Sonic 3 And Knuckles Cheat Codes

[Katina Piccirilli]

Thispage contains a list of cheats, codes, Easter eggs, tips, and other secrets for Sonic & Knuckles for Genesis. If you've discovered a cheat you'd like to add to the page, or have a correction, please click EDIT and add it.

First go to Angel Island Zone and, while on a vine, press Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, Up. If it has been entered correctly, you will here a chime. Then press Start then A. At the Title Screen, scroll down to Sound Test and press Start. At the Sound Test screen, go to Mushroom Hill Zone and press Start. While on a ratchet machine, enter the same code you entered in Angel Island. You should here a chime. Again, press Start then A. At the Tiltle Screen again scroll down to Sound Test. At the Sound Test Screen select a zone while holding A. Hold until the name dissapears. You can check if you're in Debug Mode by pressing B. Your score should turn into hexadecimal characters. The controls are these:

To play the bonus rounds at any time, insert any game into your Sonic & Knuckles cartridge. When the "No Way" message appears, hold A + B + C and press Start. If you do this with the original Sonic game you can play the levels in order and will be given a password to save your progress.

Note: In case you're wondering, I've left out the passwords deliberately. There are over 32,000 bonus rounds in Sonic & Knuckles. I can't possibly list them all on the page, nor is there much point to doing so since the levels are nearly identical. Thank you.

Go to the level select screen and play tunes 1,9,9,4,1,0,1,8 (the date when the game was made.) Choose any level, then hold A and press Start to activate Debug mode. To use it, see the instructions in Sonic the Hedgehog.

(eds NOTE: This doesn't sound too safe, be careful, it might screw up you Genesis)

First,lock the Sonic 3 cartridge on to theSonic & Knuckles cartridge. With Sonic 3 onSonic & Knuckles,enter the level select anddebug mode codes. At the level selection screen,hold A while taking outSonic 3,thenpress reset,but DO NOT LET GO OF A. At thetitle screen of Sonic & Knuckles,press Startwhile holding A. Now let go of A. Now select alevel and hold A+Start and you can use debugmode.

Connect your Sonic & Knuckles cartridge to Sonic 3. Activate the level select and debug. When you enter debug mode, create a monitor. It will have an "S" on it. Jump on it to get 50 rings and become Hyper Sonic, Hyper Knuckles, or Super Tails!

First off, do the regular Sonic & Knuckles Level Select. Once that is done, hold UP + A, then put Sonic 3 in and reset the game. When you get to the Sonic 3 & Knuckles menu you'll find that Sound Test is there.

Start Mushroom Hill as Sonic. Run to the right until you come to the first Pull-Up machine. (It's just after the box with the power sneakers and the Madmole.) Hang from it and press left left left, right right right, up up up. You should hear a ring sound. Pause the game and press A to reset to the title screen. Now hold A and press start for level select.

Enter the LEVEL SELECT code shown below. Go to "special stage" and get an emerald. You will go to Emerald Hill Zone. Pause the game, and press A. Enter the level select again and return to the special stage. Repeat this process until you have all the emeralds.

Start Mushroom Hill as Sonic. Run to the right until you come to the first Pull-Up machine. (It's just after the box with the power sneakers and the Madmole.) Hang from it and press LEFT, left left, right right right, up up up. You should hear a ring sound. Pause the game and press A to reset to the title screen. Now hold A and press start for level select.

While in Mushroom Hill Zone, jump on to one of the pulley systems, then press . A Ring sound will confirm correct entry. Press , then to return to the title screen. Press + to go to the Level Select screen.

Contrary to popular belief, there IS a debug mode available for this game. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles runs on the codebase of Sonic & Knuckles which has a separate check to enable a debug mode cheat code in place of the level select code in Mushroom Hill when Sonic 3 is locked on. To use debug mode purely in Sonic and Knuckles, the player needs to overwrite the memory of the game while a Sonic 3 cartridge or ROM is locked on. Simply start up Sonic 3 & Knuckles, unlock the level select and debug mode codes for that game and then highlight any level in the Sound Test, hold , press , and release when Sonic appears. Switch to an "S" Monitor, and paste a big amount of monitors until sprites begin to flicker. Then revert back to Sonic, and Spin Dash or jump straight into the monitors. Due to how the game loads its art, the game will break, crash or reset to demo mode. If the game has not crashed yet, press , and then press if necessary. The game may ignore any flags for a Sonic 3 cartridge being detected and it will boot up into Sonic & Knuckles mode, redirecting the player to the Sonic & Knuckles title screen. Choose any character, hold then press to go to the level select screen. Highlight any level, hold , then press .

If Sound Test is enabled, and any of the "Special Stage" options is selected, Sonic or Knuckles is taken to the first Special Stage. The end of it however, spawns a yellow Super Emerald. This is when the special stage is marked as clear, but the normal Chaos Emerald amount doesn't rise. The Super Emerald amount will rise, but it has pretty much no effect due to Super Emeralds being unobtainable in Sonic & Knuckles alone. This bug will allow access to a hidden Special Stage and allow for the 8th Emerald to be collected once the other six have, though.

When using edit mode in Hidden Palace Zone, an area above and to the left of Sonic's fight with Knuckles contains a selection of monitors; six on the left, and three on the right. In Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Tails can fly up to this area.

It has been suggested that these could have been placed here so that clean screenshots could be taken for the Japanese manual. The manual clearly shows Sonic bubble bouncing in Hidden Palace, despite no Water Shields being available through normal playMedia:S&K MD JP manual.pdf[1]Media:S&K MD JP manual.pdf[2].

Tails is playable in the game through hacking. Unfortunately, most of his sprites are missing. A savestate (info) (50 kB) of Tails in Sonic & Knuckles is available. If the PAR code FFFF09:02 is used in Sonic & Knuckles, Tails will be usable, but just about every sprite of his, except the transformation sprite, will be missing, basically rendering him invisible (unlike when a savestate is used; a different, glitchy sprite is used in place of Tails's original one). However, his sprites used at the end of Sky Sanctuary Zone to run around the collapsing pillar are actually stored in the Sonic & Knuckles' ROM and therefore are visible. The same sprites are used also in the same context in Lava Reef Zone.

All Sonic Origins cheats work broadly the same as the original games. First, you must enter the 'Level Select' menu screen, which requires you inputting a code on the title screen (where you'll see the game's logo, before you start the first level).

From there, to activate further codes, you must play sound effects from the Sound Test option in a specific order. If successful, you'll hear a sound effect, and can then use that cheat on a level of your choosing.

This code will only work if you have a Sonic the Hedgehog 3 cartridge and a Sonic & Knuckles cartridge locked together. Start a new game and go to Angel Island Zone Act 1, grab ahold of one of the rope swings. While Sonic is swinging from the rope swing, press Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, Up. If you did this correctly you will hear a similar sound to when you pick up a ring. Now, press Start to pause the game, then press the A button to take you back to the title screen. Now below Competition on the title screen, you'll see an options menu where you can pick your starting stage or access the sound test.

To activate the debug mode, first activate the level select shown above. Next, go to the level select screen and the following sounds in the listed order: 01, 09, 09, 04, 01, 00, 01, 08. If you entered them correctly, you'll hear a noise similar to when collecting a ring. Now you can select a level by pressing A + Start and debug mode will be enabled on that level.

To get all 7 of the Chaos Emeralds, first, activate the level select shown above. Next, go to the level select screen and the following sounds in the listed order: 01, 06, 07, 07, 07, 02, 01, 06. If you entered them correctly, you'll hear a noise similar to when collecting an emerald. Now you can select the level you want to start on and you should have all of the Chaos Emeralds already collected.

The following cheat codes are for Game Genie. These can be used on a Sega Genesis with a Game Genie device or you can use these on any emulator that supports Game Genie Codes. If you want a Game Genie Device, you can always check on Amazon for one.

Based on the special stages in the original Sonic 3 & Knuckles game, Blue Spheres is a randomly-generated series of levels that goes on for a very long time. The game is an Easter egg of sorts - it was originally hidden on the Mega Drive cartridge for Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

As you've likely already noticed, just like it did on the Sega Mega Drive (or Sega Genesis if you're that way inclined), the main menu of Blue Spheres gives players the option to input a code to jump straight into the level of their choice.

Note: Because Blue Spheres is randomly generated, there are actually millions of levels in the classic version. The game basically goes on forever, or at least much longer than the average human lifespan!

With that in mind, we won't try to include a comprehensive list of codes here as it might break our website. Instead, here are the codes for the first 50 levels. These codes should work, in theory, in the 'original' version of Blue Spheres:

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