Some critics felt that Sonic 3 had innovated too little from previous Sonic games. Humphreys of Hyper saw only "a few new features" while Sega Power thought it was "not all that different" and Nintendo Life writer Damien McFerran said that "there's not a lot of new elements here to be brutally frank". While Deniz Ahmet of Computer and Video Games agreed that the game was "more of the same", he was placated by the new and imaginative ideas. However, Electronic Gaming Monthly enjoyed the new power-ups. Many aspects of the level design were praised; Electronic Gaming Monthly and Sega Power enjoyed the expansive stages, secret areas, much less linear level design, and difficulty. Mean Machines agreed, describing the game as "a rollercoaster ride from start to finish" and listing Carnival Night as their favorite level, which they described as "probably the most slickly programmed portion of game in Megadrive history". Humphreys and Mean Machines felt that the game was too short, but they and Sega Magazine felt that its two-player mode and the Emerald collecting would significantly extend the replay value. Sega Magazine enjoyed having the ability to play as Knuckles in the two-player mode. The Unknown Gamer felt that while the two-player mode was less fun than the main game, it was much improved over Sonic 2 due to the change of format from split-screen to full-screen.
Some critics felt that Sonic 3 had innovated too little from previous Sonic games. Humphreys of Hyper saw only "a few new features" while Sega Power thought it was "not all that different" and Nintendo Life writer Dami.en McFerran said that "there's not a lot of new elements here to be brutally frank". While Deniz Ahmet of Computer and Video Games agreed that the game was "more of the same", he was placated by the new and imaginative ideas. However, Electronic Gaming Monthly enjoyed the new power-ups. Many aspects of the level design were praised; Electronic Gaming Monthly and Sega Power enjoyed the expansive stages, secret areas, much less linear level design, and difficulty. Mean Machines agreed, describing the game as "a rollercoaster ride from start to finish" and listing Carnival Night as their favorite level, which they described as "probably the most slickly programmed portion of game in Megadrive history" Humphreys and Mean Machines felt that the game was too short, but they and Sega Magazine felt that its two-player mode and the Emerald collecting would significantly extend the replay value Sega Magazine enjoyed having the ability to play as Knuckles in the two-player mode. The Unknown Gamer felt that while the two-player mode was less fun than the main game, it was much improved over Sonic 2 due to the change of format from split-screen to full-screen.