This was always bad, but I tolerated it for some reason.
>>10867176Blue spheres were the most fun and fair special stage.
>>10867183As far as special stages go:1>3>>>>>>2
>>108671861's special stage had some funky physics that throws you into the goal gates.Fun fact: the first stage will play itself until you get into the section near the emerald.
>>10867186The special stages in 2 are the ones I hate the least
>>10867176I don't know how anyone figured this shit out.
>>10867226It's pretty straightforward.
>>10867176All Sonic bonus games kinda sucked and weren't very fun. I don’t know how they screwed that up. Just having a pinball bonus game would have been fun enough, but they never did it.
>>10867226Learning disability, hmm?
>>10867318I'm an avid pinball player and you're pretty off the mark with that idea. The point of the special stages is to be trial and error, because your chances for the later ones grow thinner and harder to find, the further in you get, until the last few levels don't even have them. Pinball by its nature can just throw your ball down the drain, if the flippers are too far apart (see the bullshit behind Fish Tales as a prime example), and as the chances grow thinner further in, you want to be able to build off of whatever parts were successful in a previous attempt at the later special stages. I wouldn't call them masterful or ingenious game design, but functionally they at least make complete sense. Imo Mania strikes the best balance by having at least 3 laps usually, with the first two being at really manageable speeds so you know what's coming, and in turn theoretically have a way higher chance of passing on your first try. Also there's pinball bonus stages in Spinball, and desu they're pretty fun, so I get where you're coming from
the only problem with blue spheres is it makes you pick up every ring. You should just get them when you transform a block of spheres.
This mini game seperates the players who actually have fast reflexes, and the ones who play through Sonic games by bruteforcing their way through with the ring system and learning everything by heart. The later get destroyed by this mini game.
>>10867176I'm just gonna say it.You got filtered.
>>10867241Sonic has tried to do pinball so many times and it has never been good
>>10867608I beat Sonic 3 and Knuckles with all the chaos emeralds as a teenager. Take your angry kewpies and go play somewhere else.
>>10867176https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMucNIUnu1c
>>10867226Most 10 year olds figured this out at the time the game came out with no magazines, guide books or internet. Including the border outline ring conversion trick.I know because I was one of those 10 year old and knew several and literally no-one with the game had issues with this.Today's fun fact: We also had disagreements about how to pronounce Hyrdocity at the time. I got a big chuckle when the internet re-memed that.
>>10867176Blue Sphere > Half-Pipe > Time Stone Special Zone > Rotating Maze > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Half-Pipe with lagging Tails fucking up your runs
>>10867241>get blue ballswhat did sega mean by this?
>>10867176>Good ending is tied to a minigame that has nothing to do with the main mechanic
>>10868105Basically this, though some of my friends couldn't do the blue spheres.
>>10867176It is really impressive how they managed to do that with ZERO on the fly creation using only premade sprites and frames and clever use of palette swaps.
>>10867176This was always good, the ones from 2 were always bad though.
>>10867183>randomly speeds up right before you jump over a red sphereheh no super sonic for you, sorry kid :)
I'm convinced anyone who says 3's special stages are bad is braindead because they never explain why. >>10868360sonic 2 absolute fixes them. better frame rate and you can see more of the rings in advance so you can get by more with reflexes than memorization.
>>10869064>sonic 2 absolute fixes themYou can't see fucking shit in 2, it is pure memorization. Raw garbage.
>>10867176Most difficult one other than the running tube one
At this point I think all the special stages were bad
>>10867176Better than the fucking halfpipe.Why did Sonic Team decide to add these shitty special stages anyway?Wouldn't it be better if you had to find them in the levels like in Sonic CD with those badnik machines?
>>10869386Them as in emeralds.
>>10867226What's not to understand? You get the blue spheres.
>>10867226Attract mode shows you what you need.
>>10867183fpbpit's the only skill-oriented one
>>10869386"Finding them in the levels" was the Master System / Game Gear approach.
>>10867176Your post applies to the entirety of Sonic
>>10867183No
>>10867176They're all pretty bad, this is the only one that's fair and funToo bad it's in a game that is shit
>>10870425That sounds kino. Kid me would've loved that
>>10870459Literally how is blue spheres not fun and fair?
>>10870459hell yea that ones awesome
>>10869818why is teh kot in bottle of sok tho?
>>10870496>he locked on non-sonic games just to get more blue sphere stages to play
>>10870496It's fucking nauseating, It's disorienting, it's frustraing.I won't lie, I've always loved the music and the look, but it's too much. It's like a VR game from hell
>>10868105>no magazines>no guidebookshttps://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Hedgehog-Segas-Official-Players/dp/1559583355lol ok zoomer
This thread makes me want to download Sonic 3 AIR again. Not sure if it qualifies entirely as retro, but it's basically Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
>>10867183Half pipe is the best and I'm tired of people who got filtered bitching about it because they suck at it. There's a reason it's the only one that stuck around and variants of it are used across the series. That said, even fucking 1's got a comeback in 4 and superstars so I guess SOME people will like literally anything.I can see the appeal of blue spheres but I don't enjoy it
>>10868105>Including the border outline ring conversion trick.This was actually explained in the Sonic 3 manual.
>>10870938isnt it in the demo too?
>>10867241I'm blueballed as fuck Am I doin it rite?
>>10871227what demo?
>>10867176I liked it, but I also liked 3D blast.
>>10867176Time waster
>>10870764>tfw you can't play as Knuckles in Aladdin
>>10870932I can beat the half pipes even with Tails because I have them memorized from childhood.But that's the thing: you need to have them memorized. Don't tell me those bunches of rings right after a curve is fair.The average person with decent reflexes stands a chance with Blue Spheres.
>>10868216I mean......yes? That's how Sonic 1 and 2 worked as well.
>>10870496If you don't know the layout by heart through multiple tries (which are far apart), then you're likely going to fail.
>>10874214You can wing it. It's not that hard
>>10874205>decent reflexesYou have to have a pretty good strategy worked out for all the different kinds of blue sphere layouts, because if you don't then they will speed up and then it's over.
>>10874228Speeding up isn't an automatic death sentence. You're more likely to mess up sure, but it never reaches a point where it's impossible to react.
>>10870459really? this piece of shit was a worse feeling version of 2's special stage
>>108749572's special stage is bad. there's literally someone a few posts above you explaining why
>>10875492and 3d blast's special stage is somehow better?
>>10867176The main issues with blue spheres are the unexplained mechanics that make it far easier. You would assume you have to collect all of the blue spheres as you're literally told when you enter the stage, creating a huge swath of obstacles for yourself, but running around the outer edge of a set deletes all of the would-be red spheres and gives you rings for continues as well. Once you know this the stages largely become a cakewalk, especially if you manage the stage's speed by saving the easiest spheres for last and buffer inputs since your character can only turn at an intersection between points.The fact that you can jump doesn't feel natural either for some reason but that's at least something anyone could figure out.
>>10867176touch the balls anon, you know you want to
GODDAMNIT TAILS STOP HEADBUTTING THE FUCKING BOMBS
>>10875894Make me.
>>10875901ALRIGHT BUDDY, YOOOOOOOUUUUUUU ASKED FOR IThttps://youtu.be/5_-iZMkeuOs
tails isn't realsonic is literally just hallucinating a friendthats why he can't die
>>10875920THEN WHY DO I LOSE RINGS EVERY TIME HE FELLATES ANOTHER FUCKING SPIKE BOMBHUHDON'T GOT AN ANSWER FOR THAT DO YA
>>10875929The answer is just to keep Tails from grabbing rings
>>10875929you never had those rings in the first place it was all in sonic's mind
I just came up with an interesting theory that Sonic and Ecco take place in the same universe. No, I'm not going to justify that theory.
>>10875942>both are called X the Y>both are about liberating animals>one can't swim>the other can't walk on dry landILERMINURTY CONFIRMED!
>>10875770Yes. It's fair and fun, as previously stated. Explain how it's not
>tfw no ecco/flipper crossover
>>10875901I recognize that pedotails...
>>10876107wtf why the schooner gotta be black?
>>10876089>fair and funYou keep repeating that phrase as if blue sphere is either.
>>10876136why'd you bring up blue sphere? I thought you were arguing with me about sonic 3d minigame vs sonic 2's
>feels slow, sonic is literally limping>cramped, can only move inside a narrow hallway that only uses like, 30% of the screen's width>visually boring bridge>bombs blend in too much with visually boring bridge>random ass spots where the action just pauses>can't even see that far aheadgo ahead and reply with your "fair and fun" bait
>>10876151holy shit filtered by a game for toddlers
>>10876151Don't worry anon, you can still beat the game even if you aren't able to collect all the chaos emeralds. You just can't brag about it.
blue sphere is notched a little too hard for my taste. Granted I play sonic which is basically a baby game for babies. Still, I think the speed and amount you have to collect at the end is like.... 10% too high and should have been scaled. That said, with the save feature and tons of maps, I think people would eventually get 7.sonic 2 special stages scale way too fucking hard. The first 4 are manageable, but the last 3 are really brutal in their layouts. And learning them in a natural playthrough? They are rough. THEN on top of all that, you can't even use super sonic on the final boss. 1 is arguably perfectly balanced.
>>10877168but what do you think about 3D Blast's special stage?
>>10874141>AladdinWhy was Genesis Aladdin so damn popular? I don't remember any other 4th gen licensed game being this popular
>>10877201Alladin was huge, and the game was good.
>>10875894I never got this. Tails only collects what you missed.
>>10879831Tails has his own collection of rings and loses them when he gets hit.
>>10877201The sword
>>10877201abbaabba
>my mom loved Sonic 2 when I was a kid>force me to be Tails as a sacrifice to most of the levels or half pipe ManIt was weird for a bit"HEY [anon] BEAT HIM!""I'M TRYING!" [8 years old and barely played Sonic]
>>10870425Sovl
>>10870932You literally can't beat the final half pipe on your first try. It's impossible.>hurr durr good games require you to beat your head against a wallKill yourself. Every Segoy should kill themselves.
