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Special Stage (Sonic the Hedgehog 16-bit)From Sonic Retro » » Special Stage (Sonic the Hedgehog 16-bit)
The Special Stages in Sonic 1 are one of many types in the Sonic series. Here, they are rotating rooms in which the objective is to find and collect one of the game's six Chaos Emeralds. Six stages exist, one for each differently coloured Emerald. The stages are accessed by jumping into Giant Rings, which appear just after the signpost at the end of each Zone's Acts 1 and 2 if Sonic has 50 or more rings. The exception to this is Scrap Brain Zone, none of whose Acts offer Giant Rings. Each successive Giant Ring that Sonic enters will take him to the next stage, regardless of whether or not he sucessfully collected the Emerald in the one prior.
GameplayThe special stages are composed of various types of block, each of which behaves differently (see below). The entire assemblage continually rotates, and Sonic constantly spins and will fall downward if unimpeded. These features make navigation more involved than simply pressing the desired directional button on the controller; in fact, doing so barely affects Sonic's momentum. Jumping, however, works much as in regular gameplay, but of course Sonic can only jump when he has a solid object from which to do so. Rings are scattered throughout each stage, and cannot be lost as they can in regular Zones, as no hazards are present. As in regular Zones, however, if Sonic collects 100 rings he is awarded an extra Life. Also as normal, and regardless of whether or not Sonic acquires the Emerald, the game displays an end-of-level score tally in which the player receives 100 points for each ring, and a Continue if Sonic collected 50 or more. BlocksThe special stages are composed of various types of block, each of which behaves differently. These are as follows:
Unused blocksSeveral unused blocks were left over in the game data. The game's American and European manuals describe a 1-Up block that Sonic can collect for an extra Life, but these are not present in any of the final stages. This block can, however, be implemented through hacking, upon which it will be fully functional, disappearing like a ring when collected. Other blocks that are not present or documented anywhere comprise 6 Zone blocks, which may have originally been designed to warp Sonic to a regular Zone, and a W block of unknown purpose. No code was implemented for any of these; all of them behave identically to Jump Stands. List of stages
Debug ModeUpon entering the Sonic 1 Debug code at the title screen ( If the user does not collect this blue emerald and falls off the pillar of objects, Sonic builds up gravitational speed again and ends up in a field of random objects, including the infamous (aforementioned) '1-Up', '# Zone' and 'W' blocks (although they are not functional). If sonic does not hit a 'Goal' block in this field, he falls again, this time landing back on the outside of the normal playing area. LegacyLike various other aspects of the original Sonic game (and others), its special stages influenced and are referenced in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I, developed almost 20 years later. In the latter game, special stages (and their music) are similar in design; however, the player must rotate the maze manually, and collect set numbers of rings to open gates that block Sonic's path to the Emerald. The original special stage also makes an appearance in the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "Fast and Easy". HackingSeveral utilities that allow Sonic hackers to edit these stages and create new ones of their own have been released, including Cyan Helkaraxe's early Sonic 1 Maze-o-matic and the more recent Sonic 1 Special Stage Editor by Mercury. The latter user also created a 'scavenger hunt' hack entitled Sonic: The One Ring, in which one of the features was that Giant Rings were added to Scrap Brain Zone Acts 1 and 2, affording players two more chances to collect all six Chaos Emeralds. Giant Rings in this hack would continue to send Sonic to the same stage until the player successfully completed it, allowing any acquired practise to remain fresh in their mind. 1
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