Sonic Mania/Special Stages

Chaos Emeralds can be obtained in only one way in Sonic Mania: clearing Special Stages. Special Stages are modeled after Sonic CD's take on the series staple, in which a UFO carrying a Chaos Emerald must be chased down. However, before you can attempt Special Stages, you must first find the giant rings scattered throughout the game's zones. These giant rings give you access to one of seven Special Stages; once you clear the first Special Stage, the giant rings will take you to the second, and so on.

The Special Stages themselves are very simple: Sonic is constantly running, first at Mach 1 speed. Fill the gauge at the top of the screen by collecting blue spheres to enter Mach 2, then fill it again for Mach 3. While the higher speed may be tempting, don't go too far out of your way to collect the blue spheres; if you don't keep a steady pace behind the UFO, catching up to it before time runs out may prove impossible. Blue spheres also reset after each cycle around the track, giving you an endless supply. Rings are a different story, representing your time in the Special Stage. As time goes on, your ring count will steadily drop, and as the rings do not reset after each lap, you have a limited amount of time to clear the stage. Just be sure to make the most of your time, jumping over gaps to take shortcuts wherever possible, avoiding hazards (which cause you to lose a great number of rings if hit), and hit item boxes (which may increase your ring count, increase your blue sphere count, or level up the gauge).

Below is a list of Special Stages by number and some tips to clear them. If you don't collect all seven Chaos Emeralds in one playthrough, you can return to a zone of your choice from the cleared game file and keep returning to the same giant ring, exiting the stage and returning to it until your attempts are successful. If you manage to collect a Chaos Emerald this way, you can exit the zone immediately afterward, as your progress will be saved to that file.