Special Stage (Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles)


 * For Special Stages in general, see here.

Special Stages in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles are a series of special levels. Here, the player has to get blue spheres and avoid red spheres in checkerboard-covered arenas.

To enter the Special Stages, the player has to enter the Giant Rings that are hidden in every corner of the regular Zones. Upon clearing a Special Stage, the player gets a Chaos Emerald. In the locked-on version of the game, multicolored Super Rings from Mushroom Hill Zone and onward can also be found. These rings let the player enter Special Stages from the Hidden Palace Zone which award Super Emeralds.

Gameplay
The opening line "Get blue spheres" sums up the goal. The player starts moving forward on large checkerboard arena with full of different objects, that are related to the player's goal. These Special Stages keep looping on, when the player reaches to north point and finds himself walking on the south point. To turn, the player must press right or left on. As long as the player keeps going on the Special Stage for while, the stage will speed up which can make navigating through the stage much more challenging. The player is also able to jump over small rows of red spheres or Bumpers by pressing, or  button. Getting bounced by Bumper can knock the player backwards unless the player pushes up on to walk forward.

The player has to run through all blue spheres found in the Special Stage. The upper left HUD counter shows the amount of blue spheres that are left and the upper right HUD shows the remaining amount of Rings. The player has to avoid touching red spheres which transport the out the Special Stage without receiving a Chaos Emerald. Yellow spheres, which are only featured in Special Stages of Sonic & Knuckles can bounce the player to the mid-air for small distance like Springs. Rings are also found separately in Special Stages on small groups, but for most of the time the player has to turn large groups of blue spheres into them. When the player runs on the perimeter of the blue sphere group, each of them turn to Rings. However, red spheres included in the group, don't turn into Rings and remain intact.

By collecting fifty Rings grants Continue and getting all Rings from the Special Stage give a "perfect" bonus, which is equivalent of an extra life and worth of 50,000 points. When the player has collected all  the blue spheres from the Special Stage, all objects jump off the checkerboard arena and the player come across the Chaos Emerald, thus completing the Special Stage. By completing all seven Special Stages, Sonic is able to turn into Super Sonic, while also Sonic's ending is slightly different.

Super Emeralds
As Sonic the Hedgehog 3 features seven Special Stages, Sonic & Knuckles has another set of seven Special Stages, which are more challenging with more object layouts and more maneuvering routes to get blue spheres. However by completing these Special Stages, the player earns with Chaos Emeralds like at ones in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, thus Sonic and Knuckles being able to turn into Super Sonic and Super Knuckles in Sonic & Knuckles.

However in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, the pattern is somewhat different. The player is able to get Chaos Emeralds in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 zones. When the player enters Mushroom Hill Zone, the player finds for the first time a multicolored Giant Ring at the hidden room, which transports the player to the Emerald Altar at Hidden Palace Zone. Here, the player's Chaos Emeralds evoke large grey emeralds on their altars, that are Super Emeralds. Jumping on one of them will transport the character to a Special Stage of Sonic & Knuckles. At this time, the player will lose all Chaos Emeralds and is unable to turn into Super-form. However if the player doesn't have all of the Chaos Emeralds and is transported into Hidden Palace (which happens only at that first Giant Ring), the player only has one chance in turning one of the Chaos Emeralds into their respective Super Emerald; the player has to get the rest of Chaos Emeralds in order to evoke other Super Emeralds.

By completing another seven Special Stages, all seven Super Emeralds have got their color scheme back and the player gets to play either as Hyper Sonic, Super Tails or Hyper Knuckles. The ending also changes.

Trivia

 * In Sonic the Hedgehog 3, there is a secret eighth Special Stage, where the player is able to enter by doing cheat code. The player must access the Level Select code and play the music number "07" on the Sound Test. After this the player must press and START button at the same time to enter the "Special Stage 1" section. By completing it, the player earns a golden Chaos Emerald, which however doesn't have any effect to the game whatsoever.
 * In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, there also exists the ninth Special Stage with a yellow Super Emerald. To enter this Special Stage, the player must have enabled Level Select and Debug Mode while going to Sound Test. the player must play the music number "07" and then go to the "Special Stage 1" while pressing and START button at the same time.
 * The line "Get Blue Sphere" was originally called "Get Blue Balls" during game's development, which then got changed by game's testers in the final cut.