Just a suggestion with the special stage system.

Someone give this guy a raise. Or hire him. Idea people like this are great!

I had an alternate idea on the bonus stages. There are 2 ways (tails and knuckles) to get the same 7 emeralds. But the emeralds now have dual functionality (super sonic and access to the final area). So what if access to the final area was using some sort of special emeralds? Maybe Tails has Chaos Emeralds needed for Super Sonic and knuckles has Key Emeralds (or a more inventive name) that allow access to the last zone.

This way the emerald graphics can remain the same, it would just require a text change.

It could maybe be taken a bit further and only allow one Key Emerald per zone (like Jon has implemented already) but Chaos emeralds could be collected at will.

I really like the idea of Emerald halves, as it would up the challenge of obtaining all seven. Also, I believe Jon said that he wanted to make sure that the higher level special stages were played through as before it was just up to level 4 to get the emeralds, so this would be a good way to ensure that all of the stages are experienced.

Yeah exactly. You could still get them as fast as you ever could but it would be harder as you would have to complete all tales and knuckles bonus levels. Maybe the sprite could be rapidly flashed to make it appear transparent until both were collected. If Jon were to try and do something like this I'm sure he would find a way :)

If 2 halves mean one emerald per act while doubling the difficulty of getting them, I don't see why not! That could work. It's still possible to get all the emerald before the end but it becomes a more intensive task... Obviously the problem is that there is no half emerald sprite in the game already though...

Sorry I meant I personally dont see anything wrong with it. I quite like the idea of there being something in each zone that builds towards a reward at the end of the game. But I totally get why it would annoy players doing it that way too. As you say you don't get to enjoy your reward until you have essentially finished the campaign. Thats why I suggested the 2 halves idea :)

You don't see how adding super sonic and at the same time saying "but you can only use it when you replay through the game" is a bit of a downer?

I dont see anything wrong with the proposed changes of one emerald per zone but another solution could maybe be to split the emeralds in half. I can't remember the order of the emeralds but for example Tails level 1 could have half of a blue emerald as does Knuckles level 1. You would only get the full emerald after completing both Tails 1 and Knuckles 1 etc. So you would have to play all of their levels in order to get Super Sonic. I dont know how you could represent that with the available graphics, maybe flash the emerald until both halves have been collected?

I, too, think that you should be able to collect all the Chaos Emeralds early if you're good at the game. Sonic has always allowed you to gather emeralds quickly once you figured out the special stages, so I feel like keeping it that way keeps things closer to how Sonic is built.

I think a good compromise would be to have the level counter increase by 1 for BOTH characters when either of their levels are completed. For example, if I beat Knuckles1 and get the first Chaos Emerald, the next time I get into a special stage, it'll be either Tails2 or Knuckles2 depending on the character I find.

Not being able to have super sonic until the last stage is a big missed opportunity. I guess one emerald per stage could be a good compromise, but being able to find Tails and Knuckles and also give each of them 50 rings is a worthy achievement that should at least reward with a chance to get the emerald! In terms of balance, if getting every single possible bonus stage was easy, I would agree that the amount should be limited, but as a first time player, it's very hard to beat the levels, find the passages and have all the rings and beat every bonus stage. The original game's balance in that regards was already very good, I see no reason to change it. Besides, even having the possibility of triggering super sonic isn't in itself a guaranteed win: you still have to have all the rings you need, they run out, etc. You can still get crushed and fall to your death. It would be a shame if super sonic was only for the replay of the levels.

On the other hand, maybe a better solution would be to not respawn the rings, so getting the 50 needed would be harder? Would that be possible?

Another thing, I feel like traditionally, super sonic had never been part of the time trials modes, so maybe it would be better left to that first playthrough and replaying the levels for score and medals?

I hope this makes sense!

Personally I would prefer one per Special Stage, I just offered the "One per Act" option as a compromise as for some reason some people want Super Sonic locked out until after all the stages have been cleared for some reason... I don't see the logic behind it but to each their own.

I agree with the OP, in pretty much every other sonic game you can get the emeralds as you please. I think it should be 1 emerald per special stage, so that skilled players can get super sonic early.

I think one per act would be the right balance, since it would expose the player to most of the special stages but at the same time will allow him to use Super Sonic in a good percentage of the game.

But Jon, what about those people that just want to beat the game and nothing else ?

Edit: i say it should be one per special stage, getting more than 50 rings is not exactly easy and since you can activate and deactivate Super Sonic at desire you don't skip the game entirely.

Also Super Sonic is still vulnerable to death and running out of rings

Perhaps, instead of having the emeralds collectible at every special stage or have them once per zone, you could have the special stages go up as normal (Ex: a Knuckles stage is completed, his level counter goes up by one for the next stage.) but if you were to play a stage of the other character at a lower level, you would end up getting an extra life but still increment the counter for that character. So then, if you couldn't get past a certain Knuckles stage, you could play Tails stages up to the level needed and get the Chaos Emerald there. You would still have to conquer the Knuckles level to get more emeralds from him further on, but it could provide options without giving you all of the emeralds at the beginning of the game nor depriving you of them. I hope I explained my idea clearly.

First of all I have to thank you for your response to my comment, not a lot of developers do this kind of thing and I have to commend you for that. While you have a valid point about needing to go back and get all the medals, when doing a time challange the only thing I could thing about is to get to the end of the level as fast as possible, as such becoming Super Sonic isn't something that you have the time to focus about, so again while I see where you're coming from, I'd rather it to be like the classic games where Super Sonic was something that was rewarded to the player by grantig him the power to finish levels more easily throughout the game.

I kind of agree, for sake of a middle ground maybe the one Emerald per act would be more feasible as it would allow skilled players to get the Emeralds about halfway through the game if they didn't mess up, but not super early like the original to where they would blow through the whole game as Super. Plus S.Sonic still presents his own challenges as control is slightly more difficult, plus you have to consider ring management and whether your rings will run out at an inopportune time leaving you at zero near a hazard. So there is pro's and con's to it...

To collect all the hidden medals and to help with the time challenge levels.