Collect Chaos and Super Emeralds in Sonic & Knuckles Special Stages. Learn how to get Super Forms and Perfects.
There are at least 2 Giant Rings located in each Act of every Two-Act Zone, but Death Egg Zone is an exception. If you jump through a Giant Ring, you'll be transported to a Special Stage. Note that you can only use Giant Rings once, as they disappear once you enter Special Stages, unless you re-play the zones via a completed save file's zone select.
When you enter a Special Stage, your objective is to grab all the blue spheres to win a Chaos/Super Emerald. If you collect 50 Rings, you'll earn a Continue. If you collect all the Rings, you'll earn a Perfect (an extra life). It is not necessary to earn Perfects in the Special Stages, as they are not required to win Chaos/Super Emeralds. Getting Perfects can be a new challenge for players that have already beaten the game with all 7 Chaos/Super Emeralds, so I advice beginners to concentrate on collecting the Emeralds first, as it is hard to get a Perfect on your first try, since it is an advantage to know the layout of the Special Stages. After spending a few minutes in Special Stages, the music will speed up and you'll start moving much faster, making your character more difficult to control over time, so be careful.
Grabbing a yellow sphere catapults you 5 spheres ahead. Star spheres sent you back in the opposite direction. It's best to dodge them, as they can cause you to bump into a red sphere. Red spheres exit you out of the Special Stage, so you avoid them at all costs. Blue spheres turn into red spheres when you pass through them, so don't go back in the opposite direction. You can jump over rows of red spheres, but it can be hard to pull off, so try only jumping over 1 row of red spheres in case you don't time your jumps correctly. To make Rings appear, look for square formations of blue spheres, then grab the spheres along the outer edge of the square. All of the blue spheres that make up the square will turn into Rings.
If you fail to complete a Special Stage, the next time you start one, you'll cycle through them in a sequence. For example, if you failed to complete Special Stage 1, you'll play Special Stage 2 the next time you enter a Special Stage. After Special Stage 7, the sequence will be repeated, so you'll have another chance to beat uncompleted Special Stages. When you have collected all 7 Chaos Emeralds, your reward is the Super Forms of Sonic and Knuckles.
If you collect all 7 Chaos Emeralds in the Sonic 3 Special Stages prior to Mushroom Hill Zone, you can jump through the zone's first Giant Ring to access the Emerald Chamber of Hidden Palace Zone. Once you arrive there, the Chaos Emeralds will be taken from you and transformed into grey Super Emeralds. This causes the other Giant Rings in the Sonic & Knuckles levels to become shiny, allowing you to jump through these Giant Rings to access the Emerald Chamber. If you step on the grey Super Emeralds, you can play new Special Stages (taken from Sonic & Knuckles) to acquire all 7 Super Emeralds.
If you haven't collected all 7 Chaos Emeralds prior to Mushroom Hill Zone but have obtained some Chaos Emeralds, you can jump through the first Giant Ring in the zone to access the Emerald Chamber, as that Giant Ring is always shiny, regardless of whether you collected all 7 Chaos Emeralds in Special Stages. When your Chaos Emeralds are transformed into grey Super Emeralds, you'll have an opportunity to acquire one Super Emerald. However, you won't be able to access the Emerald Chamber again until you complete the game, as the non-shiny Giant Rings can only be used to play the Sonic 3 Special Stages. When you have completed the game, you can use your Save File's Level Select to re-play Mushroom Hill Zone and jump through the zone's first Giant Ring to teleport to the Emerald Chamber. If you want to acquire all 7 Super Emeralds, you must collect the remaining Chaos Emeralds and transform them into grey Super Emeralds via accessing the Emerald Chamber.
When you complete the Sonic & Knuckles Special Stages, the grey Super Emeralds will be transformed into coloured Emeralds. The Super Emeralds are laid out from the far left to the far right in this order: Red, Blue, Orange, Green, Purple, White, and finally, Cyan. Once you have collected all 7 Super Emeralds, the Master Emerald will cast a light over the Super Emeralds and it will become shiny. Your reward is the second transformations of Sonic and Knuckles as well as the only transformation of Tails. You can't access the Special Stage from this point. However, I advice still searching for the Giant Rings, as they will now give you 50 Rings when you jump through them.
The respective colours of Chaos Emeralds in the Sonic 3 Special Stages correspond with their Super Emerald counterparts in the Sonic & Knuckles Special Stages. For example, if a blue Chaos Emerald is transformed into a grey Super Emerald, that Emerald will be transformed into a blue Super Emerald. The yellow Chaos Emerald is the exception. When it transforms into a coloured Super Emerald, i
- Concentrate on collecting Emeralds first before attempting Perfects, as Special Stages become faster and harder to control.
- Avoid red spheres at all costs, as they will exit you from the Special Stage.
- To make Rings appear, form a square with blue spheres and collect the ones on the outer edge.
- If you miss a Special Stage, you can cycle back to it later in the sequence or after completing the sequence.
- Giant Rings disappear after use unless re-playing zones via save file's zone select.
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