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Anyone have a particular favourite special stage from any sonic game? Or do you dislike special stages in general?

The only one I found fun was Sonic 2's half pipe special stages. It was fun playing with a friend controlling Tails. Sonic 3 & Knuckles ones are not bad either. Sonic 1 special stages I never really enjoyed playing and found particularly difficult. Sonic CD special stages were ok. I hate the control on the Sonic Advance 1 special stages. Haven't tried the Sonic Advance 2 & 3 special stages because of all the secret rings/chaos you have to find before you can even attempt a special stage.

When it comes to Special Stages all the Sonic ones I've simply found awesome, not to mention Sega games in general. There's always this attitude and flair around them that's uniquely Sega.

Definitely the ones from Sonic CD!
Next up would be the ones from Sonic 3D on the Saturn (32-bit Sonic 2 specials!).
Then the ones from Sonic 3D on the Genesis/MD (wow, looks great!).

The Sonic 2 specials were pretty cool looking, and the Sonic 1 rotating ones were unbelievable at the time. I thought the Sonic 3/Knuckles ones were a step back from Sonic 2, except the scaling was pretty good. They are all fun, to be honest.

For gameplay purposes, the ones introduced in Sonic 3 were the best. Stylistically, the ones in Sonic 1 were the best.

The ones in Sonic 2 and Sonic CD were shit

Gamerforlife wrote:
The ones in Sonic 2 and Sonic CD were shit

FINALLY somebody else thinks so!

I hate hate HATE the special stages in sonic 2, especially since tails always ends up hitting everything instead of me, not to mention how they were more exercises in memorization near the end. The fact that this did not return in 3 & Knuckles is probably the main reason why I consider that game the best in the series.

I admit some of the later ones in Sonic 2 revolve around memorization (which is a pretty nasty flaw) but I still favour this gameplay which is focused on speed and reflexes (apart from the issue with the memorization). The ones in either Sonic Advance 1 or 2 are effectively similar.

The Sonic 3 specials were somewhat easy and at times even boring for me as most of the time you don't do anything and then at the right moment turn or jump (it is sort of "quick-time event" in that aspect, no?).

Ivo.

I probably should keep my japper shut, but the snowboard stages in Sonic are the shizzle.

Sonic 2's hold a special place in my heart for nostalgia reasons and I still think they look very cool and are fun to play. However, I can understand the frustration part.

But Sonic 3/S&K ones are pretty solid as well...

Sonic CD ones were cool at the time, but don't seem to hold up as well now...

The Sonic Spinball special stages are the best:

Sonic 2's special stages were really cool looking back in the day, but they're honestly more frustrating than anything.