Horizontal Bar

Horizontal Bars (スプリングポール), or Swing Bars, are gimmicks that first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2. They are used to launch the player higher into the air in order to traverse distances or grossing gabs that otherwise cannot be spanned.

Description
Horizontal Bar are, as their name implies, normal and respectively thin, horizontal poles. They can either be placed between two walls and hang perpendicular from a lone wall or a vertical pole.

In gameplay, the Horizontal Bars are used by the player to bring the playable character to other locations. By having the playable character swing around on the Horizontal Bar and then releasing it, the playable character will be thrown through the air as a form of transporation. This can be used to either reach otherwise unreachable areas, cross bottomless pits, take shortcuts or just get further down the path. Where the playable character is sent depends on when in the playable character's swing that the player releases the Horizontal Bar. Sonetimes, the player can grab onto multiple Horizontal Bars in succession. To grab a Horizontal Bar, the player usually has to either jump into it or use the Homing Attack, and to release it, the player always has to press the respective game's jump button.

In most cases, when grasping a Horizontal Bar, a circle with a densely colored front section will appear around it. The circle lights up according to the user alignment with the bar, similarly to a Plan Position Indicator radar display. If the player presses the release button at the time the playable character is in the colored front section, the user will be launched forward with optimal speed and hight; otherwise, the playable character will be launched forward and downward with much less speed. In some games it will makes the player fall to the ground if the player presses the button early or too late.

Sonic Adventure 2
The Horizontal Bars first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2 and its remake, Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, where they are only encountered in Sonic and Shadow's Stages, such as City Escape and Radical Highway. In this game, the Horizontal Bars have the ring indicators for an optimal jump, which are colored red, and they can be grabbed onto by touch.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), the Horizontal Bar's mechanics are exactly the same as in Sonic Adventure 2 with a red-colored ring indicators for an optimal jump. The Horizontal Bars are a rare gimmick in this game, meaning it can only be found in a few Action Stages, like Wave Ocean and Shadow's version of Dusty Desert.

Sonic Unleashed
In Sonic Unleashed, Horizontal Bars, called Horizontal Poles in the PlayStation 2/Wii version, only appear in the nighttime Stages where they are only usable by Sonic the Werehog. In this game, there is no circle appearing around the Horizontal Bar to mark the ideal point to jump off it and Sonic only swings back and forth on it rather than all the way around it. However, the ideal point to jump off the Horizontal Bar is usually on the apex of Sonic's swing. To grab onto a Horizontal Bar in gameplay, the player has to press the following buttons:

Once grabbed onto the horizontal bar, Sonic will automatically keep hanging onto it. Note that when using the Wii remote, the player has to shake the Wii remote to make Sonic swing on the bar while in the others version or with the other controls, Sonic will swing automatically. Additionally, on the PlayStation 2/Wii version of the game, if the player holds the Grab button after jumping off the Horizontal Bar, Sonic will automatically find and grab the next Horizontal Pole/Vertical Pole within his range.

Sonic Generations
In the console/PC version of Sonic Generations, horizontal Bars are usually seen two-dimensional sections, held in place by a pole in the background. The player must press / to release the Horizontal bar.

The only times Horizontal Bars appear in three-dimensional sections are in the Challenge Act "Cream: Helping Hand" and the Seaside Hill Challenge act "Surf, Sea and Sand". They function exactly the same, but the circle that appears is slightly harder to read due to the camera angle. There are no poles holding the bars.