G.Silver wrote:The rotating maze in Sonic 3&K was surely the worst of the bunch. The rotation effect, for one thing, was way choppier than in Sonic 1 for some reason, and it wasn't even a maze--all you did was go straight for the center to get into the slot machine. There was nothing you could get out of it besides the rings, and being that it was based entirely on random chance, it seemed like you picked up more rings by going into one of the other bonus stages, grabbing an electric shield, and running through a level. It might have been something if it actually were a "course" to clear, there would have at least been some satisfaction in getting through it (like the static ball stage), but as it is it's utterly pointless. I think it had the worst music in the game (the only music in any "important" Sonic game that I would actually say I do not like). Everytime I got that bonus stage I would make straight for the exit and curse the time wasted in getting there--if not for the ability to win shields in the other games (and the fact that I really enjoyed the static ball stage) I would never even go into the any bonus stages, so great is my dislike for that particular bonus level. I think it damages the memory of Sonic 1's rotating maze just by its very existance.
Yeah, that Bonus Stage sucked a lot, but I think that Bonus Stages and Special Stages could still co-exist. The Special Stages could be between levels (like Sonic 1, CD and Chaotix) and the Bonus Stages could be in hidden Special Rings (like Sonic 3 & Knuckles' Special Stages and Chaotix's Bonus Stages). The latter could even replace Sonic Advance 3's hidden Chao game if each ring lead to a different maze - of course there'd be the usual bonuses to collect along the way to the Chao.
"Love it or hate it," I think everyone would agree that it would have made a better special stage than the ones in Sonic Heroes. Actually, since typically the 2D Sonic Special Stages aimed for 3D, it would have made sense to do something like that once the games were in 3D, and especially for Heroes, since it seemed to have been aiming for a vaguely "classic Sonic" feel in the first place.
A sledgehammer to the groin would make a better Special Stage than the ones in Sonic Heroes - the physics were all over the place. The Advance series' were infamously bad too with a lot to owe to poor depth perception.
Most of the bad ones tried too hard to be Sonic 2's Special Stages with a twist - the twist sucking all of the fun from them. They should either go for something completely different or just be very faithful to Sonic 2's Special Stage formula (like Sonic 3D Saturn's Special Stages).
