![Sonic 3 knuckles angel island](https://kumkoniak.com/79.jpg)
![sonic 3 knuckles angel island sonic 3 knuckles angel island](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/cb/a3/e6cba3e3e45c407a9d6d1ab2790b7147.jpg)
Others aren't even meant to be accessed in Sonic 3 alone, and are reserved for when the game is locked into Sonic & Knuckles, so that Knuckles can find his own secret ways, sometimes making for an entirely different level for him.
![sonic 3 knuckles angel island sonic 3 knuckles angel island](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CtQMpcPYXDU/maxresdefault.jpg)
![sonic 3 knuckles angel island sonic 3 knuckles angel island](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rTlHBQEXWS8/maxresdefault.jpg)
It'll take you ages before you discover every area and route in an act, and some shortcuts are even exclusive to Tails, rewarding good flying skills. They allow their routes to meander away within them wherever they please, pushing and pulling the player in a variety of directions to make the acts last twice as long as most of those in Sonics 1 and 2, making up for the fact that there they are fewer in number. The sheer intricacy of different routes on offer create level maps that also happen to be huge and more complex in comparison to the previous games. Perhaps the hectic, flowing quality that some of the simpler maps in the previous games offer is somewhat missing here, but they still have a powerful mix of speedy roads and curves and slower platforming areas, as you would expect in any good Sonic title, and it's the beautiful layout of these that make them so brilliant. Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles stages are what I would consider to be the pinnacle of Sonic level design.
![Sonic 3 knuckles angel island](https://kumkoniak.com/79.jpg)