Special Stage
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The Special Stages (also called Special Zones) were an important part of the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog games. They are separate in location from the usual setting of those games (either Earth or Mobius), in which characters can find Chaos Emeralds. Note that in most of the 8-bit Sonic games for the Game Gear and Master System, as well as more recent games from the Sonic Adventure line and the television series Sonic X, Chaos Emeralds are not found in the Special Stages, and in fact the Special Stages are not mentioned at all.
[edit] In the games
The Special Stages first appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog, in which it was depicted as a somewhat psychedelic rotating maze, with the Chaos Emerald ready for collection in the centre. It was accessed through a giant Zone Ring, which appeared at the end of an Act if one had collected fifty or more rings in that Act.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 altered the game mechanics of the Special Stages, though the psychedelic backdrop remained the same. Whereas gameplay in the Special Stages in the first game had been similar to the original game, in this game it was a mini-game in which characters ran along a curving half-pipe tube, collecting gold rings while avoiding bombs, which would knock rings away. There were three sections, and a character had to collect a sufficient number of rings in each section to advance to the next. This basic format was reused for the Special Stages in the game Sonic 3D Blast, Knuckles' Chaotix as well as Sonic Advance and Sonic Advance 3 for the Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo DS game Sonic Rush. In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the Special Stages were accessed via Star Posts, which had previously only been used as save-points.
Sonic CD saw the return of the first game's end-of-act Giant Rings. In these special stages, Sonic ran across a Mode 7 style track. To obtain the stage's Time Stone (the game's equivalent to Chaos Emeralds), Sonic had to destroy six UFOs hovering across the track within a time limit. Hazards like bear traps and water would often slow Sonic down or speed up the timer (or sometimes both). When time ran low, a seventh, differently-colored UFO would appear in the center of the stage; breaking this one would not count towards stage completion but would restore 30 seconds to the timer, giving the player more time to hunt down and destroy the remaining UFOs.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles once again returned to using Giant Rings as the entrance to the Special Stages. However, in these games, they were scattered throughout the acts rather than left at the end, so a player could play multiple Special Stages in each act. Once again, the format of the Special Stages changed. This time, the characters had to run along the surface of a planet-like sphere, collecting blue spheres and avoiding red ones. This is the most famous and popular variation of the Special Stages.
The obscure 32X game Knuckles Chaotix featured a strange type of Special Stage; though it had the same basic formula as the Special Stages of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it had many odd quirks that made it very different. Accessed in the same manner as Sonic the Hedgehog/Sonic CD, these stages featured a hexagonal tube that the player ran down. The player could run across all six sides of the tube. The object was to collect a certain number of Blue Spheres scattered across the tube in order to reach the Chaos Ring at the end. Unlike Sonic 2's Special Stages, reaching a checkpoint without having all the required Spheres would not end the stage, but would simply repeat the section. The catch was that your Ring count steadily depleted as you remained in the stage (in a manner similar to Super Sonic), and the stage would end once you ran out of rings. You could find some rings in the stages, but the primary source of rings was those you had brought into the Special Stage. This made Chaotix's Special Stages unique in the respect that the more rings you were carrying upon entering the Special Stage, the easier it was to successfully complete. However, no matter how many rings you held, if you fell out of the tube through one of the stage's many pits, the stage automatically ended.
Sonic Advance 2 featured an odd take on Sonic CD's Special Stages. Taking place in the same Mode 7 style arenas as the aforementioned game, the player was required to collect 300 rings within 90 seconds. However, because each stage barely held that amount, the player was required to collect several rings in rapid succession; doing so would steadily raise a multiplier that would increase the worth of the collected rings (so a ring collected while the multiplier was at x4 would make that single ring worth 4). All the while, the player had to avoid Sonic Adventure's Zero, who patrolled the stage and would cause the player to lose rings if he hit them. These stages were infamous not because of the stages themselves but because of the method of accessing them; the player had to collect seven Special Rings hidden in each act. These rings were often hidden in out-of-the-way locations, so finding them was almost impossible without the help of a strategy guide.
Sonic Heroes marked the return of the Special Stages in a 3D Sonic game (as mentioned earlier, there are no Special Stages in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2). The player needs to collect a Special Stage key in a particular stage to enter a Special Stage. Getting a Special Stage key in odd-numbered stages (Stage 01: Seaside Hill, Stage 03: Grand Metropolis, etc) opens up Bonus Challenges, where you try to beat the timer for points and 1-ups, linking spheres to add time to the clock. getting a Special Stage key for even-numbered stages (Stage 02: Ocean Palace, Stage 04: Power Plant) opens up Emerald Challenges, where you race against time and chase for the Chaos Emerald, powering up the Power Dash by collecting spheres. Despite the nostalgic return of the Special Stages in Sonic Heroes, it was met with much criticism for its slide physics and poor control.
Sonic Chaos for the Game Gear and Master System featured a unique brand of Special Stage. Accessed simply by collecting 100 rings in the main game, the Stages were little more than labyrinthine versions of the game's main stages, with the Emerald hidden somewhere within. The player had to find the Emerald within a strict time limit. These stages are notorious for their difficulty; except for the first stage, in which the emerald is simply at the end of a long void crossed by using the game's Rocket Shoes, the emeralds were always hid in obscure or subtle ways, making it nearly impossible to find them without the aid of a game guide. Also, though the game featured Sonic and Tails as playable characters, only Sonic could access the Special Stages.
Sonic Triple Trouble's Special Stages were accessed by hitting an item monitor displaying an emerald whilst carrying 50 or more rings. The game's five Special Stages came in two varieties: the first, third, and fifth were remarkably similar to those of Sonic Chaos, in which the player had to navigate a labyrinthine maze in order to reach the Emerald within 90 seconds. Though the emeralds were hidden less obscurely than in Sonic Chaos, the mazes were much harder to navigate, as there were springs and invisible ledges that could only be crossed through a process of trial and error. The second and fourth stages featured Sonic/Tails in the series' trademark biplane, the Tornado, collecting 80 rings in a short flying course. These stages were remarkably easier than the 2D mazes. What sets this game's Special Stages apart from all others, however, is the fact that at the end of all but the first, the player had to fight a mini-boss in the form of Nack the Weasel (called Fang the Sniper in Japan). Usually, these battles were incredibly easy, as Nack always seemed to have no clue how to pilot the vehicles at his disposal. Unlike Sonic Chaos, both Sonic and Tails had access to these Special Stages.
Sonic Blast featured a rather horrid take on Sonic 2's Special Stages. Accessed by finding a giant ring hidden within the first and second acts of each zone (similar to Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles), the player had to navigate a short obstacle course, collecting 50 rings before reaching the end. Like Sonic Heroes, the first acts were for extra lives, while the second acts were for an Emerald. The problem with these stages lied in the awkward pseudo-3D perspective and the fact that there were hardly enough rings in the stage itself to meet the quota. Also, you only got one shot at each stage, so if you messed up, you couldn't retry the stage. This led several people to simply bypass this game's Special Stages.
[edit] Theories
As the game lines gave little in the way of an explanation as to how such a strange dimension could exist, spin-off media and fans developed their own theories as to what the Special Stages actually are.
Fleetway's Sonic the Comic grouped the Special Stages into a single "Special Zone", although in fact it was depicted as a complete parallel universe, complete with planets and cities (though, admittedly, the bizarre cosmology of the games was adhered to). This Special Zone resembled Sonic's home planet of Mobius greatly, even with similar anthropomorphic animal inhabitants, and the two planes had a great deal of communication due to the Star Posts and the intervention of the Omni-Viewer. The Special Zone's largest city was called New Tek City, capital of Planet Meridian, and it was protected by the Chaotix team. Notably, the UK fiction presents the Special Stages of the first Sonic game to be not a natural part of this universe, but a series of sub-orbital space warps created by Doctor Robotnik to keep the Chaos Emeralds out of Sonic's hands. In Sonic the Comic-Online, the echidna scientist Dr. Zachary theorises that the Zone was formed by a Big Bang of excess Chaos energy from the formation of Mobius.
Other theories suggest that the Special Stages act as a recycling centre for Chaos Energy (as stored in the Chaos Emeralds), and that it is this energy that created such things as floating platforms and loops in the original games, as well as turning Sonic into Super Sonic. One theory states that the Master Emerald sends out this energy, which would explain its control over the Chaos Emeralds. If this theory is true, then the Special Stages are most likely located inside the Master Emerald.
| Emerald/Ring | Chaos Control | Chaos Emerald | Master Emerald | Rings | Special Stage | Star Posts |
|---|---|
| Locations | Mobius | Little Planet | Angel Island (Hidden Palace) | South Island | Mystic Ruins | Central City | Station Square | Space Colony ARK | Tiny Chao Garden | Knothole | Mobotropolis | Shanazar |
| Vehicles | The Tornado | Egg Carrier | Dr. Eggman's vehicles |
| Other | Aliens | Badniks (E-Series Robots) | Mobians (Echidnas) | Eclipse Cannon | Eggman Empire | Roboticizer (Roboticization) | Sonic Team | Voice Actors |
| Spin offs | Manga | AoStH (episodes) (Blast) | Sonic the Comic | SatAM (episodes) | Archie | Movie | Underground (episodes) | Sonic X (episodes) (comic) (card game) | List of printed media |
| Fan-related | Hedgehog Heaven | Project Chaos |
