Played Sonic 1, 2, and 3&K

Here.

 

I find the S2 Special Stages the hardest simply because I hardly play them. I don't even play S2 very often and when I do, I don't like to lose all my rings and start from the checkpoint as if I died. And I've never found time to play S2K, should do it soon. I'll probably suck at it.

 

Hm, Knuckles in Sonic 2... The reduced ring requirements make them a lot easier, but... keeping your rings after leaving the Special Stage really makes it a bit too easy.

I've been playing classic Sonic a lot since Sonic 4's announcement (have nothing better to fill the time 'til FF13's release, which is tonight, incidentally), but the one new thing I've been doing is playing through Sonic CD, which I missed out on for a while and thus lacked the nostalgia-goggles for. It's a really spectacular game in its own special way, but dear me is that last Special Stage a pain in the ass.

The special stages in all of the other games are cake to me, I've done them so many times. Only Sonic 1's third special stage ever gives me problems—y'know, the, um, big open one where you seem to hit a pinball bumper or an "R" block every time you do anything but nothing? Yeah, that stage can burn in the fiery pits of hell.

Also played Megamix a few times recently. Fun, but the unfinished-ness of it has a tendency to interfere with the experience—I can't wait until the finished product comes out.

The most recent thing I did was obtain all 130 emblems in Sonic Adventure DX for the second time, because my old save file with Metal Sonic is gone. Big the Cat and the Chao Garden were even more tedious the second time I soldiered through them. Probably should have done some of the Chao stuff in-between levels to spread it out a little, but it was the last thing I did. Fortunately, I now have a Game Boy Advance link cable, so I can use that same chao in SA2 when I finally attempt the unlocking of that Green Hill stage (I'm not really interested, the camera looks terrible, but I'm a completionist, so I'm going to do it SOME time...)

 

I quite frequently re-play the classic games, I stopped for a few years when I had my N64 and GameCube until mega collection+ was released. Recent years I've been trying to beat the game without losing a single life, although I've only tried sonic 1 and 2. Managed it in both, Labyrinth boss is a bit of a chode and of course Giant Robotnik in Death Egg... I still find special stage 2 in sonic 1 particularly hard to do first time, I can get all the chaos emeralds in sonic 2 by the end of Emerald Hill (there are 8 lampposts in total for act 1 & 2) and I've come up with a quick/expert way to play sonic1: start at Spring Yard act 1 and finish with all emeralds. There are just enough acts to get enough big rings to get all the emeralds before Scrap Brain. I think as I've not tried it yet I will try to beat S3&k without losing a life.