Special Stage (Sonic the Hedgehog) (16-bit)


 * For Special Stages in general, see here.

Special Stages, also called as Secret Zones in American instruction manual, are first seen in original 16-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog, where the player has to collect at least 50 rings on the hand and head to the end of the zone's first or second act of the first five zones. Here, the player has to then jump to the Giant Ring right above behind of the signpost. If the player misses, he / she has to try again in next act. The player is unable to access to the Special Stage after getting to the Scrap Brain Zone, meaning that the player has a maximum of 10 chances (6 successes and up to 4 misses) to ensure a good ending with all six Chaos Emeralds.

There are six different Special Stages in the game and where goal for the player is to find out through the Special Stage to the end, where the player has to collect one of six Chaos Emeralds.

Overview
After results from previous zone being calculated, the screen flashes to the Special Stage, where the player finds himself on his Spin Attack animation at the mystical and colorful dimension, where the camera keeps rotating around 360 degrees all the time, while the background features floating bird models with clouds and which changes to floating fish models with large bubbles.

As the camera keeps rotating, the player has to balance on the tunnel and keep pushing to D-pad to certain direction, while also jump at the same time in order to move at the tunnel. When the player jumps, he / she will fall to the direction where the camera rotates during the time and thus pulling Sonic to the certain direction, however the player can utilize the camera's moving. Like in normal zones, there are rings floating around at tunnels. If Sonic collects 50 rings, the player gets a continue and collecting 100 rings gives an extra life. Because of lack of any enemies, the player is not able to lose rings at all in Special Stages. Some of ring lines and formations will lead the player to the right way on labyrinth tunnels of the Special Stages.

There are numerous gimmicks and features in Special Stages to be utilized in order getting to the end of maze or middle of the arena, where the Chaos Emerald can be found. The Chaos Emerald itself can usually be found as being surrounded of Diamond-shaped blocks, that the player is able to break. At first it can be found colored as blue, while touching it once changes its color to green, while touching it twice makes it turn on yellow. By touching it third time turns it to red and the last touching makes it to disappear.

Getting all the Chaos Emeralds changes the cinematic ending of the game. Also when the player completed the game without getting six Chaos Emeralds, the last thing the player see after the end credits is Robotnik throwing six Chaos Emeralds on his hands with words "Try Again". Additionally, when the player has got all six Chaos Emeralds from each Special Stage, the result screen stating "Sonic got the all" and the cinematic ending changes to different one, where Sonic gets to the Green Hill Zone after completing Final Zone and Chaos Emeralds start rotating in the air and disappear, leaving the place with full of new kinds of flowers. After the end credits, the player sees Robotnik on rage jumping above the on the bouncy "End" word.

Trivia

 * There several leftovers and unused in-sprites in original version, that are not used in final version. Many of them included six different "Zone" blocks that would transport from Special Stage to another, unknown W-block and collectible extra life block. All of these are able to find with game's Debug Mode.
 * The American instruction manual listed separated 1-Up item, that has supposed to be collected from the Special Stage, but seem to be still later dropped out the final release of the game.
 * The 2013 re-release of the game for iPod and Android, features the seventh Special Stage, which is the most challenging one in the game. The only way to enter this Special Stage is by activating the Level Select code and edit the Chaos Emerald count from six to seven and then enter to the Special Stage from the Level Select menu. By getting all Chaos Emeralds in the re-release gives the change for Super transformation with all three playable characters.