Bonus Stage (Sonic Mania)


 * For Bonus Stages in general, see here.

Bonus Stages in Sonic Mania are special areas that the player can visit separate from the main game. Bonus Stages can be entered by passing a Star Post when carrying at least twenty-five Rings, which will create a Star Circle above the post. Jumping into this circle will take the player to the Bonus Stage.

The Bonus Stage plays identically to the Special Stages of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles, as well as the secret bonus game "Blue Sphere".

Overview
Bonus Stages in Sonic Mania take place on the surface of a spherical planet that is dotted with several objects. The ground pattern is a checkerboard-esque design that changes color with each stage.

Gameplay
Upon starting, the playable character is placed onto a spherical planet. Moving forward initiates the character's movements, and once moving, they will run continuously. The playable character will always travel along the lines that divide the checkerboard pattern on the ground, turning at 90-degree angles. Being spheres, the stages will wrap around as the playable characters move across them (meaning eventually, if a character walks in one direction without turning, they will return to their point of origin). The only ability the playable characters have in these stages is the Spin Jump, which will send them forward the distance of one square (or two spheres).

The line "Get Blue Spheres" will appear when the stage starts and sums up the central objective: the player has to run through all blue spheres found in the stage. Spread across the globe are several objects, most crucially being the blue spheres. Collecting all the blue spheres is the primary goal of the Bonus Stage. Whenever a blue sphere is touched, the counter in the upper left will decrease and the blue sphere will become a red sphere. When every blue sphere is collected, all remaining objects on the globe will fly off. Silver Medallions will be awarded to players who complete the Bonus Stage successfully.

Rings also appear in the Bonus Stage. They act as a supplementary goal to collecting the blue spheres. Like the versions of the stages that appear in Blue Sphere, the Ring counter decreases with each Ring collected, similar to the sphere counter. Rings can either appear in the open or can be made to appear by enclosing at least one blue sphere inside a perimeter of red spheres. Doing so will transform the entire group of spheres into Rings and give the player credit for all the transformed blue spheres. Completing a Bonus Stage with both all the blue Spheres and Rings possible will award a Gold Medallion instead of a Silver.

The longer the player takes to complete the Bonus Stage, the speed at which the character runs will increase (as will the music), which raises the danger of encountering a red sphere.

Collecting 32 Medallions will award the player with a side mode based on the Bonus Stage, entitled "Blue Sphere". In addition to the standard gameplay, the Blue Sphere gameplay mode features an all new set of "Mania" Stages, which add the Green Sphere and Pink Sphere stage elements.

Trivia

 * At least three Bonus Stage layouts is directly taken from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and two Bonus Stage layouts from Sonic & Knuckles Special Stage layouts.
 * One stage reuses the basic layout of a Sonic & Knuckles Special Stage (the Green Emerald stage) but adds several spheres in a stairstep pattern to the map that were not present in the original design.
 * The pink and green spheres exclusive to Sonic Mania come from a proof-of-concept idea created by Simon "Stealth" Thomley, one of the developers of Sonic Mania, who originally created the idea for an unrealized remaster of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles (and more specifically, a new take on the Blue Sphere minigame).