of the pulleys in Mushroom Hill Zone do the same.

In my childhood playing flicky with my cousins, i remember that we used to a level select trick that can be explaind with this. We waiting the game run the demo mode and when we start the game, its started on the level of the demo insted of lvl1 =D

When I play Sonic 3 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, I don't worry about cheating. I just get the emeralds, Super Sonic, Super Knuckles, Hyper Sonic, Hyper Knuckles and Super Tails the regular way. As for Sonic 2 and Knuckles in Sonic 2, since those games do not have any save features, I would use the level select and Super Sonic/Super Knuckles/All Chaos Emeralds codes for cheating because the half-pipe special stages are a pain in the butt to beat.

there is another interest thing if you do that selecting special stage on S3 level select(i dont remember if really was special stage) and you do the same trick to go back to Sonic 2 cartridge, it shows the Hidden Palace icon, you can press start to access level, but the game freezes, i have done this when i was a kid too.

6 year old me is fuckin pissed. Of all the times I’ve tried the sonic 3 cheat as a kid, I got it to work ONE time and then never again.

9:48 If you ever owned and played X-Men for Genesis, you'd of known that the reset button on the Genesis doesn't quickly power-cycle the console (like turning off/on the console), instead it keeps info in memory as in one of the levels in the X-Men game dead-ended (Mojo Stage) and required players to reset the Genesis to proceed. So it's sorta like Target Earth as you mentioned except it's taken to a whole new level of epic development, as pressing reset caused the Genesis to load the game back up into a special sequence and progress the story (cut scenes) and continue to the next level. It's an amazing thing the developers did for that game.. Luckily as a kid, I reset the console and discovered the trick to beat the level, but I'd imagine a ton of people probably in frustration powered off their genesis thinking it glitched out and level wasn't ending... because the devs didn't provide any message or indication that you had to reset your genesis. So it's essentially by chance that they expected the players to hit reset to keep playing/try again, rather than power off the system in frustration/anger. Good thing it was a good game for the time and caused me to hit the reset button to try or play again, as I'd imagine if it were a bad game, most players would probably just shut it off and never discover the secret to beating the level.

I wasn't aware that a reset on the Genesis was a soft reset, and the contents of RAM remained. Very cool tidbit about Target Earth! One assumes that the Sonic 3 level select can be access by passing the correct values to RAM via a Game Genie cartridge as well.

Just... Do the hanging code in Angel Island. Up up up, down down down, left left left, right right right.

In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, there's another trick to get this menu : -Start a save file with any character -Go to the little rope section of the beginning of Angel Island Act 1 -Jump on a rope -Press Left Left Left Right Right Right Up Up Up (you'll hear a ring sound) -Press Start and then A to reset the game -Scroll down to see Sound Test -Select your stage and have fun :p

I knew that a reset doesn't clear the memory but the most interesting part of this I guess is that the level select enable address stayed the same between the two games, despite the methods drastically changing. But I guess that makes sense. They most likely built Sonic 3 from the Sonic 2 data and just changed stuff as needed, so the code that tells the game to show that menu was kept the same.

Stop N Swop for Sonic?

I still try to enter the Sonic 3 level select code every time I play it. I managed to do it once as a kid long after S&K was out.

Damn! That is insane! Who the hell discovered that?! Moreover, the fact that it was even deliberately created as an easter egg is just phenomenal. Did they ever expect anyone to discover it? The fact that this even exists is mind blowing.

When I tried this trick, it actually deleted my save data on the cartridge for Sonic 3 alone. My Sonic 3 and Knuckles data seemed to be correct though, so I might have done the trick incorrectly, leading to that issue. Fortunately, my copy still saves without any problems, so it's not like I had to get another copy.

Target Earth was a hard game. Never beat it as a kid. Finally beat it a few years back. Knowing i could panic reset to start a level again might have helped all those years ago.

That cheat frustrated me so much to the point where I just bought a Game Genie....the code D3AT-AR2E will enable the sound menu on Sonic 3

I have found it easier to do these codes with the SEGA 6 button controller as the D-Pad is way less mushy and more accurate, it seems. Trying different controllers can make all the difference. I am not as brave as you to risk my original Genesis with hot swapping as I know first hand that chips can get fried in the process. I am glad you acknowledged that it is risky as there are many other RU-vidrs that do similar things and don't warn their audience.

@This Does Not Compute I Think this is A Sega Version of Stop n’ Swop!

so you're telling me with 5 sec reset you weren't able to pull the level select of? i tried for three minutes in an emulator and got it twice, once by tapping up in the end to many times. seems like if you get the first part right it doesn't matter how many times you press up. should've given it half an hour at least :P

No you dont need to let the songs play through

Didn't have enough time to play through the game but spent 45 minutes trying to enter a cheat code. Oh, people crack me up with their shenanigans sometimes!

Sonic 2 Is a ROM hack of sonic 1 Sonic 3 is a ROM hack of sonic 2 Sonic n knuckles is extra space to complete sonic 3.

This is the next level of hacking

I remember pulling this off on accident once. It still didn't make Sonic 3 any easier but it was cool to have that working that way. I've never had any issue with getting the cheat code to work though...

Couldn’t you just use the swing code on Angle Island?

I don’t wanna break my console!

Talking about that, on N64, there was the feature that Rare would use on Banjo-Kazzoie and on the sequel called "Stop n' Swap", that something that the player got on Banjo-Kazooie would be transfered to Banjo-Tooie to unlock bonus, these would be possible because older models of N64 would keep information on RAM for about 10~15 sec. after the system off, but Nintendo found out about that and "fixed" the memory issue (they were worried that players could damaged the console doing the Stop N' Swap), so Rare had to drop the feature on the game. If I am not mistaken, on Mega Drive/Genesys emulators have the option of "Soft reset"...

Haha omg yes! I remember my father came in my room, and thought my SEGA was broken, cause he heard the same thing over and over again for like 45 minutes after I kept resetting!! Trying to get that UP UP, DOWN DOWN, UP UP UP UP to work!! Lolz haa! >;D

You don't have to wait for the 4 sounds to play in full you can just do it quick. Also you can use a Game Genie cart (if you have one) to get to the level select in Sonic 3 easier. Also I wonder if you can carry over the Sonic 2 Debug code to Sonic 3 1,9,9,2,1,1,2,4

Thats why good Mega Drive emulators have option for Soft Reset and Hard Reset. I knew the level select code for Sonic 3, but never managed to do it. Using Sonic 3 & Knuckles is much easier and safer.

You can jump on a vine and hit 3x Left, 3x Right, 3x Up and then A + Start in Sonic 3 and Knuckles. I'm not sure if it works in Sonic 3 standalone.

Funny you make so many sonic video's ... Are you sonic fan.... I DO !! :D Sonic 1 had that Debug mode to....:D

It worked, thx man💚

Genesis aka Mega Drive

Is arbitrary code execution still arbitrary if it's programmed in deliberately...?

I don't remember the code being very difficult, I did it on my Sega Nomad nearly every single time I started the game as a kid lol. I also remember doing some code (all the time) that involved me taking tails to the 2nd swing in level 1 and doing a button combination, wich then let me reset from the pause menu. Probably debug mode. Also, Target Earth is just Assault Suit Leynos. There's like 3 sequels and a couple remakes if you enjoyed it.

I remember that when You pressed start and other button in stage selection menu You started as like an edit mode and You could put as many rings You wanted or even one of those tv's things that turns You in supersonic.. also, You could take your time on changing the cartridge, even change back to Sonic 2 or to Sonic and knuckles..

This was super interesting actually, great video.

Ive only gotten the level select to work on Sonic 3 ONE TIME and that was after trying it a hundred times at least and that was in like 2000 and i was so taken aback that it finally worked bc for the longest, I thought it was a scam.

This was something I did ALL the time. Guess what, it works for other games too. Cheat with Sonic 2 and pop in streets of Rage 2. Not that the cheat for Sonic 3 is that hard to begin with. In streets of Rage 2 you got an awesome Ultra hard level using this technique.

Wait, during the fade in? I always did it by starting the game, running to the first swinging bar in Angel Island over the first special ring, and put it in while swinging on it there. The game would then kick you back to the title screen upon doing it successfully.

You should be playing this on a CRT.

Hey guys, if there is a chance to break your system doing this, go buy a game genie for Sega genesis, can do this stuff and a lot more with no risk. Really cheap too (I gave mine for free when I sold my stuff)

Actually theres an easier way. Just dock sonic 3 into the sonic and knuckles cartridge. It gets you a super easy level select by just grabbing s vine in the first stage and entering a simple command.

The reset thing I had no clue. that is great info I wish I knew that in the 80s and 90s I love this. now I need to go back and play a bunch of games total restarts were a deal breaker for me as a child. Thanks!

I used to do this, mostly because I had a pirated version of sonic 3 and it had no sega logo, until I lost my (also pirated) copy of sonic 2 :(

sonic 1 up down left right a start. that is easy to do. i don't see how sonic 3 one would be any harder now. i like it better then sonic 2 which is not easy to remember at all.

What are you using to display that Genesis on that monitor?

Do the Sonic 2 code then insert Awesome Possum. You'll be very surprised at what happens at the main menu!

The X-men game on Genesis requires you to reset the genesis because you have to go to the final level from the Mojo level

UUDDUUUU was the bain of my childhood. Wore out a controller until I finally got the timing right.

This is awesome. Crazy how that works. I thought reset does quick power on off too as a kid

I had no idea that this was possible. I was never able to get the sound test option the original way either so I eventually gave up.

How did anyone figure this out?

Wh... What? Why would you go out of your way and potentionally corrupt save data when you could just use S3&K instead?

Interesting, the Sound Test selection in the Sonic 3 level select is set to #17 after swapping the carts, so the RAM address which holds the selection between Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 went unchanged, just like the flag for the level select menu's availability. Looking at Sonic 3's level select images, it's clear to see the developers used Sonic 2 as a starting point, so these shared RAM addresses are just a couple of many holdovers.

If u play sonic 3 AND KNUCKLES u can go in a stage (angel island) there’s these vinds and if u put in LEFT LEFT LEFT RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT UP UP UP then you’ll have stage select but not on sonic 3

Sonic 1 and 2 had BGM music for stages I couldn't find. Imma revisit my sega classics.

You do NOT need to let the song play all the way through. It takes about 5 seconds to put this code in.

I paused th video at 1:16. I STILL remember the cheat. Its Up,up,down,down,up,up,up,up. When the screen turns black and before sonic appears. You gotta be quick! Lol Thank you Tips&Tricks lol

In S3&K, you just have to latch onto a swing in Angle Island and press Left-Left-Left-Right-Right-Right-Up-Up-Up...

Holy shit, it’s Stop-N-Swap

You can actually do a similar trick with Super Mario Bros & Tennis for NES, where the number of steps you take in Tennis determines what world you start on in SMB, this was one of the main ways to get access to the 256 "hidden worlds" in the game, but sadly only worked on Famicoms and top-loaders that didn't have the lockout chip though (source: legendsoflocalization.com/super-mario-bros/misc/, "Persistence Pays Off" section)

There is a other code. Go to Angel Island and go to the first swing. Press Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, Up and press start and A. It's much easier if you don't have a copy of Sonic 2.

Some ways of sonic 3 level select and debug mode 1. Go on a swing in Angel island and swing LLL RRR and UUU 2. For debug mode do the same of mushroom hill 3. For super sonic you have debug mode place a s monitor and step on it and you turn super form. It happens same with Sonic 3 Complete but for debug mode the faster way of S3C is 1 3 5 and 7

Basically, Sonic 1 / 2 / 3 / &K all have a "is debug menu enabled" variable address with the same value. Writing game code for genesis involved tons of hand-optimized code writing, and that included arranging variables by the most efficient memory alignment rules. Probably since this variable was aligned at it's address for this very same reason, they never bothered to do a botched job that is to rewrite an already optimized code just to make it impossible to cheat with one game, using another one. Oh, and the thing about replacing Sonic 2 cartridge with Sonic 3 fast enough or the game crashes - it's the music streaming (I'm too lazy to explain this here, so you will need to google it). When the current music part that is stream-loaded at the moment finishes playing, the next part needs to be loaded. You need to change cartridge BEFORE that moment. This also means that if after enabling the cheat mode you play any SFX 1 time, you can potentially change the cartridge at your leisure, at any time and without problems.

This is interesting, but it's dangerous as you said. It might damage your cartridge since the console is using it while you swap it. Although I don't know how high the risk is. Usually the RAM is clear when powering it down, but have in mind that it doesn't just clear right away. It takes some time. I don't know if the reset button cuts the power to the RAM, but even if it cuts the power, it might not be enough time for the RAM to clear properly. Same thing happens on computers. I remember resetting my computer and getting graphical glitches on Linux where I could see the Windows XP shutdown screen before loading my desktop. Since the screen didn't fit in the VGA memory region, it probably kept all that information somewhere else, didn't properly clear upon reset, and then the OS copied from it when it glitched. This is also a concern when talking about security because even if you restart your computer, sometimes you might still retain information in the memory that can be sensitive. The reason why it works even if some of the old information is still in the memory, in case someone is wondering, is because the computer (or in this case the console, which is a computer anyways) doesn't care about what's in the memory once it boots the BIOS of the system, it just copies whatever it has to copy in the memory on top of whatever is there and carry on as usual. Videogames work like computer programs and that's because they are computer programs. They are software, the same as the software you use in your computer. It just uses a different format and encoding depending on which architecture (CPU) is running on. I have to mention the "Stop-n-Swop" feature in Banjo-Kazooie for the N64, which was basically this. You would collect some hidden items in Banjo-Kazooie, get the Banjo-Tooie cartridge, swap them rapidly, and then soft reset. And the information would transfer from one cartridge to the other assuming you weren't too slow swapping them and you didn't break your cartridge while doing so. However this feature got scrapped since the time frame to swap them was way too small.

Fun fact: At 7:06 The sound test is still selected on 17 which was the last sound played in sonic 2

Well yeah, of a games console is a computer, a specialised computer sometimes super computer. Calculating graphics especially on 3 plains very compute intensive. That's why specialist graphics hardware is needed. For its time the megadrive was a beast combined with video processor revolutionary 68k cpu and fast system bus, it easily beat the SNES which could of been better but for bad system architecture and painfully slow CPU.

This could also have something to do with error handling. Jon Burton (who creates wonderful videos on his GameHut channel) talked about something like this in one of his video's. I thought it was a video about Sonic 3D Blast, but I'm not sure about that. Maybe you could ask him about it? He has very extensive knowledge about the Genesis and probably can provide you with some insights.

This was my favorite trick from back in the day! SEGA Technical Institute built Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 off of the same code. Does anybody know why the Level Select music switches to a different instrument/slightly changes after you leave the console on for a long time? These games created script kiddies from early on...

I was never able to get the level select on the original Sonic 3 either. I wish I knew about this trick back then. Like I knew about the Sonic 2 code, I just never thought about combining the two. Another thought about RAM: There's an X-Men game for the Genesis where, at some point near the end, you destroy a computer (possibly Magneto's?) and an error screen pops up. You're actually supposed to hit the reset button on your Genesis to reset said computer to continue the game. I remember thinking I broke the game when I was a kid, until a game magazine pointed that out later.

You do NOT need to do it that quickly. What you should do is after unlocking level select, go to level select. Then, hold the A button, and without resetting or turning off the console, slowly replace the cartridge with sonic 3, as to not break something. While still holding, press reset, and once the sonic 3 title screen has finished its animation, you can let go of the A button and the sound test will be there.

Good memories, I used to do that cartridge swap exploit every time I wanted to fool around Sonic 3. The normal code I only managed to a few couple times. Always thought that pressing the buttons on the rhythm of the beat helped. Dunno if that really works. Also, on Sonic 2 there is a similar code to Sonic 3. I found by accident, and am not really sure if it is the same. However, if you put the code, somewhere between the black screen with "Sonic Team presents" and the flash that shows the South Island in the title screen you will hear the "ring sound". It doesn't do much, as far I could see it only swaps Tails name for Miles and vice-versa wherever aplicable. Sorry for being too vague about how to do it, but as I said, I did as an accident a long time ago and never saw anyone talking about it anywhere. ^^'

I’d be weary of this trick if you care about saves, I accidentally wiped my sram once when I knocked the cart. Personally, long term I’d either look at getting a game genie or a flash cart with game genie support (which means you can also play Sonic3C). If source is available, I know it is for other sonic md/gen games, it may also be possible to recompile the game with level select/debug mode permanently enabled. Can be done with at least S2.

Neat-o! Another 'Cartridge Swap' trick! The first one I found about back in the day was putting Space Harrier II on the options screen, removing the cart, then inserting Revenge of Shinobi, and the title-screen changing to 'The Super Shinobi'. There were a few others (games) where this worked, but that's been so long ago I don't recall what they were. And as far as I know - I've never heard of anyone bricking their system trying this. Then again, I think people thought it was too risky to even try.

11:00 Hmm, we need to make this genre easier to describe, preferably with a catchy name... Scoot 'n' Shoot? Go-Fast 'n' Blast? Any ideas? :)