So....
Last night I tried out The Sonic & Knuckles Collection for Win95/98 again. This was actually my main way of playing S3&K for most of my life.
The reason for that, by the way, is because for a long time my copy of Sonic 3 would not save the game, because as a kid once I got good at doing the stage select/debug code I would use it all the time and somehow it actually ruined the save feature. Now I see why Sega made the code almost impossible to do. Warning to all who have a working Sonic 3 cart: Don't do the debug code. Just don't. Use a ROM or an Everdrive if you must mess around with it... or a copy that already doesn't save. (I've since gotten this problem fixed by simply getting a second copy of the game).
But yeah... for me, the S&K Collection on Windows was how I played S3&K so partly out of nostalgia and partly out of a desire to see if the different music was as bad as I remembered, I installed it again (I've mentioned before I actually have a Win98 PC).
My PC's specs BTW for those who never saw me discuss it before: 700mhz AMD K6-2, 512mb RAM, Soundblaster 16 ISA, Voodoo 3 PCI (16mb VRAM), running Windos 98 Second Edition.
Things that I noticed:
-Conventional understanding is that when the game runs in a window its incredifast but full-screen it plays at proper speed. Thing is, even at fullscreen, while the game is now much closer to how it runs on the Genesis, it still feels... off. Most of the time the game feels ever-so-slightly faster than its supposed to (especially noticable if you get the gumball machine minigame, but also I was always on edge during the special stages)... however, for some reason the framerate dipped a bit during the Carnival Night Zone. Not enough to hurt the game but it still became noticably stuttery (it was comparable to how on the Genesis the game would slow down if you lost tons of rings at once, but now imagine that through the whole stage). Ironically I think this might somehow be connected to my PC being way
above intended specs. Anyone who has ever dealt with speed issues in games will know what I mean here.
-Probably related, the game sometimes would pause briefly, the way a CD-ROM game on older consoles sometimes does when its loading something, except it happened even if I played off an ISO (the game requires the CD to run) and it never lasted more than a split-second, but it was still enough to be noticable and just once it caused me to miss a jump (however, I wound up adapting to it and thus never being bothered, though I still wondered why it happened at all).
-You know how bonus rounds are supposed to have a black screen that says "Bonus round"? Yeah, here they're there for only a microsecond. Can throw you off the first time.
-I can't play Sonic with a keyboard, so I found myself digging out a PC gamepad. EDIT: Forgot to mention... I tried using a USB controller (there's special drivers that let you use USB devices in Windows 98SE), in fact it was an adapter for using SNES controllers on PC (I don't have an equivalent adapter for Genesis controllers... yet) but for some reason even though this game detected said controllers, it would always behave weirdly with them. Most notably directions on the D-Pad would just outright stop working. You think the game knew I was using a SNES controller and was rebelling?.... using a classic game port controller worked just fine though.
-I swear sometimes sound effects wouldn't play. Like a few jumps would not have the classic jump sound.
-Now, about that music... the HG101 article doesn't mention that the game actually gives you an option of either Midi or FM Synth (the article outright says its midi-only, which isn't even the option it uses by default, so I dunno if the author's version was different or what). On my SB16, FM synth sounded
almost like the Genesis music--those with sharp-ears could tell something was off but most probably wouldn't notice. The General MIDI option sounded bad, but this option depends on your sound card. I recall testing this on my other Desktop (which has a Soundblaster Audigy 2) and getting more positive results, but I'll have to double-check.
-Carnival Night, Ice Cap, and Launch Base Zone all have all new music for some reason (regardless of whether you're playing S3 or S3&K). Personally... I actually prefer this version of Launch Base Zone over the Genesis original, but it also sounds weirdly familiar, like I've heard it in a non-Sonic context. We might should look into that (I'd link you to a youtube upload of it but I'm in public right now and don't have headphones so I wouldn't be able to check and see if its the right thing).
-Now, I was actually enjoying this version very much, even with all the little things I noticed, but there was one thing that ruined it for me.
The game crashed. Twice. In both cases I wound up having to restart my PC, and also in both cases, the save file would... well, it wasn't corrupted, but like... okay, first time happened right as the boss of Angel Island Act 1 was loading up (not the first time when he sets the island on fire, the part where you actually fight him), and it seemed like just one of those odd pauses but it wound up lasting forever. When I reloaded the save, it started me back at the beginning without the one Emerald I had gained, but it DID remember the Special Stage ring I had used and thus that ring wasn't there.
The second crash was more damaging--it happened just as I was about to finish Launch Base Act 2. Just before reaching Robotnik I decided to activate and head into a star post bonus round, but as the screen cut to black, the game hung... and never un-hung. I couldn't even alt-tab out of it or anything. When I came back, the save file... said I was still in Marble Garden Zone, with only five emeralds (I intentionally didn't get the last until Launch Base).
What's weird is crashing has never been an issue I associated with this game UPDATE: as I was about to upload this I checked and found out there was a patch for this game, so maybe I used that patch as a kid (over a decade ago) but forgot about it now? Anyway, unfortunately it ruined the game for me, and I decided I needed a real cartridge copy. I mean, I have the Sonic Mega Collection Plus on PS2 but... playing Sonic with a PS2 controller just feels weird, and I don't know why but the graphics seem ever so slightly off.
So, for the first time ever, I'm gonna get a cart of S&K and play through it the right and proper way as all 90s kids should....
... Until someone produces a repro cart of the romhack Sonic 3 Complete, which I just recently learned about and includes all sorts of options which sound just dandy, at least according to
this guy (I especially like the sound of the one where you're less likely to activate Super Sonic by accident).