Sonic 3D Blast, also known as Sonic 3D Flickies' Island in Europe, is isometric take on a mix of Sonic platforming, serving as a spinoff to the franchise, and Flicky collecting'n'leading hot action. It was developed by Travellers Tales and Sonic Team, former doing main programmer job while latter came with game design ideas and some more. Well, they did want Sonic 3 to be isometric to begin with. Also riding on whole pre-rendered trend that went hip with Donkey Kong Country. Published by Sega in 1996 in the West only. 32 Megabit ROM, the biggest that Sega Genesis can see at a single time.
There also were Saturn and PC versions, made near the end of development of this supposed “Genesis swan song”, replacing the cancelled Sonic X-Treme. Saturn had improved graphics, redbook soundtrack, different actual 3D special stages, analog input. It's technically the best version. PC version was similar but lacked few graphics and had 2D parody of special stages, yet had autosave feature.
Sonic Blast on Game Gear is a different game despite fitting in marketing-wise.
The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version.
I don't usually talk about mods, but Director's Cut exists and it was made by game's main programmer so it's sorta semi-official. None the less, back to what Sega gives us there.
Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use, just change file extension to ".bin" or so. The file for this one being "SONIC3D_UE.68K".
I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first. You can find it here on store page or go to "manuals" folder of game root and open "S3DB_MG_EFIGS_US.pdf".
Robotnik has discovered that Flickies on Flickies's Island can actually travel between dimensions by using huge rings. So he trapped them all in Badnik robots to search for Chaos Emeralds. These robots aren't any different, no dimension travel there. Sonic is back here and ready to save em all while his two gang members chill around.
The core gameplay keeps the Sonic formula going. You can run around and you can jump. Seeing how it's isometric it has a separate button that you can roll with. Or spindash if standing still. You still defeating enemies by either jumping or rolling. Albeit using slopes by rolling doesn't play a big role here at all, these are weak slopes. The controls have some inertia to it, pleasently. Too bad Sonic can't immediately turn 180 degrees around, he does a small circle. Still uses rings health system where as long as you have any rings you will survive a hit but then you have to recover all the scattered rings.
It's a rather forgiving pleasant take on isometric style. You can run in all 8 directions. It hides nothing important behind walls. There are shadows for everything. The floor always has checkered tiles so you can measure, borders are clearly defined. While Sonic is a bit too fast, the game doesn't require much precision platforming. Well, there are few but you can cheese most of them by using nearby spring pad or so. The levels are varied as well, some having sorta puzzle elements. Spinning pads are great on the second zone.
Protip: You can break ice spikes in Diamond Dust by rolling into them.
Powerups are back through breakable monitors. Invincibility, extra life, speed up, so on. By the way, Sonic icons that aren't in monitors aren't extra lives by medals. Collect 10 of them and you will get a continue. There are shields, each giving you extra hit against normal stuff. Blue one is immune electricity, red shields protects from fire, golden one gives you active ability where you do
Protip: Get a red shield in a Volcano Valley or die.
Each zone has two acts, along with a boss one. The first two acts are divided into two-three stages. And in each stage you have to save five flickies. That means there are only five badniks in a stage and most of them are static non-threats. Not too exciting. At least game somewhat makes up with stage hazards. But the game is still too easy. Then you break those robots and have to grab birds. This is where Flicky inspiration comes in. The birds will follow you in a line and they can be broken off with projectiles after which they scatter around. It worked in Flicky which was a tight 2D game where you constantly get chased by cats, you would die if they touch you and simply scatted lines of flickies if they touch those. With risk-reward applied as you got score by bringing in bigger lines and that would lead to getting extra lives in a tough game. Here? Not a tight design, it's just there. Projectiles may throw birds off but that just happens, not something you pay attention to. Collecting birds over lava is pain. There is too much space, nothing chasing you. Yea. It's just there, just making you spend a bit more time in levels and thus isn't exciting.
There is usual optional quest for 7 Chaos Emeralds. Actually, they look like Halls candies, which would explain why Sonic can't turn into Super Sonic. Super makes games too easy anyway. You do get an extra final boss and good ending however, that's good. To get an emerald you must find Tails or Knuckles first, just chilling. Both of them appear in each act, hiding or appearing somewhere in previous stage once you progress, feel free to backtrack. Last appearing in Volcano Valley. It does mean you can get two emeralds per act, one from each. You get extra life on repeat. Just give these fams 50 rings. Though they will take and store any amount so don't bump into them.
After that you get into a special stage. You run over bridge, collect rings and avoid bombs. It looks incredibly smooth, the best on Mega Drive. Albeit gameplay is a bit plain and is too easy. Still fun.
There are usual bosses. Robotnik every time. Most often you just wait for him to get down and hit him, then avoid his stuff, repeat. Varied health. Not bad but not too cool.
Protip: For Volcano Valley boss instead of trying to get into pipes first, you should curve your jump off side floor to hit Robotnik then you will be bounced backward onto pipes.
Not much options. Just sound test and controls. Bare minimum!
As for graphics. Well. They tried to do DKC thing with prerendered sprites because it was still cool, albeit 1996 was somewhat late. Which isn't the smartest thing to do on Genesis, as compared to SNES it has low amount of colors. Still, devs deserve some love for managing to create smooth vibrant world. And fitting intro FMV into Genesis cartridge is just awesome. Too bad that ending is just a bunch of images with text.
Music is great too. Chiptune goodness, the best from few composers on the project.
Overall, eh. Mixing Flicky and Sonic is a nice idea, as evidenced by game like Wiz'n'Liz, albeit that one was only somewhat Flicky. But this isometric execution of it is weak. I still wouldn't call it a bad game. Pick only if you want some chill isometric platformer.
