Sonic 3 & Knuckles
1 recomp and 1 port
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Sonic 3 A.I.R.)
Eukaryot/sonic3air
Sonic 3 A.I.R. (Angel Island Revisited): a fan-made widescreen remaster of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. It runs on the Oxygen Engine, its own engine that emulates the parts of the Mega Drive hardware the game needs, and the game logic is rewritten function by function in lemonscript, the same author’s scripting language, from the original’s 68000 code: about 7 MB of scripts in the repository, each function marked with its ROM address. Graphics, levels, and sound are read from your ROM. It adds widescreen, upscaling filters (xBRZ, HQ3x, and HQ4x), Time Attack, Competition mode, the Blue Sphere minigame on its own, Act Select, achievements and unlockable secrets, new moves such as the drop dash, controller rumble, and an experimental mode, Ghost Sync, that shows other players connected to a server. It supports mods, which can bring their own scripts, with documentation and a dev mode. SpinnRG’s remastered soundtrack is downloaded from the options menu. There are builds for Windows and Linux; the macOS one is published by Sappharad. The latest stable release is v26.03.28.0 (March 28), which added a file browser for importing mods, more skippable cutscenes, and pause and Act Select menus written in scripts, and test builds have followed since, the latest on August 15. The repository also includes, from the game and the series, music from the Sonic 3 prototype, the Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 boss themes, Sonic 2’s Super Sonic theme, and Sonic CD’s peel-out sounds.
You needA compatible ROM from your own copy of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, such as the one from Sonic 3 & Knuckles on Steam (part of SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Classics), which is no longer sold. Plus Windows (32- or 64-bit) or Linux; on macOS, Sappharad’s build.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (mstan)
mstan/Sonic3AndKnucklesRecomp
Static recompilation of Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, and the two cartridges combined, using segagenesisrecomp. Each one ships as a separate executable for Windows and Linux. It’s at an early stage: in Sonic 3, the first zone (Angel Island) is already playable and saves work. Widescreen and Knuckles are opt-in options. 35 of its last 100 commits list Claude as a co-author.
You needYour own ROM of each game you want to play: Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles, or both for the combined version.
Installs with
Quiver Launcher · GithubLauncher (N64RecompLauncher) · Ports Launcher · WLauncher
Questions
Can you play Sonic 3 & Knuckles natively on PC?
Yes. The catalog has 1 recomp and 1 port, and one of them is fully playable.
What do I need to play it?
Your own copy of Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Mega Drive / Genesis). Recompendium only links projects that don’t distribute the game, and each entry says which version or region you need.
Which one is the most popular?
Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Sonic 3 A.I.R.), with 676 stars on GitHub.