Knuckles

Learn about Knuckles' zones, records, and abilities in Sonic & Knuckles. Discover his best times in Azure Lake, Balloon Park, and Endless Mine.

Knuckles is the slowest character in Sonic & Knuckles, lacking his signature gliding and climbing abilities. However, his reduced speed can be advantageous for utilizing shortcuts within the game's zones.

Zones:

When you start a zone, you must wait for the timer to count down to zero. Once the timer becomes 0, the word "Go!" appears. You can then begin a race on your own or with a friend. If you proceed right before "Go!" appears, your action is labelled as a "Fault" and you have to repeat the countdown.

Records:

• Azure Lake: Sonic - 1st (0'30"56), Sonic - 2nd (0'31"48), Sonic - 3rd (0'31"52)
• Balloon Park: Tails - 1st (0'37"31), Knuckles - 2nd (0'46"72), Tails - 3rd (0'47"57)
• Chrome Gadget: Sonic - 1st (0'38"14), Sonic - 2nd (0'39"27), Sonic - 3rd (0'40"12)
• Desert Palace: Sonic - 1st (0'36"15), Sonic - 2nd (0'36"16), Sonic - 3rd (0'36"62)
• Endless Mine: Tails - 1st (0'52"68), Knuckles - 2nd (0'54"51), Sonic - 3rd (0'54"59)

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: How do I get past the round, red drum in the Carnival Night Zone?
A: Simply press Up and Down when the drum goes up and down, respectively. When the gap is big enough for Sonic/Tails to jump down, do so immediately. If you unlock Debug Mode and select your Save File, you can use the former to go past the drum. When you select your Save File, hold the A Button to begin the Carnival Night Zone in Debug Mode.

Q: After completing the game, can I re-enter the levels to obtain the Chaos/Super Emeralds?
A: Yes. If you want to obtain the Chaos Emeralds quickly, select Angel Island Zone as your starting level and go to the zone's first Giant Ring. Use that Giant Ring repeatedly until you collect all 7 Chaos Emeralds. If you want to acquire all 7 Super Emeralds, you can select Mushroom Hill Zone and use the above method repeatedly until you succeed in doing this.

Q: I completed the game, but I didn't collect all 7 Chaos/Super Emeralds. Can I go to my Save File and re-enter the levels that I have cleared to obtain them?
A: Yes. If you were playing as Knuckles, you've have completed all his levels, so you can re-enter them to find the Giant Rings and collect all 7 Chaos/Super Emeralds. If you were playing as Sonic/Tails, you've have completed all the levels up to Death Egg Zone, so you can do the same actions to collect all 7 Chaos/Super Emeralds. Once you've collected all 7 Chaos/Super Emeralds, you can complete Death Egg Zone to access The Doomsday Zone if you were playing as Sonic.

Q: What are the Super Emeralds?
A: When you collect all the Chaos Emeralds in the Sonic 3 Special Stages and access the Emerald Chamber of Hidden Palace Zone, your Chaos Emeralds are taken from you and transformed into grey Super Emeralds. Once you complete the Sonic & Knuckles Special Stages, the grey Super Emeralds will be transformed into coloured Emeralds. When you have collected all 7 Super Emeralds, the Master Emerald will cast a light over the Super Emeralds and it will become shiny.

The Super Emeralds were programmed into Sonic 3 & Knuckles, since Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles have their own set of Chaos Emeralds, although they were originally supposed to be one game. Having two sets of Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 3 & Knuckles would have been impossible, so the second set were called Super Emeralds.

In my opinion, one set of Emeralds were originally supposed to be in the complete version of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (AKA Sonic 3 & Knuckles), but time constraints and cartridge costs forced the developers to split the game into Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, programming two sets of Emeralds instead. Hyper Sonic/Knuckles and Super Tails were probably intended to be the characters' respective Super Forms when the player collected all 7 Chaos Emeralds, but the developers split Sonic and Knuckles' Forms into the Super/Hyper Forms and decided not to implement Tails' Super Form in Sonic 3 alone in order to finish programming the Sonic 3 levels and include Super Sonic in that game. This explains why the Super Emeralds and Hyper Sonic/Knuckles have not appeared in future games, since the developers were not forced to split them into two halves.

Q: When does Knuckles' adventure take place?
A: Knuckles' adventure takes place shortly after the conclusion of Sonic's adventure. This is evidenced by the following points:

• The backgrounds of Angel Island Zone and Sky Sanctuary Zone show Angel Island floating in the sky.
• The image of the Death Egg has been removed from Launch Base Zone, Lava Reef Zone and Hidden Palace Zone.
• Sonic's adventure ends with a short scene showing the wreckage of the Death Egg and one of Robotnik's EggRobo Badniks emerging from it. This is the same EggRobo that drops a bomb in Knuckles' intro scene and pilots t