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No Way! No Way! No Way! No Way?


— Title screen

Blue Sphere (ブルースフィア[1] Burū Sufia?), known as Special Stage Mode in Sonic & Knuckles Collection, is an easter egg video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series, built into the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge for the Sega Mega Drive, accessible by attaching any Mega Drive game cartridge (other than Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 or Sonic & Knuckles) into the Sonic & Knuckles lock-on port. Blue Sphere is a collection of Special Stages in the same style and engine of those featured in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

Accessing Blue Sphere[]

Get-Blue-Spheres-Title-Screen-Aladdin

The title screen with single Blue Sphere stage code, from Sonic & Knuckles cartidge with Disney's Aladdin inserted on the top.

When the original Sonic the Hedgehog is locked on to the Sonic & Knuckles special cartridge, a screen appears with the Sonic & Knuckles logo, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman, and a line of scrolling text that says "No Way! No Way! No Way! No Way?" While this screen is visible, pressing Sega Genesis A Button, Sega Genesis B Button and Sega Genesis C Button at the same time changes the screen to the Blue Sphere menu. The scrolling text will be replaced by "Get Blue Spheres!". When any other Sega Mega Drive cartidge is inserted, background characters with a blue tint aren't shown to have animation on the title screen and the code of single Blue Sphere stage is shown.

If the cartridge that is locked on to Sonic & Knuckles is the original Sonic 1 (as well as Sonic Classics due to the placement of Sonic 1 being at the 2 MB mark that the lock-on technology reads, and any ROMs that share the same header as Sonic 1, such as early prototypes of Sonic the Hedgehog 2), then the full game of Blue Sphere is accessed with all stages. Most other cartridges will allow the player to access only a single stage of the game, based on the cartridge's ROM header and the stage's code in the full Blue Sphere game. Cartridges with large ROM file sizes (those that exceed 2 MB; usually Genesis games released after Sonic & Knuckles) will not load Blue Sphere, but will instead boot Sonic & Knuckles as normal. Locking on Sonic & Knuckles to another copy of itself will also load the game normally.

Blue Sphere is also available in certain compilation games. In Sonic Jam, it can be accessed by "locking-on" Sonic 1 to Sonic & Knuckles. In Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Mega Collection Plus, Blue Sphere can be unlocked separately (in the former case by playing Sonic 1 and Sonic 3D Blast 20 times each) and is accessible by itself from the game list. It can also be accessed from the File menu's "Special Stage Mode" selection in Sonic & Knuckles Collection for PC, and its own section in Sonic Origins.

Gameplay[]

The main menu of Blue Sphere will show the current level number along with a 12-digit code (password) that will allow the player to jump back to the current level. Pressing Sega Genesis A Button, Sega Genesis B Button, or Sega Genesis C Button will switch the playable character between Sonic (represented by blue-star bumpers either side of the word 'START') and Knuckles (represented by red-star bumper). The player cannot play as Tails outside of the Sonic Origins release, neither can the player play as Sonic and Tails together on any version.

Blue Sphere levels are based on the Special Stages from Sonic 3 & Knuckles. The player must run around the surface of a 32x32 wrapping square (torus), collecting blue spheres while avoiding red spheres. Blue spheres, once collected, turn red. Silver bumpers with red stars bounce the player, causing them to run backwards for a short time (until the player pushes forward on the D-pad), and orange spheres catapult the player a certain number of squares forward. The longer the player stays in a level, the speed of their character's movement will increase, along with the music, which raises the risk of touching a red sphere. Collecting all blue spheres will award the player with a Chaos Emerald and (if the full game has been accessed) progress to the next level. Should the player make contact with a red sphere, they will be taken back to the menu screen.

In addition, the stages will contain a set number of Rings to collect. Some rings will be already visible in the stage, others will be hidden. These rings can be revealed by surrounding blocks of blue spheres completely by an outline of red spheres; the entire block will then be turned into rings.

There is a slight difference between these stages and those in Sonic 3 & Knuckles; in Blue Sphere, the Ring counter counts down instead of up. If a level is completed with all of the Rings collected, the player receives a "perfect" grade and advances ten levelsone.

After completing a level, the player is given a 12-digit code (password) for the level, and shown the stage difficulty.

Levels[]

Blue Sphere has 134,217,728 (227) levels, which are played in sequence. Once a player reaches the final level, the sequence repeats from the beginning. (Note, as mentioned above, collecting every ring and scoring a perfect allows players to advance ten levels.)

In fact, there are actually only 128,016,000 distinct level layouts (or stages). After 128,016,000, the stages repeat, even though the level number continues to advance. After level 134,217,728, however, the level number resets too.

These levels are not unique in their design. Each level is a 32x32 wrapping square (torus) that consists of four 16x16 segments. The layout of each segment is determined from a master list of 128 set layouts (numbered 0 to 127) based on a linear congruence using the level number. If the level number is N, then the top-right segment is (N-1)%128, the bottom-right is (3N-2)%127, the top-left is (5N-3)%126, and the bottom-left is (7N-4)%125, where %n means remainder after division by n. This formula produces the discrepancy between the 227 levels and the 128,016,000 (the least common multiple of 125, 126, 127, and 128) stages.

Difficulty[]

Each stage has a difficulty, based on the number of spheres in each region of the stage's map. The difficulty is displayed each time the player completes a level with a perfect, and is represented by a collection of sprites that appear on screen. For each additional difficulty level, an extra sprite is added to the screen (or, in the case of MAX difficulty, a sprite is changed). There are thirteen difficulties. The sprites that appear on screen are as follows:

  1. Nothing
  2. Sonic
  3. Tails
  4. Knuckles
  5. Dr. Eggman
  6. Mecha Sonic Mk. II
  7. Eggrobo in an Egg Mobile
  8. Four chickens Cuckies
  9. Four squirrels Rickies
  10. Four rabbits Pockies
  11. Master Emerald
  12. Sonic & Knuckles logo
  13. (MAX) Sonic sprite turns into Super Sonic

Passwords[]

There are two 12-digit passwords for each level, one for the version from which the player can advance (the full game, which can be accessed by locking on Sonic the Hedgehog) and one for the version from which they can not (the levels accessed by locking on other cartridges). These codes can be input to the full game. By inputting a code from the full game, the player can skip to the relevant level and continue from there; by inputting a code from the non-advanceable game, the player can play that level, but completing the level will not let the player advance further.

New Blue Spheres[]

New Blue Spheres from Sonic Origins.

The "New Blue Spheres" title screen, from Sonic Origins.

"New Blue Spheres" is a new game mode added in Sonic Origins alongside the remastered version of the original game that can be played by entering its "New Mode" option.

This mode, on top of adding new levels to play using the same type of gameplay as the original Blue Sphere, adds new game mechanics which originated from the Bonus Stages in Sonic Mania. Said mechanics include the pink sphere, teleporting the player to another pink sphere elsewhere on the stage, as well as the green sphere turns red when touched. Green spheres inside groups of blue spheres must be turned blue themselves first to allow the transformation into Rings of the group to occur. In terms of other new additions, this extra mode adds Tails as a playable character (whereas only Sonic and Knuckles were playable in the original game) as well as new visuals for the progression screen. The Sonic Origins Plus version also adds Amy Rose as a playable character.

Re-releases[]

Title System(s) Year Method
Sonic & Knuckles Collection Microsoft Windows 1997 "Special Stage Mode"
Sonic Jam Sega Saturn 1997 Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic Action 4 Pack Microsoft Windows 2001 Sonic & Knuckles Collection
  • "Special Stage Mode"
Sonic Mega Collection GameCube 2002 Play Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 3D Blast 20 times each
Sonic Mega Collection Plus PlayStation 2, Xbox 2004
Xbox Live Arcade Xbox 360 2009 Sonic & Knuckles
PlaySega Browser 2009 Purchase PlaySega VIP membership
Sonic PC Collection Microsoft Windows 2009 Sonic Mega Collection Plus
  • Play Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 3D Blast 20 times each
Virtual Console Wii 2010 Sonic & Knuckles
  • Lock-on Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic Origins PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 2022 Sonic 3 & Knuckles
  • Blue Spheres mode
Sonic Origins Plus 2023

Trivia[]

  • In the Sonic Jam version of Blue Sphere, there is no original mode included. Thus, the speed and difficulty of the Special Stages are lower than that of the original lock-on cartridge release.
  • Eggman's sprite on the title screen miscolors his mustache black, possibly due to color limitations of the Sega Mega Drive. Sonic is also missing the buckles in his shoes.

See also[]

References[]

  1. (in Japanese) ソニックメガコレクション最強攻略ガイド. Shogakukan. 1 March 2003. p. 149. ISBN 978-4091060907.

Main article (Blue Sphere) · Staff · Manuals · Glitches · Beta elements · Gallery · Pre-releases (prototype) · Re-releases (2001, 2005, mobile, GBA, iPod, 2013, 3D, Sega Ages)

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