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Sonic Rush FAQS/Guide
Version 1.6: 10/3/06
One Year Anniversary Edition
By Angnix (Angela Petersen)

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
I'm putting this right in the front of the guide because there are just
certain questions that keep coming up again and again and again about this
game I want to make clear at the beginning.

Remember, there is still more guide after this section :P

Q. How do you get the Chaos Emeralds?
A. This question is asked a lot because you have to read the booklet or later
parts of this guide to get the answer and it's not very obvious in game. See
the things in Sonic's Acts with a star in the middle and two handles? They are
called Special Gimmicks or Special Generators and if you have enough Tension (at
least 105% or at least all blue with one orange bar)
and you grab one of the handles then press X or Y and keep X or Y pressed, you
will eventually be warped into the Special Stage where you will have the
chance to grab a Chaos Emerald, you need to do this once in each of the 7 Zones.
This is described in much more detail in the Special Stage Section of this

Q. I'm stuck in Night Carnival! The spring things won't bounce me high enough
or I can't reach that button!
A. First you work this spring thing by standing on it then pushing down, the
longer you push down the longer it charges up and the higher you bounce up.
Second, after springing off many things, you can push the R button and up at
the same time to do a Mid-Air Trick... in this game and in Sonic Advance 2 and 3
it's nifty for getting up higher, but in Sonic Rush it can mess you up and
slow you down a lot too... so be careful... Blaze goes much higher with this
trick than Sonic.

Q. I can't get past the first rocket part of Dead Line Act 2!
A. Grab the rocket and don't press any buttons at all. Later on, you will have
to steer the rockets sometimes, in the Brief Zone Description/Gameplay Tips
section under Dead Line Zone is more detailed instructions on how to steer the

Q. I got past the first rocket part of Dead Line Act 2, but now there is a wall
of some sort I can't get past!
A. When you bounce up on the spring, press the R button and Right at the same
time and when you are propelled to the right head for the little wall and you
can break it. This act has a lot of these little walls in it, they are all
broken like this, or by using Super/Fire Boost.

Q. What do you get for getting all S-ranks?
A. Nothing, unless you count bragging rights as something.

Q. How do I get to places that are too high to jump up to?
A. At the highest point after launched off a spring or many other level
objects/gimmicks, press the R button and up button at the same time to do a Mid-
air Trick to increase the height of your jump.

Q. Can you play as other characters besides Sonic and Blaze?
A. Nope. All of the other characters in this game are there for story
purposes... or sometimes as a distraction during boss battles...

Q. What does the percentage on the Map Screen actually mean?
A. It is the percentage of Blaze's world that has entered Sonic's world, not how
much of the game you have completed.

Q. Can you play through Story Mode and see the cutscenes again without
deleting the game data?
A. Sorry, nope.

Q. What deletes when you delete game data?
A. Everything including Story Mode, Times, Battle Records, etc... so be careful!

Q. What's the difference between Normal and Easy Mode?
A. Bosses need two less hits to defeat, Final Boss has a few more differences
described in that section.

Q. In general, what are the differences between Sonic and Blaze?
A. Gameplay with both characters is pretty similar, but in general Sonic is
faster than Blaze during moves and running, but Blaze's jumping/R trick skills
are a lot better and even can glide a little. Sonic rolls into a classic ball,
while Blaze becomes a fiery top when they spin. Also Blaze can last 45 seconds
underwater without having a breath, but Sonic can only last 30 seconds. And of
course the obvious color, gender, clothing and personality differences.

Q. Why are my lives stuck on 9?
A. You actually have more than 9 lives, look on the World Map and you will see
the number you actually have, it just displays as 9 in level. You can have up to
99 Lives, and the number you have is saved when the game is saved, so you can
easily save up lives in earlier Acts for use in later Acts.

Q. Do I need to finish an Act to keep a Chaos Emerald?
A. If you have completed the Act before, you can just simply pause the
game and choose exit and you will have your Emerald.

Q. ARRGGGHHH! Special Stage 7 is impossible!
A. I added a special small section about this in the Special Stage Section
guide, hard but not impossible.

Q. I have all 7 Chaos Emeralds... where is the Extra Zone?
A. It appears in the Character Select Menu but only if you have beaten the
game with Sonic and Blaze also, it doesn't matter what order you complete
Sonic and Blaze's stories and when you get the Chaos Emeralds but as soon as
you do all three of these things go back to the Character Select Screen and
you will find the option to go to the Extra Zone there. Also you can't turn
Super in regular Zones like in the Genesis games... Sonic Team still hasn't
brought that back.

Q. Does putting a GBA Sonic game in the GBA slot unlock anything?
A. Nope, sorry.

Q. How and When does this game save?
A. You can't save the game yourself, the game saves at these times:
After beating both Acts in a Zone first time.
After beating a Boss first time.
After collecting a Chaos Emerald (saves the emerald)
After beating the game
After getting a new high score or new time attack or
Any other record

Thanks Too:
A special section honoring those who have helped me with this guide:
GameFAQs/GameSpot Messageboard Members:

Various things posted on the messageboard have help quite a bit, for example
how to do a Double Advanced Trick and the presence of Homing Attack in this
game and other various things... thanks a lot guys!

Michael: Told me via e-mail about different jump mechanics(okay so I really
didn't mention this anywhere but here) and the little Easter Egg where you can
poke the characters with the stylus.

Matthew: Told me via e-mail you can repeat a Rail Trick on the same Rail after
a certain period of time, but not really worth doing it...

shadow2k: Explained to me what the PSG soundtracks were... and now I know more
than I wanted to ever know about PSG and even the history of PSG chips, wow...

tjoeb123: Told me about a glitch that can freeze the game, this is not really a
glitch guide and it's a glitch that would rarely come up so it's not include
but thanks, and also a couple things that were already told to me by a couple
other people and I discovered myself.

SonicLover: For in general being too picky about the Sound Test :P I changed
it slightly anyway...

Jagus: For posting about Extra Zone I won't mention here on the GameFAQs
messageboard... and a pointage error... just in time to update this guide... in
I already submitted this version and I put in what he said last minute...

nonexistinghero: Set me straight about giving a demo to other people.

Legal Notes:

This guide cannot be placed on any site without my permission. Sonic
and all related characters copyright Sonic Team/Sega.

Sites with permission to post any of my FAQS:

Version History:
(rest of history got too long... here's what's new for the one year anniversary

Version 1.6: 10/3/06

Added Section 19. My Current High Scores

New Introduction

New Question at beginning

Added Stories and Character profiles from the Booklet

Reordered and added to Tension and Points List

Overall Strategies added to Bosses and revised Bosses, including Water Palace,
Night Carnival and Altitude Limit

Erased most of Version History... how ironic...

One Year Anniversary Edition!

This game came out Nov. 2005. A lot happened between then and now, for example
in the last year I have lived in 4 different states! Man, I've be busy, but not
too busy to update the guide on my favorite game! And I am sure a lot of cool
things will happen within the next year, like Blaze returning in Sonic the
Hedgehog for Xbox360 and PS3! And a whole new Sonic portable I am determined to
get a hold of and FAQ for you, Sonic Rivals for PSP. Sonic, make me proud in

New this version is a couple bits of info like the fact I never realized I could
slide the stylus across numbers in the Special Stage... and how much of a Speed
Point reduction you get for dying which I not only added to the Tension and
Points list but also reordered the list to make more sense.
Another new section is at the very end, My Current High Scores, can you beat me?
Also I have added the stories and characters from the actual game booklet, the
ones I had in there are my own version of the story, so after all this time I
decided to change it.
Another change is yet again to the bosses! This time I have added to each boss
an "overall strategy", often I find it easier to go to a certain place on the
stage or other good info to help defeat the boss overall. Plus I revised some of
the boss strategies including Water Palace, Night Carnival and Altitude Limit.

Wow... just wow. Back at E3 2004 when the Nintendo DS was announced, it was also
announced that a Sonic game would be created for this new system. For about a
year, all we had to go on was a demo with Sonic running through a Green Hill-
like Zone and very sketchy details that the new game would be Advance-series
like. I knew I would like the game back them... About a year ago when the DS
came out, I couldn't wait to get one, I did get one for Christmas, I had to
make sure I had one, the Sonic game could come out anytime! Well... okay, so
yeah, this game came out another year after that. But am I disappointed? Did
I wait all this time for nothing and now I am sad I spent like one and a half
years waiting? No way hosay... I swear, it is like someone was reading my mind a
created a Sonic game in just my style. The hype right now maybe about Shadow
the Hedgehog, but he can wait till a little later. I literally just feel so
privileged to write a FAQS about this game.

I will also warn you that certain parts of this guide do contain spoilers for
this game, but I tried to confine most of them to the Spoilers Section at the
end of this guide or when it is necessary to talk about the Spoilers.

Overall, this game is like the Advance series, but made better and a little
more Genesis-like. The amount of moves characters can do has been lessened,
and now there are only two playable characters, Sonic and Blaze.
Each zone has a different feel, even the styles of Badniks differ by zone, I
will talk a little more about that later in the Zone Description Section. Also
the Zone order differs for Sonic and Blaze, the zones will be in Sonic's order
but with a note as to which Zone it is for Blaze.
And the Extra Zone... I'll talk more about that later, but all I am going to say
is someone definitely has a thing for the classics...

Table of Contents:

1. Story

2. Characters

3. Character Moves, Gimmicks, Tricks, Tension Gauge and Boosting
3.a. Moves and Gimmicks
3.b. Tricks
3.c. Tension Gauge and Boosting

4. Tension and Points List

5. Item Boxes

6. Map Area

7. Gameplay Tips and Sonic Newcomer Guide

8. Brief Zone Descriptions/Gameplay Tips
8.a. Zone Order Summary

9. Bosses
9.a. Leaf Storm
9.b. Water Palace
9.c. Mirage Road
9.d. Night Carnival
9.e. Huge Crisis
9.f. Altitude Limit
9.g. Dead Line
9.h. Final Zone (F-Zone): Unknown
8.i. Extra Zone: Exception

10. Special Stages
10.a. Special Stage 7 Tips/Walkthrough
10.b. Special Gimmick Locations
10.b.1. Leaf Storm Act 1 SGs
10.b.2. Leaf Storm Act 2 SGs
10.b.3. Water Palace Act 1 SGs
10.b.4. Water Palace Act 2 SGs
10.b.5. Mirage Road Act 1 SGs
10.b.6. Mirage Road Act 2 SGs
10.b.7. Night Carnival Act 1 SGs
10.b.8. Night Carnival Act 2 SGs
10.b.9. Huge Crisis Act 1 SGs
10.b.10. Huge Crisis Act 2 SGs
10.b.11. Altitude Limit Act 1 SGs
10.b.12. Altitude Limit Act 2 SGs
10.b.13. Dead Line Act 1 SGs
10.b.14. Dead Line Act 2 SGs

11. Ranking

12. S-ranking Miniguide
12.a. S-Ranking Acts
12.b. S-Ranking Bosses
12.c. A Perfect Game in One Go

13. Time Attack

14. Two Player Mode

15. Sound Test

16. Unlock Features

17. Spoilers

18. Nostalgia, again!

19. My Current High Scores

20. Questions?

1. Story (now from the booklet):

Dr. Eggman is up to his old tricks again.
And Sonic is right there to stop him!
	"Hey Eggman! What have you got planned this time?"
	"Hah! Do you think I'm going to tell you that?"
After an exchange of blows, Eggman hastily retreats leaving behind a mysterious
Emerald, quite unlike the Chaos Emeralds.
As Sonic goes to pick it up, it is whisked from under his very nose.
	"And that's the second one..."
Mutters the unfamiliar figure of a lady, before quickly vanishing.
	"What was THAT about?"
Muses Sonic, as he takes off again on another exciting adventure.

2. Characters (from the booklet):

Sonic the Hedgehog: Foot loose and fancy free, his only gripe is with evildoers.
He's sometimes quick to anger, but will always lend a helping hand when
somebody's in trouble. There's no stopping the world's fastest supersonic

Blaze the Cat: As guardian of the Sol Emeralds, she's currently hot on the trail
of Dr. Eggman who's made off with them. Blaze is normally calm and level-headed,
but may be concealing her real feelings. Devoted to her position, she sometimes
gets bogged down by her own strict discipline, which may explain why she seems a
little withdrawn.

Dr. Eggman: An arrogant self-professed evil scientific genius, with a passion
for robotics, and dreams of enslaving the world in his own Eggman-land utopia.
His schemes are invariably foiled by Sonic, but he's never let that detail stop

Eggman-Nega: His speech and manner is eerily polite for such a cold and
calculating individual. On the surface he resembles Eggman, but on the inside?

Miles "Tails" Prower: A gentle fox with two tails, he adores Sonic and follows
him around like a kid brother. In this game, Tails will support Sonic.

Cream the Rabbit: A rabbit who takes her friend Cheese wherever she goes. She is
polite and hardworking. She can also fly by flapping her ears. She meets Blaze
and becomes friends, supporting her in this game.

Amy Rose: She calls herself Sonic's girlfriend, and chases him wherever he goes.
She is cheerful and energetic, strong-willed and very active.

Knuckles the Echidna: A powerful and spectacular echidna, he is always ready for
a fight. Being so straight forward and earnest, he is easily fooled.

3. Character Moves, Gimmicks, Tricks, Tension Gauge and Boosting:
Thankfully this section will be a lot shorter than in
the Sonic Advance 3 guide. The two playable characters are Sonic and Blaze of
course, Blaze unlocked by beating the first boss with Sonic. Compared to the
Advance series, Boost Mode and R-button tricks are the same, basic moves have
been reduced, and now there are new tricks, the Tension Gauge, and Super/Fire
Boost. Sonic and Blaze only have a few minor differences in moves and the same
button combinations, so I'm doing Moves in one section with Sonic and Blaze
specific stuff clearly labeled.

3.a. Moves and Gimmicks:
Press and hold right or left: Run right or left, keep pressed and you will
gain speed. After a while you will go into Boost Mode, when you go into Boost
Mode, you will have a burst of wind with Sonic or fire with Blaze and after
images appear, Boost Mode is discussed later in the Tension and Boosting Section.

Press down: Pressing down while standing still will cause you to crouch
down, useful in dodging some attacks. If you crouch down long enough and you
are on the bottom screen, the view will eventually change and you can see what
is below you.
Pressing down while moving will start you spinning, useful for attacking
enemies. Blaze's top-like spin is much slower and lasts a much shorter period of
time than Sonic's spin.

Press up: Pressing up while standing still will cause the character to
look up, eventually the screen view will change so you can see what's
above you if you happen to be on the top screen.

A or B button: Spin(Sonic)/Axel(Blaze) Jump, use to jump or to attack an enemy.
Sonic spins into a ball while Blaze turns into a fiery top. Blaze can jump
higher and further than Sonic.

Press and hold down + A or B button then release: Spin (Sonic)/Burst (Blaze)
Dash, used for attacking enemies or to instantly increase speed for getting up
slopes, if you press the A button once and then release both buttons, you will
get the most powerful Spin, if you keep holding down then release the A button,
the character will eventually rev down a little and then releasing down will
result in a less powerful Spin. Sonic's Spin Dash is faster and lasts longer
than Blaze's Burst Dash.

A button, then R button: Jump Dash and Homing Attack (Sonic)/Burst Hover
(Blaze), both moves are good for moving to the right or left in a sudden burst.
Sonic's Jump Dash is fast and short, Blaze's Burst Hover is slower, lasts
longer and she can glide for 3 seconds and even change direction from right to
left in the air. If you are close enough to an enemy with Sonic and press R even
in mid-air Sonic will use Homing Attack and head right toward the enemy and
attack it, but Blaze can't with Burst Hover.

Extra Zone Specific Moves: I'll discuss this in the Extra Zone section to help
prevent spoilers.

Gimmicks: Devices throughout the acts that propel you forward someway, these
were sort of in Sonic Advance series also but not named. Some gimmicks have to
be operated a certain way and sometimes hints in the form of a little symbol
telling you what button to push pop up, these little hints sometimes pop up in
the Boss Battles also. In Sonic's acts you can also find Special Gimmicks (also
called Special Generators), a round device with a star on it and two handles
which you can use to get into the Special Stages, but I will discuss that more

3.b. Tricks:
These are special mid-air maneuvers using the A, B and R button,
pretty much an extension of the tricks from the Sonic Advance series but more
useful and there are a lot more of them. There are several kinds of tricks
that can be preformed in certain situations, usually after jumping off a
spring or on a rail, etc... Tricks generally give you extra points (maximum of
20,000 per Act) and help fill your Tension Gauge which I will discuss in the
next small section, but tricks differ in points/tension and sometimes won't
give one or the other. If you use the same spring or other trick object more
than once, the amount of points/tension you get will normally go down until
eventually you will get none, but there are a few exceptions to this rule... so
keep moving through the act! If you do a very nice combination of tricks,
various things such as confetti, Small Animals, and applause appear.
The Tension section coming up next explains what Tension is, the Points and
Tension List Section of this guide goes into detail as to how much Tension
different things give you.

R button + Up Mid-air Trick: Hop Jump(Sonic)/Axel Tornado(Blaze), this trick
gives you about 200 points but no gauge boost. Similar to the same trick from
Sonic Advance 2 and 3, it can be used after jumping off a spring, being
launched off a ramp or out of a cannon, or after being propelled through a
boost hoop, after certain Gimmicks (discussed below) or in general situations
where you are in the air after bouncing off some sort of Gimmick or other
level object.  Used to jump higher up, most effective if used during the
highest point in your jump, useful in reaching areas you cannot normally get
to. R button tricks are also used during Advanced Tricks described later. The
differences between Sonic's Hop Jump and Blaze's Axel Tornado are:
Sonic: Doesn't go very high and can't attack enemies.
Blaze: Much higher and faster than Sonic's and can attack enemies.

R button + Left or Right Mid-air Trick: Same bonus and same situation as the
other R button trick. Humming Top(Sonic)/Jump Step(Blaze), this propels the
character sideways real fast, good if you want to go more sideways into an
area, unlike in the Advance games you don't need to face the direction you
want to go. The differences between Sonic's Humming Top and Blazes Jump Step
Sonic: Propels Sonic very quickly to the side and can attack enemies.
Blaze: Can't attack enemies.

R button Rail Trick: Points and Tension. Just hit the R button while grinding
a rail, you can only hit R a maximum of three times in a row on most rails and
get up to 1100 points, then if the rail is long enough if you wait a couple
seconds and press R three times again you get 1700 points for each set of
three afterwards. Unlike most tricks you can trick on the same rail multiple
times and get the same points/tension.

A button Springboard Trick: Points. Off the edge of a springboard (I call
these ramps in my earlier guides). Same concept as in Sonic Advance 2 or 3, but
not only are you launched forward but you also get Points. You can follow this
up with any of the B button tricks described below or an R trick.

A button end of Rail Trick: Points and Tension. Off the end of a rail, like
Sonic and Amy could do in the Advance series, but this time you also get some
points and tension.

B button and Advanced Mid-air Tricks: Points and Tension. Press B a bunch of
times to do tricks on the way down during the same situations you would use an
R button trick described above or after a few other kinds of tricks. Most places
tension and points go down if you trick off the same place more than once, but
that is not true with the cannon at least...
It's best you use this trick during the entire span you are in the air instead
of simply at the highest point down.
If you want to get fancier add in the A button and R Button Tricks and try
Advanced tricks. In general A button is pushed last, can only be pushed after
pushing B at least two times and finishes off the trick and is usually done
near the ground, you can only push A again if you do an R button + up trick
right afterwards, if you do a R + left/right trick you can't
trick anymore afterwards at all... but you can only do one R trick in the whole
sequence... here are a few Advanced trick button combinations, the Double
Advanced gives you the most points and tension and works best with Blaze,
but slows you down the most... it is best to experiment yourself to find
combinations that give you good amounts of points, but don't slow you down
too much when you are trying to get an S-rank... also remember there is a
max value to how many Trick Points you can earn in an act, that is purposeful
because the game designers don't want you to S-rank everything by just doing
a whole lot of tricks...
Also remember adding the R button in will mess up your trajectory, so don't use
in situations where if you are off a little bit you will die.

Advanced: B at least two times than A

R button Assisted Advanced: R button trick (either up or right/left), B two or
more times, then A

Advanced and a Half: B at least two times, then A, then R button plus up, then B
button till you hit ground
B at least two times, then A, then R button plus left/right

Double Advanced: B at least two times, than A, then up R button trick, then
B a least two times, than A before you hit ground

3.c. Tension Gauge and Boosting:
Master Tension Gauge and Boosting if you want to go fast and get S-ranks!

Tension Gauge: The gauge on the left hand side of either the top or bottom
screen is the Tension Gauge. You get Tension by doing Tricks, hitting a
checkpoint, hitting one of the Tension Item Boxes or Defeating Enemies, you
lose Tension by using the Super/Fire Boost, getting hit, or dying.
You start off a zone or at a checkpoint with the gauge 100% full, but it can
go up to 300%. All white bars means you have zero tension, then it fills up
from bottom to top with blue bars to 100%, between 100 and 200 it fills up
with orange bars, then past 200 to 300 red. Look in the Tension and Points
List to find more specifically what certain things give you what amount of

Boost Mode: Tension not needed, but can be activated by Tension.
When you are in Boost Mode, you travel extra fast and you know when you are in
Boost Mode by a sudden sheild-like affect appearing and afterimages behind
the character. There are a few ways to enter Boost Mode, the easiest way is
to tap X or Y if you have a little Tension, this will activate Super/Fire Boost,
a more powerful boost than this described next for a split second and that
will activate Boost Mode. You are also in Boost Mode after using Super/Fire
in general. Another way is to run, preferably downhill, if you run long enough
you will burst into Boost Mode, the more Rings you have, the sooner you will
burst into Boost Mode. You can also achieve Boost Mode if a speed booster
propels you forward. Boost Mode cannot harm enemies like the Super/Fire Boost
can, discussed next.

Super (Sonic)/Fire Boost Mode: Tension needed. On top of the regular Boost Mode
left over from the Sonic Advance series, there is a new more powerful Boost.
Anytime you have Tension, you can use the Super(Sonic) or Fire(Blaze) Boost
where you gain a lot of speed and can defeat enemies, kind of like Boost Mode
but more extreme, but using this reduces your Tension quite a bit.
When the gauge is at 300 percent, for 5 seconds the character glows and the
gauge blinks and you can maintain your Super/Fire Boost by gaining more
Tension... Here is the complex part... if you do not activate the Boost
within 5 seconds of the gauge/character starting to blink, the tension gauge
and character stops glowing and you will just be at 300 percent but doing
just one more trick will make the character glow again and you can keep it
glowing by getting more tension also. But if you do use it but don't gain more
tension while using it, then you will be only able to use it for the remainder
of the 5 seconds after gaining the tension to keep it glowing and after you
used it the Tension Gauge goes back down to 200 percent. But then again, if
you use this Boost and you continue to defeat enemies and do Tricks you
can maintain the Boost until 5 seconds have gone by without gaining more
Tension, afterwards the Tension Gauge going down to 200% of course.
When you quit pushing X or Y or run out of Tension, you will be in regular
Boost Mode described above.
This type of boosting is helpful if you want to travel fast, defeat enemies, and
even helps you push heavy objects much faster.
The Tension Gauge is also important if you want to get into the Special Stage
with Sonic because to activate the Special Gimmick fully you need at least
105% Tension, I will discuss this in more detail in the Special Stage section.

4. Tension and Points List:
There are many things in the acts that earn you Tension, Points or both or
make you loose tension or points. Remember that each bar in the Tension Gauge
is 5% and this list for your convenience gives bars and percentage and Points
don't show up till the end of the act and for Tricks the amount you get or loose
is the last number shown and they seem to come in 1000 point intervals and if do
too few Tricks you can get nothing. Tricks are more complex, since so many
things affect the total amount given and some trick objects are infinite,
but most things give you a pretty consistent amount of Points/Tension. This is
in the form of a list (I tired a chart but I had too many notes), with specific
level objects, hazards and end of level bonuses, then Tension and Points
received, then specific Notes about that particular object/bonus.

In Bosses you don't have Tension to worry about, and Points are only earned by
how much Time you have left and how many Rings are left.

I reordered the list and put hazards at the end.

Tension Gain:
Enemy (defeating):
Tension: 4 bars/20% for one enemy defeated
Points: none
Notes: Increasing Tension Bonus for hitting more than one Enemy in a short
period of time, for example you get 10 bars for hitting two (4x2+2) and 22 for
hitting 3 (4x3+10), 45 for hitting 4 (4x4+29) exc...

Tension: 10 bars/50%
Points: none

Tension Bonus Item Box:
Tension: 20 bars/100%
Points: none

Max Tension Bonus Item Box:
Tension: 60 bars/300% and blinking. (completely full)
Points: none

Tension and Points Gain:
R button Rail Trick:
Tension: 8 bars/40% for three in a row
Points: 1100 for three in a row
Notes: Three R presses on the same rail gets you value above and is most
typical, the pattern is:
1 press: 2 bars and 100 points
2 presses: 4 bars and 200 points
3 presses: 8 bars and 1100 points
If the rail is long enough and after a short period of time you will be able
to press R again, you get a typical bonus as follows:
1 press: 2 bars and 400 points
2 presses: 4 bars and 800 points
3 presses: 8 bars and 1700 points
The more time you delay pressing R, the bonus goes down.

A button End of Rail Trick:
Tension: 4 bars/20%
Points: 200
Notes:  A/B and R button Mid-Air Tricks can be done afterwards.

Points Gain:
A button Springboard Trick and Rainbow Hoop:
Tension: none
Points: 400

R button Mid-air Trick:
Tension: none
Points: 200
Notes: Can be combined and part of B button trick complex, see Tricks section
for more info. Pressing R after other tricks will give you even more Bonus
points. You can press R more than once from same trick object without point

B button Mid-Air Tricks:
Tension: 5 bars/25% for one button press
Points: 200 for one button press
Notes: 5 more bars and 200 points bonus for each press of B button afterwards
off single trick object, ending number is the number you will receive.
Pressing R during the sequence will increase number of points significantly,
pressing A will do the same and give you bonus Tension.
Bonus received also varies if you do not press B/A and R very rapidly like for
the Rail Trick.
Point and Tension received reduced by half for each time you reuse same Trick
object until finally after reusing the same trick object/Gimmick 8 times in a
row you fail to receive a bonus at all. This rule does not apply for the

Time Bonus:
Points: Acts, 85000 Maximum down to 0 closer to 10 minutes, the time limit for
getting 85000 points varies by Act.
Bosses maximum is 45000 and goes down in intervals of 1000 for every 2 seconds
and like Acts the bonus varies by time.

Trick Bonus:
Points: Totaled from Tricks, seems to be rounded off to nearest 1000 with 1000
minimum amount recieved (of course 0 is lowest) and 200000 maximum.

Ring Bonus:
Points: 10 for each Ring held when Goal is hit in Acts. 100 in Extra Zone,
1000 for rest of Bosses.

Speed Bonus:
Points: 10000 maximum
(A couple people said it depended on how fast you hit the Goal Ring... not
I finally pretty much got down what it is... but I still really can't tell you
how to guarantee a certain amount)
Points: Determined by average running speed in level including how much of
the time you spend going forward in general, using Super/Fire Boost
is the fastest way to travel so using it more gives you a higher score and
also not staying in one place for long periods of time.

Tension and Points Lost:
Hit by Enemy or other damaging obstacle:
Tension: -15 bars/-75%
Points: All Rings lost, -100 points for each Ring lost.
Notes: A Barrier(Shield) or Magnetic Barrier will prevent Ring and Tension
loss one time. Try to recover Rings before they disappear after you loose them.
Rings are harder to recover the more you are hit.

Tension: Set back to 20 bars/100% if start again at Checkpoint
Points: -1000 Speed if start again at Checkpoint

5. Item Boxes:
A couple of new ones that are a little different from earlier Sonic games, so I
thought I would list them all out for anyone that doesn't have the manual:

5 Rings

Random Rings (Ring symbol with question mark): 1, 5, 10, 30 or 50 Rings.

Barrier (Green Bubble, also known as a shield): Protects you once from losing a
life or losing Rings/Tension when hit.

Magnet Barrier (Electric Shield): Like Barrier but also draws in nearby Rings.

Floating Item Box (Balloon): Mystery item, can be any one of the other items
described here.

Invincible (muti-ray star pattern): Become immune from attacks that would
cause loss of Rings for a short period of time. Cannot save you from being
crushed or running out of time. For some reason can save you from drowning in
this game.

Tension Bonus (Up pointing arrow): Increases Tension by 100%

Max Tension Bonus (Star surrounded by a circle): Completely fills your Tension

1 up: One extra life.

6. Map Area:
You first see the Map Area after defeating the first boss. On the top screen
is a box with Character name, the current Zone you are on, current number of
lives, the amount that Blaze's World has combined with Sonic's World, and the
number of either Chaos or Sol Emeralds you have. Blaze gets a Sol Emerald the
first time she defeats a boss, while Sonic gets Chaos Emeralds in Special
Stages, which will be discussed later. Also if your guide is around, Tails for
Sonic and Cream for Blaze, they will be in the right-hand side of this screen.
The bottom screen is the actual Map Area showing New Zones or Event Places which
is where you meet other characters who help to unfold the story as you progress
through the game. The actual order you visit the Zones differs some between
Sonic and Blaze, and Blaze never makes it to Tails' Workshop. Also starting at
the top of the screen, the Map Area will become more wavy and gloomy as more
of Blaze's World comes into Sonic's.

Map Area Controls:
Directional Buttons or Stylus on Map Area: Move the character to a different
Event or Zone. With the Stylus you can simply touch where you want to go.

X Button or Stylus Tap box with X and Arrows: After pressing this, you can now
use the D-pad or Stylus to pan the Map, press B or tap the box with the B and
one arrow to get back.

Start Button: If you press the Start Button on the Map Screen, you will get
the Pause Menu where you can choose to return to the Title Screen or Cancel
and return to the Map Area.

A button or Stylus Tap: Select an Event or Zone. You can only go to Events one
time. When you first come to a Zone, you can only go to the first Act, but
after you have beaten Act 2 in that Zone, a different screen will show up,
allowing you to choose with up or down directional buttons or the stylus
previous acts in that Zone or the boss or with left or right or touching the
numbers on the top of this menu choose an Act or Boss from another Zone you
already have completed. This comes in handy especially after beating the Final
Zone since you do not have to navigate the Map to get to any Zone, but since
it only gives Zone number, you need to sort of remember the differences
between Sonic and Blaze's Zone Order.

7. Gameplay Tips and Sonic Newcomers Guide:

For Sonic Newcomers:
Many things in this game are very familiar to people who play a lot of Sonic
games both new and classic and I didn't go over them before, but now I will
for those that haven't played a Sonic game up until now. Most of the general
info below can be applied to almost any normal Sonic game from Sonic 1 made
all the way back in 1991 to the present.

Know your enemy:
Dr. Eggman, also called Dr. Ivo Robotnik, an mad scientist with dreams of
taking over the world. Since the first Sonic Game, he has been trying to
get his hands on the powerful Chaos Emeralds.
If Eggman gets a hold of the Chaos Emeralds and controls
them properly, he could take over the world.
The mad doctor traps innocent small animals inside robots often called Badniks
to try to stop Sonic from ruining his plans. That is the reason why small
Animals pop out of his robots when you destroy them.

Running and Spinning:
Speed is the focus of a Sonic game usually, and often the faster you run, the
more points you earn. Read the moves section to find out the fine art of
spinningvarious ways. But be careful! You are vulnerable to Badniks when you run,
so you need to spin jump or spin in general to kill them!

Basic In-Level Things:
Some basic things have been in a basic Sonic level from day 1...
Springs: Bouncy things that send you through the air, but not spinning, so
don't hit enemies.
Loops-de-loops: Sonic had always been running through crazy loops in the
Spikes: Whether they are just stationary or they are going in and out of
the ground, ouch they hurt!

Mysterious, floating, spinning gold colored Rings seem to hang out everywhere
in the Sonic World. Collect 100 of them and you earn an Extra Life and they are
worth points also. But a Ring is more than a random thing to collect. If you are
hit by a Badnik, spikes, boss or something else that isn't Instant Death
(explained below), then you loose all of the Rings you are holding and Rings
go bouncing aroundeverywhere, but at least you didn't die! Try to pick up as
many Rings again as you can, because the dropped Rings will start to fade away.
But if you are hit by one of these objects and you have no Rings, you will die!

Item Boxes:
You will also find tv monitors (in some games bubbles and in this game also
balloons)you can smash. These give you various things, the most basic item box
items are:

Rings: It's nice when you can smash a monitor and get lots of Rings at once
instead of having to collect a lot of single Rings.

Shields (Barriers): These nice bubbles protect you from losing your Rings one
time,but then you loose your shield. Sometimes shields do other things, like
attract Rings.

Invincibility: Stars or a rainbow burst (depending on game) protect you from
everything that would cause loss of Rings or death without Rings for a short
period of time.
Remember, you can still die from Instant Death things, explained below.

Super Shoes: Not found in this game, but in most games allow you to run faster.
Super Boost replaces this in Sonic Rush.
Look in the game's Items section to find out about Tension related items in this
particular game.

As explained in the Rings sections, a Ring is the best way to avoid loosing a
If you have extra lives, then you start at either the beginning of the level or
If you touched a Checkpoint you start there. If you don't, Game Over!
There are certain things that will kill you instantly no matter how many Rings
you have or even if you have an Invincibility item, they are:
Bottomless pits, fall into the nothingness at the bottom of the screen and you
are dead.
Crushing: The pressure of being pressed against two objects is just too much...
Drowning: Sonic can only live 30 seconds underwater and he can't swim!
(This game specific, Blaze lasts 45 seconds). A countdown begins from 5 when you
are close to drowning, either get out of the water, or find rising air bubbles
from the ground and breathe one in.

Special Stage and Chaos Emeralds:
The most mysterious objects of them all, in most games you can enter the Special
Stage to try to earn them (see Special Stage section for this game). Chaos
Emeralds have mysterious powers... not much is known about them, but often
something very special happens when Sonic has all 7... If you do not collect
all of the Chaos Emeralds and you beat the game, you get a message to go and
collect them all and what turns out to be sometimes a not-so-good ending to the

General Tips:

Typical Sonic games stuff such as Crushing and Drowning are instant death,
keep at least one ring because if you don't have one ring you will loose a life,
100 Rings=one extra life, to prevent drowning breath in air bubbles, don't step
on spiky things, etc...

R button Tricks especially in Night Carnival are a good thing to master if you
have not already in Sonic Advance 2 and 3... but don't get too carried away...

Learn how to do Tricks and use your Boost, but actually you can beat this game
without them if you want to.

Don't go too fast, this game has quite a few horrible holes and other nasty
things you can get into, especially if you use the R button too much... but once
you learn this game really well you can speed right through it.

Silly Easter Egg: Told to me by Michael, poke the characters and small animals
when they are standing still on the bottom screen with the stylus...

8. Brief Zone Descriptions/Gameplay Tips:
Each Zone in Sonic Rush has different characteristics and even are in a
different order for Sonic and Blaze. The Zones are listed in the order they
appear for Sonic, but what Zone it is for Blaze is the first item listed. Next
is a Scene Description which describes the setting of the Zone and what
previous Sonic Game zones to compare it to. Following that is Enemy/Small
Animal type. The three types of Enemy are Heroes, the newer Eggman robots from
Sonic Heroes and the most common enemy, Advance, there is one random Badnik
from Sonic Advance 3 in Altitude Limit (Night Carnival confused me, those bats
are Heroes style if you look closely), and GUN, which are robots made by the
Human military which appear in Huge Crisis. Small Animals are just what kind
of animals pop out of the Eggman robots in each Zone, most are from the Sonic
Advance series. Then it is on to Gameplay Style, describing if it is fast, or
has a lot of rails, or puzzle elements, dangerous spots, battle rooms, etc...
Finally is Boss Description, very brief, I have a separate Boss Tips section
later on.
There is also a very brief description of the Final and Extra Zone.

Note: These are notes about getting through the Acts in general... if you want
more specific notes on getting S-ranks or Time Trials, refer to those specific
sections later in the guide.

Leaf Storm Zone:
Order: Sonic Zone 1, Blaze Zone 2
Scene Description: Classic Green Hill-like Zone. Contains lush green
vegetation, cute Flickies and their nests, grass covered runways, and a
tropical forest background. Many of the Gimmicks are from the Sonic Advance
series Green Hill-like Zones. Compare to Green Hill Sonic 1, Neo Green Hill
Sonic Advance, Leaf Forest Sonic Advance 2,
Sunset Hill Sonic Advance 3 and other
Green Hill-like Zones.
Enemy Style: Heroes
Small Animals: Parrot, Gorilla, Lion
Gameplay Style: A Fast Zone and the easiest. Easy to keep your Tension Gauge
up and there are a lot of fun Gimmicks and a few rails. Near the end of Act 2
is a giant rolling thing with Eggman's symbol on the side, just keep running
down the slope, Boost Mode and Super/Fire Boost are your friends, you can just
outrun it in Boost Mode. A couple of horrible holes of death, but generally
you won't encounter them.
Boss Style: Updated Egg Viper from Sonic Adventure.

Water Palace Zone:
Order: Sonic Zone 2, Blaze Zone 4
Scene Description: Well, the zone title says it all... anyway, the top of the
acts are dryer than the bottoms, so if you want to avoid drowning in the water
you can stick more to the top. One interesting difference between Sonic and
Blaze, Blaze can last 45 seconds underwater, but Sonic only 30 seconds, you
might want to keep this in mind. Mostly reminds me of Sea Palace form Sonic
Heroes and the design of the level reminds me of the classic Labyrinth Zone
from Sonic 1 and Aquatic Ruins in Sonic 2 and of course Hydro City in Sonic 3.
Enemy Style: Heroes
Small Animals: Seal, Penguin, Rabbit
Gameplay Style: Underwater platforming. Especially in the second Act there are
horrible pits of death you have to cross on shaky platforms, and of course air
bubbles underwater are not very plentiful, the tops of the act are better, but
in Act 2 you cannot get out of crossing the shaky platform gaps. Also look out
for the mine Gimmick, they lift you up but explode when the countdown ends, so
use them to get up higher, then use the R button to do a dash out of the way.
The upper paths of both Acts are completely free of these mine gimmicks.
It is best to Boost into the large wooden paddlewheel Gimmicks because if you
don't it is a while before you drop out of the Gimmick, bad if you don't have
much air left.
Boss Style: Lock-ness Mecha

Mirage Road Zone:
Order: Sonic and Blaze Zone 3
Scene Description: Egyptian. Compare to the classic Sandopolis Zone in Sonic
and Knuckles or the Egyptian-themed levels in Sonic Adventure 2.
Enemy Style: Heroes
Small Animals: Camel, Kangaroo, Mole
Gameplay Style: Slower-paced. This zone has rooms that trap you and you are
forced to defeat enemies in order to leave including Egg Hammers that take
more than one hit, slowing this zone down, but at least in these rooms you can
charge up Tension Boost and keep attacking invincible. Near the end of both Acts,
there is a section where you are on this strange golden platform and enemies and
rocks are falling on you. During this section in the second Act you can also
move up and down on the platform instead of just left and right, so you can't
spin-dash. You cannot touch rocks at all unless you use Tension Boost or are
Invincible and you can see the rocks hanging before they drop, in fact the best
way to do this part is to use your Tension Boost to just zip through the rocks
and enemies. Enemies drop out of nowhere but you do see their shadows first.
Boss Style: Dung Beetle Mecha

Night Carnival Zone:
Order: Sonic Zone 4, Blaze Zone 1
Scene Description: Carnival Style, switch the name and you get the classic
Sonic 3's Carnival Night. Other note-worthy Carnival Zones to compare this too
are Sonic Heroes' Casino Park and BINGO Highway, Sonic 2's Casino Night, Sonic
Advance's Casino Paradise and Sonic Advance 3's Toy Kingdom.
Enemy Style: Heroes (They are a little Advance-like)
Small Animals: Elephant, Parrot, Tiger
Gameplay Style: Platforming, slight puzzle. There are a few switches you need
to press to activate stuff, but they are not really hard to find. Also this
zone actually requires you to use R tricks to get to the end of the level if
you end up going certain ways. Also in both acts you are chased by a big
rolling thing like in Leaf Storm, run and use your Tension, especially with
slower Blaze or it is instant death! There are several large pits of doom you
need to look out for.
Boss Style: Merry-go-round like.

Huge Crisis Zone:
Order: Sonic Zone 5, Blaze Zone 6
Scene Description: Military Ships. Apparently GUN is interested in what is
going on too, they are not really in the story but they sure make their
presence known in this zone. It actually resembles an Eggman base zone, like
Sonic Advance's Egg Rocket and Sonic Advance 3's Secret Base.
Enemy Style: GUN
Small Animals: None
Gameplay Style: Platforming/Obstacles/Enemy Battle. There are a lot of
sections in this zone where you are trapped in rooms and you have to defeat
all of the enemies to leave. Also watch out for crushing traps and toward the
end of Act 2 a couple of serious pits of death, but other than that not a zone
you will probably be hung up on for long.
Boss Style: Same Egg Viper Boss from Leaf Storm with different attacks.

Altitude Limit Zone:
Order: Sonic Zone 6, Blaze Zone 5
Scene Description: Sky Level. Compare to the old Sonic 2 Megadrive/Gamegear Sky
High Zone or to newer zones such as Sonic Advance 2's Sky Canyon, Sonic
Adventure's Windy Valley, Sonic Adventure 2's Sky Canyon or Sonic Heroes Rail
Enemy Style: Advance/Heroes
Small Animals: Swallow, Parrot, Peacock
Gameplay Style: Rails/Tricks. Since you are way up in the sky, of course there
are a lot of big holes of death, many for some reason gapped by unnecessary
purple lasers. The parachutes can be a little confusing
since you have to duck enemies, but really not that bad after you figure out
where you need to land. The rocket platforms also just need getting used to.
Both acts have a hang glider section, very easy to control and all you have to
do is follow where the rings are to avoid enemies, even if you get hit you
still don't fall off the hang glider, so don't worry. At the beginning of Act
2 is a large rail part where the rails have spikes you need to jump over and
you need to quickly jump rails, use Tension Boost to even plow through spikes,
but you risk going too fast and missing getting on the next rail, but after
you know where to jump this is an excellent way to get past this part.
Boss Style: Bird-style, reminds me of Egg Albatross from Sonic Heroes.

Dead Line Zone:
Order: Sonic and Blaze Zone 7
Scene Description: Eggman Ship. A very typical Eggman spaceship zone with
reversed gravity and everything. The first one was Sonic and Knuckle's Death
Egg, and many more examples can be named but most like Sonic Advance 2's Egg
Enemy Style: Heroes
Small Animals: Monkey, Koala, Skunk
Gameplay Style: Fast. Probably the most annoying Gimmick in the game, the Giant
Rockets are weird to control. If you press no buttons it goes straight,
fine for most situations and will get you past the huge pit of death at the
beginning of Act 2. If the rocket is facing to the right, then pressing the up
and down buttons carefully to steer it in the direction you want to go, but if
the rocket is facing left the controls are reversed. Once you get a hang of
controlling them the rockets are not that bad.
Boss Style: Sonic Vs. Blaze

Final Zone (F-Zone): Unknown
Scene Description: Falling Ship Boss Battle and standard giant Eggman bot.
Think of the Final Boss of Sonic and Knuckles sort of and also Final of Sonic
Advance 2.

Extra Zone: Exception
Scene Description: Sonic Advance 2 even more Doomsday-like...
*even more severe spoiling*
More specifically it's an updated version of Sonic Advance 2's Extra Zone with
a very similar mecha defeated mostly a very similar way... with some Sonic
Advance 3 Extra and a Doomsday Zone from Sonic and Knuckles-like meteor
beginning... but with a Sonic Adventure 2 Final Hazard-like twist...

8.a. Zone Order Summary:

Zone 1: Leaf Storm
Zone 2: Water Palace
Zone 3: Mirage Road
Zone 4: Night Carnival
Zone 5: Huge Crisis
Zone 6: Altitude Limit
Zone 7: Dead Line
Final Zone (F-Zone): Unknown

Zone 1: Night Carnival
Zone 2: Leaf Storm
Zone 3: Mirage Road
Zone 4: Water Palace
Zone 5: Altitude Limit
Zone 6: Huge Crisis
Zone 7: Dead Line
Final Zone (F-Zone): Unknown

Extra Zone: Exception

9. Bosses:
The Bosses in Sonic Rush are all 3D in some form or the other. Sometimes you
still can only move in two directions but the boss is animated in 3D, other
times you can move in a circle around it. In all Bosses except the Extra Zone
the actual boss battle is on the top screen, and the bottom screen shows the
number of hits left to defeat the boss and if your guide is around your guide
will cheer you on. Also during a Boss battle, there is not Tension Gauge or
Gimmicks, so all of your Boosting and Tricks are gone. In general the bosses
start out with a couple of attacks that are easy to dodge, but later on pull
out tougher attacks and the earlier types of attacks get faster or might
change a little. Also not all bosses are attacked directly, often you have to
do something first just to reach the boss or you have to attack the boss
either using or shooting back something it attacked you with.
The Boss Descriptions start off with how the boss looks and the basic way to
beat it, then describes how the boss behaves, then if the boss changes say
when there are 6 hits left the next section will describe the changes, so you
will see sections like "8-7 Hits" then "7-5 Hits" etc...

When Eggman or Eggman Nega say "Take this!" or "He he!" there isn't an instant
death risk, but if he says "Get ready to be schooled!" you are usually in for an
attack that most likely kills you instantly or at least can kill you instantly
if it hits just right.
During some bosses, a little hint comes up telling you what buttons you should
be pushing, this is very helpful, make sure to follow them!
Try to keep Rings floating around the field because the more you are hit, the
more Rings scatter when you lose them and they are harder to pick up.


Even though each boss has a variety of different attacks and all
of them except the Extra Boss are pretty random in what attack will come next,
Eggman or Eggman-Nega will say something different and the boss will act
differently before the attack, so in these sections I will say something like
"When Eggman says "Take This" and the boss lifts it's head..." and then tell you
exactly what the attack does and info such as if that attack is lethal even
with Rings, or if you will have a chance to hit the boss after the attack,

I didn't discuss some important Boss differences here when it comes to S-
ranking them, that is all under the Ranking Section in the S-rank miniguide, I
didn't want to bog down people that just want basic boss info with more advanced

For the most part, Sonic and Blaze's bosses are the same, except Sonic usually
finds himself attacking Eggman Nega in the pursuit of just finding out who he
is, and Blaze is fighting Eggman to get back the Sol Emeralds and gets a Sol
Emerald when she first beats a boss. The bosses are a different color
too for Sonic and Blaze. But the Zone 7 and Extra Bosses are a little
different so that will be discussed in those specific sections.

These are notes about getting through the Bosses in general... if you want
sections later in the guide.

If the sections are a little off as to where a certain attack begins, it
is because the bosses are random and it can be a little hard to judge exactly
when a certain attack begins. If a boss attacks you with an attack and I say
it happens later, e-mail me and I will correct my error.
A FINAL REMINDER: These following descriptions are for Normal Mode, Easy Mode
is two less hits, and these following descriptions will not match up, but it
will be the same attacks. The total amount of hits required to defeat the boss
is 8 on Normal and 6 on Easy for Bosses 1-Final, and 12 on Normal and 10 on
Easy for Extra.

NEW FEATURE: Overall Strategies included for each Boss! More helpful tips!

9.a. Leaf Rush Boss:
A Boss that is similar to the Egg Viper in Sonic Adventure 1, it is mostly
fought in an area where you move side to side, but for one attack it moves to
the side of the platform and the camera angle changes and you have to move up
and down.
In general you hit this boss when it slams it's head on the ground and the top
of its head starts to blink.

Overall Strategy:
It's pretty easy to see what attack he is going to do next, it's easier if you
stay in the center of the stage.

8-6 Hits Left:
When Eggman says "Take This!" and the head flips back:
Chance to hit Boss! The head will try to slam down on top of you. It is easy
to jump or run out of the way, it landing on top of you is a hit of course.
When the head is on the ground and the cockpit is blinking, just simply jump
on it to hit the boss.

When Eggman says "Get Ready to Be Schooled!" and the head flips way back:
Always Lethal if you get hit! Chance to hit Boss! This is a much more powerful
version of the above attack, avoided the same way or you can spin-dash, but
this time of course the head instantly kills you if you get hit, but thankfully
when the boss first tips it's head back, it doesn't try to follow you anymore
and it's easy to stand out of the way. Hit the boss the same way described above.

5-1 Hits Left:
Same as above but one new attack:

When the Boss moves to the side of the platform:
Lethal if you are not careful! Part of the head comes off, the camera angle
changes, and the head becomes a rolling object toward you. Jump and press up
to get over it. This object may roll at you 1-4 times in a row, so be prepared
to turn around and jump back over it! If you touch it, it can't hurt you at
all, but it can push you right off the edge of the platform and kill you! Also
be careful, it is possible to also kill yourself by just jumping off the edge of
the platform during this attack. You can't hit the boss when it is doing this.

9.b. Water Palace Boss:
This Lock Ness Monster-like Boss is in general defeated in the same way as the
last boss, you attack the top of its head when it is blinking. But unlike the
last boss, you are running around a circular track making it more 3D.

Overall Strategy:
After each hit, wait a couple of seconds with the boss on the other side of
stage, but you need to be slightly closer to the boss's tail than head. If the
boss goes really fast and heads to the center, it's the first head-smashing
attack listed below, you should stand where you are and then follow the
instructions below.
If the boss turns around then slowly comes at you, it's going to belly slam you
and you need to start running the opposite direction, then follow the
instructions for that attack below
If the water drains, follow the instructions for the last attack below.

8-6 Hits Left:

When the Boss is in the middle, the head comes back and Eggman says "Take
Chance to hit Boss! Same general concept as the head-smashing attack for the
Leaf Storm Boss, but this time it is underwater so your jump is slower.

When the Boss is near you and suddenly rises in the air and Eggman says "Take
This is a belly slam attack, he first often comes down real low and tries to hit
you even before he does the belly slam, I have new advice here, run away! Then
when the boss lifts up to belly slam you, spin-dash under him to avoid this
attack. You can't hit the boss.

5-1 Hits Left:
Same as above, boss might get a little faster but not very much, one new

When the water drains out of the area:
Chance to hit Boss! This is a two part attack. For the first part, the head is
coming slowly at you with mouth open and you are forced to go toward its tail,
which happens to be a propeller that damages you if you touch it. Then it will
suddenly charge at you and Eggman will say "Get Ready to Be Schooled!", it's
kind of hard to escape this attack without being hit but basically you stand
close to the propeller without being hit by it and you might not get hit by
the mouth, then it's mouth closes and the head retreats and the top of it
blinks, you can hit it before it retreats right after it's mouth closes, or you
can then chase it down, jump and hit it. Then the water will return. (Even
though this is a "Get Ready to be Schooled" attack... it's never outright killed
me... yet... who knows... Also, it's the one that costs you the S-rank the most,
because when you get hit, some of your Rings end up under it's body and it
doesn't move for a while, so you can't pick them back up.)

9.c. Mirage Road Boss:
This Dung Beetle Boss is more complex than the last two Bosses I have
described. Mostly it is rolling a funny ball around a circular path. This ball
changes, sometimes it is covered in spikes, sometimes smooth and blinking.
When it is spiky, do not touch, but when the ball is blinking you can hit it.
But this is the tricky part, you need to get to ball to hit the back of the
bug to get a hit on the boss... there is only one attack it does where you have
the chance it hit it and that is described below of course.

Overall Strategy:
Keep running away from the boss, when he releases the ball at first you need to
wait for the beetle to turn around first, later on he turns around so fast you
don't have to wait. Also when he is throwing bombs run away from them.

8-6 Hits Left:
When Eggman says "He he!" and the bug is simply rolling the ball around:Just run
from it, if you get close to it, it will turn around and just simply
start to chase you the other direction. When the ball is blinking and you hit
it, you can make the boss stop in its tracks, but that is about it, can't hit

When Eggman says "He he!" and the bug releases the ball and it comes toward
Chance to hit Boss! The bug will release the ball, then eventually turn around
to catch it again. If you just jump over the ball or you hit it wrong, then
the bug will just simply catch the ball and nothing will happen. To correctly
hit the ball at the back of the bug, you need to first be running from the bug,
then when it releases the ball still run a little in the direction you were
coming from. Now watch when the bug turns around and faces the opposite
direction, you want to hit the ball where there is no spikes so it is now
rolling toward the bug's behind, basically don't jump over the ball after the
bug releases it and hit it and it will end up going in the correct direction.
Don't hit the ball at the bug too soon, you need to give it a chance to turn
around first.

5-1 Hits Left:
Same as above but the boss/ball gets faster and the ball changes from smooth
to spiky more quickly. But thankfully the bug turns around much faster,
meaning you can hit it sooner after the bug releases the ball. Toward the end
it gets even quicker.

When you hit the ball toward the boss, sometimes the boss will jump over the
ball, just simply hit the ball again, don't jump over the ball first, the ball
will not turn spiky on you, and the ball will then hit the boss.

When Eggman Says "Get Ready to be Schooled" and flies to the center:
The bug throws spiky balls at you. Two forms of this attack:
Balls land behind you: Keep running as fast as you can
Balls land in front of you: Keep running and jump over spiky balls when they
are about to hit the ground.
Sometimes the bug will alternate in one turn throwing them behind, in front and
almost directly at you, just duck like described above.
(Another "Get Ready to be Schooled" attack that hasn't instantly killed me, but
it's still a pretty good general pattern to follow...)

9.d. Night Carnival Boss:
This is another boss you fight by going around a circular platform. In the
middle the boss machine has two arms that spin around. One is where Eggman or
Eggman Nega is sitting and is normally high up and the other one is a ball
that is sometimes electrified and sometimes shoots out energy balls from the
bottom. You need to either bring Eggman down to your level and hit him or go
up to his... described below:

Overall Strategy:
A lot is happening in this boss! I find it easiest to start off running to the
right and grabbing the high rings. When the ball goes non-electrified, then run
back the
other way and hit it. After hitting the boss, the little vehicle comes out.
Stand there a few seconds waiting for the ball to pass by you, then jump on the
little vehicle to spring up to the boss. After a hit, just stand there and
almost every single time the ball is smooth before it gets to you. Other than
that, you have to watch very carefully for junk like the boss suddenly slamming
the ball down or making the ball swing very low, these are the only
interruptions to the boss hit pattern above.

8-6 Hits Left:
Boss is spinning around: Chance to hit boss! The ball and Eggman are spinning
around. Watch out, sometimes the ball is electrified and sometimes it shoots
out energy balls downwards you just have to avoid. The ball flashes red before
it becomes electrified to warn you. To first hit him, you need to jump at the
ball when it is not electrified and hit it. This does two things, it causes
Eggman's part to drop down, allowing you to hit him, and it causes a little
purple or green vehicle thing to appear on the ground below that will just drive
around and try to hit you. This little vehicle thing if you jump on it
is springy, you will be bounced way up in the air. You can use it if you time
it just right to hit Eggman while he is up high (What you should do, wait for
the ball passes you first, so you don't hit it when you go to hit Eggman), hit
the ball when it is not
electrified and bring Eggman down to your level, or avoid the next attack I
will describe in the next section later on. If you hit Eggman while he is
still high, sadly another little vehicle doesn't appear, so you have to wait to
hit the ball again to bring him back down.

Ball Swings Low:
This attack seems to happen more often later on, but I have also seen it happen
early, which is why I updated this part. The ball will swing very low to the
you need to press down in order to duck. Be careful, if he starts this attack
the ball is not electrified, the ball will become electrified witout warning.

5-3 Hits Left:
The ball stays electrified longer and
the boss moves around faster.

When Eggman says "Get Ready to be Schooled!" and the ball drops down:
Can be Instantly Lethal! The ball slams into the ground and sends two shock
waves out. Just jump over the shockwaves. You can also jump on the vehicle, then
as Blaze use her hover to stay above the shockwaves. Not a chance to hit the
boss. Kills
instantly if the ball drops directly on you.

2-1 Hits Left:
Same as above, but the boss is even faster, and the ball is almost always
electrified, there is only a brief period of time when the ball is not
electrified and it's blinking red, the little vehicle is the easiest way to
hit the boss at this point, but be sure you time it just right so you don't hit
the ball on the way up and you hit Eggman, you might in the air want to move to
the right a little.

9.e. Huge Crisis Boss:
Seriously, this is the same Boss as Leaf Storm, but a different color and
these attack differences:

Overall Strategy:
Don't stay at the very edges of the platform, or you might be trapped by the
head-slamming triple attack.

8-6 Hits Left:
When the boss slams its head down after Eggman says "Take this!", he will slam
it down one or three times, you just need to watch a little longer before you
attack, but not too long of course.

The "Get Ready to be Schooled" attack is a little faster, and even with it's
head all the way thrown back it still follows you around trying to target you

The moving to the side of the platform attack is gone.

5-1 Hits Left:

The boss twists around and moves into the background:
Eggman will put the head down and say "He he!" and missiles will fire from it
toward you. It is really easy to avoid them if you just look to see where they
are going to hit. The pattern they hit and the speed they come at you can differ,
there are four patterns:
Slow and coming directly at you: Easy to walk away from, go back and fourth on
the platform, but don't go too fast
Slow and random: Stand mostly in one spot, only moving if one is coming
directly at you.
Fast and directly at you: Run pretty fast back and fourth across the platform.
Fast and random: Hardest to avoid, but if you stand in one spot you will see
most of them are not coming at you, only move if one is and then watch where
you move to.
No chance to hit the boss.

9.f. Altitude Limit Boss:
This bird-like boss is hit like the Egg Viper-like and Nessie-like bosses on
the top of the head when it is blinking, but attacks are quite different. Like
the Egg Viper-like boss it is on a 2Dish platform:

Overall Strategy:
When the bird is about to attack, start off by spin-dashing back and fourth as
if you were avoiding the bullet attack, messes up the bosses' aim a little with
this attack.

8-6 Hits Left:

Boss is in the background and Eggman says "He he!":
The boss shoots at you from both of its wings. Try running back and forth
quickly so the wings don't dip down. It's
still pretty easy to get hit by the bullets, you can also try jumping through
the bullets and it will be less likely you will get hit, but only do this if you
are desperate. I also find it effective to spin-dash back and forth, especially
with Sonic. No chance to hit the boss.

Boss lands on edge of platform, then jumps up:
Chance to hit boss! The boss will jump up in the air, Eggman says "Take this!"
and it will try to stomp on you. Just run or jump a little out of the way but
not too much, the boss will then bow it's head and you will have a chance to
hit it. Also you can just walk away from the boss then turn around when he hits
the ground, this in fact may be better than method above.

Boss is in background, but then swoops in suddenly and Eggman says "Take
Chance to hit boss! This is a peck attack, make sure you are not too close to
the boss when it's beak hits the ground, or you will be kind of trapped there
and after you are hit stunned for a little bit. After it hits the ground, jump
out of the way a little bit to avoid being trapped there, then top of the head
starts to blink and you can hit it.

5-1 Hits Left:
Same as above, but attacks are faster, one added attack:

Boss lands on edge of platform and Eggman says "Get Ready to be Schooled!":
Instantly lethal if you are not careful! The boss starts creating a lot of
wind. A symbol will appear in the bottom corner telling you to press A and B,
if you don't press them fast with the up button, you will be blown off the
edge of the platform! Try to stay as close to the boss as possible, in fact
you can touch the boss and not loose your Rings. No chance to hit the boss.

9.g. Dead Line Boss:
Sonic vs. Blaze! Sonic and Blaze do have slightly different attacks, but their
most powerful attack is really different enough to warrant a different
strategy, so that will be discussed when I get to it. It is fought on a 2Dish

Overall Strategy:
Hit Sonic or Blaze when they are just standing there and not spin-dashing or
jumping, if you spin or jump into them they cannot hurt you most of the time. I
find it better to just jump into them or run toward them a little them press
down instead of trying to dash them or just simply spin-jump them.

Because when to hit them is kind of general, I didn't specify it below. The
best time to hit them is right after they have completed an attack and they are
just standing there. The last hit is completely different and will be discussed

Beneficial Glitch:
Occasionally Sonic or Blaze will get stuck on the edge of the platform, leaving
them unable to attack and you can easily hit them repeatedly.

8-6 Hits Left:
Character Revs Up: You are about to be Dashed. Just jump out of the way,
jumping into them while spinning doesn't do anything but sends you flying in
the opposite direction, but be prepared to hit them when they stop spinning.

Character floats up in air: They are about to home in on you at high speed,
just jump so they can't hurt you and be ready to hit them quickly after they

5-2 Hits Left:
Same as above but character stands there for a shorter period of time and has
one more attack:

Character floats into air, differently than attack above (Sonic starts to spin
around, Blaze just floats there):
The character is about to do their Special Attacks which are:
Sonic creates a Blue Tornado and tries to suck you in. Basically, you try to
jump or run away from the tornado. Sonic will do the Tornado 1-4 times and
after doing one will very quickly hover over you and try to form another one
right on top of you, you just need to watch Sonic very carefully and run away.

Blaze floats in mid-air and summons flame pillars. If you look on the ground a
small circle of fire appears before the flame pillar and you can try to run,
but try not to get backed up in a corner but if you do if you look carefully
there will be a gap you can go into sometimes...
Both characters might follow this attack up by homing in on you or they will
just go back to the ground.

1 Hit Left:
Always Lethal if done wrong! Final hit! There is a small cutscene, then the
battle totally changes. Now Sonic and Blaze are running into each other trying
to push each other off the platform. The A/B button symbol appears, and it is
not kidding! You have to push these buttons very fast to win! The best way is
to use both hands and press both buttons at the same time. You can tell you
are winning when the flashes of light that appear are mostly toward the other
character and if you look closely at the background you can tell which way the
two of you are in general heading. If the other character is winning, better
start pressing those buttons faster! The battle ends with either your
character or the other gets sent flying off the platform.

9.h. Final Zone (F-Zone) Boss: Unknown
This typical giant robot took me a little while to figure out mainly because
of how it is hit... but the last hit is ridiculously easy and is free making
this boss in reality have one less hit than the others before it. It is fought
on a 2Dish platform.
How to hit this boss in general: The boss is normally behind you, but to hit
it you need to make this boss move to the right of the platform. To make it
move at first you have to hit its hands if they are blinking and on the ground,
you can do that after a couple of its attacks or later on in the fight the boss
will move there if you successfully dodge it's laser or electric attacks.
After the boss is there, Eggman will say "Get ready to be schooled!" and it
will shoot out 3, 4 or 5 later in the fight green energy blasts, you need to
jump over them, it just gets harder to do that later on. After the last blast,
the hand hits the ground and starts blinking again, try to jump toward the
hand after the last energy blast. Now the word go appears on the screen, you
are suppose to run up the robot's arm. Here is the tricky part, eventually the
arm starts shaking and the down symbol appears. Soon the robot will try to
shake you off its arm. What you do is press down so your character can hold on
for dear life. Then you proceed in moving up its arm and hitting its head which
is blinking. If you are thrown off it's arm, you will have one more
chance of getting up there, but after that the arm will come back down, but
the robot will shake you off so hard you can't make it back up, the robot does
the same thing even if you stay on it's arm the first time, which means you
really need to hurry up and hit it's head as fast as you can. When 5 hits are
left when the game is set on Normal Mode metal things start rolling down its arm
and they will hit you when you press down. What you do is make sure you get to
the robot's white elbow joint before pressing down so the metal things will not
hit you but go over you instead. You can also jump and hit the metal things.

Deal with me... this is the boss battle I have updated the most in this guide,
it's pretty complex...

NOTE: Make sure to check out important July 2006 updates to the Laser and
Electrical attacks below.

NOTE: Important Easy Mode Differences.
Playing the game on Easy Mode just cuts the numbers of hits down by two for most
Bosses, but when you play Final on Easy, there is a significant difference. Now
metal things never roll down the robot's arm, and 4-2 Hits Left, you have to
stop on the arm before it shakes you off of it always. (I was told it is
but IMO hard)

8-7 Hits Left:
Three green energy blasts before you can hit the boss, there is enough time to
hit the boss before it starts to flail it's arm.

When the robot lifts up both of it's arms and Eggman says "Take this!":
Chance to hit boss!: The hands will come down one at a time and produce
shockwaves, you just need to watch the hands and duck them, then jump over the
shockwave. Eventually one hand will stay down and start to blink so you can
hit it and move the boss to the edge.

When the robot lifts up both of it's arms, leans back and Eggman says "Get
ready to be schooled!":
Instantly Lethal Attack! Chance to hit boss! This is similar to the Egg Viper
attack, but the boss follows you around more before attacking and shockwaves
come out after the boss very powerfully hits the ground with both of it's arms.
It is best to stand there, preferably at the edge of the platform, then move
right before it attacks, then jump up to
both avoid the shockwave and hit the hands which after the attack are both on
the ground and blinking.

6 Hits Left:
Same as above, but there are 3 (sometimes 4) green energy blasts before you
can hit the boss, and this time you don't have enough time to immediately hit
the bosses' head, you need to press down on the arm so you are not thrown off.

5-4 Hits Left:
Same as above plus first attack described above gets faster and harder to
avoid. When it moves to the side there are now 5 (occasionally 4) green energy
blasts you need to jump over that come at you even faster.
Metal things start rolling down it's arm , and you actually have enough time to
make it to the head before being shook off again (Normal Mode only). Also this
new attack:

Robot crosses it's arms and says "Take This!":
Possible chance to hit boss. Laser attack, only the fire on the ground can
hurt you, watch carefully and jump over it.
Just go to the very edge of the platform to where it looks like he is going
to fall off and stand there. If the laser is going away from you it can't
get you, but it can if it is heading toward you, so you still have to jump
There are two variations, both avoided the same way:
Random Laser: Laser is fired in random directions, run and jump from one side
of the platform to the other as fast as you can and you will miss them almost
always, the key is to start running and jumping as soon as it indicates it is
about to do this attack. (or see new tip above)
Sweeping Laser: The Laser sweeps back and forth on the ground, it's easy to
just jump back and forth across it. (or see new tip above)
Another thing if you have extremely good timing is to just stand there and jump
over each and every laser, but yeah, very good timing, running seems to be best.
Another note, the final laser might require more careful jumping.
The robot will move to the edge of the platform on it's own after this attack
if you don't get hit during this attack, if you do get hit then it will attack
you with something else afterwards.

3-2 Hits Left:
Same as above, you do have enough time to hit the head but barely (Normal Mode),
if you do have to press down to avoid being shaken off do this in the robot's
elbow, one more attack:

The robot hits it's hands together twice and Eggman says "He he!":
Possible chance to hit boss. Electric Attack, electrical arcs come out of
floating metal things. When the electric arcs are transparent you can walk
through them, but watch out when they are not anymore! Comes in to forms:
One metal thing comes out: You are trapped between two electric arcs that
move slowly. The space between them changes size and moves, you just need to
be alert and move with this space to prevent getting hit. It gets hung up a
while on the edge of the platform, so it is best to start off there.
More than one metal things come out: Multi-attack that is harder to avoid, be
very alert and move if you are near a transparent arc but not into a full one!
The best way is to start off near the edge of the platform, then slowly walk
away, this seems to be a good way of avoiding the arcs, your pace needs to be
steady, not too fast, not too slow.
Another tip received from someone... forgot their name:
Try to move under each metal thing as soon as it comes out.
(Correction: Don't start off at the very edge, or the attack won't start at all,
weird way to stall the game, but that's it.)
you with something else afterwards.

1 Hit Left:
Very Easy but Small Instant Death Risk!!! (That I never realized before) Last
Boss hit! The robot rams itself into the side of the stage twice, but this does
nothing to you. Then the robot gets stuck in the side of the platform. It's easy
to jump up and hit the head, for the first couple of seconds it seems like this
does nothing, but keep jumping... but don't wait too long or the robot will
break through and kill you.

9.i. Extra Zone Boss: Exception
Unlock this boss by completing the game with Sonic and Blaze and getting all
the Chaos Emeralds with Sonic. It doesn't matter which order you complete
these things, one these requirements have been met go to the Character Select
screen and you will find an option to head to the Extra Zone.
For people familiar with the earlier games in the series, this is Sonic
Advance 2's Extra Boss made even more like the Doomsday Zone... Anyway this boss
is a little different in that it is broken up into sections, which are
described later and this boss is not random, if you play it long enough
you will be able to anticipate which attack comes next. The scene is space,
and like the Sonic Advance Extra Zones and the classic Doomsday Zone from the
game Sonic and Knuckles you are flying through space fighting an Eggman
invention, this one happens to strongly resemble the Extra Zone mecha at the
end of Sonic Advance 2.
As in any other Super fight, you start with 50 Rings, but loose one ring a
second. If you run out of rings you die and you need to remember in this fight
Sonic and Blaze are sharing Rings so if you beat one section with only one
Ring left the other character will be suffering too. That is the only way you
can die, most attacks just slow you down a bit and make you blink, but there
are a few attacks in this particular fight that can make you loose rings. The
good thing is you don't always have to start from the beginning, Sonic and
Blaze bring to the fight the number of lives they each earned. If Sonic dies
you start at the beginning of the section you just die in and if Blaze dies you
start with Sonic again in the section before. This is kind of annoying because
Sonic's part is much harder and made more annoying by the fact you have to
battle the boss as Super Sonic more than Super(Burning?) Blaze.
Super Sonic and Super Blaze fight the boss a little differently and have
slightly differing moves, described below:

NOTE ON BLAZE'S SUPER NAME: I'm not totally convinced yet, but Super Blaze's
real official name might be Burning Blaze based upon a Japanese strategy guide
and I have seen other names proposed for her Sol Emerald transformation, but it
was a similar
guide that led people to call Super Shadow Hyper Shadow which is incorrect, so
I an not totally convinced yet.
Seems most people call her Burning Blaze now...

Super Sonic:
D pad: Move Super Sonic in any direction on the screen.
D Pad + A or B button: Dash Sonic in any direction. This more powerful move is
used to dash through certain things like lasers and breaking meteors without
being slowed down and hitting things back at the boss.

Super(Burning) Blaze:
Same as Super Sonic, but the A button instead of being like the B button is a
special attack where Blaze charges up then fires a fire ball. During the
charging process you can move a little but not very fast. This attack can only
be cancelled if an attack hits her, disrupting her concentration. This is used
to hit the boss.

Super Sonic and Super Blaze take turns battling the end mecha. Sonic battles
it on the top screen against Eggman, then after hitting it a certain number of
times, the mecha goes into a base things, comes out the bottom upside down and
is now driven by Eggman Nega and Blaze has to battle it on the bottom screen.
The first Sonic and the first Blaze section start off in a meteor herd, but
then they have to battle the boss, the next sections after that don't start
with meteors and the battle technique never changes, but the attacks that the
mecha gives off and the way Super Sonic and Super Blaze fight it are quite
different. The specific section order is this:

Super Sonic, meteor beginning, 3 hits; Super Blaze, meteor beginning, 3 hits;
Super Sonic, 2 hits; Super Blaze 2 hits; Super Sonic 4 hits (2 on Easy Mode)

After the final hits with Sonic, there is a short cutscene of Sonic and Blaze
finishing off the mecha and hitting it one last time together.

Here is the description of the Meteor Section, followed by the differences in
the Sonic and Blaze sections of this boss. Like in the other boss sections, I
will indicate stuff like you can hit the boss and if the attack will cause you
to loose rings, remember the attacks are not random and you will be able to
see the attack order better the more you play:

Meteor Section: The meteors will slow you down and so will the laser that
occasionally fires. You can dash through the laser and meteors to avoid
slowing down and try to grab the rings scattered in the meteor field. If you
dash into red meteors you will find 5 Rings inside.

Super Sonic Section:
In general you attack it by hitting the objects that the boss fires at you
back at it at the boss's head when it is blinking. The bosses' attacks are:

Boss extends its right arm:
Chance to hit boss! These strange white things with blue centers are annoying,
they sort of circle around and sometimes stop and fire lasers out that hit and
slow you down. These things seem to move the more you move Sonic around. Try
not to move much so they kind of circle around. If you are lucky or if you
have practiced enough they will stop in the perfect place and you can dash
into them and hit the boss. They eventually blink red before exploding. Last
time this attack appears, the white things move around alot faster, you may
have to more around more to get the white things to stop in the correct spot.

Boss extends its left arm:
Chance to hit boss! Green energy balls come out and head right for you, then
toward the end of the screen, they can slow you down. Try to position yourself
in front of the robot's head, if you are in the right place you can dash then
right into the boss.

Boss suddenly twists around and says "Take this!":
Laser sword attack, he swipes most of the screen, pauses briefly and in this
pause you can hit him with one of the white things, then he swipes again. This
just hits you and slows you down. Dash through it or go to the corner of the

Boss moves into background and Eggman says "Get Ready to be Schooled!":
Ring Loss Risk! The boss fires missiles at you. They move toward the screen
and explode hard enough to make Super Sonic loose 10 or 15 Rings. Just dash
around the screen away from them.

Super Blaze Section:
In general you charge up a fireball and hit the boss when the cockpit is
glowing. It is pretty easy to get the timing of hitting the cockpit right, but
Eggman Nega in general has harsher attacks and if you don't attack him quickly
you will end up loosing Rings.

Cockpit stops blinking and the boss is just sitting there:
The boss is about ready to do a Scratch Attack that just hits her and slows
her down, just dash toward the edge of the screen.

Weird noise, Eggman Nega says "He He!", boss extends left arm:
Ring Loss Risk! Chance to hit boss! The arm will come out and try to grab
Super Blaze. Try to dash away, if she is grabbed, she gets slapped by the
other arm and looses 5 or 10 Rings. If you get away, the cockpit is blinking
and you can hit the boss.

Boss moves backwards, than forwards off screen and into background and says "Get
Ready to be Schooled!":
Ring Loss Risk! Seriously, the most evil attack ever. The boss rips a hole in
space sucking everything into it including you and nearby Rings. At the end of
the attack you loose 5 or 10 Rings. I never figured out how to avoid this
attack on my own... but Jagus figured it out... thanks... you dash straight up
or straight down, starting just before the attack... don't deviate to the
sides at all.

10. Special Stages:
Blaze gets it easy, she just gets one of her Sol Emeralds back each time she
defeats a Boss. But Sonic has to find the Special Gimmicks and enter the Special
Stages to grab the Chaos Emeralds. If you can get all 7 Chaos Emeralds,
you have a chance to enter the Extra Zone and see the true ending of the game.
The Advance series had you finding many Special things including Special
Springs, Special Rings and Special Keys, now add Special Gimmicks (or Special
Generators) to this list. Thankfully except in the last couple of Zones most
of them are easy to find and there are three in each Act. They
have a star in the middle and two handles. Every Special Gimmick in each Zone
takes you to the same stage, so all you really need to know is where one is in
each Zone, in fact you have already completed the Zone you just need to get
the Emerald then you are free to leave the Act and Zone all together with your
Emerald. To activate one, you first need to make sure you have at least 105%
Tension (at least all blue bars and one orange bar), then press X or Y to start
spinning. Keep holding X or Y until you are sucked into the Special Stage. If
you have too little tension you will just stop spinning when the gauge gets down
to zero and at zero you can't spin the Special Gimmick at all.
Also if you spin a Special Gimmick with full Tension and you are glowing if
you warp into the Special Stage before your meter stops blinking and you go back
down to 200% Tension, your meter will still be blinking once you leave
the Special Stage, so it is possible to go get a little more Tension to keep
your meter up, then go to the Special Gimmick again and keep your meter going
and get into the Special Stage even more than normal.
Gimmicks seem to be placed in certain locations, some are in rooms where you
can only use the Gimmick once, then you can't even reach it again and you have
to leave and others seem to be placed in spots near a whole lot of springs,
enemies, tension item boxes, etc... where it is easy to refill your gauge more
and enter the Special Stage again. These sort of things are described later in
the Special Gimmick Location Guide.
The Special Stage itself is a half-pike like in Sonic 2 but with a twist, you
control Sonic with the stylus by sliding it back and forth across the half-
pike. If you sweep your stylus over the top of the pike you can make Sonic
jump up in the air and grab rings or other things that are floating above the
half-pike. You will be told to grab a certain number of Rings. When you reach
the half-way point if you don't have that number of Rings you are kicked out
of the Special Stage, but if you do have enough Rings the number is increased
for the next section, and if you can grab that number you are rewarded a Chaos

The objects in the Special Stage are:

Rings: The things you gather of course.

5 Rings: These silver things are worth 5 Rings.

Mines: Hitting these spiky things will cause you to loose 10 rings.

Buttons: Press a button to make more Rings appear.

Booster Pad: Makes you go faster and leads you down a certain path for a short
period of time, often gets you Rings/Trick Springs and past mines.

Enemies: When you are close enough to them, a green target will appear on them
and at that moment if you tap them with the stylus Sonic will spin right toward
them to hit them. If you hit them the red ones take one hit to destroy and are
worth 2 Rings and the purple ones take three hits to destroy and are worth 5
Rings, but enemies are dangerous and if they hit you you lose 10 Rings, the
Purple ones will actively attack you.

Trick Springs: If you hit one of the red circles with a Star in it, you get to
play a Bonus Game where you have to touch numbers in order before time runs
out. You are rewarded with Rings and sometimes there is more than one round.
The number of Rings awarded depends on how fast you touch the numbers or more
specifically how much of the bar that appears at the bottom of the screen is
left... the different words that appear tell you how many Rings you will get:
Miss!: Uh-oh, you didn't make it in time... No Rings for You!
Fantastic!: about 3/4ths or more of the bar left, you get 20 Rings
Great!: between 3/4ths and 1/2th of the bar left, you get 10 Rings
Nice!: less than 1/2th of the bar left, you get 5 Rings

NEW TIP: Often you can just slide your stylus across the numbers instead of
tapping them.

Chaos Emerald: What you are trying to get.

If you don't like how a part of the Special Stage looks, make Sonic jump over
the area.
Practice the timing of jumping to grab mid-air objects, especially if it is a
Trick Spring.
The last Special Stage is the hardest, memorize the first part, but the second
part is a lot easier. There is a partial walkthrough of this Special Stage
coming up next.
As a little cheat, pause the Special Stage, then move the stylus, then unpause
the game to make Sonic almost instantly move, this also works during the
touch numbers minigame the Trick Springs take you to.

10.a. Special Stage 7 Tips/ Partial Walkthrough:
The other Special Stages are a piece of cake compared to this one... anyway for
where to enter the Special Stage in Dead Line, consult the next section with
the locations of the Special Gimmicks... the best one being number 2 in the
first Act. Anyway the main strategy to this one is to hit both of the Trick
Springs in the first part of the stage and then hit the numbers as fast as you
can on the screen for a "Great!" Bonus (10 Rings) instead of a "Nice!" Bonus (5
Rings) and both these minigames have more than one round... so as part of the
upcoming mostly text walkthrough I map out where the numbers appear on the
screen. The next section of the Special Stage is easier but I didn't
walkthrough it because seriously, I don't get there very often still and it is
easier, but there are still some tips I will give on completing it with enough
Rings. A complete ASCII guide would be sweet, but I don't have time, other
people are apparently still working on one...

Note: Many people find it easier to use the pausing trick I described in the
section before this.

Obtain 160 Rings!:

First two sections are seemingly random mine fields with Rings and 5 Rings
scattered. The trick is that there is a safer path toward the right of the
mine field... don't try to grab every single Ring, you will get hit, focus
mostly on staying on this path and most of the 5 Rings you can grab safely.
It's more important to not get hit than to gather Rings, even at this early

Next comes three lines of mines going almost straight across... just swing right
and left to go through the clear spaces filled with Rings, pretty obvious,

Then you have a button followed by three mines... followed by a lot of rings if
you pushed the button... there are three of these in a row, you need to push all
three buttons and grab all the Rings that appear, if you run in between the
mines, be careful.

Next is the tricky section that I don't usually try to duck entirely... several
lines of mines going all the way across with gaps of two Rings in them... the
tricky part is going from gap to gap... go ahead and get hit.. you need to slow

down anyway... cause after this section hovering above the half-pike to the
right is a Spring that takes you to a mini-game... hope you practiced your
timing good for hitting hovering objects so you can quickly swing your stylus
up and catch the spring... this is why I recommend getting hit, a temporarily
invincible Sonic won't get tripped up by mines trying to hit the Spring. This
mini-game has two rounds, and try to tap these numbers as fast as possible.
The numbers appear like this on the touch screen, tap them fast with the

Round 1:                 Round 2:

              1                         2
           2     6                   3     7
              7                         1
           3     5                   4     6
              4                         5

The next section is another random mine field, this time it's a little safer
to at first be on the left side, then move to the edge of the right... about
the best I can explain it right now...

Next is an easy to catch Speed Booster, yeah, it leads to Rings... but after
that going up a hill you see random groups of three mines... at the very top of
the hill near the left is another Speed Booster you need to catch. To catch it,
going up the hill hug the top left edge of the half-pike to get past all the
mines and then you should run into the Speed Booster after cresting the top.
The next part is a row of Mines going completely across the half-pike and a
Red Enemy hovering above, when close enough, tap the enemy with the stylus so
you jump over the mines and get bonus Rings.

Now is a section of groups of four mines with groups of four Rings, it's
relatively easy to swing back and fourth ducking mines and grabbing Rings.

Now is another section very similar to the one before the first Minigame... and
guess what... the second Minigame is hovering above and to the right this time...
do the same exact thing as in the first section... and make sure to hit this
spring: This one has three rounds, the first one kind of hard and you will
probably get a "Nice!" bonus, but the other two are a lot easier, they look
like this:

Round 1:                 Round 2:                Round 3:

              1                    3       1                 2       3
           3     5
           7     4
              2                        2                         1

After this is one more line of mines with an enemy floating above it... and the
first checkpoint... hopefully you have at least 160 Rings, and hopefully if I
explained the top section correctly you will... now on to the next, easier

Obtain 320 Rings!:
Just tips...
A lot of enemies, fighting enemies too much can prevent you from grabbing
enough of the plentiful Rings on the course, so time you Enemy hits so you
take breaks and pick up Rings in between hitting them, Enemies are worth Rings
themselves and they can hurt you so you can't just ignore them.
There are Rings and even Springs floating right in the middle of the course,
these you have to hit a purple enemy at the correct time to grab, not only
does this take incredible timing... but Purple Enemies will attack you if you
don't attack them for too long a period of time... try to get these objects as
much as you can, but don't worry about it too much, not necessary.
Minigames are even faster than in the first section and most of the springs
easier to hit, but thankfully there are not as many numbers usually, still
pretty important when trying to get enough Rings.

10.b. Special Gimmick Locations:
There are three Special Gimmicks (often called Special Generators) in each of
Sonic's Acts. I described how to use them earlier, just refer back to the
beginning of Section 9. The description of each Special Gimmick starts off
with a rating on how useful it really is, including a Least and Most useful in
the Act rating right after the gimmick number. Usefulness of a Special Gimmick
is how many times in a row you can use it to get into the Special Stage. A
completely full Tension Gauge will get you into the Special Stage two times
usually, and you should always try to have you Tension Gauge full when
approaching a Special Gimmick. Also you can maintain full blinking with nearby
tricks and get into it even more times... But the location of the Special
Gimmick affects how useful it is... the worst kind of Special Gimmick is in some
sort of isolated place way up high and once you use it once, there is
absolutely no way to get back to it, even if you still have enough Tension to
enter the Special Stage again. The other extreme is one placed next to so many
various things that allow you to earn Tension that you can literally keep
refilling your gauge, reentering the Special Stage and exiting again and you
can keep at it till you finally get that elusive Chaos Emerald or you
literally run out of time if you have the Time Up option on in the Options
Menu. On the other hand, the Chaos Emeralds are pretty simple to grab so you
will probably only really need this info for that hard seventh Emerald, or the
last couple of Zones where Special Gimmicks tend to hide a little better.
The Usefulness Section starts off with four descriptive phrases separated by /.
The first phrase describes how many times in a row you can use it ranging from
once to infinite if it is located next to a cannon or rail you can trick a
whole lot, second phrase is where in the Act it is, third is how easy is it to
find on your own, and fourth is once you find it how easy is it to actually
get to the Special Gimmick.
The usefulness section will then go into detail on where nearby the Special
Gimmick you can fill up your Tension Gauge and other useful info.
Then following the Usefulness Section will be Non-through Location, if you
have read my guides in the past, you know I am very through (truthfully too
through, I know, but I want to make sure you get there) but this time I am
conducting an experiment... can you find the Special Gimmicks alright without
the horribly detail directions? Or will you still want them in incase you get

Note: I might still do detailed Locations if there is enough demand for this
guide to be more like my Sonic Advance series guides. If not and everyone can
find these okay with my simple descriptions it saves me typing.
No one has asked for more detailed descriptions yet... so I will keep it this
Also I am thinking about updating my past guides with shorter location
walkthroughs... keep an eye out for that!
Another Note: Usefulness increases if you can maintain a completely full
Tension Gauge all the way through the warping process so you will have a full
gauge even when you return from the Special Stage... but the warping process
takes time meaning you usually loose your Completely Full Gauge and drop down
to 200% or less after leaving the Special Stage, so I really didn't mention
where it is possible to do this at.

10.b.1. Leaf Storm Act 1 SG Locations:
The first one is the easiest to find and most useful and I am sure most people
will probably grab the Emerald the first time trying, I sure did.

SG#1 (Most Useful In Zone):
Infinite/Mid-Way Through/Very Easy to Find/Easy to Get To
Easy to find, there is a rail to the left of it and an enemy and trampoline to
the right that will get you more tension, especially the rail which you can
use to trick as much as you want to, but once you go a little further in the
act you can't go back to it.
Soon after first Checkpoint.

Infinite/Mid-Way Through/Medium Hid/Easy to Get To
You actually miss this one by using too many R tricks and going too high in
the act, but you can go up higher and then drop down once you know where it is.
A rail is to the left and the large number of springs to the right makes this
one great, but this is an Easy Chaos Emerald anyway, so does it really matter?
After first Special Gimmick don't bounce up higher on trampoline and take
lower route through loop. After hitting a second trampoline and a loop, land
on rail, not up high, SG is right after this rail.

Use Once or a Few Times/End of Act/Easy to Find/Medium Difficulty Getting To
This baby is on a tiny platform, depending on how you approach it, you either
find yourself launched off a ramp over it making it hard to get to, or from a
spring up through a floor. One hidden route near the end of the Act will make
you miss it all together, but most people don't go that way. Either way kind of
hard to grab this one and you would probably want to use it just once anyway
since it is near the end of the act, but if for some weird reason you want to

recharge, jump over the hole to the left over the little ramp and you will find
an enemy and some hoops to recharge your gauge.
Near the end of the act, when on last spiral spring Gimmick don't jump off the
Gimmick and go the hidden lower route. It is kind of raised up, you find
yourself launched over it from a ramp or up to it from a spring but you should
see it right before getting to the Goal.

10.b.2. Leaf Storm Act 2 SG Locations:
In general the theme for this Act is "Hide the Special Gimmicks..."

Infinite (but risky)/Near Beginning of Act/Hidden/Pretty Easy to Get Too
This tricky one you can only find if you see the three rings under a rail near
the bottom of the level. To the right is a spring that will get you on a rail
you can trick infinitely, but be very careful because it is easy to hit the
flying enemy and below this rail is a bottomless pit, so even though you can
trick a whole lot it is a risky area to be in to begin with.
Stay as low in the level as you can. Soon after bouncing on a trampoline and
going through a Rainbow Hoop, you will be on a short rail, if you look under
this rail, you will see three rings floating below the left-hand side of it
next to a wall, jump through the rail and grab the rings and you will probably
land right on this Special Gimmick.

Use a Couple Times/Mid Way Through/Hidden/Medium Difficulty Getting To
This hidden SG is in a little hollowed out stump room with a Full Tension Item
Box and an Enemy. You could use this one a few times if you come with a full
Tension Meter and then use the Item Box and Enemy to recharge, but after you
hit the bungee you will not be able to get back there, not a very useful one.
Starting from SG#1, continue till you hit the next checkpoint. Very soon
afterwards you will find yourself on a bungee. Instead of bouncing up to the
higher level, instead see that other bungee just to the right? Bounce just a
little so you land just to the right of that. See the speed booster next to
the hollow log? Hitting it will just send you into the other bungee, but
instead carefully try to jump over it to the right.

Infinite/Near End of Act/Mostly Hidden/Easy to Get To
Near the bottom of the act and normally a ramp and hoop propel you away from
here. There is a pretty good array of things to recharge your tension with
including an infinite rail very close by.
Starting from SG#2 soon after hitting the next checkpoint make sure to stick
to the lowest part of the level again, which means jumping into huge areas
that normally ramps/hoops naturally get you over, but don't jump into one thin
hole which a spring gets you over. Soon after this spring you hit a checkpoint
and the SG is very soon after that.

10.b.3. Water Palace Act 1 SG Locations:
Annoying SGs... Even the one I hesitantly dubbed most useful in Zone...

SG#1 (Most Useful in Zone):
A Few Times/Near Beginning/Medium Obvious/Kind of Hard to Get To
An annoying one because it happens to be located on a shaky platform above
water. You could recharge on a nearby spring or enemy a little, but usually
when you come out of the Special Stage here you either end up falling off the
platform or fall off when trying to make it back to that spring... well, it
does get easier with practice... but not worth it...
No matter which path you initially choose, very soon in the level a spring
will bounce you over a lot of water. You will see a few floating platforms and
the SG if floating over one of them... but DON'T use a right R Button Trick here,
instead use up + R Button Trick so you can use a spring pointing up to spring
you up and to the left to the three floating platforms so you can jump left to
the third one.
(Note, I had the above part mixed up in the earlier versions of this guide, a
right trick doesn't get you high enough sometimes.)

Couple Times/Mid Way Through/Medium Obvious/Kind of Easy To Get To
Annoying just for the fact it is underwater and there are no air bubbles near
it. There is an enemy and Tension Bonus above this Special Gimmick, but kind
of hard to get up there.
From SG#1, fall down and go the underwater route. At one point you will have
the option to use a moving platform and one floating on the water to get out of
the water area, but instead continue to the right underwater. You will come to
an underwater SG soon after the next checkpoint.

Very Few Times/Near End of Act/Mostly Hidden/Medium-Hard to Get To
Another weird annoying underwater one that is kind of hard to get to, as soon
as you use it you have to jump off to the area below and you can't get back up
there and there is only one nearby enemy so make sure you bring a lot of
Tension with you.
From SG#2 use Tension to activate first paddlewheel Gimmick. After this stay
high in the level, but you will end up running into water again eventually.
After the next checkpoint, there is a spring and a paddlewheel Gimmick up high,
jump up with the spring, and then do a Right + R Button Trick to activate the
Gimmick to send you up. Soon you will come to shaky platforms in water again,
jump across three of these and the fourth one is rectangular. This platform
falls if you stand on it, soon after it falls jump and land slightly to the
right to find the little area with the SG.

10.b.4. Water Palace Act 2 SG Locations:
Kind of annoying like the last one, the second one took me a while to find
because I kept looking for it somewhere before the first one and the third one
is not far from the first one anyway... so I give two routes to the third one.

A Few Times/Mid Way Through/Medium Hidden/More Annoying than Hard to Get to
A weird one near shaky platforms and spikes... there is a spring below it and
some enemies to recharge a little. Getting to it is the weird part.
Location:Several ways to get through this level, but eventually you will hit a
paddlewheel Gimmick, don't activate it much. Eventually you will hit a spring
and it will be above waterline to the left a little.

A Few Times /Near End of Act/ Medium Hidden/Easy-Medium to Get to
Only a couple enemies near this underwater SG to Boost your meter, but at
least not far from the water's surface and if you keep going to the left of it
you will find a 1up.
From SG#1 Activate the paddlewheel Gimmick you eventually get to by Boosting
into it. (If you don't activate it, it's a more direct route to SG#3) You will
eventually find it to the left to two enemies.

Several Times/Near End of Act/Medium Hidden/Easy-Medium to Get to
Another underwater Gimmick, but better than most in this entire Zone because
of the nice amount of Springs nearby to charge up Boost and the top most
spring can bounce you out of the water so you do not drown. Watch out for the
hole to the right, it is bottomless, continue this level by bouncing on the
spring to the left that is facing up.
From SG#1: don't activate paddlewheel Gimmick much. At one point, there is two
Mine Gimmicks, touch them both and watch them kill Enemies, then bounce on
nearby springs and you will see the SG to the right at the top.
From SG#3: Soon after grinding a rail you will be launched from a spring over
a large gap, instead of going all the way across, drop down and you will find
it underwater, just don't go to far to the right and land in a bottomless pit.

10.b.5. Mirage Road Act 1 SG Locations:
Hidden SGs, the third one has a couple different ways to get to it, both kind
of hard, especially if you want to hit all three in one go of the act which is
quite hard.

Use a Few Times/Beginning of Act/Hidden/Easy-Medium to Get to
You have to fight through an extra battle room and this Special Gimmick is one
of your rewards. Your Tension should be high after the battle, but you can
also raise it with the spring directly under this SG, or go back to the hoops
you were at to trick off of those.
A little bit into the Act you will come to a place where there is a moving
block to the upper right and below some spikes. Jump and land on the moving
block, you have to go the upper path. Soon after the battle room you will go
up through a Rainbow Hoop, land to the left instead of right and you will find
another battle room. To the left of this is a reward room with a SG, 1up and a

Use a Couple Times/Near Beginning of Act/Hidden/Medium to Get to
This one is to the left of an annoying sand slide, which you can't fall into
if you either want to gain more Tension from the springs you were just one or
the enemy, or if you want to try to get to all three SG's in this act.
From SG#1 go back to the right. Soon a spring will bounce you and you will see
shaky platforms, don't land on them unless you want to go directly to the
harder SG#3... instead fall through. Soon after the next checkpoint you find
yourself sort of going up a slope and into the air where you see an Enemy and
a spring against the right wall you can't quite reach... under the enemy is an
Invisible Spring, hit it so you can then proceed to hit that spring against
the wall to end up where this SG is, but don't land in the sand slide that
takes you away from it, but that's kind of hard to do.

Use a Few Times (Infinite if you are crazy)/Near Beginning of Act/Hidden/Hard to
get To
Pretty hard to get to, there is a Full Tension Gauge Item Box and Enemy... if
you are crazy you can try to use the rail to make it infinite if you dare to...
you will probably die trying to do that or often just trying to get out of
this area anyway...
From SG#1: Remember the shaky platforms you decided not to go across to get to
SG#2? Go across them this time to get to this one.
From SG#2: Kind of stupid way, only do if you really am a nerd like me who has
to find a way to get to all three in one go... Make sure you don't fall into the
sand slide and go back the way you can from up then down hill. When you get to
the gap you normally rip cord across, jump into it and go as far left you can,
landing on top of a Gimmick. Now jump from there and land a little to the
right on a rail. You have to go down instead of up this rail like normal, jump
off the rail before you hit the speed booster at the bottom toward the left,
and try to land on a ramp before you plummet to your death, then go left.

10.b.6. Mirage Road Act 2 SG Locations:
Ehh, not that bad of an Act.

Use A Few Times/Near Beginning of Act/Slightly Hidden/Easy to Get To
Ehh, a pretty average one, you can use the enemy and the Rainbow Hoop you just
went through to recharge, but if you head into the Sand Slide to your left or
the Battle Room if you head right, you will never be able to get back to here,
so you can't recharge much.
Not very far into an act, you are bounced near two rails one higher than the
other. The bottom rail is the one you naturally land on, but do an up + R
button Trick to land on the top rail. After going up through a Rainbow Hoop,
head left instead of right.

SG#2 (Most Useful in Zone):
Use Several Times/Mid Way Through/Easy to Find if You Found First One/Easy to
Get To
If you go into the Sand Slide near the first SG and go that path, you will
eventually bounce right into this one. A pretty average one with several
springs underneath to charge you up.
From SG#1, head into the Sand Slide Gimmick just to the left of you and
continue on that path and you will eventually find it.

Use A Couple Times/Near End/Easy to Find/Easy to Get To
Near the End, the only way to recharge is kill the enemies on the large slope
ahead, but then you have to boost back up the slope loosing some of the energy
you recharge, and of course the end of act golden thing ride is right ahead of
Soon after Last Checkpoint, right after jumping over spikes.

10.b.7. Night Carnival Act 1 SG Locations:
The second one is easier to get to if you go past the first one, but I'm a
nerd, you can get to the second one if you grab the first one also.

SG#1 (Most Useful in Zone):
Use One or Two Times/Beginning of Act/Pretty Easy to Find/Easy to Get To
This one you cannot recharge nearby, and there are only like two places to get
Tension before arriving here, so make sure you do that. It is very near the
beginning, making it nice.
On first Swing Gimmick make it to the other side instead of dropping down
lower. Jump clear over after launched by ramp. Soon you will see it under you
when on a Light Ride Gimmick.

Use Once/Beginning of Act/Slightly Hidden/Medium to Get To
A kind of hidden one high in the air you have to use a Swing Gimmick to get to.
If you really want to use it more than once, you have to drop way below to
find a Rainbow Hoop and then use an R trick to grab the handle of the Gimmick
again as in the second way I describe getting here below.
From Beginning: Go same way as for SG#1, but instead go all the way
across on Light Ride that goes over SG#1. On the next Swing Gimmick swing all
the way up as you can to the right so you can jump off the Gimmick and grab this
mid-air SG.
From SG#1: After going up through a Rainbow Hoop, try to head as far left as
possible, do an Up + R Button Trick to grab the handle of the Swing Gimmick,
this is the same Swing Gimmick described above.

Use a Couple Times/Mid Way Through/Slightly Hidden/Easy-Medium to Get to.
Pretty easy to get down there, just need to make sure to boost and push the
right buttons, but once around here there is just one enemy to assist in gauge
From SG#1, make sure you dash into the huge Spirally Gimmick after the next
Checkpoint so you fully activate it and can make it across to the High Route.
On the next Light Ride (hint, you have to use an R-button trick to activate
it), look below and you will soon see a balloon and rings, jump off the ride
and grab them and you will fall on or near the SG.

10.b.8. Night Carnival Act 2 SG Locations:
Ehh, not as good as the First Act, with the first two SGs hidden and the last
one that can be only used one time.

Use A Few Times/Mid Way Through/Hidden/Medium to Get to
A kind of tricky one you have to slow down and be careful to get to. The
Gimmick nearby you crouch down to activate will send you through a hoop and
through a floor, but simply go a little left, jump down and back to the same
area if you want to recharge a little up there. Careful, the drop off on both
sides of this area is lethal.
No matter which path you take to begin with, eventually a spring will make you
go up through a certain Rainbow Hoop with a Bat Enemy high above it and right
after that SLOW DOWN when you hit the barrier and there is a Rail you activate
by pushing a button. Instead of pushing the button, walk off the edge slowly
then jump down that narrow hole you see, the light will go off, take that path.

Use A Couple Times/Toward End/Kind of Hidden/Medium to Get To
The path to get here is a little rough, but you can cheat by going backwards a
little from Last Checkpoint. A Speed Booster launches you up in the air and
you have to run into this every time you want to grab this mid-air SG. Only
one nearby enemy will help with Tension Getting.
From SG#1: First Spirally Gimmick don't Boost into much, jump off it and land
to the area at the right with Enemies, don't fall into the large pit of doom.
This path is a little difficult but continue to eventually find the Special
From Last Checkpoint: Boost to the left from here and you will eventually fall
into this area.

One Timer/Toward End/Pretty Easy to Find/Easy-Medium to Get To
The trick here is not finding it, but you have to hit the three balloons right
after the checkpoint perfectly to grab it, these balloons will actually help
fill your gauge and once you go into the Special Stage once the balloons
disappear leaving it unreachable again.
Right after the Last Checkpoint, there are three balloons, hit them in a row to
get to this SG.

10.b.9. Huge Crisis Act 1 SG Locations:
A nice act when it comes to getting into the Special Stage, not so nice when
it comes to crushing risk...

Use One or Two Times/Near Beginning/Pretty Easy to Find/Pretty Easy to Get To
This strange one is floating above platforms that crumble, if you fall through
you can't get back on it.
A little ways into the act, you are launched over a large area from a ramp,
instead of landing on the other side of the top of the ship, look below for
the SG.

Use Several Times/Near Beginning/Easy to Find/Easy to Get To
There is one spring nearby but if you dare to cross the crushing area to
recharge you will find a Full Tension Bonus Item Box and a few more springs.
From SG#1, not that far from the next Checkpoint, you will bounce over it on a
spring, it is near crushers.

Infinite/Near End/Slightly Hidden/Medium-Easy to Get To
A very useful one, since it is near enemies and more importantly a long rail
to the right.
Path #1: Near the end, there is a huge area you normally fall down into with a
robot, a tube and a shield and 1up Item Box. Instead of going down there, try
to jump over the huge gap.
Path #2: If you fall down into the huge area, then continue on, soon after the
battle room you will find yourself at a rail, go to the left instead of on the

10.b.10. Huge Crisis Act 2 SG Locations:
The first Special Gimmick is very useful but the last two are nothing to call
home about. Even more of a crush risk in this Act than the last.

SG#1 (Most Useful in Zone):
Infinite/Beginning of Act/Hidden/Pretty Easy to Get To

This Special Gimmick is
floating in the air between two rails... you have to use
a Rail Trick or R trick off the end to get back up there... but it's by two
rails... you know what that means... super SG...
On the first rail in the act, jump at the highest point where you see three
rings so you are sucked up by a tube, continue on that path.

Use A Few Times/Mid Way Through/Easy to Find/Pretty Easy to Get To
This one is also floating in the air, get on it by using the spring on the
wall that is to the left. This spring and a few nearby enemies/battle room lets
you recharge some.
From SG#1 continue on... it's in the air before the battle room with the steam
shooting up from the floor.

Use a Few Times/Toward End/Slightly Hidden/Pretty Easy to Get to
This one is also up high, you actually have to use the little springy Enemy
below to bounce up to it. A few nearby enemies can help you recharge, but if
you kill the springy enemy you can't get back up there.
From SG#2, after bouncing up through the floor via spring, go the lower route
instead of using a trick to reach the hook above. You will find it pretty soon
after the next battle room floating in the air in it's own little room with
enemies and stuff.

10.b.11. Altitude Limit Act 1 SG Locations:
You have to go through quite a bit of this high up act before you find the
really good Special Gimmick.

Use Once or Twice/Beginning of Act/Hidden/Easy to Get To
This one is isolated in a small room, so you can only use the Tension you
bring with you.
When you hit the first spring in the act and bounce up to the high rail, use a
little Tension and go left uphill on that rail instead of right and continue
on that path.

Use a Few Times/Near Beginning of Act/Pretty Easy to Find/Medium to Get To
Use the Rocket Pad to get to it, or use the spring and slightly cut short your
line of travel or jump off to the right from where you land after hitting the
spring. A Full Tension Item Box, a few springs and one enemy can help with
Tension refill.
Soon after First Checkpoint, above where you normally get off the Rocket Pad.

Infinite/Mid Way Through/Hidden/Pretty Easy to Get To
Located just above a rail...
Path 1:
Shortly after next Parachute Ride (Right before the Parasail part) on the
rails there is one part where you are heading left and a Speed Booster sends
you to the right uphill to the parasail part, jump over this Speed Booster
instead to find the SG.
Path 2 (Harder):
If you choose to go the way where you are ducking a lot of enemies while on a
Rocket Pad, if you go through the small hole in the ceiling and go that
direction, you will bounce on a spring up to this area.

10.b.12. Altitude Limit Act 2 SG Locations:
The first SG is extremely good, but the second one is just for people that
absolutely have to find everything.

SG#1 (Most Useful in Zone):
Infinite/Beginning of Act/Hidden/Easy to Get To
Above a rail, nuff said...
When on the first parachute, head to the left instead of the right.

Use a Couple Times/Mid Way Through/Hidden/Very Hard to Get To
Not only are their enemies in your path but they are shooting at you...
seriously, a very hard one to get to (I died more than one trying to get back
up there to write this description) and only worth finding if you are a person
like me that has to find everything. Only one Full Tension Item Box to help
you refill.
From SG#1, very carefully use first Rocket Pad to get as high as possible...
with enemies shooting at you, you have to perfect jumping off the pad killing
enemies then jumping back on.

Infinite/Near End/Hidden/Hard to Get To
It is a lot of trouble to get to since you have to navigate though a small gap
lined with spikes with a parachute then land on a spring, but once you get up
there not only is there this infinite SG but also a lot of rings and a Tension
Bonus in a Balloon.
During next Parachute part, hug the right wall when falling down, there is a
small gap lined with spikes you need to float through, then land on the spring
to spring up to the rail area with the SG.

10.b.13. Dead Line Act 1 SG Locations:
Usefulness: One Timer/Sort of Close to Beginning/Kind of Hidden/Relatively Easy
to Get To
It is stuck in mid-air, a spring hit you on it and the only way you can mess
this up is if you try to Trick after hitting this spring. Once you get off of
it and drop down you can't get back to it at all. The only things really going
for it is the fact that right before you hit it you hit two Tension Bonuses
allowing you to use it even if you come to this area with zero Tension and it
is kind of close to the beginning of the Act, but not close enough where it is
really worth restarting the Act to get to it.
From the beginning, choose up at the first cannon, down at the next and you
will eventually hit the Special Gimmick.

SG#2 (Most Useful in Zone):
Infinite/Mid-way Through Act/Kind of Hidden/Medium Difficulty to Get To
Unlike a lot of the Trick devices, you can use a cannon to Trick as many times
as you want to in a row without loosing Points or Tension gained...
happens to be a cannon to the left and below of the Special Gimmick, use the
cannon to fill up your gauge and to blast you back to the area where it
happens to be. Be careful, if you enter the cannon just to the right of this
SG you will not be able to get back to it.
From the first Special Gimmick, go mostly straight on the first
rocket, be careful of the spikes! (up is fine too but harder) Then on second
rocket push B to get off of it early, go into the cannon you see below you and
use it to launch to the right where the Special Gimmick is or if you are good at
steering rockets steer the rocket up there.

Use a Whole Lot(Infinite if you care to explore nearby)/Near end of
Act/Relatively Easy to Find/Easy-Medium to Get Too
There is just a lot of stuff near this Special Gimmick that you can use to
charge up your Gauge. To the left is some hoops you can jump in a few times,
then the spring right below it... DON'T jump into the hoops just to the right of

this spring, they will propel you away from the Special Gimmick. Use the
spring to get to the upper right area where you will find a Tension Bonus Item
Box, a rail, some enemies under the rail, etc... It is at the end of the Act and
takes time to get to, but you can also run out of time and die and end up at
the last Checkpoint again.
After the last checkpoint and then going up through hoops, you go to the right
and use the spring to spring yourself up to the Special Gimmick, don't go into
the hoops to the right of this spring.

10.b.14. Dead Line Act 2 SG Locations:

Use a Couple Times/Mid Way Through/Hidden/Medium to Get To
This one is just plain upside down. You can't use the spring beyond the
barrier to trick because it bounces you out of the area.
A little ways into the Act, you will come to the area where you can push a
block over a small gap and you can either leave the block hanging there a
little to go one path or jump in the hole next to the block with three Rings,
jump into this gap to get to the higher rail. Choose up the next three cannons
in a row, right after being blasted off the third cannon gravity will reverse,
go left instead of right to find the SG.

Hard to steer the rocket into this area, the only benefits being a 1up, Full
Tension Bonus and a different way through the Act that helps you get S-ranks
and good times on Time Attack...
Quite a ways through the Act you will come to a rocket that points right
(there is a huge spike bed to the right of it) and you have to very carefully
guide the rocket to get to the high route, steer the rocket mostly straight
but only slightly downward, it is where the 1up Item Box is. Or you can crash
the rocket into the wall not steering it at all and then use a Jump Dash to get
into there. It's hard to get here.

One Timer/End of Act/Pretty Easy to Find/Easy-Medium to Get To
It's not hard to land on it off the rocket, I found it is possible to get back
up there, but it uses Tension you can't even get back... so it's a One Timer.
After Last Checkpoint there is a rocket ride, you use this rocket to land on
the SG when it crashes.

11. Ranking:
For each Act and Boss, you get a Ranking to tell you how well you did based
upon Score. Your Score is totaled at the end of the Act or Boss and doesn't
actually appear on screen during the Act or Boss, you only get to see how well
you did at the end.
For the Acts Score is the total number of points you
received for Time Left (the amount of points you get for certain amounts of
time differs by Act, but max is 85,000 and it goes down in intervals of 5,000
points for every 10 seconds from there), Tricks (Max you can get is 20,000,
rounded off to nearest 1,000), Rings left (10 points per Ring) and Speed
(average running speed, max 10,000).
Bosses are scored based on Rings (1000 points per Ring in most, 100 points per
Ring in Extra Zone) and Time Left (like in Acts specific times differ by boss,
max being 45,000). The Rankings are strangely similar to Chao Raising Rankings
in other Sonic games, the Highest is S, then A, B and C.

Specific thanks to FadedDreams5 helping with the ranges:

S Rank: 100,000 or more points
A Rank: between 100,000 and 80,000 points
B Rank: between 80,000 and 50,000 points
C Rank: less than 50,000 points

S Rank: 50,000 or more points
A Rank: between 50,000 and 40,000 points
B Rank: between 40,000 and 30,000 points
C Rank: less than 30,000

12. S-ranking Miniguide:
What do you get for all S-ranks? Nothing but bragging rights... but here is a
guide to tell you how to do it including details for Acts and Bosses...

12.a. S Ranking Acts:
S-ranking Acts is kind of similar to A-ranking the 3D Sonic games. There is a
balance between Speed and Tricks, if you just rush through the act and do few
Tricks, then you will get a lot of speed and time bonus points but not many
Tricks points and you end up not getting an S-rank. But if you do a whole lot
of R plus up tricks to keep you higher and Double Advanced Tricks, then you will
find yourself with too few Time and Speed points and no S-rank. The trick is to
find the right balance of speed and tricks, which happens to be finding a short
path in the Act and using the Super/Fire (Tension) Boost as much as
possible to get a high Time and Speed Bonus but mostly Advanced Tricking every
chance you get... Sonic is faster and Blaze is better at tricking... some acts
are designed so that Sonic does better, some Blaze does better, just depends
if the act is set up to favor Speed over Tricks or Tricks over Speed.
More specifically about Tricks, B/A Tricks without the R button does not change
the path of motion after coming off a Trick Object/Gimmick and slow you down
little. The R button slows you down more but in some cases, especially with
Blaze can shortcut an Act too and can make you go faster sideways. So R button
is fine in situations where landing isn't tricky and it will help you get more
points if you need them and are really the trick to getting a very high scored S
rank... but if you are bouncing off a series of springs where
if you mess up you are dead, or going through a long line of hoops, press the B
button a lot to trick and there will be no danger of dying. In general, most
of your tricking should be Advanced (B button than A) or just B button,
especially if you are still relatively new to playing the game.
Also keeping your Tension Gauge full is not as important as I used to think it
is, just use it as much as possible for up to 10,000 points in Speed Bonus,
and Rings don't seem to matter much in most acts, if you are hit and loose all
Rings and some Tension just continue on and you still have a very good chance
of S ranking that Act, since Rings are the least important point getter for S-
ranking and in fact if you plain die and end up at the checkpoint, it can
actually help maybe... read the Dirty Trick below... so don't give up! But keep
in mind by dying you loose 1,000 speed points...
Also there are some Trick objects especially good and you could possibly get an
infinite number of points, but the game of course lets you have a max of
20,000 trick points and it takes time to get that many plus if you trick too
much it doesn't help any more once you reach 20,000... but sadly there is no way
to tell that.
Each 10 seconds of time is 5,000 points... so an extra 10 seconds of tricking
that doesn't get you over 5,000 points is a waste of Time and often can
surprisingly severely deplete your Speed Bonus...
keep this in mind...

Maxing Out All Bonuses:
Adding up the Max Time, Trick and Speed Bonus, that total is 115,000... then
it's 10 points for every Ring and it's pretty typical to get about 200-300 Rings
in an Act, so don't expect to ever do much better than 117,000 to 118,000 points,
it's a higher standard than just S-ranking them. Getting at least over 110,000
points is a little easier goal.
If you are not satisfied with just an S-rank and want to get the max bonuses
stated above, you need to really apply the principles I stated above to the
extreme... mainly, you need to take almost all shortcuts to get the lowest time
possible... and sometimes those shortcuts are pretty crazy, be creative... but
during that extra time Trick... what I mean by extra time is if you
get well below the 85,000 point limit for each Act, you can take extra time to
Trick and it won't matter at bit if you still get an 85,000 Point bonus... but
if you trick mostly in one spot it cuts your speed bonus down, so try to trick
traveling sideways...
but also you need to Super/Fire Boost every single chance you get so you max out
the Speed Bonus. Sadly, this is something I haven't perfected, and a few acts I
still can't shortcut well and I know others can... so I'm still working on this
for most Acts, sort of the deal when I couldn't S-rank but I still knew how,
takes practice...

Dirty Trick:
Take your time and Max out your Trick Points, then die on purpose, the time
restarts at what it was when you hit the checkpoint or at the beginning of the
Act, but you still have your Maxed-out Trick Bonus, but remember you will loose
1000 Speed Points for doing this.

S-Rank Act Details:
Since Time Bonus Varies by Act, I put the times and points that you get for
the times. I now also added the time to get a Max of 85,000 Time Bonus (which
should have been obvious anyway and not given if I tell you to max out Time
Bonus anyway... why did I say I had to find in the last version of my guide, I
must have been tired, or something...), if you can get under that then you only
need 15,000 more points to S-rank, but it's not always easy to get under that
time in many acts, which is why I give you the other time ranges.
Remember to Boost a lot, usually as often as you can, start the act Boosting, a
full Speed Bonus (10,000 points) is not listed below... but is very significant!
And mostly use the B/A Tricks and don't drag out tricks with R+up, especially
with Blaze.
I didn't put Ring Points because Rings are only worth 10 points each and only
rarely make a difference, and Speed because you should get consistently 8,000-
10,000 if you use your Tension as much as possible.
Route descriptions are very brief usually, I would go into more detail if it
was a full guide, maybe in the future.
Note: Remember these are approximate, the less time you take, the fewer trick
points you need, the more time you take, the more trick points you need... but
especially in the earlier Acts you can go too fast and not trick enough... and
you can trick so much that it's not worth it and you eat time, remember Trick
bonus is max 20,000. Max points overall is a little over 115,000.

This very basic info is really for someone starting out trying to S-rank.

Leaf Storm Act 1:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 1'00"00-1'19"00 (80,000-75,000 points); Trick 8,000-16,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 1'00"00
Highest Route mostly.
Medium Difficulty, trick often, especially with Blaze, but watch out for Blaze
over tricking. Shortcuts important.

Leaf Storm Act 2:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 1'30"00-1'39"00 (75,000 points); Trick 14,000-18,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 1'20"00
Medium route to start, then at bungee instead of hitting balloon fall way down,
doing a huge 6,000-8,000 point Advanced/Double Advanced Trick (Or go shorter
route but still do a whole lot of tricks). Rest of level
is high/medium route, make sure you don't fall to the low route toward the end,
near Sonic's last Special Gimmick.
A good amount of Advanced Tricks... a high score requires a lot of shortcuts I
don't even know...

Water Palace Act 1:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 1"30"00-1'39"00 (80,000 points); Trick 10,000-12,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 1'30"00
Highest, across all shaky platforms and gaps in general and activating
paddlewheel gimmick.
Not that bad if you stick to the high route above and do a lot of Advanced
Tricks and a few R button assisted tricks, high route avoids all Mine Gimmicks,
but at least one place requires use of R button. Watch out for sword-welding
Eggpawns that will try to push you off edges and send you on the wrong path.
Much easier with Blaze, her up R trick comes in very handy in shortcutting and
stuff, she can grab a faster time and more trick points.
Water Palace Act 2:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 1'40"00-1'59"00 (85,000 points); Trick 10,000 points
Highest, across all gaps, up, activate paddlewheel, etc...
Same exact notes as for Water Palace Act 1, but Blaze is a little slower this
time. Also two of the higher paths slightly hidden, first one requires an R+up
trick across water, another requires slowing down after running across water
and finding a water spout.

Mirage Road Act 1:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'50"00-2'59"00 (80,000 points); Trick 10,000-12,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 2'50"00
First go low... later on ignore hidden spring that leads to hidden route (Sonic
SG#2 in this Act) and instead when bouncing off next spring, land in high room,
you land on top of a Gimmick that you boost into to take you lower... then you
basically take that Gimmick...
Not hard. Just trick a lot, etc... take route sort of described above and you
will have it. Nice shortcuts, but not necessary to take them

Mirage Road Act 2:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 3'00"00-3'40'00 (85,000-80,000 points); Trick 10,000 points
Near beginning, don't use R to get to higher rail where Sonic's first Special
Gimmick is. Other than that all other paths fine.
Easy, there is a short way, but it doesn't matter much, most natural way is
just fine. Blaze has a couple of shortcuts. Yes... that is a huge time range...
this is an easy act to S-rank.

Night Carnival Act 1:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'00"00-2'20"00 (85,000-80,000 points): Trick 10,000-12,000
On the first laser ride go down to the lower route (where Sonic's first
Special Gimmick in this act is) but other than that Highest, activate all
spiral Gimmicks... activate all rail buttons, etc...
Not many trick opportunities in general... a good amount of tricking is required
and kind of tight. There is almost a problem with maintaining Tension if you
don't trick enough. R button helps in several places and some very nice
shortcuts can easily cut your time down. Easier for Sonic than Blaze.

Night Carnival Act 2:
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'50"00-3'10"00 (85,000-80,000 points), Trick 10,000-14,000 points
On two spiral Gimmicks don't go all the way across but instead go the lower
route, other than that go high as possible.
At least it's easier for Blaze than Night Carnival Act 1, in fact Sonic does
very well here but other than that pretty similar except
more tricking opportunities and this one requires better timing and stuff...
it's pretty easy to die. Slower Blaze has a harder time outrunning the wheel

Huge Crisis Act 1
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'10'00-2'30"00 (85,000-80,000 points), Trick 10,000-20,000 points
I've gotten huge points even if I die... but the highest route requires end of
rail and R button tricks that can be easy to miss, especially with Sonic, often
like in Water Palace well placed robots will push you off the edge, just
keep trying. In general Blaze does better, has good shortcuts. For last part
of level, go across gap as described for Sonic's third Special Gimmick in this
level. Crushing risk very real but doesn't matter much... just trick all springs
Advanced and rails and catch the high route.

Huge Crisis Act 2
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'20"00-2'39"00 (85,000 points); Trick 10,000-12,000 points
Go straight on first rail, don't go into area with Sonic's first Special
Gimmick... don't catch hook... other than that high.
Similar to Huge Crisis Act 1 but much easier to get crushed and to fall to
your doom... yeah...

Altitude Limit Act 1
Bonus Ranges:
Time 3'10"00-3'20"00 (75,000 points), Trick 14,000-16,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 2'50"00
Route:... the most direct... there isn't much route variation in Altitude
Limit... except at the end... but anyway pick the easy way if you want...
Trick a lot... it's tight... Blaze has a couple of shortcuts only she can do. Do
good Advanced/Double Advanced tricks.

Altitude Limit Act 2
Bonus Ranges:
Time 3'10"00-3'20"00 (75,000 points); Trick 20,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 2'50"00
Don't use first Rocket Pad to go up high...
On spiky rail part, boost, trick and jump correctly... you will get lots of
Trick Points. At last bungee instead of going right drop way down and do a good
Trick, or better yet to shortcut just jump over this bungee and head downwards.
It's easier to trick a lot than trying to get a good time in this
Act and Zone in general.

Dead Line Act 1
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'40"00-2'59"00 (70,000-75,000 points); Trick 18,000-20,000 points
85,000 point Time Bonus:
Under 2'20"00
Highest (Choose up at all cannons)
Pretty easy, don't use R button much if at all since springs and other things
launch you to pretty specific places and you don't want to mess up
trajectories. Trick a lot. Remember to constantly push B through series of
hoops. Be sure you know how to operate all large rockets correctly! Shortcuts
make 85,000 limit very possible.

Dead Line Act 2
Bonus Ranges:
Time 2'40'00-3'19"00 (85,000-70,000 points); Trick 18,000-20,000 points
First spring room, use the top exit to go the reversed gravity way... You need
to also get into the hard area where Sonic's third Special Gimmick is in this
level... Blaze can get here easier than Sonic, just ride the rocket and then use
R to hover to the gap where the 1up and Full Tension Bonus is, for Sonic this
needs practice.
Similar to act 1... A huge amount of points is very possible (I have reached the
119,000 mark and I think this is the Act where the largest amount of points is
possible), not hard to S-rank if you follow above route. (Above route simplified
from earlier version of this guide... basically I didn't dare to explore much
and the more specific route I stated earlier not necessary to S-rank.)

12.b S Ranking Bosses:
The easiest way is to set the game on Easy so you have two less hits for
but you can get S-ranks on Normal Mode to of course... but not always, that
explanation is coming up... in fact in not so earlier versions of this guide I
tried to convince myself the impossible to S-rank problem didn't exist... but it
For some Bosses a lot of luck is involved... but the bosses still follow kind of
a general pattern, despite the fact all bosses except the Extra Boss are
slightly too pretty darn random in what attacks they will throw at you! Well...
sort of random, I'll explain this better below. This time what matters is Time
and Rings... in fact that's all that matters... since the maximum Time Bonus is
45,000 points and you need 50,000 to S rank you need at least 5 Rings (50
Rings in Extra because Rings are only worth 100) to S-rank ANY BOSS... and a
fast time often...

This confused me at first... but I think I have it down now. Each boss is not as
random as you might think... there are about 4 different overall attack patterns
each boss seems to have, and the bosses vary in how they try to foil your S-
rank... I decided to divide them into two types, Time Variable and Ring Stealer.

A Time Variable Boss has one attack that takes a lot of time and you can't hit
the boss during it... one major attack pattern the boss throws few of this type
of attack or none at you and you have relatively a lot of chances to hit it in a
short period of time. The worst attack pattern is the boss throws more of these
attacks at you... the magic number seems to be more than three... this pattern
takes more time and there is more Ring loss risk... so it's harder to S-rank. In
fact if you have the game set on Normal, there is one attack pattern where even
if you hit the boss every chance you get and you have all Rings, S-rank is
impossible. Just play the boss over and over again till you get lucky and the
boss decides not to throw a lot of bad attacks at you and make sure you keep
your Rings in case the time limit is tight and to hit the boss every chance you

I used to have a list of bosses that are impossible to S-rank on Normal Mode,
but playing them more I think ALL of them except Final and Extra can be

For the Rings Stealer boss, it's easy to get an S-rank time even if you don't
hit the boss every chance you get, but they have a lot of bad attacks that drain
your Rings and/or they are hard to hit, so keeping Rings is even more important
with these bosses than even hitting the boss every chance you get. These bosses
Altitude Limit
Final Zone
Extra Zone

Also of course having as many Rings as possible is usually the difference
between an A and an S, especially since in Boss battles each Ring is worth
1,000 points except in Extra Zone, so try not to get hit or if you do pick up
as many of the Rings again as possible, best way to repick up rings is to
Spin-dash into them very soon after you drop them... don't get hit very much
since the more you are hit the more Rings scatter.
The Extra Boss actually has a fixed attack pattern... you don't have to be as
perfect as I claimed earlier... but you do need at least 50 Rings worth 100
points in this Boss.

S-rank Boss Details:
Boss is determined by just Time and Rings, so I'll just give those details,
Rings actually the total number you can pick up, each one worth 100 and Time
maximum of 45,000 going down 1,000 for every 2 seconds!. Refer to the Boss
Section for most of the detail about how to hit each Boss.
New to version 1.44, I have classified the bosses as a Time Variable or a Ring
Stealer... these are kind of arbitrary... but if you have played this enough,
you will understand, it's mentioned earlier in this section.
Didn't put down points ranges... since I give how many Rings you need... just
subtract 1,000 from 50,000 for every Ring and there you go, the amount of
points you get for each time... it's that simple... different from Extra... but
how many times do I have to say that?
For the Time and Ring requirements, the first time is the time limit that will
get you 4,500 points followed by "with at least 5 Rings" because well... you
need at least 5 Rings to S-rank any boss... the next range is the time
requirement if you have every Ring in the Boss area and remember the Rings are
1,000 for every 2 seconds, so you can figure out the number of Rings for each
time in between if you are good at math... in fact upper ranges are given for
convenience, anyone that can add and multiply should figure out the entire
thing from just the 4,500 point time limit and how many Rings on Field...
Also, just multiply the number of Rings on Field by 1,000 and add to 45,000 to
get the maximum number of points you can get for all Bosses except Extra.

Also these ranges because of the 2 second intervals could still be off by a
second or two... so I will fix it in the future if this turns out to be the case,
I tried to get it as close as possible without replaying the boss so many
times I go crazy... if you spot something slightly off let me know!

Remember, if you have this game on Normal Mode especially, if the boss does more
than 3 of it's longest attack where you cannot hit the boss... can't S-rank...

NOTE: I'm not sure, but I think some of these minimum time limits have more than
a 2 second interval... help me figure this out! I'm still not 100% on all of
these intervals, but I do know they are very close.
It's been a long time and nobody has complained about off intervals, so they are
probably close enough.

Leaf Rush Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 1'44"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 1'58"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 12
Time Variable. Pretty easy boss if you are used to ducking the attacks, a good
chance of being impossible to S-rank on Normal Mode, this boss likes to try to
push you off the edge.

Water Palace Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 2'16"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 2'30"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 12
Time Variable. This boss is much less random than most others
and has almost a fixed attack pattern. This one you usually get by barely... it
almost always does three or four belly slams, you can get a great time
sometimes and sometimes impossible to S-rank but can be hard to tell which case
you are dealing with because sometimes with this boss even if it does four belly
slams you can S-rank it, how often it does the water draining attack seems to
matter also. Most of the time you are near 2'30"00 so make sure to keep Rings.
It seems to me that sometimes the water drain attack is easier to duck than
other times, and when it's harder to duck the boss takes more time in general
and you can't S-rank it anyway, but I am not sure about this also.

Mirage Road Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 2'42"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 2'56"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 12
Time Variable. An easy boss to S-rank because the attacks are easy to duck...
but at the same time pretty darn random and sometimes does fly up to the center
more than 4 times on Normal Mode.

Night Carnival Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 0'50"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 1'10"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 15
Time Variable Pretty easy to beat up if you use the little vehicle... you can
get a great time much less than a minute, the attack to look out for is slamming
the ball into the ground, it doesn't do this very often but sometimes does.

Huge Crisis Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 2'24"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 2'32"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 9
Time Variable. Harder than Leaf Storm Boss... this boss likes to take your Rings
and it seems most of the time fires missiles at you 4 or more times... but
occasionally doesn't, which is your chance to S-rank when set on Normal.

Altitude Limit Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 3'14"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 3'34"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 15
Ring Stealer. Careful... the bullet attack often gets your Rings... Boss quite
random. It is easy to get a 45000 Time Bonus... not so easy keeping at least 5

Dead Line Boss:
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 1:36"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 1:38"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 6
Semi-Time Variable. Hit other character as much as possible, avoid attacks, keep
all Rings (you need 5 and there are only 6!), do last part fast, etc... I've
gotten under one minute sometimes but sometimes it's hard. Has Ring Stealer
characteristics also.

Final Boss (F-Zone, Unknown):
Time and Ring Requirements:
Less than 4'52"00 with at least 5 Rings
Less than 5'00"00 with all Rings
Rings on Field: 9
Ring Stealer. Easy to S-rank if you can avoid the laser and electric attack...
but of course avoiding the darn electricity especially can be hard... but of
course if you avoid them you get a chance to hit the boss. Also the only time
you can't make it to the head in time before the arm shakes is at 6 hits left so
you can save a lot of hanging onto the swinging arm time by being
quick, but you can still get a good S-rank time even if you decide to hang on,
you can't save time like this when the game is on Easy mode, but you don't have
to anyways.
In fact like Altitude Limit, getting a good time is pretty easy once you can
duck lasers and electricity... keeping Rings is hard. Not as random as most
Playing it more, it's still easy to S-rank if you get hit by electricity/lasers
a couple of times and pick up all rings afterwards.

Extra Boss (Exception):
Time and Ring requirements:
Less than 4'36"00 with at least 50 Rings
Ring Stealer. If you time hits correctly, surprisingly easy to S-rank, actually
pretty forgiving... Basically try to hit Boss before Ring-loss Attacks are
used... but you can easily get an S-rank even enduring 3 or 4 of these attacks.
The only non-random Boss. Go for near 100 Rings at end... you need at least 50
to S-rank Extra, the better Ring gatherer you are the better, time lost is also
Ring lost. Additional time with more Rings isn't very significant.

12.c. A Perfect Game in One Go

A perfect game is IMO deleting all Game Save Data or at least playing through
every single Act and Boss once and still getting all 7 Chaos Emeralds and all S-
Refer to the earlier sections in the S-rank miniguide for tips on getting
I cam almost do this... there is just one major problem... if the game is set on
Normal, on many Bosses it might attack in a certain pattern where if you hit the
boss every chance you get and have all Rings, you can still miss an S-rank. This
makes a perfect game based a little upon Luck instead of pure skill. Kind of
sad... huh? So now, I define the Perfect Game as getting all S-ranks and Chaos
Emeralds on Normal Mode, but allowing Death during Bosses if the Boss starts
throwing a lot of bad junk at you or allowing A ranks on Bosses if you didn't
get hit once and hit the boss every chance you got, or you have to have the game
set on Easy Mode to reduce hits on each Boss by two. A REALLY Perfect Game would
be all Acts Maxed Out Bonus (115,000 plus 10 for each Ring, tips on how to do
this are in S-rank Acts section), all 7 Chaos Emeralds, and all Bosses Max
Points (even though a Max for Extra is a little hard to set, but for rest of
bosses it's easy to figure out as I explained above) Or even more evil,
also having to hit ALL Special Gimmicks and getting all the Emeralds in each
stage... Why would I even think of such horrible standards that are probably
Impossible... coming from someone that wasn't happy till I could easily beat
Sonic Advance 2 any character and get all Special Rings and get the Emeralds
twice over also... that's why... The first Perfect Game I described above, All
S-ranks and all Chaos Emeralds, allowing for death in Bosses set on Normal is
possible... I almost did it and I will probably do it soon... but the other
things... some crazy person might try them, I don't know...

13. Time Attack:
Unlocked by beating the game with Sonic or Blaze. You are not scored or ranked,
it's just to see how fast you can get through an Act or Boss.
There are the 14 normal Acts, except Sonic's acts don't have Special Stage
Gimmicks plus 4 Special Acts called Zone X.

The four Zone X Acts are very, very similar to the 2-player Mode in the
Classic Sonic 3 for Sega Genesis... something I used to play A LOT alone...
memories... Basically, these are very short mini acts that loop back to the
beginning again, the beginning signified by a Checkpoint (but you don't get
Tension from this Checkpoint). There are no Rings in Zone X, and the only Item
Box is Full Tension Boost. Zone X Act 1 looks like Leaf Storm, Zone X Act 2
looks like Mirage Road, Zone X Act 3 looks like Night Carnival and Zone X Act 4
looks like Huge Crisis. You have to complete 5 Loops of the track in order to
record a new time, how fast you have completed each Lap appears in the lower
left hand corner of the touch screen. There is also Zone 1-7 Bosses, exactly the
same as in gameplay.

Top times are recorded for each Act and Boss for Sonic and Blaze together.
During the same gameplay session when you replay an Act again a small figure
of Sonic or Blaze that looks a lot like a Boost Mode Afterimage replays the
fastest time you went through an Act, turning off your DS will delete the
route info that creates the afterimage but of course your best time is saved,
it's a great way to see exactly where you could be a little faster or to
compare and see how much faster Sonic really is than Blaze... but for Bosses I
guess they though the afterimage thing would be too distracting or something
or most likely that wouldn't be very helpful... Note that when the little
afterimage appears there might be significant slowdown of the game.

The routes you take to S-rank Acts are really good for Time Attack, but try to
trick less, especially lay off the R button unless it's a shortcut, but not
too less so you have Boost which is of course is important, and you can afford
to take more shortcuts, especially with Blaze.

Bosses have to be hit as soon as possible, don't worry as much about keeping
Rings since you are not S-ranking... well, unless the Boss hits you a lot...

Since Bosses are random, it takes Luck for the boss to dish out an attack
pattern that will give you the lowest time, which happens to be when the boss is
using the fewest of it's long attacks where you can't hit the boss.

Zone X has a lot of hidden or semi-hidden Full Tension Boost Item Boxes... Also
Zone X seems to be designed to balance out Sonic and Blaze, so try for a good
time with both characters.

14. Two Player Mode:
If someone else has a DS, you can race against them through the acts. I can't
test this because of the fact I don't know anyone else with a DS, so I will
summarize the manual. If both people have a Sonic Rush Cart, one player
creates a "room" and waits for the second person to join. If only one person
has a Sonic Rush Cart, then Player 1 selects Download play option, a room is
created. The person with the other DS needs to choose "DS Download Play" on
the DS start menu and wait for the game to download.
One player chooses to be Sonic and the other Blaze. The goal is to be the
first one to reach the end of the Act before time runs out, the acts you can
play are ones both players have reached. Your character is on the top screen
and the bottom displays where you and your opponent are in relation to the end
of the Act. The Item Boxes in this mode are different than in normal game

Random Ring Bonus: Same as in normal game play

Slow (half-circle with two crescents): Slows down opponent for a short period
of time

Max Tension Bonus (One arrow pointing up, the other down): Your Tension Gauge
becomes Maximum while your opponent's goes down.

Confusion (exclamation point): Sends your opponent out of control for a short
period of time

Attract (hand): Brings your opponent to the area where you are

I also read on the GameFAQs messageboards that you can use the R button near
your opponent as if you are tricking off a spring and the game gives a hint when
you can do this.
You can also give up to 9 people at a time either Leaf Storm Act 2 with Sonic or
Water Palace Act 1 with Blaze by going to the Options Menu and selecting
Download Demo, then the other person can select "DS Download Play" from the DS
menu and wait for the demo to download. These people can play the demo until
they turn their DS off.

If there is anymore relevant info about two player mode I need to include, let
me know. I still haven't found another player to play it against.

15. Sound Test:
Unlocked by beating the game with Sonic or Blaze, all of it unlocked after
beating the Extra Zone, it appears in the Options menu. Unlike in the Advance
series and Sonic Battle, the sound test mostly is not descriptive but instead
a title is given to each song. So this is a simple list of Number, Title and
where it is played in the game if I know and other random notes.

1. A New Day (Title Edit): Plays on the title screen and is a shortened
version of the Special Stage music, #47.
2. What U Need is Remix: Options Menu, a remix of Dead Line Zone's music (#17
and 18 in Sound Test)
3. The Ordinary Zone: Map Screen, I know this is a remix of previous Sonic
music but I can't place it...
4. The Last Zone: Map Screen music when Final Zone is unlocked.
5. Right There, Ride On: Sonic's Leaf Storm.
6. Right There, Ride On Blaze Version: Blaze's Leaf Storm.
7. Back 2 Back: Sonic's Water Palace.
8. Back 2 Back Blaze Version: Blaze's Water Palace.
9. Ethno Circus: Sonic's Mirage Road.
10. Ethno Circus Blaze Version: Blaze's Mirage Road.
11. Ska Cha Cha: Sonic's Night Carnival.
12. Ska Cha Cha Blaze Version: Blaze's Night Carnival.
13. Jeh Jeh Rocket: Sonic's Huge Crisis.
14. Jeh Jeh Rocket Blaze Version: Blaze's Huge Crisis.
15. Get Edgy: Sonic's Altitude Limit.
16. Get Edgy Blaze Version: Blaze's Altitude Limit.
17. What U Need: Sonic's Dead Line
18. What U Need Blaze Version: Blaze's Dead Line.
19. Metal Scratchin': Normal Boss Music.
20. Metal Scratchin' (part 2): Normal Boss Pinch.
21. Vela-nova: Zone 7 Boss Music.
22. Vela-nova (Part 2): Zone 7 Boss Pinch.
23. Bomber Barbara: Final Zone Boss Music.
24. Bomber Barbara (Part 2): Final Zone Pinch.
25. Groove Rush #4: Final Zone Clear.
26. Raisin' Me Up (Prologue): After Final Zone Cutscene Music, full version of
this song is # 118, After Extra Zone Cutscene Music.
27. Medley Rush #1: Plays during the credits after beating Final Zone.
28. The Secret: Plays when you unlock Time Attack and Sound Test
29. I Wanna Breathe: Drowning Countdown Music.
30. One Up!: Extra Life Sound Effect.
31. Theme of Sonic's Event: Cutscene music, only in Sonic's story.
32. Theme of Blaze's Event: Cutscene music, only in Blaze's story.
33. Theme of Comical Event: Cutscene music, plays during Knuckle's
embarrassing mishap, Cream's first appearance in Blaze's story and when Amy
34. Theme of Strained Event: Cutscene music, plays when something tense is
35. Theme of After the Fight: Cutscene music, plays after boss battles.
36. Theme of Warm Event: Cutscene music, plays at Cream's House in Sonic's story.
37. What U Need is PSG: Two Player Single Cart Battle... Options (PSG stuff
plays during 2 player single cart battles, this music file takes a much
shorter amount of time to download to the other DS than the regular tracks)
38. Groove Rush #1 PSG: Two Player Single Cart Version of Groove Rush #1, 42
in this Sound Test.
39. Groove Rush #2: Game Over (based upon the Extra Zone music for some
40. It's a New Record!: Plays when you get a new low time in Time Attack
41. Groove Rush #1: Act Clear
42. Groove Rush #3: Zone 7 Boss Clear.
43. Groove Rush #2 PSG: Two Player Single Cart Game Over44. After the Fight:
Cutscene right after Zone 7 Boss beaten.
45. Blaze Appears: Cutscene when Blaze first appears in Sonic's story and same
place in Blaze's story.
46. Kick the Eggman: Cutscene during Blaze's story when she attacks Eggman after
Boss fights.
47. A New Day: Special Stage Music
48. A New Day Intermission: Beginning of Special Stage, Got a Chaos Emerald
49. Title Call: Sonic saying "Sonic Rush", plays on the Title Screen
50. Character Select: Blaze saying "Please select a character" on Character
Select screen
51. Character Call 1: Sonic saying "Sonic the Hedgehog" when you select him
52. Character Call 2: Blaze saying "Blaze the Cat" when you select her
53. Sonic 1: "Here We Go!"
54. Sonic 2: "Yes!"
55. Sonic 3: "Should we try this again?"
56. Sonic 4: "Is that it?"
57. Sonic 5: "Yes!"
58. Sonic 6: "Yeah!"
59. Sonic 7: "All Right!"
60. Sonic 8: "Cool!"
61. Sonic 9: "Okay!"
62. Sonic 10: "Oww!"
63. Sonic 11: "Let's do it!"
64. Blaze 1: "It's time!"
65. Blaze 2: "How's that?"
66. Blaze 3: "Never get on my bad side!"
67. Blaze 4: "My enemies always fall before me."
68. Blaze 5: "Hua!"
69. Blaze 6: "Yeah!"
70. Blaze 7: "Okay!"71. Blaze 8: "Huah!"
72. Blaze 9: "Hua!"
73. Blaze 10: Uhah!"
74. Blaze 11: "You can't escape me!"
75. Tails 1: "All right! Sonic's here!"
76. Tails 2: "Yes!"
77. Tails 3: "Huh?"
78. Tails 4: "Do your best Sonic!"
79. Tails 5: "Welcome back Sonic!"
80. Tails 6: "Bye Sonic!"
81. Tails 7: "Go get em' Sonic!"
82. Tails 8: "Nice Sonic!"
83. Tails 9: "No! Sonic!"
84. Tails 10: "You're almost there!"
85. Tails 11: "Alright Sonic!"
86. Tails 12: "Yes, you did it Sonic!"
87. Cream 1: "Hi Blaze!"
88. Cream 2: "Yes!"
89. Cream 3: "Huh?"
90. Cream 4: "Don't be long!"
91. Cream 5: "Nice to see you again Blaze!"
92. Cream 6: "Drop by soon Blaze."
93. Cream 7: "Do your best Blaze!"
94. Cream 8: "That's it!"
95. Cream 9: "Ohh!"
96. Cream 10: "Just a little more."
97. Cream 11: "You did it!"
98. Cream 12: "You did great Blaze!"
99. Audience 1: Trick Applause
100. Audience 2: Trick Applause, stronger
101. Audience 3: Trick Applause, very good
102. Audience 4: Disappointed Crowd, missed Bonus Game or Chaos Emerald in
Special Stage
103. Eggman 1: "You'll regret this!"
104. Eggman 2: "Oh hohohohohohoho!"
105. Eggman 3: "Ow!"
106. Eggman 4: "You!"
107. Eggman 5: "Take this!"
108. Eggman 6: "He he!"
109. Eggman 7: "Get ready to be schooled!"

(Rest of Sound Test is Extra Zone specific, unlocked by beating Extra Zone)

110. The Extra Zone: Extra Zone Unlocked
111. Anxiety: Cutscene before Extra Zone, part 1
112. A Flicker of Hope: Cutscene before Extra Zone, part 3
113. The Metamorphosis: Super Transformation Cutscene
114: Blaze Pinch!: Cutscene before Extra Zone, part 2 and cutscene during Extra
Zone Battle
115: Wrapped in Black: Extra Zone Boss Music
116: Wrapped in Black (Part 2): Extra Zone Boss Pinch
117: Groove Rush #5: Extra Zone Clear
118: Raisin' Me Up: After Extra Zone Cutscene Music
119: Medley Rush #2: Extra Zone Credits Music, a combo of music from the game
including the Extra Zone
120: Character Call 3: Sonic saying "Sonic and Blaze!"
121: Character Call 4: Blaze saying "Sonic and Blaze!"
122: Sonic 12: "See ya, Blaze!"
123: Sonic 13: "Blaze, it's closing in on you!"
124: Sonic 14: "I got it!"
125: Blaze 12: "Again."
126: Blaze 13: "I know!"
127: Blaze 14: "Sonic, it's heading right for you!"

16. Unlock Features:
Unlock Blaze: Beat the Zone 1 Boss with Sonic.

Unlock Time Attack and Sound Test: Beat the game with Sonic or Blaze.
(Note, some places say you need to beat Extra Zone to get Zone X, not true, Zone
X is always in Time Attack.)

Unlock Extra Zone: Get all Chaos Emeralds with Sonic and beat the Final Zone
with Sonic and Blaze, doesn't matter which one of those two you do first, the
Extra Zone option will appear in the Character Select Menu.

Unlock Rest of Sound Test: Beat Extra Zone.

17. Spoilers:
I decided to keep this section permanent. This is for people who want to know...

For the entire story, consult my Sonic Rush Game Script on GameFAQs.com

Sonic really doesn't find out much during his story about who Eggman Nega is
except toward the end he is from Blaze's world and that she has been hanging
around Cream and when he finally meets Blaze finds out she doesn't really
appreciate help much. Tails keeps freaking out about the worlds coming
together and is concerned. Amy is mostly jealous and sees Blaze as a potential
threat just because she is a female about Sonic's age, but at the end finds
out she is not after Sonic and helps her. Knuckles just gets mad because he
thinks Blaze was lying and she really had Chaos Emeralds, hits some rocks and
becomes buried under them and is embarrassed that Sonic had to get him out.
Blaze through her story has begun to trust Cream a little more but still
insists on getting the Sol Emeralds herself, it is her responsibility. It is
hinted that the Sol Emeralds are like Chaos Emeralds when Knuckles senses
their energy and thinks they are Chaos Emeralds, and Nega suggests that he has
something to do with Eggman stealing the Sol Emeralds. Blaze also knows that
the worlds are coming together because Eggman took the Sol Emeralds from her
world and her world is following them into Sonic's, in general Blaze seems to
know more about this than other people and it's really not very clear why.

At the end of Zone 7, things get more interesting when Blaze's stubbornness
leads to a fight between Sonic and Blaze.

Near the Final Zone the story gets confusing a little and differs depending on
whether you are on Sonic or Blaze's story. In Sonic's story, Blaze is injured
after her and Sonic's fight and is too weak to help Sonic battle Eggman Nega
one last time. The Final Boss is a Eggman Mech and a falling platform scene.
But in Blaze's story, Eggman kidnaps Cream and insists on saving her herself
because Eggman threatened that she better come alone and by this time Blaze has
started to see Cream in a different light. Eggman wanted to isolate Blaze
because by this time she had gotten all 7 of the Sol Emeralds back from him.

Sonic's ending is just Sonic defeating Eggman Nega, then getting chased by Amy.
The Ending Credits are Sonic Advance-style sprites of Amy chasing Sonic with
her hammer, at the end, he stops, but looks very worried and spin-dashes off
because Amy is now holding the Big Hammer from Sonic Advance 3.

Blaze's ending is Blaze defeating the mech, sifting through the rubble trying
to find Cream and worried. Cream is safe, she falls from the sky into Blaze's
arms and they both admit they are friends now. During the ending credits a
Sonic Advance style Cream happily chases a now smiling Sonic Advance style

The Final Endings are not a resolution at all. If you go back to the Map Areas
at this time, the amount Blaze's World has creped into Sonic's is at 94% and
dreary music is playing and almost all of the map is dark and wavy. The world
can't stay like that! That is why you need to get the Chaos Emeralds and
unlock the Extra Ending!

The Extra Ending starts with a nice 3D Cutscene of Blaze looking up at a
swirling dark cloud sky. She doesn't know what to do now, since she got the
Sol Emeralds back, the worlds stopped coming together even more, but they are
not apart yet either, and she can't get back. This is where Eggman and Eggman
Nega come in saying Blaze doesn't understand the Sol Emeralds are the key and
their true power. Like any true villains, they explain what is going on first.
The two worlds are connected of course. The Chaos and Sol Emeralds are like
magnets and can either attract or repel each other. The two Eggmans are
working together, one set of Emeralds is fine, but both sets together would be
enough power to destroy the worlds. Eggman Nega doesn't care what happens to
his world, both really don't, they just want to be able to use the power of both
sets in one world to create the Ultimate Eggmanland. Blaze is attacked by
a new mecha, and the power of the Sol Emeralds leaves and they loose their
luster. But Eggman Nega is confused why the Emeralds are not causing an
explosive reaction but Eggman knows why, Sonic has control of the Chaos
Emeralds. As if on cue, Sonic comes in and Eggman threatens to use the power of
the Sol Emeralds to defeat Sonic. Sonic sees Blaze is hurt. Blaze is sad because
she let the Eggmans take the power of the Sol Emeralds, leaving them drained.
But then Sonic says it will be okay, and Cream, Tails, Knuckles and Amy arrive
for support. Like when Perfect Chaos Drained the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic
Adventure, the Sol Emeralds just need the power of Friendship to regain their
power, something that Blaze just learned about after being alone all of her life.
That is when the Emerald start glowing again...

Yes indeed, Sonic turns Super with the Chaos Emeralds, and Blaze uses the Sol
Emeralds. Super Blaze turns pink and gets longer hair, her jacket turns red
and her cuffs now have a flame design.
The Extra Boss starts off with a Doomsday beginning and is Super Sonic vs.
Eggman. Like any other Super Battle you loose Rings and in fact Sonic and
Blaze share Rings. You start on the top screen and you dash through a meteor
herd trying to grab rings and avoiding a laser that slows you down. Red
meteors contain rings if you break them. Eventually you get a better view of
the mecha. It looks like Sonic Advance 2's Extra with arms. One arm shoots out
white things that have lasers coming out of them, other one green energy balls.
The white things are harder to hit, but you damage the boss by hitting them
into the boss just like in Sonic Advance 2. There is also a missile attack that
actually makes Sonic lose rings, and a laser sword that slows him down.
After Super Sonic hits it three times, it goes into a main thing and it pops
it out the bottom upside down and with Eggman Nega piloting it and you have to
fight it with Blaze. Unlike Super Sonic, Super Blaze has a fire ball attack
she has to charge up before using, you can steer her a little during the
charge process but you cannot cancel it. This time it attacks with a Scratch
Attack, an arm that can make her lose rings, and can even rip a hole in space
time that takes rings and is very hard to get out of. Sonic has to fight it 3
times and Blaze 2.

The final blow is delivered by Sonic and Blaze together. Then there is a scene
where they are looking at each other. Blaze cannot stay, the Chaos and Sol
Emeralds should not be in the same world. Sonic says something to Blaze, it's
not clear what at this point, then they promise to see each other again. Blaze
hesitantly reaches out her arm toward Sonic. He grabs her hand, and then in a
flash of white light Sonic and Blaze move away, Blaze still reaching out a
little. Super Blaze is now flying through her world remembering what Sonic
said to her before leaving his world. Sonic said that Blaze now has the power,
everything will be alright in his world if he has control of the Chaos
Emeralds, and now that Blaze can control the Sol Emeralds he is confident she
can now protect the Sol Emeralds from being stolen again.

Then the Credits roll. At the end of the credits is a Sonic Advance-style
picture cutscene. Cream looks so sad that Blaze had to leave. Sonic sees her
and whispers something in her ear, we don't know what. Then Cream looks
happier and looks up while rays of light shine down.

The End.

And now we know Sonic does see Blaze again... the story will continue with a new
game... yay and all...

18. Nostalgia, again!:
Yeah, Nostalgia Trip for Sonic Advance 3 was a huge section... and sure enough
there are things from other, mostly newer games in this game... but if Sonic
Advance 3 and Sonic Heroes are the modern Knuckles Chaotix... this game is newer
Sonic 3 and Knuckles... and here is why... and as of Nov. 2006 even some new

Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are technically two separate games for the
Genesis... but originally they were suppose to be just one game... but the game
was too big... so the game was split in two... Sonic and Knuckles has a unique
game cart design allowing for another game to be attached to it. Attaching
Sonic 1 especially or other games got you Blue Sphere which is basically
endless Special Stages... but attaching Sonic and Knuckles to Sonic 3 got you
one huge game... with some unique qualities... basically Sonic 3 and Knuckles
continues the Death Egg Saga started in Sonic 2... the huge Death Egg ship
crashes on Angel Island, causing the Island to fall. Super Sonic comes into
the island to investigate... when a mysterious Echidna steals his Chaos
Emeralds... So this game introduced Knuckles as a character... won't go into
detail, but there are two distinct stories as Sonic and Knuckles... and if you
have the two games attached to each other then there are actually 14 Special
Stages, the first 7 in the Sonic 3 half of the game, then later on the Super
Emeralds appear... are they powered up Chaos Emeralds or new Emeralds? Who
knows... but these new Emeralds bring about Hyper Forms... Sonic and Knuckles
was also the first game with an Extra Zone... the infamous Doomsday... Yeah, I'm
being sketchy... I'm trying to keep this brief, but here is how Sonic Rush is
similar to Sonic 3 and Knuckles:

New Emeralds... in Sonic 3 and Knuckles these were the Master Emerald and the
Super Emeralds, this game Sol Emeralds

Two main stories... The Sonic/Tails story was quite different than Knuckles, and
the same is true for Sonic Rush with Blaze and Sonic.

Mysterious new rival to Sonic... Just like Knuckles in Sonic and Knuckles, it is
not clear in this game who Blaze is or even what side she is on. A
misunderstanding leads to the two fighting. Also Knuckles and Blaze are both
Guardians Loners and Eggman stole what they were guarding (Master Emerald/Sol
Emeralds respectively)

Some Acts and Zones are similar to Acts and Zones in Sonic 3 and Knuckles.
Leaf Storm sort of resembles Angel Island. Water Palace resembles Hydro City
quite a bit. Mirage Road is the first Egypt themed 2D Zone since Sandopolis.
Night Carnival's name is just Carnival Night reversed... Huge Crisis... ehhh, I
think it resembles more recent Zones more... Altitude Limit in a stretch could
be Sky Sanctuary... Dead Line resembles Death Egg, Final Boss is a huge robot
that attacks with hands and lasers... and Extra Zone resembles Doomsday more
than any other recent Extra Zone that resembles Doomsday does.... Yeah...

Zone X in Time Attack is quite similar concept to Sonic 3's Two Player Mode.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2006... a new game coming in November that will feature the
return of Blaze... from what I have heard this game might also borrow certain
concepts from Sonic 3 and Knuckles... we'll just have to wait and see... or read
leaked scripts, which I BTW am not doing...

Other more recent games and even Sonic X stuff is from:

Sonic Adventure:
Tails' Workshop
The Extra Ending before the Boss Fight is similar to Extra Ending before boss
fight in this game.

Sonic Adventure 2:
Robots in Huge Crisis Zone are GUN military robots from this game.

Sonic Advance 2:
Gameplay most similar to this game that introduced R button Tricks, Boost Mode
and rails for all characters.
Most Small Animals from Sonic Advance series in General.
Zone Map and symbols for each Zone in Time Attack quite similar to symbols for
Zones in this game.
Extra Zone is very similar to Sonic's part of Extra Zone in Sonic Rush.
Just like this game introduced Cream to the Sonic series before she appeared in
Sonic Heroes, this game seems to have introduced Blaze before she appears in her
first console game, Sonic the Hedgehog, 2006.

Sonic Advance 3:
Blaze's part of Extra Zone and Extra Zone background resembles Sonic Rush's
Extra Zone.
One Enemy from this game made it into Altitude Limit.

Sonic Heroes:
Most Enemies are from this game or very similar to Enemies from this
game.Checkpoints, Item Boxes and even Rainbow Hoops are styled the same.

Sonic X:
Cream's House
Cream not calling all the male characters Mister?
Main Plot about two dimensions coming together with grave consequences.
The voice actors...

19. My Current High Scores:
A section I put at the end because I didn't want to renumber everything...
Basically I am more of a person that likes to get high-scores than time-trialing
things. Here are my current high-scores for all of Sonic and Blaze's Acts. As
you can see I have chronic trouble with Leaf Storm... but anyway can you beat my

Zone 1 (Leaf Storm):
Act 1: 107,710
Act 2: 107,098

Zone 2 (Water Palace):
Act 1: 110,880
Act 2: 111,670

Zone 3 (Mirage Road):
Act 1: 112,740
Act 2: 115,230

Zone 4 (Night Carnival):
Act 1: 111,370
Act 2: 113,990

Zone 5 (Huge Crisis):
Act 1: 118,450
Act 2: 110,950

Zone 6 (Altitude Limit):
Act 1: 110,020
Act 2: 109,032

Zone 7 (Dead Line):
Act 1: 116,972
Act 2: 119,275

Zone 1 (Night Carnival):
Act 1: 111,800
Act 2: 114,770

Zone 2 (Leaf Storm):
Act 1: 106,240
Act 2: 109,026

Zone 3 (Mirage Road):
Act 1: 112,910
Act 2: 111,120

Zone 4 (Water Palace):
Act 1: 113,270
Act 2: 113,300

Zone 5 (Altitude Limit):
Act 1: 111,140
Act 2: 110,822

Zone 6 (Huge Crisis):
Act 1: 118,660
Act 2: 110,980

Zone 7 (Dead Line):
Act 1: 116,538
Act 2: 119,881 (so close to 120,000...)

20. Questions?:

Got Questions? E-mail me, angnix@gmail.com I will answer them if they are not
stupid. I will only answer questions relating to the FAQS, do
not e-mail me and try to start a personal relationship or something, I will not
respond to such e-mails.

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(c) Angnix (Angela Petersen) 2005-2006