GHZ Museum/Encyclopedia fact checking & ect. thread

[FlashTHD]

So Holic won't strangle me if I bump an updates thread again. Any inconsistancies, missing information, research, suggestions, such and such for the Museum and Encyclopedia we can pile in here. legal disclaimer: assuming Gibbon does anything with it!
-------------------------

For whatever reason I had this urge to slog through Sonic Heroes again looking for useful information for the page. There's more than what i'm about to put here but that's for when it's not 3 in the morning. But for starters, HP counts for all the enemies and some notes:

• Egg Pawn - 3 HP
  The stone shield can take the most abuse before being disarmed; the spiked one is inbetween. I don't recall ever seeing any Solid Pawns...
• Flapper - 3 HP
  ...but Solid Flappers can come equipped with any other armament type. The Solid+Needle variety in particular is exclusive to Super Hard Mode.
• Cameron - 3 HP
  You can flip them, but that's kinda a waste of time since any power character can smash through them. (This is a good moment to mention that when a speed character hits level 3, their jump dash/homing attack gains tornado properties. This allows, for one thing, a simultaneous flip/kill of Camerons.)
• Gold Cameron - 6 HP
  If you wait until they start to rev up their laser attack, you can kill them then. (they're untouchable when they duck into their shells)
• Klagen - 3 HP
  If all 3 of your characters get abducted by Klagens, you lose a life.
• Gold Klagen - 6/9 HP?
• Rhino Liner - These guys actually have no HP meter, but i'm guessing something like 2 HP, since a level 1 speed character can kill them in one hit. They also regularly shoot mini mace balls at you.
• Egg Knight - 9 HP
  Knights can carry any combination of shields and weapons - in fact I don't think any of them ever carry lances (that's the promo art for you). Not sure i've seen one hold a stone shield either, though.
• Egg Hammer - 30 HP
  Depending on circumstances, Hammers can be a cinch to kill. Knuckles and Omega can simply wail on these guys until they crumble, which doesn't take too long (paralyzing it with Thunder Shoot helps). But better yet, use their combo finishers - with Knux at level 2 and Omega at 3, you can just use that right next to them and the constant damage from the fire/missiles will maul it in seconds. No problem. As for Vector and Big, it's slow going against Hammers until they're levelled up. Also, it goes without saying that power characters are the only ones that can damage them.
• Egg Bishop/Magician - 9 HP
• Heavy Egg Hammer - 30 HP
  Tornado attacks can also blow the helmet off, not that you won't get hit in the process. Because you don't have long to hit him and the weak point is so small, they do take a while without Team Blast. Omega's level 3 missile finisher will handle them quick, but that's about it. (edit: Vector's level 3 finisher works too)
• Falco - 3 HP ...I think that's what the meter said, but in my experience, most of these guys die in one hit from anything.
• E-2000 - 15 HP
• E-2000R - 30 HP
  There's no difference between E-2000 and the R model other than one having double the HP. They put up the block when you attack them while they're doing nothing. They also can transform before firing the laser, which allows them to aim better; when they stop pivoting with your movements, they're about to shoot.

Can you tell Heroes is an amnesiac beat 'em up? BTW, both types of Egg Hammers and E-2000s will always drop a power core when destroyed.

Bosses:
== Egg Hawk
Body - 100 HP - You can hit the body anywhere except the tailpipes.
Gunners x2 - 3 HP
Rotors x2 - 15 HP - KO both rotors and the Hawk slows down substantially.

== Team Battle 1
There's 3 power cores for each formation in the arena, and your opponents can collect them. Two sets of them are in the wooden crates. But if you get the speed core right in front of you at battle's start, you're pretty much set, just spam tornado attacks. If you have to fall back on it, there is a weakness triangle where one formation hits hard against another...but I forget what it is. Also, you don't die if you get hit with 0 rings, but you will get walloped if you let it happen.

== Robot Carnival
You get a shield if you light up the wide spring, and there's a balloon up above holding a Blast Gauge Up. It's usually best to save that for the next-to-last wave of enemies.

== Egg Albatross
Battery Body - 40 HP
Battery Rotors x2 - 10 HP - Same effect as the Hawk's rotors if you insist on taking these out
Battery Pawn Turrets x4 - 3 HP
Battery Cannon - 3 HP - Can only be destroyed by a power character
Battery Wing Guns x4 - 3 HP
Blimp Body - 50 HP - Attacking the propeller is useless; hit the blimp itself.
Blimp Cannons x6 - 3 HP - Again, power formation only
Egg Hawk - 15 HP - If you happen to have it ready, one Team Blast and the Hawk is cooked. (or, just trick it into charging at you and use a power character's dunk attack twice)

== Team Battle 2
There's a shield hidden in the black crates, and one power core per formation precariously stashed in balloons off the side. The arena is smaller, but the biggest problem is that your opponents in this round will - completely without warning - break out their Team Blast once. When it happens, this means the following: instant damage to all your team members, any characters you KO'ed come back, and if your opponent is Team Dark or Rose, they get their bonus effect too (time frozen or level ups+invincibility). By my estimate, you only have to start worrying about it within the 27-45 second mark or so; that's the only stretch where i've seen it happen.

== Robot Storm
You can use the cannons to hit some power-ups, but it's never worth it.

== Egg Emperor
Body - 150 HP
Shield - 80 HP - If for some silly reason you manage to knock his shield out (takes a while), he can't use it for the rest of the fight.

== Metal Madness
Weak Point - 90 HP each round
Team Rose gets donated two Blast Gauge Ups to do their segment. Handy, because if you have anything in the gauge (full or not) when it switches to the next segment, that gets passed over too. The Chaotix can use a cannon to get some power cores in balloons, and Team Dark gets to have three cores for each formation. If all your characters get disabled by his freezing missiles in any segment, you die.

== Metal Overlord
You lose rings reeeeeeaaaallly sloooooowwwlllly in this one. Like 1 every 3 seconds. If you dawdle too long near the end of the fight, he'll use Chaos Control on you - this freezes you for 20 seconds while he gets to pummel you with more (futile) attacks. Like the SA2 vs. mode, you can make the countdown go away quicker by shaking the stick and mashing buttons. Finally, the game counts Madness and Overlord as one boss - the time you spent on Madness carries over into the finale.

[Green Gibbon!]

assuming Gibbon does anything with it!

I always try to make mental notes of things I need to fix, but then when I end up having the time and motivation to actually do something, I've forgotten all of it.

Maybe this will work! Might have to make it a sticky, though.

[K2J]

GUN

Maybe it changed in the translation, but I think the platoon designations for B-3x Hot Shot and F-6t Big Foot are backward. "Scorpion troop's Hot Shot" and "Spider troop's Big Foot".

[Neo]

If you have to fall back on it, there is a weakness triangle where one formation hits hard against another...but I forget what it is.

Speed > Fly > Power > Speed. I have no idea why I remember this.

[Rob-Bert]

Can you tell Heroes is an amnesiac beat 'em up?

You know it's times like this where I wonder why they didn't just cut out the middle-man and actually make a Sonic beat 'em up. Sure would've been better than a platformer that tried to be every other genre at once.

[Delphine]

LOOK WHO STARTED THIS TOPIC WHAT A SURPRISE

It's a good idea, I'm just sayin', man.

[FlashTHD]

LOOK WHO STARTED THIS TOPIC WHAT A SURPRISE

It's a good idea, I'm just sayin', man.

Then smack Holic for suggesting it to me :p

Long post time again:

Teams/Moves
-- Die and all your collected power cores/points are gone like a fart in the wind
-- I don't believe flight time increases as you level up
-- The auto attack your partners do in power formation is, I think, called "Auto-Homing"

-- Rocket Accel can blow off enemy shields
-- Sonic's and Shadow's tornado attacks have an awkward sort of homing capability. If an enemy is near, they'll swoop in and use the attack on the nearest one, instead of where you were. This more often than not leads to accidentally getting hit.
-- Bonus points (the same kind from destroying groups of enemies) are scored for light dashing: the longer the trail of rings, the more points.
-- Thunder Shoot starts inflicting damage (at least 3 HP worth) all the time at level 2. At level 3, you can use it to magnetically draw in any rings the shot character gets near, hence the removal of the Magnetic Shield.
-- I could be mistaken but I don't believe Tails' and Rouge's dummy ring attacks inflict damage at any level - just paralysis.
-- Knuckles has a special technique no other power character does: if you let go of the stick and just mash B, he throws rapid-fire punches in whatever direction he's facing. Against one target (clue: Hammers), you can simply spam this and whatever you're thrashing on is probably going to die quickly. tl;dr: Knux is cheap.
-- Team Rose's Blast move also boosts the level of the entire team by 1
-- After using Team Chaotix's Blast, any enemies you destroy until the gauge empties out will provide even more rings. This adds up to a ton of extra lives and plenty more Team Blasts. (go for 999 rings in Robot Storm)
-- Espio can stick to walls forever with his triangle jump. His giant shuriken attack (which he also does in lieu of a sliding kick) is pathetically weak though.

Power characters' finishing moves:
-- Knuckles
Level 1: Dunks into the ground and makes a small earthquake. Hinders much more than it helps, because it only inflicts damage once.
Level 2: Dunks into the ground and causes a fire to break out around him. Inflicts constant damgage. Very powerful.
Level 3: Add a big explosion that spews fireballs to the above move.

-- Omega
Level 1: 360° machine gun. Weak.
Level 2: 360° flamethrower sweep. Can kill an Egg Hammer in two hits if you aim it right.
Level 3: 360° barrage of exploding missiles that pretty much devastates anything.

-- Big
His finishing moves are all identical. He swings different lures at higher levels, which I presume inflict more damage. Still an awkward attack. (dislcaimer: I may suffer through this game willingly but the hell with Team Rose)

-- Vector
Level 1: 360° music breath attack. More or less the same as Omega's machine gun.
Level 2: 360° fire breath sweep. See above.
Level 3: Spins around spitting out huge bubblegum blobs that blow up after a couple seconds or if they touch an enemy. They can also bounce off solid objects. At close range, very powerful. (this is the same bubblegum Vector uses for his Dive move)

Items
-- Spin targets must be hit with Thunder Shoot. If you get too close to them, they start spinning so they can't be shot.
-- Power cores are worth 500 points when picked up, and 500 at the end of the stage for each one on hand (that contributed to a level up).
-- Wide springs can contain any power-up
-- Cannon behavior: speed formation generally shoots you on a direct route, flight shoots you at a more vertical angle, and power lets you aim and shoot your team members individually.
-- On the Bobsleigh Truck, you can tap B to brake and push Up to accelerate. Losing the speed character means you can't accelerate at all. The characters are always knocked off in order of speed > power > flight (death). Wait, it gets weirder: every bobsleigh course in the game records your best clear time for it, and the character you were using when you jumped onto the bobsleigh gets a power core at the end of the course.
-- When you jump through a rainbow ring, you get 1000 points for doing so. Tack on an extra 800 for any other characters you make go through that formation of rings. If you manage to get all 3 into the hoops lined up at a very good angle (or something to that effect), that's another 800 points for your stylishness.
-- If you get hit with a shield, you won't drop your Special Stage Key.
-- Back Rings also appear for Teams Dark and Rose in their extra missions. In particular, there's several "destroy 100 enemies" missions for Team Dark that are impossible to complete without reaching the Back Ring and continuing from the start. This is reflected in the fact that in those missions, you can take like 11 minutes and still probably get an A rank. (also, while the Back Ring regenerates every item and enemy in the stage, your collected power cores stay intact, so that's some consolation)
-- You forgot the giant flowers that Charmy can sting to create a teleport.

[Segaholic2]

Of all the games you could have spent this much time and energy poring over, why Sonic Heroes??

[Shadow Hog]

He's getting all the subtle details and nuances for us solely so we don't have to. Clearly.

[FlashTHD]

Most of the stuff in the last post was kinda obvious and i've known about much of it for a long while. It wasn't so much poring over as just playing random levels and paying attention.

This isn't noteworthy at all, but I thought it weird: when fighting the Egg Albatross to get the HP counts, it occured to me that I was scoring a lotta points even though the boss fights aren't ranked by anything but time. Seems they just assigned point values to parts of each boss for the hell of it - the ring laser cannons are worth 1,000 each. (no i'm not going to look into these don't panic)

[Blount]

Useless trivia: In Sonic Heroes, rings will spin faster and faster in one direction until they start slowing down, at which point they will start spinning in the opposite direction and repeat the process. In other words, the game is so boring I actually put down the controller and started looking at the rings.

And I'm not sure if this is already documented anywhere, but I might as well throw it in: if you're out of rings and one happens to be nearby, one of your team mates will walk up to it and snatch it. I think this only works if you're not moving.

[cjmcray]

I played through the Ps2 edition of Sonic Unleashed back in 2008. Recently, I upgraded to the 360 edition.
Here is a list of the differences between the two versions.

• Empire City is only available in the PS3/360 versions of Unleashed
• The Wii edition features motion controls
• Towns (Areas where you can talk to people or buy items) are only available in the Ps3/360 editions of the game.
• In the 360/Ps3 editions, extras are accessed by entering Professor Pickle's lab. In the Ps2/Wii editions, however,
  they are accessed by the main menu.
• The intro sequence for the game appears before the title screen in the Ps2/Wii editions. However, in the Ps3/360 editions,
  it is seen after starting a new game.
• The Sonic Unleashed logo appears during the intro sequence as Sonic the Werehog falls to earth. The logo does not appear in the Ps2/Wii editions of the cutscene.
• The end credits of the Ps2/Wii editions are slightly different. The Ps2/Wii editions feature cutscenes playing on the right (ala Sonic Heroes) while the Ps3/360 editions just feature stills on the right, (ala Sonic Adventure 2) along with photos that Sonic and Chip took on their journey together.
• The 360/Ps3 edition gives you the option to hear voices in English or Japanese. The Ps2/Wii editions do not.
• The 360/Ps3 edition allows you to remove subtitles from the cutscenes, the Ps2/Wii edition does not.
• The 360/Ps3 edition allows you to adjust the volume of music and sound effects. The Ps2/Wii edition does not.
• If you run into a wall while using the Sonic Boost, there is a comical animation of Sonic smacking into it and falling backward. This is only present in the Ps2/Wii editions of the game.
• Eggmanland has several acts in the Ps2/Wii edition (mostly Werehog stages) while the Ps3/Wii edition has only one act and some boss fights.
• You can only gain EXP in the Ps3/360 editions of the game.
• Both robots and Dark Gaia monsters are present in the nighttime stages in the Ps3/360 editions of the game. The Ps2/Wii editions contain only monsters at
  night.
• In the Ps2/Wii editions of the game, you can explore the Temple of Gaia and find hidden items. This area is not available in the Ps3/360 editions of the game.
• Tornado Stages are only available in the Ps3/360 editions of the game.
• The teaser trailer for Sonic Unleashed plays if you sit at the title screen of the Ps3/360 edition for too long. This is not available in the Ps2/Wii edition.
• The hidden movies for Holoska and Adabat are only available in the Ps3/360 editions of the game. The hidden movie for Chun-Nan appears in the Ps2/Wii edition as a reward for collecting every sun/moon medal and getting all S-ranks.
• In the Ps2/Wii edition of the game, only the 'Egg Beetle' boss can be accessed in the Mazuri continent. There are no daytime or nighttime stages.
• In the Ps3/360 editions of Sonic Unleashed, If you hold down on the boost button, you can extend the Sonic Boost for as long as the 'Boost Meter' will allow you to. The Ps2/Wii editions lack the boost meter, so you can only tap the button to send Sonic momentarily charging forward.

[FlashTHD]

Seeing as there's no Unleashed museum page(s) (if one is ever done, the two versions really ought to be split articles) I wouldn't expend too much effort there.

Little corrections of my corrections:

-- It seems auto-homing is also capable of ripping off a Heavy Egg Hammer's helmet
-- At level 0, Thunder Shoot just hits one enemy and craps out. At level 1+ you can hit multiple enemies.
-- Big's finishing attack lures are: bobber (level 1), lifesaver (level 2) and one word: THORNS (level 3).
-- Espio's cloak move is also a tornado attack
-- Omega's flamethrower does not kill Egg Hammers in two hits. I think I confused it with Vector's flame breath
-- Also forgotten in the items is the annoying wall-mounted push switches. Spin targets act as switches too
-- Gold Klagen has 6 HP. Falcos, it so appears, are specially programmed to die instantly when hit by Thunder Shoot regardless of level.
-- Taking out the Egg Hawk's rotors also prevents it from spinning when it stops.
-- Regarding the problems in the PS2 version of Heroes, might want to add bad collision to the shitlist as that's the only one where I ever hear of people falling through floors. The frame rate in that version's vs. mode is, I hear, nothing short of legendary awful.

Stages and the rest of the page when I feel up to it.

lol, post 1111

[Blount]

Regarding the PS2 version of Heroes, it also has problems with the sound effects. For some reason, many sound effects (such as destroying robots, breaking walls, etc.) are inaudible, but they sound just fine in 2P mode. There are also less graphical details all around (round shadows, missing seagulls in the first level and so forth).

Having played the hell out of Sonic 2 for the Master System as a kid, I pretty much know the game inside out. When I played the Game Gear version, however, I noticed a lot of things were changed. Here's a list of some differences that aren't already noted on The GHZ (I know many of these are minor, but just use what you want):

• The HUD goes away when you defeat a boss in the SMS version. In the GG version it goes away as soon as the battle starts.
• The boss music in the GG version is completely different.
• The lower resolution on the GG version does make the first boss harder, but the main reason for this is that the cannon balls bounce erratically now. Their maximum altitude and speed are always the same in the SMS version, which makes the boss a lot easier there.
• The upper map limit in Sky High Zone Act 2 was lowered for the GG version, which means you can't fly out of sight anymore. As soon as you touch the edge of the screen, you'll lose the hang glider. This makes getting the Emerald a much harder task, because of that stupid breeze that makes you go higher.
• Related to the previous difference: If you jump directly underneath the very first hang glider and keep holding the jump button, you will rise vertically for as long as you hold that button. Since the SMS version has different boundaries, you can can get stuck on top of the screen there.
• The water in Aqua Lake Zone Act 2 is very weird in the SMS version. Cosmetic changes aside, the whole stage isn't actually submerged underwater. The surface of the water is invisible but it does exist. Ever noticed how Sonic runs at normal speed in the beginning of the stage? That's because the surface of the water is below him there (further evidence is that Sonic can't drown in that spot). As soon as you step below the invisible surface, the water mechanics kick in.
• Also related: The surface remains at the same altitude throughout the rest of the level, so you can get out of the water in a few other spots, most notably when you get to the Power Sneakers monitor. The monitor doesn't actually do anything - you only seem to run faster in that bit because you're above the water, so getting that monitor doesn't make a difference (apart from changing the music and making Sonic all shiny). Since the GG version submerges the entire stage underwater, you'll invariably remain sluggish at this point, and this is probably the reason they removed the power-up in the first place.
• Also also related: You can jump over the chute that leads to that level's Emerald in the SMS version. There's a secret passage here that allows you to jump through the wall, essentially bypassing that frustrating segment with the giant bubble and all the spears and lobsters. This isn't possible in the GG version because this part is submerged underwater, so you can't jump as far.
• The first time the sea lion blows a bubble in the SMS version, he will always hit himself with it instead of throwing it at you, making him lose one hit point. He wises up after that. In the GG version, this doesn't happen.
• The sea lion also has a jump attack in the GG version, which makes him much more annoying.
• I don't know what it is, but either the spring placement or the level design in Green Hills Zone Act 3 is different in the GG version. I know this because I can get through most of the level by just holding right in the SMS version, which I couldn't do in the GG one. You might want to check some level maps or something.
• The large discs in Gimmick Mountain Zone produce a different sound effect in the GG version. The same applies to the floating orbs in Crystal Egg Zone Act 2.
• The boss music for Mecha Sonic starts playing while you're still inside the last chute.

I'm sure there are more of these, but I haven't played the GG version recently and I don't know it as well as the SMS version. The GG version seems more polished overall, but it's also more frustrating because of some of the changes.

Also, as a curiosity, if you spin dash as you enter a loop, you will come out much faster than before, and you'll also be invincible until you stop. The best and probably only way to test this is halfway through Green Hills Zone Act 1. This doesn't seem to be intended behavior and it's probably just a glitch.

[Crowbar]

The last boss in the Master System ver of Sonic 2 has 3 pipes to enter the arena from, whereas the GG version only has two (the left one is removed).
Also, due to the lowered resolution, you can only just see the edges of the pipes.

[Blount]

Oh, the GG version has a new song for the good ending, which is much more cheerful than the mopey one from the SMS version (which plays in both endings there).

[Crowbar]

An erratum for my last statement: You can see the pipes at the top and bottom, but the screen has to scroll vertically. You can't see the pipes at the side at all.

[FlashTHD]

The finale:

Stages
First, the bosses, Team Rose's rings missions, and Team Dark's 100 enemies missions are ranked only on clear time. Everything else is points. There are 141 A ranks in all (bosses don't hand out emblems). While there's 7 "zones", individual action stages are still numbered in order as usual. (Sea Gate is Stage 00)

Most of the rest of this is just mentioning noteable stuff that was left out of the stage descriptions:

• The giant stone doors in Ocean Palace that must be punched down
• Pipes of some mystery red energy fuel most of the gimmicks in zone 2 (conveyor paths, doors, huge bridges); Metal Sonic Eggman is trying to steal said energy with red devices attached to the pipes, which blow up when you defeat nearby enemies.
• Toward the end of Grand Metropolis with Teams Sonic & Dark, there is this huge drawbridge that suddenly starts rising up, cruelly causing all the cars on it to go tumbling into the bottomless death. Eeesh!
• The elevator shafts of Power Plant. If just plain stupid waiting for the elevator to arrive is not good enough for you, there's always trails of rings and dash rings arranged so you can try to climb them faster.
• Zone 3 reuses lot of sound effects and gimmicks from Casino Night. A long time ago, someone claimed to me that there's a voice clip for Sonic where he says the place reminds him of Casino Night, but I have never found such a thing...
• As always the slots can still rob you of rings, and it's extra painful when you piled multiple characters in. There are smaller slot machines built for one character, which can give three possible results: Ring (10 rings), Sonic (20), or X (zilch).
• As every team except Rose, there is a switch stashed somewhere toward the end of Casino Park on one of the tables. Hit that and just up ahead, a laser gate in the middle of the path will shut down, granting access to the VIP Table. It's a glitzy golden pinball table with numerous slot machines that pay out (or penalize) double the rings. (Team Rose actually has a few voice clips mentioning the VIP Table in the game, but they can't get to it.)
• If while on a pinball table/slide you fall to your doom, as long as one of your characters hasn't done the same, you don't lose a life. Better yet, if one of them happens to be standing on ordinary floor, all your characters respawn there.
• The colored rail switches in zone 4 that change the direction of the glowing rails
• The high-speed railway tunnels in Bullet Station that you gain access to in power formation, then get out of by smashing the engine car
• Aren't the zone 6 pumpkin head ghosts still the same from the Tremble Park SA1 download? Or was that wrong?
• The music of Mystic Mansion is dynamic and advances only as you get through segments of the stage. Which is extra delightful when you get stuck on one part for a while and must listen to the BGM running the same 10 second clip over and over.
• The three-part altar at the end of the mansion as Sonic & Dark
• Darius? Hell, the Egg Fleet is almost a dead ringer for the Air Force stage in Mega Man X4.
• Egg Fleet's whale shark flagships that serve as the ultimate goal for all teams. Teams Rose & Chaotix just reach one and find the goal ring at the end. Sonic & Dark destroy one halfway through and one at the end (Team Sonic ends the stage flying through the air, which looks quite a bit like the game locking up).
• Egg Fleet's flying propellors that are functionally the same as the flying flowers from the jungle.

Special Stages
They're painful so not wanting to stay in them for long is understandable, but I have done the dirty work. Here's what was left out:

As in the Advance games, there's one Special Stage assigned to each zone. Sorta confusingly, each individial stage is called an "Act" (fifth special stage is Act 5, ect). When you enter one from an odd-numbered action stage, the goal is the Bonus Challenge; even numbered stages produce the Emerald Challenge.

The Bonus Challenge starts you with a timer (30 seconds to 1 minute or so) and the goal is to reach stage's end before it runs out. Picking up Spheres adds back to the timer - it maxes out at 1:30. Super/Score Spheres are of course worth a ton of time. The Chao Balloon only appears in bonus challenges, usually close to the end, and the game forces you to chase it using speed formation. (In the Emerald Challenge, the stretch of stage that belonged to the balloon instead contains long strings of Super Spheres for those who sucked that badly catching the emerald.)

The boost meter isn't affected by links; those are just for racking up bonus points when you finally break the link. The way the boost works depends on formation... speed characters have the fastest boost but it eats into the gauge rapidly. Power characters have a nice fast economical boost, such that if you don't hit any bombs or get screwed up by the collision, you can almost always get the emerald in 10-15 seconds by getting a few spheres, switching formation and holding the button.

When you clear a stage, the bonus tally works like thus:

• Points scored up to then +
• Timer/Distance - In Bonus Challenges, you get points for any time left on the clock at the end. In Emerald Challenges, the distance of the stage left over when you get the emerald is converted to points.
• Gauge - More juice in the boost gauge, more points. Max is 9000.
• = Insert final score here. You get a 1up for every 10,000 points you racked up (max of 5).

Misc. details:
-- Dash/Rainbow Rings and formation change gates also show up in special stages.
-- Clusters of bombs are linked: hit one and the whole group blows up.
-- If you try to do your character's jump action in a special stage, in some cases they will start to do it, then the game remembers OSHI NOT HERE DURR and stops it.
-- Just a theory on why the floor collision is so shoddy: the game doesn't handle sloped terrain all that well elsewhere, so when thrown into this twisting tubular hell ride AND trying to always shuttle the characters forward automatically on a set trajectory, the result is a perfect storm of glitches.

Vs. Mode
-- The game rates Teams Sonic and Dark 3-stars. Rose is 1-star and the Chaotix are 2-stars. This has no bearing on anything whatsoever.
-- The Team Blasts have the same effect as they do in the second Team Battle fight: Sonic and Chaotix inflict damage from anywhere, Dark stops time (mash buttons to shake the effect off quicker), and Rose gets the level-ups and invincibility. In most modes, when you die and respawn, you tend to pop back up with a full blast gauge... this is quite abuseable.
-- Espio's ability to pass through lasers while cloaked (forgot to mention that earlier) is a big advantage in some stages.
-- You can choose to play stages individually or go for best 2 out of 3.
-- Unlike SA2:B, even with the massively reduced draw distance and scattered objects from the main game, no (console) version of Heroes runs the splitscreen modes faster than 30 frames.

Quirks of each mode:

• Battle: This is the only mode run without splitscreen. All the power-ups come in the form of either balloons or wide springs, and all power cores are worth a full three levels. City Top is the same arena shape as the first team battle, and Casino Ring is lifted from Robot Carnival.
• Special Stage: There are no mines in Stage 1. If the emerald beats both of you to the end, the winner is whoever was closest to the gem at the time. Or uh, whoever gave up last from dealing with the crappy camera and physics...
• Ring Race: Forgot the intruiging porno joke.
• Bobsleigh Race: I couldn't tell for sure, but the infamous Prima strategy guide claims the more rings you have, the faster you can make the sled go. *shrug* There's no iron balls to smack into on City Course, but they're all over the fucking place on Casino Course. If you lose all three characters, your opponent wins instantly.
• Quick Race: IIRC, Terror Hall just has a start and an end, as opposed to two starts, so both teams start near each other. The level also throws an Egg Hammer at you that has to be destroyed to continue - potentially disadvantegous for whoever has to waste time taking it out.

Super Hard Mode
And finally, this. You start the mode with the standard 4 extra lives, but there's a glitch: since Team Sonic is only allocated one slot of saved up lives for themselves, just starting the mode reduces their lives to 4 in all the game's other modes. Charming.

It is possible to save in Super Hard, but it's not advertised how. You have to pause and select Quit to make it store your progress. Your reward for making it all the way through Final Fortress (and the three Heavy Egg Hammers that are holding the goal ring hostage at the end): the credits, with Sonic Heroes theme, and a photoshopped-in-5-minutes-or-less "thank you for playing" message.

And a few last tidbits:
-- Egg Knights can carry lances after all. But you'll only see that when they're attacking en masse (endurance battles).
-- The items Team Chaotix hunt for and collect are worth points on pickup, but I stopped playing the game so i'm not going back for that.
-- No idea if this was just something thrown in by localization, but the sound test names all the action stages as "Zones". The rest of the game does not. Uh, whatever?
-- I saw on The Spriter's Resource that the PC version has little mouse cursors of all the playable characters, based on the animation style of Sonic Battle.

Je-sus.

NOT talking about Heroes for once: for reference in case there should ever be a Gems Collection museum page, an awesome video comparing the Sega CD, PC, and Gems versions of Sonic CD (and the opening/ending vids). They actually cut the end credits out of the Gems version entirely >_>

[The Doc]

Sonic Heroes might just be one of the luckiest games in the series. When it came out, everyone was all, "This game is so poorly-made...I hate it." Then, when Shadow the Hedgehog came out, that same person would go back to Sonic Heroes and say "hey, yeah, I remember--that game was pretty good!"

...That's how I saw some people do it, anyway.

[Shadow Hog]

I remember liking it enough to play through most of Team Sonic's campaign, although I never got farther than Mystic Mansion's boss. I couldn't deny the game was flawed as shit, though, and really was the beginning of the end (if you don't attribute that to Sonic Adventure 2 instead).

[FlashTHD]

Sonic Heroes might just be one of the luckiest games in the series. When it came out, everyone was all, "This game is so poorly-made...I hate it." Then, when Shadow the Hedgehog came out, that same person would go back to Sonic Heroes and say "hey, yeah, I remember--that game was pretty good!"

...That's how I saw some people do it, anyway.

To Shadow's credit, his game is nowhere near as glitchy, and even with cookie-cutter level design all over the place it still manages to be entertaining for longer than Heroes if you have the will to unlock all the stages and then forget about story mode for good afterward.

[P.P.A.]

To Shadow's credit, his game is nowhere near as glitchy, and even with cookie-cutter level design all over the place it still manages to be entertaining for longer than Heroes if you have the will to unlock all the stages and then forget about story mode for good afterward.

Well, I think the crucial difference is that Shadow is actually playable, somewhat.

[Neo]

Shadow the Hedgehog is a fundamentally, if not quirkily so, solid title. Sonic Heroes is just a lousy game. People often get these two confused because Heroes has a perfectly good premise while Shadow's is just lol.

ie: Sonic Heroes is a good game to look at, but not a good game to play. The opposite happens with Shadow, barring a few stages which are actually impressive (Digital Circuit).

[Crowbar]

Yeah, I definitely remember that when Shadow came out most people were just rating it "Better than Heroes/10".

[K2J]

It's probably the timing over anything. We were braced for an out-of-character, angsty experience when playing Shadow, whereas we were expecting more classic platforming action from Heroes. If they had billed Heroes as a beat-em-up, it probably wouldn't have been so bad.