IceCap Zone (Sonic the Hedgehog 3)

"Things will get pretty chilly as Sonic and Tails slide their way through this arctic wasteland. Be sure to smash open blocks of ice to reveal power-ups and hidden passageways."

- Instruction manual

IceCap Zone (アイスキャップ), also known as Ice Cap or Icecap, is a frozen region of the Floating Island, known to be extremely cold and somewhat dangerous. It is a large piece of land covered in ice and icy mountains.

To date, incarnations have appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic Adventure.

Overview
IceCap Zone first appeared as the fifth zone in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (or Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles). After being shot out of a cannon from Carnival Night Zone, Sonic and Tails land on a mountain. Sonic rides down it on a snowboard and then enters the interior. At the end of Act 1, a snow machine that spins snow at Sonic or Tails tries to crush them. Dr. Robotnik attacks in Act 2 in a machine that that has a spiked platform drop down and fires the freezing bursts in a pattern at Sonic. There is a shortcut in Act 1 that will let the player skip to Act 2's boss.

Story
After being shot from the Carnival Night Zone, Sonic snowboards down a mountain and slams into the side of a cliff. (Tails skips this section and gets shot straight to the cliff. Knuckles is brought there by a teleporter. After clearing the zone the character will spin through the snow to the Launch Base Zone.

Boss
Dr. Robotnik appears in his new creation, the Freezer Mobile, which spews chilling ice flames in a few different directions, one in the front of his Eggmobile, the other on the underside of it above a small rising and descending platform with spikes on the bottom. Robotnik will hover across the arena, releasing ice flames from the dispensers. After he's attacked with the one located on the underside of his mobile, this is the chance to attack. After a few hits, the small platform will break and he's forced to descend, leaving it easy to attack from behind.

Trivia

 * In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 &amp; Knuckles, Flying Battery Zone was originally meant to be before this Zone and the hatch Sonic uses to escape the zone would have been used as a snowboard. Presumably, the cannon would have shot Sonic onto the airship.
 * The music for the original Genesis version of this stage is most widely known in the gaming community alongside with various remixes.
 * The snowboarding section at the end of the Sonic Adventure version of this stage is likely a homage to the Mega Drive stage, in which Sonic starts out snowboarding. Also, it may be the basis for the beginning of City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2.
 * This is the first ever ice-themed zone in a console Sonic game.
 * The background music was thought to have been inspired by Michael Jackson's "Who Is It" from the album Dangerous with similar chord progressions to "Smooth Criminal" from Bad.
 * However, it has recently come about that the music to IceCap Zone on the Mega Drive/Genesis may not have been composed by Michael Jackson or even related to any of his songs. The song may be more connected to the previously unreleased song "Hard Times" by The Jetzons. Brad Buxer, who had worked on the music for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and for Michael Jackson, was the keyboardist for The Jetzons.