Sonic and Knuckles Level Select Question (Special Stages)

[DonRobotnik]

Hello people,

in Sonic 3 (and the combined Sonic 3 & Knuckles), when I go to the Level Select and pick "Special Stage 1", it starts with the first one and cycles through them all. When you cleared one, it is skipped and every time you re-select "Special Stage" on the Level Select it continues cycling though the ones you have not cleared yet. It even keeps track of the emeralds you got. This comes very handy for practice and getting good at the blue sphere stages.

However, in Sonic and Knuckles, the behaviour is different: Every Time I select "Special Stage" the first one starts, no matter if I have cleared it before or not. I was not able to play any other special stage than the first one by using the level select.

Is there a way to pick the other special stages in sonic and knuckles from the level select? Or at least enable cycling though them all, like in Sonic 3?

Or is there a way to play the Sonic and Knuckles Special Stages from the combined Sonic 3 & Knuckles game from the level select? I can only pick the Sonic 3 ones plus the eight hidden special stage by Selecting the "Special Stage 2" Option, but there is no way that I have figured out to play the Sonic and Knuckles ones...

Help is greatly apreciated.

[skull902]

Unfortunately, no. Your best bet for practice is creating a save file, getting the Chaos Emeralds, entering the big ring in Mushroom Hill 1, and creating a save state when you enter Hidden Palace so that you can go back and load the state to pick between all the stages.

That is, if you're playing on an emulator. If you're playing on most console versions of the game, you're kinda screwed in that regard.

[Guergy]

Is there a 'trick' to input the level select code quickly in Sonic 3? Also, does the Chaos Emerald trick from Sonic 2 works similarly to Sonic 3? 

[Rabid-Coot]

20 minutes ago, Guergy said:

Is there a 'trick' to input the level select code quickly in Sonic 3? Also, does the Chaos Emerald trick from Sonic 2 works similarly to Sonic 3? 

Play the game to completion and pick from the save file it'll take less time to get.