Special Stages

[hangarninetysix]

What's your favorite Special Stage? The special stage, and how they are handled, can really make or break a game for me. I would have likely loved Sonic 2 had it not been for the atrocious special stages, which in many cases required memorization, and they way that they required 50 rings, but took them all away after you went into one (but all the rings you collected respawn... what?)

I really liked how the Sonic 1 special stages were more closely related to the primary game experience. The structure of the game kind of defeated the purpose of exploration, as you only needed 50 rings at the end of a level and didn’t have to find any hidden level, but it placed a greater emphasis on not messing up or getting hit. There’s a lot of potential in this form of special stage that was untapped, I think, with all the different kinds of blocks. There could have been a curved pathway lined with GOAL blocks, for example, that had to have the maze rotating a certain direction and in a certain range of speeds for the player to pass through, or tons of other tricks and puzzles like that.

In Sonic 3, I really liked the way the portals were hidden throughout the levels. It encouraged a lot of exploration and thoroughness on the part of the player. The stages themselves are pretty good I think – not as good as Sonic 1s but infinitely better than Sonic 2s. They seem a bit out of place compared to Sonic 1’s special stages, but they still work really well, and they aren’t cheap in punishing the player like Sonic 2.

[...]

The ones that don't suck.

(i.e. Blue Sphere).

[Jack / Joker]

Sonic Adventure's Special Stages win it for me.

Edited October 15, 2012 by -The Joker-

[SilJeff]

I hate all of them except for Blue Sphere. I think they all are bad except for Blue Sphere.

[Dr. Crusher]

Blue Sphere is king.

And I also like the Escher Mazes from Sonic 1.

[Jango]

Blue Spheres! Secondly, the Sonic Heroes one. I know it's effing hard, but the music, it's SO GOOD >w<

[TheOcelot]

Sonic CD's special stages - UFO city - are my favourite, because:

They don't go on too long.

There is no set route, you can improvise which I love doing.

If you run low on time, just pick up the UFO that appears in the middle of the stage, and in theory you can keep going forever. I once completed the fifth (and hardest) special stage by picking up 10 of the UFO's in the middle, in order to extend the time left (yeah I sucked).

They look really colourful.

The JP soundtrack for the special stage is awesome.

Sonic 3&K special stages:

The stages get faster as times goes on.

The real challange is to get all the rings - a perfect - which will guarantee an extra life and continue (as well as a chaos emerald).

You have 14 stages (Chaos & Super Emeralds), plus the millions of 'Blue Sphere' stages you get with Sonic 1 locking onto S&K.

Nice music playing, which also gets faster the longer the stage goes on.

Sonic 1 & Sonic 4 Ep1 special stages:

Tricky stages. Good difficulty setting. Not much else to say.

Sonic 2 special stages:

The half pipe stages have been DONE TO DEATH!

Once memorised, are very easy.

Least enjoyable.

Edited October 15, 2012 by NightwingFox

[Jango]

Dammit, completely forgot about the Sonic CD one! I'll put it as my third favorite, I really like it, specially the music

[Dr. Crusher]

Yeah, I forgot the CD one as well. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I like them too, if only for the pretty backgrounds.

[Sonictrainer]

Spinning Maze (Sonic 1 and Sonic 4: Episode 1)

Method to Get There: Collect 50 Rings and Jump into the Giant Ring at the end of the Level

Back in the day, this was cool and fairly simple Special Stage. Personally, I like 4: Episode 1's version of this where instead controlling Sonic, you instead control the maze.

Halfpipe Highway (Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3D Blast (Saturn), Sonic Rush, Sonic 4: Episode 2)

Method of Getting there: Varies

While this is the most iconic Special Stage for Sonic, it's been done and revisited too many times. Personally, my favorite version of this would be the Sonic Rush version.

Big Tunnels (Sonic Heroes)

How to Get There: Find the Keys in the Level and Clear it without getting hit

Big Tunnels > Halfpipe Highway....that is all

Special Stage as an actual Level (Sonic the Hedgehog (GG), Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Colors)

How to Get There: Same as the Spinning Maze

3 of the Special Stages in Sonic Triple Trouble were unique because instead of a Special Stage that played differently from the Regular Level, the Special Stage was a level itself, where it was time trial that ended with a Boss Fight with Nack the Weasel. I hope they bring back this kind of Special Stage in the future, sort of like Sonic Colors did but have a sub-boss at the end.

Blue Sphere

How to Get There: Find the hidden Giant Ring

A very popular Special Stage due it's access method and challenge. I wouldn't mind seeing another Blue Spheres inspired Special Stage in the future.

Similar to Blue Sphere (Sonic CD, Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Advance 2)

How to Get There: Varies

If you can make a Special Stage similar to a past one but make it actually Special, I will love it. Trying to destroy UFOs or avoid Zero while collecting Rings was fun and challenging.

However, I'm not a big of Sonic Advance 2's method of getting to the Special Stage. Trying to Collect 7 exact Special Rings in the Act and then clear said Act was ridiculous.

Ride the Tornado (Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Advance 3)

How to Get There: Varies

As often as we get to see the Tornado in action, we rarely see it being used in a Special Stage. If they could have it similar to Sonic Adventure with a Lock-On system similar to Unleashed, I bet it could be interesting. While I'm not a big fan of the Special Rings in Sonic Advance 2, I'm OK with Sonic Advance 3's Method of finding the Chao because at least after finding them, all you had to do was collect Keys and you could collect as many Keys as you wanted.

Skyboarding (Sonic Advance)

How to Get There: Find the Special Spring

It was cool and original at the time. However, most of the Special Springs were only accessible to Tails or Knuckles. If you want to have Special Stages, make them accessible to all playable characters in the game.

Race another Character

How to Get There: Find Johnny on the World Map

I'm all for having Sonic race an enemy or rival character to the Chaos Emerald at the end, just as long as the races are based on skill and not how many upgrades you have.

[Crash]

Blue Sphere is my favourite.

[Nepenthe]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that completely optional Special Stages are a complete deal breaker for any Sonic game they appear in. Regardless, my favorite is Blue Spheres. It has a strategic angle to it that makes it more engaging to play than the more popular run along a tunnel/path/chute-based special stages, and I also like the stages aesthetics and BGM.

Also, Tails doesn't completely fuck your game up when you're playing with him.

[-Robin-]

Sonic Colors DS for me.

Having the half-pipe track actually be a looping track was such a good idea. It allowed for more creative placement of the different colored spheres, urging you to not just dash around all herp derp and knock away spheres that you certainly need in the second or third lap. There was a real sense of strategy in them, if a little slight.

We need more of those stages.

[Sarah Jane Smith]

The UFO stages were my favourite. Super fun and had a different background each time.

Blue Sphere is my second fave, just because they're actually beatable without tearing my hair out.

Honourable mention goes to Heroes, although by now I'm sick of special stages that are tubes.

[-blank-]

I'm probably going to get a lot of flack for this, but dear god do I utterly HATE Blue Spheres. It might just be me, but I find the controls to be really slippery - half the time I'll try to turn into a blue sphere, only to completely miss it and end up in a red one.

I find the half-pipes fun, though they can be frustrating even after I've memorized them. Same with Sonic 1's special stages, though not as frustrating. My favorite would have to be Heroes though.

[SilJeff]

Blue Spheres! Secondly, the Sonic Heroes one. I know it's effing hard, but the music, it's SO GOOD >w<

Forgot about those. I actually enjoy Heroes'.

I think CD has the worst. Almost impossible to judge when to jump to hit the UFO's. 100% of the time, I jump to hit it and the UFO passes through my camera (not in a glitch, but that Sonic jumped an inch behind it and the UFO kept going in the opposite direction of me).

Sonic 2's is CONSTANTLY rehashed in the series, whether it be a direct rehash (Sonic 3D Blast on the Saturn) or an indirect one (Heroes'). This one is extremely overrated, though I actually found it bearable and actually fun in Heroes and Generations 3DS.

Sonic 1's "pukebag zone", as The Great Clement would say, is bad too, though unlike the other classic ones (minus S3&K's), I have actually gotten 2 emeralds from.

Knuckles Chaotix's is... interesting. Cool concept, but I don't really like the controls. Could use some polish and it could be my second favorite kind.

Sonic Advance 1-3's I've never tried because Dimps did stupid things in terms of what you need to do to unlock them [well, except for the one where you find a special spring, though ALL the levels should have had multiple, instead of 1 per zone], such as find 10 chao...

Rush and Rush adventure- I don't know anything about them. Never really cared in the Rush games.

I hate to admit it, but I was actually kind of relieved when I didn't need to worry with them in Adventure.

[WentosTheTraveller]

Blue Spheres by a long shot. I've always wanted that one to come back, I think Sonic 2 has had it's moment enough for a little while.

[Treacher]

I've grown weary over how many times the Sonic 2 special stage has been re-used, but I really liked the ones in Colors DS if only for being easy

I haven't played the Saturn version, but I've heard the special stages there were among the best in the series. I still prefer finding them in the open myself as in Sonic 1/2 MS/GG; I'd like to see them combine that method with a kind of hub-world mission structure some day.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Treacher

[Wittymations]

Blue Spheres! Secondly, the Sonic Heroes one. I know it's effing hard, but the music, it's SO GOOD >w<

Really?

I found Blue Spheres horrendously hard and Sonic Heroes to be ... easy.

I suck so bad at classic special stages that in Sonic 3 and Knuckles I never got a single Chaos Emerald.

My favorite would be the maze from Sonic 1. It's a bit difficult, but there's something magically drug inducing about it that I love.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Red Forman

[Treacher]

I found the Heroes special stages to be...just a mess overall. One of the most prominent examples of the importance on having a good physics system. Poor maneuverability at high speed and a tendency to stick or hug the walls every now and then; the power formation is the best overall to use there. At least they had nice aesthetics and music.

Blue Spheres are personally easier, if only out of going through them a hundred times or so when you can memorize the layout. Otherwise they can get tricky what with the speed automatically increasing the longer you stay and with a one hit penalty that encourages you to box in red spheres as much as you can.

Edited October 16, 2012 by Treacher

[kalion]

Sonic Colors DS for me.

Having the half-pipe track actually be a looping track was such a good idea. It allowed for more creative placement of the different colored spheres, urging you to not just dash around all herp derp and knock away spheres that you certainly need in the second or third lap. There was a real sense of strategy in them, if a little slight.

We need more of those stages.

[ultim8life4rm]

I like the whole half-pipe special stage concept from Sonic 2, but I (like many others) found it very hard to control. However, I really liked the new version of the stage in Sonic 4 Episode 2. I think that they made it easier to control than the classic, and it involved less memorization.

[hangarninetysix]

Just played S4E1... and I have to say, the special stages were great. I don't know if I liked the time limit being so strict on some levels, but the overall concept was great. Cool music too. Nice to see they kept the trippyness of the background.

I think it would have been cooler if they had the red rings be portals to the special stage instead though, to encourage more exploration.

Edited October 19, 2012 by hangarninetysix

[Andrew Albacia]

Blue Sphere all the way. Not just because Sonic 3 and Knuckles is my favourite game either. Probably because back in the day, someone bought me a dodgy Sonic 3 that refused to save so I had to play through entirely every time I wanted to play it.

The mobile phone version killed the Sonic 4 episode 1 special stages for me. Nightmare.

[Solkia]

Blue Spheres is only hard if you don't know to surround the spheres and turn them into rings.

Did anything ever hint at that? Did the manual tell you? idfk, but they're anything but hard once you know to do that.

Oh, on topic, I don't like any of them, but Blue Spheres is tolerable.