Once you get a silver medallion on a stage, it will be removed from the rotation of stages available when you jump into another portal this helps you constantly play stages that you haven't previously gotten a medallion in. If you don't get a medallion from these two checkpoints, just restart the level it's not worth your time to get all the way to the end of the Act for the third checkpoint. To do this, simply play through the first Act and try to get some medallions using the first two checkpoints, and then quit out once you have a medal. You can replay Green Hill Zone (Act 1) over and over again in a new save file to rack up silver medals quickly, or you can just use level select once you beat Mania Mode on a save file. Your moving speed gets progressively faster as time progresses, so you'll want to get the job done as fast as you can. To get a silver medallion on each stage, all you have to do is finish the level, but you get an achievement for acquiring all 32 gold medallions, which will require you to obtain all the rings in the stage before finishing up your blue sphere collection. In any area filled with spheres in at least a 3x3 square, turning the blue spheres on the perimeter red will transform those red spheres and the ones inside into rings that you can pick up. You do this by touching them, which turns them red touching a red sphere will end the level immediately, so you'll want to avoid doing this at all costs. The goal of each stage is to 'collect' the blue spheres scattered around a circular planet. The Blue Sphere Stages are probably going to be the bulk of your achievement hunting, unless you've gotten some experience with these in the games they originated from. To get to one, pass a checkpoint while holding 25 rings to make a starry circle appear over it. Falling off the track will also end your run.īlue Sphere Stages work just like they do in their debut title, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. You'll also need rings to keep yourself running, so you may have to go out of your way to get to groups of rings off on the sidelines. In the stage itself, you'll have to collect blue spheres to increase your speed, which you can track in the meter up at the top of the screen. As a Super character, you won't be able to take damage and will move extremely fast, but be careful, as you can still die by falling off into a pit or by being crushed. Jump in the air and jump again in midair once you have the required amount of rings to transform. Obtaining all seven gems will allow you to turn into Super Sonic, Super Tails, or Super Knuckles, respectively, but only after collecting 50 rings in a level. You can also simply replay Green Hill Zone (Act 1) after you beat the story and jump in the plain-in-sight giant ring over and over to get the rest of the Chaos Emeralds. Having all seven in your possession will allow you access to the final boss of the game.Ĭollecting all seven Chaos Emeralds can be done in a single playthrough, although it might be a bit challenging to find at least six more giant rings to jump into if you fail one of these Special Stages, you'll naturally have to find a replacement ring.

You have likely run into a massive ring in Green Hill Zone that you can enter, which takes you to a small stage that gives you the chance to obtain one of the seven Chaos Emeralds. The Encore DLC improves on this two-player mode by upgrading it to include four players. Like Time Attack, there aren't any achievements for this mode. Sticking true to the game that this feature came from, Competition Mode is not available for online play, but it's a fun thing to do if you have friends over or you have a sibling you want to brag to.

This mode is a split-screen challenge where you and a friend can see who can get the best time or score on a stage. CompetitionĬompetition is a game mode that should be familiar to anyone who had Sonic the Hedgehog 2 growing up, or at least anyone who's tried to obtain all the achievements in it on the Xbox 360. As such, the Encore DLC is a good purchase if you're interested in dominating as many leaderboards as possible. The Encore DLC adds another 48 leaderboards through the addition of Mighty and Ray, but also doubles that total through the inclusion of the Encore Mode Acts.

In the base game, there are over 70 different Act-and-character matchups to choose from, so there's a lot here for speedrunning players. Finishing a Time Attack run will show you your place on the world rankings.

Sonic mania blue spheres