Special Stage (Sonic the Hedgehog 2)


 * For Special Stages in general, see here.

Special Stages are a series of special levels, that have appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and in the lock-on game Knuckles in Sonic 2. The Special Stage is accessible to Sonic the Hedgehog, Miles "Tails" Prower and Knuckles the Echidna after the player has collected 50 Rings and have reached a Star Post. Upon this, a circle of red stars will spin above the Star Post for while, the entrance to Special Stage. The character(s) has to jump into the sparkling ring above the Star Post to enter the Special Stage.

Overview
There are a total of seven Special Stages, each containing a Chaos Emerald at the end of the stage. The Special Stages are cut to three parts, where Sonic and/or Tails are running through a half-pipe collecting a certain amount of rings in order to move on through the Special Stage. The player must have required amount of rings on the hand, when he/she comes across the checkpoint of the part, as the player then moves to next part to collect another amount of rings. If the player doesn't have enough of rings, he/she will be transported out of Special Stage and try again to enter in another Star Post with another amount of 50 Rings. Depending if the player uses Sonic and Tails or Sonic/Tails alone, the required amount of rings varies, as having Sonic and Tails, the ring count may require more rings to be collect.

Rings are set on numerous strings of rings or double on row, that can curve around the half-pipe route's structure. As Sonic/Tails progress onward to the Special Stage, bombs will be an object to make Sonic/Tails lose 10 rings per bomb. Bombs can be set on strings as well and sometimes, bombs are set on large ring format, surrounding the all the walking way. In this case, the player has to do Spin Jump to get over it. The more Special Stages the player goes through, the difficulty and ring-count will increase.

After collecting all rings from all three Check Gates of Special Stage, a Chaos Emerald will be given to the character for completing the Special Stage. Depending the Special Stage the player go to, depends on the color of the Chaos Emerald. Once all seven Chaos Emeralds are collected, Sonic/Knuckles can transform into Super Sonic/Super Knuckles via fifty rings in his possession. The game's ending also changes when the player has got all Chaos Emeralds with Sonic/Knuckles.

Upon returning to the main stage, whether Sonic/Tails have collected the Emerald or not, they will have no rings in possession and all the rings are at their original positions as if the player have never collected any of Rings. However in Knuckles in Sonic 2, Knuckles will still retain the number of rings he had before entering the pecial Stages, making it easier to access the next one.

Some of Special Stages are also available in multiplayer mode of the game, where the players are competing on who collects the most rings on each round. The layouts in these Special Stages are the same like in normal one player's gameplay. If both players won one of two acts of the zone in multiplayer, the competition then would be settled with one of Special Stages with same rules as previously mentioned.

Trivia

 * Many fans find it hard to play these Special Stages with both Sonic and Tails (especially the later ones), as the reason for this is when Sonic moves, there's a slight delay before the computer controlling Tails follows what Sonic is doing which can lead to situations such as when Sonic moves across the half-pipe when a series of spike-balls are about to hit him, Tails hits the spiked-balls instead and loses the rings Sonic/Tails have collected.
 * As there are a total of 7 Star Posts in Sonic 2's first zone Emerald Hill, it is possible for the player to achieve Super transformation at the end of the first zone given that the player always has 50 Rings before touching the next Star Post and is very experienced in doing this type of Special Stages.
 * Special Stages in locked-on version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 notably has many segments for Knuckles, where a lower ring count is required than Sonic the Hedgehog 2's Special Stages; in line with retaining Rings when finishing a Special Stage, it is easier to achieve Super Knuckles (by collecting all seven Chaos Emeralds from Special Stage) than achieving Super Sonic.
 * In the Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, Sonic, Mega Man, Tails and Rush would go through a half-pipe that is similar to the half-pipe Sonic and Tails go through in this specific Special Stage.