Special Stage (Sonic the Hedgehog) (8-bit)

Despite the name, Special Stages in the 8-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog are a series of special levels, which unlike the game's 16-bit counterpart, aren't featuring Chaos Emeralds (Six of them in this game are hidden on regular zones) as reward for the player after completing one of eight Special Stages. In this game, these Special Stages are for getting extra points, Extra Lives and Continues.
 * For Special Stages in general, see here.

To enter these Special Stages, the player must have over 50 rings on the hand before running past the signpost (after rotating it will have exclamation mark on yellow plate) at the end of each zone's act. However unlike many games, if the player gets more than 100 rings, the ring count will decrease back to zero while the player has earn extra life, but will not enter the Special Stage until another 50 rings are on the hand.

Overview
After entering the Special Stage, the player finds himself bouncing around the stage by numerous different colored springs, bumpers and colossal pillars, while there's night-themed background with large yellow crescent moon and small/huge stars on formats. The player is able to move on the stage normally like in regular zones. However the Special Stage has now time limit, that is set on 1:00 (2:00 in Game Gear version) right after the beginning. As Chaos Emeralds are non-existing in these Special Stages, the player has to hurry to the end of Special Stage, that normally has Signpost there, while at the same time try to get score increase by collecting Rings as much as possible. Normally by getting 100 rings the player will get extra life while the ring count decreases back to zero.

There are few features that are seen in Special Stages, as normally the most bouncy objects in Special Stages are Bumpers and large yellow and green colored pillars, there are also different Springs, that are able to launch the player differently. Green Springs bounces the highest of all three, while yellow Spring bounces the medium high and the purple Spring bounces the lowest of all three. The player will find floating monitors, that either have extra life or Continue, which the player will keep. All these are able to get on signpost as well. The fourth and eighth Special Stages also have white Flippers at right that will launch the player to the left side of the Special Stage.

There are eight different Special Stages in this game, but mostly only first four have more unique level design. When the player enters the fifth Special Stage, he/she will be in the first Special Stage with slight changes. The arena now has small, moving purple platforms, which also appear in last three Special Stages as well and will made the completing these Special Stages much harder. Even through Special Stages are mostly optional in this game, the final score in the ending will affect depending how much Special Stages the player has cleared perfectly (Clearing one Special Stage gives 50,000 extra points to the final counting).

Trivia

 * In the first and fifth Special Stages, one of ring formations at one section (where the Continue monitor can be found) are seen forming the word SEGA.