8 Video Game "Mistakes" That Were Totally Intentional - Commenter Edition

6. Robotnik's Speed Traps - Sonic The Hedgehog 3

Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Sega

The Sonic games are all about achieving lightning-fast speeds, and this is also what makes the experience immense fun. Who wants to play one where Sonic just strolls around like he's on a casual Sunday walk? Nobody.

This focus on speedy movement makes it incredibly weird that Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will actively punish the player for going too fast. By going too quickly at certain times, there's a chance that Sonic will clip into an object and get stuck inside it, forcing the player to start over if they want to continue.

It was a frustrating bug to encounter, but bizarrely, Sega knew all about it and just decided to leave it in the game. Page 27 of the user manual even contains a cheeky excuse as to why this might happen to the player:

"Dr. Robotnik has created many diabolical traps which take advantage of Sonic's ultra-fast speed. Watch out for traps that Sonic cannot escape. If you fall into the wrong trap, you might have to reset the game (by pressing the RESET button) and start again at the beginning of the Zone you were last in. When Sonic is flashing (after being hit) don't let him travel too quickly."

So yes, the devs left this in the game on purpose, then tried to make an in-universe explanation for it ("diabolical traps") in the game's manual. The gall, the absolute gall!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!