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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sonic Heroes A Rank Guide and Tips
Version 1.0 12/17/04
By Angnix (Angela Petersen)
[email protected]
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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
NOTE:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Version 1.0! Yes, I decided to work on this again!!! I have several more
level shortcuts and more specific instructions for some levels done, and
also I fixed some rather sad errors in some areas and added new info I
forgot before. And the buttons I mention are for the GameCube.
Enjoy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Version History:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Version 0.5: 9/5/04
Version 0.6: 9/8/04
Corrected errors and updated several sections.
Added lots of info under the level list part.
Version 0.7: 9/16/04
More level-specific information was added.
Table of Contents and numbering expanded.
Version 0.8: 12/14/04
Fixed general errors.
Added more to the levels section
Version 1.0: 12/17/04
Shortcuts, more level notes finished.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
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 my FAQS:
www.GameFAQS.com
www.Neoseeker.com
www.cheathappens.com
faqs.ign.com
www.cheats.de
www.supercheats.com
www.wogaming.com
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Table of Contents:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
1. Introduction
2. A Guide to Leveling Up and Extra Info on Team Moves/Team Blasts
2.a. Leveling Up
2.b. Team Differences
2.c. Team Blasts
3. A Few Helpful Glitches
4. Missions and Mission Layout
4.a. Points Missions
4.a.1. Normal Points Missions
4.a.2. Time Trial Points Missions
4.a.3. Team Chaotix Object Hunt Point Missions
4.b. Time Missions
4.b.1. Team Dark Destroy 100 Robots Time Missions
4.b.2. Team Rose Collect 200 Rings Time Missions
4.c. Bosses
4.c.1. The "Egg Birds"
4.c.2. Team Battles
4.c.3. Robots
4.c.4. Final Boss, the Egg Emperor
4.c.5. Extra Boss, Metal Madness and Metal Overlord
5. Missions List
5.a. Stage 1: Seaside Hill
5.b. Stage 2: Ocean Palace
5.c. Boss 1: Egg Hawk
5.d. Stage 3: Grand Metropolis
5.e. Stage 4: Power Plant
5.f. Boss 2: Team Battle #1
5.g. Stage 5: Casino Park
5.h. Stage 6: BINGO Highway
5.i. Boss 3: Robot Carnival
5.j. Stage 7: Rail Canyon
5.k. Stage 8: Bullet Station
5.l. Boss 4: Egg Albatross
5.m. Stage 9: Frog Forest
5.n. Stage 10: Lost Jungle
5.o. Boss 5: Team Battle #2
5.p. Stage 11: Hang Castle
5.q. Stage 12: Mystic Mansion
5.r. Boss 6: Robot Storm
5.s. Stage 13: Egg Fleet
5.t. Stage 14: Final Fortress
5.u. Final Boss: Egg Emperor
5.v. Extra Boss: Metal Madness/Metal Overlord
6. Questions?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
1. Introduction:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This is my first time writing a FAQs on a 3D game, so bear with me! Also
I mention the GameCube buttons because that is the version of the game
that I happen to have, sorry but I do not know what the corresponding
buttons for Xbox, Playstation 2 and PC are. Also this guide assumes you
are very familiar with all the moves and abilities of each team and that
you have already been playing this game for a while.
Anyway this is a guide for those of you who want nick juicy tips on how
to earn A ranks in all the levels of the game so you can unlock that
mysterious ??? that is on the main screen. If you really want to know
what it is, it is Super Hard Mode, basically all of the same levels made
a little harder than the Team Dark levels but can only be played as Team
Sonic. Ehh, not much of a reward in my opinion, but well getting all A
ranks for all Bosses and all levels is worth bragging rights! For most
missions, a rank is earned depending on how high a score you get, so an
A rank is dependent on if you know how to rack up those points or not!
On the other hand, some missions like Team Dark's and Team Rose's extra
missions and all Bosses are ranked depending on how much time you took
to finish whatever you are suppose to do in that level and not on score
at all. Some other missions, all of Team Sonic extra missions for
example, you have to complete in a certain time limit but they are based
upon score too so basically you have to rush and do something and make
sure to rack up points along the way. Anyway Points and Time Missions
get separate treatment.
The first part of the guide I just sort of decided it was necessary. The
specific details of Leveling Up, a lot of the Team Differences and Team
Blast effects are not covered in the handbook and I feel it is important
to know how these mechanics properly operate in order to better
understand how to get thorough the levels, I did not include the basic
moves in the handbook/tutorials of course because hopefully you know
them by now if you are playing this game.
The second part of this guide are a few in-game glitches that you can
use to your advantage.
The third part of this guide will be general tips on how to do both
points based and time based missions. There are sort of sub-categories
under points and time and these will also be covered listing what
missions they are because even though Team Chaotix's Casino Park and
Team Rose's Seaside Hill for example are both points based there are two
totally different ways of handling them.
The fourth part of this guide is a more detailed list of all missions
and contains a description of the mission and more specific hints for
that mission and what score/time you need in order to get an A rank.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2. A Guide to Leveling Up and Extra Info on Team Moves/Team Blasts
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It is very important to have a good understanding of the moves each
formation does, I did not feel like describing all the different moves
of each team, these are listed in the manual and you probably already
know them by now but I will give you often not so obvious info about
Leveling Up and each Team's strengths/weaknesses.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2.a. Leveling Up:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In order to level up, you must collect the blue, red or yellow power
spheres from inside every 5th robot you kill, when you hit a checkpoint
to earn one of the color of the leader that touches it, or in some item
boxes and balloons. You start off each level at level zero for each
character and can go up to three, additional spheres collected do add to
your score at the end of the level. The blue ones level up speed, red
power and yellow flight. You can easily tell what level your character
is at by observing how many dots have turned while next to that
character's picture in the level formation indicator. Sometimes when
encountering enemies you might want to change formation if one character
is leveled up a lot more than other characters. Here is a general guide
to the changes that take place with each level up with each formation:
Speed:
Level 0: Normal attack level, attacks count as one hit.
Level 1: Attacks now count as two hits.
Level 2: Attacks now count as three hits.
Level 3: Jump Dash/Homing Attack now has Tornado-like properties, now
you can do things like just using a Homing Attack on shielded enemies
and turtles without having to use Tornado first and jumping toward poles
to go up them instead of using the Tornado, this can save lots of time.
Also even if you attack with the Speed character in Flight or Power
formation, for example if you Thunder shoot the speed character or throw
the speed character, then the wind effects are still there interestingly
enough.
Power:
Level 0: Normal attack level, many attacks count at three hits, no
combos.
Level 1: Now extra combo attack is performed if B button is continuously
presses.
Level 2: More powerful combo.
Level 3: Most powerful combo that kills in a very wide area and also has
a lot of height, very deadly.
Flight:
Level 0: Normal flight time, Thunder Shoot counts as half a hit on most
enemies, one for flying enemies.
Level 1: A little more flight time, Thunder Shoot now can hit more than
one enemy but attack power is the same.
Level 2: More flight time, Thunder Shoot now counts as a full hit on
most enemies.
Level 3: More flight time, Thunder Shoot now is a Ring Attracter, just
Thunder Shoot at rings to attract them.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2.b. Team Differences:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Team Sonic and Team Dark are identical except for Team Blast while Team
Rose and Team Chaotix are more unique. I decided to list this by the
moves that the teams differ, Team Blasts are in the next section.
Speed Formation:
Tornado Attacks:
Sonic/Shadow: Blue/Black Tornado, Sonic and Shadow can spin around an
enemy without touching it and overall a nice attack to use, the basic
tornado and it has nice speed too.
Amy: Tornado Hammer, This tornado actually moves and homes in on enemies
so it is best to use it farther away from an enemy than near it. The
only problem is that like most Team Rose attacks it is slow.
Espio: Ninja Leaf Swirl happens to be the most interesting Tornado. Not
very good at attacking enemies with because it does not move and Espio
does not move around the enemy so he can't really use it close to an
enemy, but this attack also makes Espio invisible to enemies. While
Espio is invisible the rest of the team is left behind, best to use when
you want to get past enemies undetected.
B button Solo Attacks:
Sonic/Shadow: Flying Kick, not that bad but it puts the character in
danger. On the other hand if you accidentally use it instead of Rocket
Accel it does not slow down the character very much.
Amy: Swinging Hammer Attack, has a wider range than Sonic/Shadow Flying
Kick but it is much slower.
Espio: Shuriken Stars, Much easier to use because you can turn Espio
invisible and leave the rest of the team behind. The stars are very cool
and even bounce off walls and stuff, but they are not very powerful at
all and don't even damage enemies that happen to have shields.
Triangle Jump:
Sonic/Shadow: Typical Triangle Jump between walls but Sonic and Shadow
can't stay clinging on the wall forever so you must keep on the move.
Amy: She cannot use this move at all
Espio: The best Triangle Jumper, he can stay stuck to the wall forever,
very handy when there are moving obstacles in your path.
Light Speed Dash:
Sonic/Shadow: The only characters that can use this move. Press B button
along a line of rings to instantly dash through them. If there are
enough rings you are awarded points for dashing through them depending
on how many there are. Good for getting extra points and some areas even
require you to use this move to get past them.
Propeller Hammer:
Amy: Can only be used by Amy. If you press A button and then just keep
it pressed, at the highest point of her jump she will spin the hammer
around and can sort of fly for a few seconds.
Power Formation:
B button with team:
Knuckles/Omega: While holding the other two characters Knuckles/Omega
attack enemies with arm swings. Pretty effective and fast, but dangerous
because the characters get a little too close to the edge while being
slightly uncontrollable and fall off.
Big: He uses his fishing pole to hit Amy and Cream at enemies. A nice
long-range attack, but it is slow of course.
Vector: Vector spits Espio and Charmy out of his mouth at enemies. A
little faster than Team Rose but still basically the same attack.
B button while jumping:
Knuckles/Omega: They throw their team mates at enemies using Fire Dunk.
I think Knuckle's attack may be a little longer range.
Big: He attacks with a huge belly bop, actually not that bad but slow of
course.
Vector: Hammer Down: Uses his arms to attack downwards, actually a
pretty slow attack.
B button without team:
Knuckles/Omega: Punch at enemies, fast.
Big: Attack with his fishing pole, slow.
Vector: Bites enemies, intermediate in speed.
Jumping while in Fighting Pose:
Knuckles/Omega: Fire Ball Jump, The other characters spin around in a
wide circle, can be uses as an attack, but not a very powerful one.
Big/Vector: Not an attack, only used to get out of Fighting Pose.
Flight Formation:
B button without team:
Tails/Rouge: Dummy Ring Bombs, not a very powerful attack, about as
powerful as Thundershoot depending on level but sets up a nice stun trap
for enemies.
Cream: Chao Attack, Slow but very powerful, Cheese will attack and kill
all nearby enemies.
Charmy: Sting, a good and fast attack, but Charmy attacks directly and
often puts him in harm's way.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
2.c. Team Blasts:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When the Team Blast gauge is charges up all you have to do is release it
and there you go, instant killage! But Team Blast has other effects too.
The meter goes down slowly showing you how much time some after effects
have left, the meter lasts 10 seconds. There is also a special Team
Blast that appears during the extra boss, that will be talked about
later.
Team Sonic:
Sonic Overdrive, Knuckles and Tails launch Sonic into the air so he can
use Light Attack on the surrounding enemies.
After Effects: Light Attack, Sonic in any formation will use Light
Attack on any nearby enemies if you use your B button attack, it is a
powerful Homing Attack that kills everything instantly and Sonic usually
will not stop till everything is dead. I like using it in Flight
Formation but make sure you don't keep thundershooting, just sit there
until Sonic takes care of everything, but it seems to me he is more
likely to kill everything using it with Sonic as leader.
Annoying Glitch: I read about this glitch before and didn't think much
about it till it happened to me... sometimes during Team Blast instead of
attacking the enemies Sonic will shoot way up high in the air and he
will never come down... why does this happen? I have no clue, but it's
kind of funny...
Team Dark:
Chaos Inferno: A powerful combination of Chaos Control and Omega's
weaponry, not sure if Rouge really does anything at all...
After Effects: Time is totally frozen for 10 seconds, the clock doesn't
even move. Perfect for time trials and if you want to freeze enemies and
even bosses to attack much more easier but watch out, if there is
anything you need to move like opening doors and fans then this move can
actually slow your progress though a level.
Team Rose:
Flower Carnival, a very festive attack indeed, not sure how it kills
anything though.
After Effects: The most broken Team Blast. Each character levels up by
one and a Shield, Invincibility and Super Speed take effect as if they
got them from Item Boxes.
Team Chaotix:
Chaotix Recital, apparently their horrible music can kill enemies. For
each enemy killed they get either 5, 10 or 20 Rings.
After Effects: Rings are still earned for enemies killed during the 10
second period afterwards. This attack is why I have 99 lives for Team
Chaotix in my game.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
3. A Few Helpful Glitches:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Here are four of in-game glitches that you do not need a cheat device to
use. If you feel like cheating then these can really come in handy,
especially the first three, the last one is mostly for fun.
Team Blast Meter Fill-up Glitch:
This one may be a little tricky to get down at first but very useful if
you can learn it and it can come in handy during bosses, this glitch
will fill up your Team Blast meter almost 1/3rd full instantly so do it
three times in a row to almost fill it up completely, you might want to
do it four times, it works for all teams and even during the extra boss.
Get into fly formation then press B and either X or Y at the same EXACT
time. The game will try to thunder shoot and change formation at the
same time, a very large, strange electrical ring appears around the
flight character as the formation is changing when it is done properly
and the Team Blast meter will go up 1/3rd. It is easy to slightly miss
the timing, often just causing you to thunder shoot then change
character or change character then the B button action for the changed
character.
Team Dark Pole Glitch:
Team Dark only of course, if you happen to use Team Blast and freeze
time in front of a pole that rises up/comes down and you already hit the
switch for it, even though the pole has not appeared yet use Tornado and
you will go up an invisible pole, this actually saves a few seconds, the
time it would take for the pole to appear.
Team Rose Extended Propeller Hammer Glitch:
Near the end of using Propeller Hammer press B button to perform a
Tornado Hammer, at the end of this move keep pressing A and you will go
into Propeller Hammer again, you can only repeat Propeller Hammer this
way once, and if you use a Jump Dash at the end you can go really far
distances.
Team Chaotix Fly Glitch:
This one might give you sore fingers, and the truth is it is only useful
if you want to explore places you can't normally go, but I decided to
include it here and it might be useful in some hard flying spots and as
the name implies only works for Team Chaotix. You have to be flying
against a wall either visible or invisible, just keep pressing A and B
at the same time, if you are lucky what will happen is that Charmy will
suddenly rise higher up as if he hit solid ground higher up and the
flight meter will fill back up again, so if you have patience you can
fly up as high and as long as you want as long as there is a wall.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4. Missions and Mission Layout:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
There are a total of 14 levels and 7 bosses that are a little different
for each team plus the Extra Boss that I will detail later. Each of the
14 levels for each team have two missions, you complete mission 1 in
Story Mode but in order to get to Mission 2(extra) or to play the first
mission over again easily you want to go to Challenge Mode instead of
Story Mode on the 1 Player menu. You usually have to do something
totally different to complete Mission 2 and it might even be ranked
differently. As I stated earlier this part of the guide is just general
tips, look in the Mission List and Specific Tips section for more
detailed info if you happened to be stuck on one mission. Also for Team
Chaotix missions there is a very nice guide to them on GameFAQs in case
you cannot find something. Here is a table of what the missions in
general look like by what the mission is and if it is points or time
based:
Mission 1 Mission 2
----------------------------------------------------
Team Sonic | Get to the Goal | Time Trial
| Points | Points
----------------------------------------------------
Team Dark | Get to the Goal | Kill 100 Robots
| Points | Time
----------------------------------------------------
Team Rose | Get to the Goal | Get 200 Rings
| Points | Time
----------------------------------------------------
Team Chaotix | Varies | Varies
| Points | Points
----------------------------------------------------
Team Chaotix missions often involve finding a certain amount of certain
objects in level, but they can vary from just getting to the goal to
stealth missions where you cannot be detected by the enemy, a lot of
them are sort of two mission types fused together and so two specific
sections will apply to them and there will be more notes on them in the
level list.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.a. Points Scored Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to all missions except Team Dark and Team Rose 2nd mission.
The MOST important thing to remember about these missions is this: you
lose all points if you die and start again at a checkpoint so that means
you must get though the entire level without dying once! So you have to
be awfully skilled in order to make it through alive! Later I will
discuss the types of points missions, some Team Chaotix missions have
two types.
Most missions are ranked according to your total score at the end of the
act, but I will note that some of these missions are either timed like
Team Sonic extra mission so you have to play fast anyway, or you get so
many time bonus points from completing the mission fast that you will
have to anyway, for example Casino Park and BINGO Highway, these
subcategories will be addressed later on in this section but these
general rules apply to all subcategories. Anyway you receive points many
ways so here is a list of points you can get and how you get them, note
that I might have left some out:
ENEMIES:
Enemies are in my opinion the most important source of points, so it is
important you know how to kill them correctly. Each type of enemy is
worth a different amount of points and also you receive bonus points
depending on how many you kill quickly. But the tricky part is the fact
that each enemy is best killed with a certain formation, so here is a
list of all enemies in the game detailing how to kill them, I will add
how many points they are worth some other time. Note that leveling up
your characters is very important because each character level is more
powerful than the lower level and some enemies can only be killed by
certain characters when they are leveled up so I will mention this too.
Enemies Bonus Points:
You get rewarded points for killing lots of enemies together. You get
about 4 seconds after killing one enemy to kill another in order for the
bonus to still be good, so you can take longer than 4 seconds to kill a
lot of enemies but you will still get a higher bonus if the interval
between each one is less than 4 seconds. If you kill them in Team Blast
you are just rewarded for how many you killed during the blast. Here are
the bonuses:
2: 400
3: 800
4: 1000
5 or more: 2000
Eggbots:
These normal enemies are often found alone, but sometimes they are
carrying guns, shields and swords. They look a little different in
Casino Park and BINGO Highway.
Normal or Holding Gun: Easy to kill in either Speed or Power formation,
the gun really isn't that threatening when they have it. Some of them
only talk one hit to kill with even a level zero speed character. A
level 2 or 3 Flight character can also take care of them rather quickly.
Sword: Like the normal ones, but you just have to watch out for being
poked with the sword, so some attacks like Big and Vector's that attack
downwards may not be a good idea.
Red Shield: Cannot be attacked by Flight Formation's Thundershoot at
all, must be either removed with a Tornado Attack or Level 3 Homing
Attack or attacked in Power Formation, Power Formation can plow though
them quite quickly.
Blue Shield: This shield slowly crumbles away, like all shields it is
best to first knock it up in the air using a Tornado attack or Homing
Attack if your Speed character is level 3, with Power or Flight
formation you will have to continue attacking it till the shield
crumbles away completely, this takes a while.
Spiky Shield: Tougher than the red one, best to remove with a Tornado,
or with persistant attacks in Power Formation, especially if your Power
character is leveled up to 2 or 3.
Golden: If you see a gold colored Eggbot near a bunch of other ones,
often if you just attack the gold one and when you destroy it the rest
will go down with it, but sometimes this is not true, gold ones are also
a little tougher than regular Eggbots.
Some robots hold both a shield and a gun or sword.
Flying Enemies:
There are several types of these too and have to be tackled differently.
Normal or shooting at you: Pretty easy to kill. In some situations you
want to use Flight formation and sometimes if they are meant to be
killed this way they only take one hit to kill even with Level 0 thunder
shoot. If your flight character is only level 0 and 1 and you are trying
to kill a flying enemy and it knocks it down to the ground and it has
that angry symbol, I like to then briefly switch to Power Formation to
quickly take it out. But sometimes you are suppose to Homing Attack
across them to bridge a gap with Speed and often if this is the case
then they take three hits, hopefully your teammates are following you
across and/or you are leveled up in order to kill them.
Dropping Bombs: You defiantly want to avoid the bombs, they take more
than one hit so if you have a low level flying character then you might
want to carefully if there is a bomb on the ground take it down with
Thundershoot them use Power Formation long range attack to kill it.
Electricity: Hee hee, forgot to mention these in the earlier versions of
this guide, they have electrical charges coming from the bottom of them
all the way to the ground, you have to shoot them down with Thunder
shoot, and if they are still not dead go for long-range Power attacks,
these guys like to block your path.
Spikes: Some of them will have spikes that will occasionally come out of
them, they need to be attacked with a good force when the spikes are not
out, but not a problem if you attack then with a good high level Thunder
shoot, or knock them down from the sky and use a long-range Power type
attack.
Silver coated: These are difficult to deal with because they are coated
with Armor, you usually have to shoot them down with Thundershoot which
grounds them and does not damage them much or not at all then attack
with Power Formation. Sometimes these guys will drop bombs or
electricity too!
Search Light: If you are spotted by their searchlight more robots will
appear, you want the searchlight to spot you so you have more stuff to
kill. Kill like any other flying enemy, they are armored also.
Trapping:
These floating guys will try to trap you so you cannot move. If all
three teammates get trapped at the same time you loose a life. It is
best to attack them like flying enemies or just plain long range. You
defiantly want to kill them if they trap one of your teammates or they
will be trapped for a long time. And the gold ones will also try to move
away taking your teammate with them and take more hits to destroy.
Turtles:
Their tough shells make it impossible to attack with Flight formation.
Beware both kinds of turtles shoot off deadly energy pulses that are
very wide and long range, the two kinds of turtles have to be handed
slightly different. You can flip both with a Tornado.
Green Turtles: You can easily get them with Power Formation. You can
also turn them over with a Tornado in Speed formation, but this is
normally slower than Power.
Golden Turtles: Tougher than the Green Turtles, they can hide in their
shells and be totally protected. They can only be attacked by Power
formation if you catch them firing with their heads out of their shells.
It is best to flip these using Speed formation's Tornado, Rocket Accel
or Level 3 Homing Attack. Level 3 Homing Attack is particularly
effective with these guys.
Special Note: it is a requirement to kill them for the Power Plant Team
Chaotix missions and they are in cages you normally have to open but
instead use Team Blast to kill them while still in the cages, it saves
lots of time.
Wizards:
Two different kinds, can be killed by normal means but watch out, some
of these can flip over and change from one type to the other.
Healing: They send out a tune that heals the other robots in the
vicinity, take them out quickly so you will not have problems killing
the rest.
Spell Casting: Dangerous, if they catch you off guard they will cast a
spell that will trap you for a short period of time and take away rings.
E-2000s:
These red or yellow guys are tough and shoot out very long and kind of
wide beams. They have shields, but actually Flight is the best because
unlike other shielded robots they can be paralyzed especially when they
are firing that laser. With a level 0 or 1 flight character I like to
stun them with Thundershoot then switch to power, but the best are level
2 or 3 flight characters that can kill them quite quickly. Don't use
speed formation on them at all. For the really tough yellow ones
consider using Team Blast on them.
Hammerbots:
These are the hardest enemies to kill and come in two kinds. They either
swing their giant hammers around and around or try to smash you with
them. Flight formation can stun the regular ones, but Speed does noting
at all, these guys need to be fought with Power.
Regular: Power formation is good on these guys, long range puts you out
of danger but often with Knuckles/Omega you can attack close with just B
button and not be hurt, but stunning them with Thundershoot is good, but
Thundershoot doesn't do any damage. If you do not want to bother you can
just Team Blast them.
Helmeted: The worst enemy in the entire game. Their helmet protects them
from all types of attacks. Your best bet is to Team Blast them, even if
your gauge is not full if there are a lot of them especially I find it
quicker to just attack with Thundershoot some distance away to fill up
the gauge or use the Team Blast glitch then Team Blast them. If you
really want to attack them without Team Blast, you must first knock off
the helmet with a Tornado or a level 3 Homing Attack and about the only
way to safely do that is if they just fell down after spinning round and
round. You can also try Thundershooting or Power if you speed is at
level 3, the tornado effect the Speed character gains may blow the
helmet off too. Then after the helmet is gone you can only attack the
green spot on the top of it's head with preferably Power formation,
still very tricky.
Pumpkin Ghosts:
Annoying, but not worth points at all and Team Blast does not affect
them.
RINGS:
Each Ring you pick up is worth 10 points. One ring may not sound like it
makes much of a difference, but it can. Think about this, a 5 ring item
box is worth 50 points, 10 rings 100, 20 rings 200, so think about that
before you think about ignoring rings. Also you keep the points even if
you lose the ring so you don't have to worry about keeping your rings at
all in score missions, only in Team Rose Extra Missions.
If you have Team Sonic or Team Shadow don't forget about Light Speed
Dash! Different numbers of rings you dash in a row are worth different
amounts of points! If there are at least 4 rings lined up in a row I
often will change to Speed Formation just to Light Speed Dash them to
pick up extra points, it can make a major difference. Also remember you
can Light Speed Dash circles of rings and sometimes other weird shapes.
here are the bonuses:
4 or 5 rings: 200
6-9 rings: 400
10-17 rings: 800
18 or more rings: 1000
RAINBOW HOOPS:
In the levels you will encounter three Rainbow colored Hoops in the air.
If you go though them you get extra points of course, 1000 if the main
character goes though one and 800 if one team mate makes it and 1600
more on top of that first 800 if the second one makes it, but you will
not get the extra point bonus if your teammate goes though the same hoop
you did. These hoops appear in different formations corresponding to
what team formation you need to go though them with, here are a few
examples.
Three perfectly one after another, like a tube: Either Speed formation
or Power formation in Fight Pose.
Lined up horizontally: Power or Speed depending on how spread out they
are.
Lined up vertically: Flight Formation.
POWER CORES:
You get 100 points for each power core you pick up in a level.
TEAM CHAOTIX MISSIONS:
You sometimes get points for finding stuff in Team Chaotix missions.
END OF LEVEL BONUSES:
You get extra points for each level you have leveled up each character.
You may also get a Time Bonus, but this varies by level how important
they are.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.a.1. Normal Points Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: All Team Sonic, Dark and Rose Mission 1, Team Chaotix: Ocean
Palace Mission 1 and Rail Canyon Mission 1 (Casino Park and BINGO
Highway have time level like qualities, see below for more info.)
All levels in this category are basic levels where you just have to get
to the Goal Ring with a certain number of points, just look at the
section above to refresh yourself on how to get lots of points in the
level before getting to the goal ring. In most of these levels it is a
little more important to get lots of points than to get a good time,
however I will point out the exception of Casino Park and BINGO Highway,
in those levels there is a huge time bonus, it is advantageous to get
through the level as quickly as possible, so they are really semi-time
levels but the score is still based on points, also I find if you go
through the mission like it was a time trial you can often A-rank it
also. Anyways the time bonus is sometimes pretty significant in other
levels also so definitely go through pretty fast also. Also it is true
that Team Chaotix Ocean Palace is sort of an item-find but since you
just have to find one item at the end of the level then really it is a
normal.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.a.2. Time Trial Points Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: All Team Sonic Mission 2, Team Chaotix: Grand Metropolis
Mission 2 Rail Canyon Mission 2, *Frog Forest Mission 2, *Egg Fleet
Mission 2
*These Team Chaotix Mission 2s have another type also
These are normal missions with a time limit! So not only do you have to
get all the points but the extra stress of having to make it to the Goal
Ring on time without dying make these a much harder class of missions to
A rank and very often you have to get a similar amount of points as the
first mission. So you better be as speedy as possible and sometimes I
can barely make it with a few seconds to spare! But don't fret, it's
possible and here are some tips.
First go into speed formation as much as possible, that should be pretty
obvious.
Most of these are Sonic missions, so remember to use Light Speed Dash on
all lines of rings you see in your path plus they give you extra points.
You also get a pretty sizable time bonus, but well for a lot of these
you will barely make it in the allotted time anyway so you are worrying
about going extra fast anyway.
There are several handy shortcuts in certain stages, the most important
ones I will detail under the specific levels they are in later in the
guide.
Use Team Blast as much as possible and make sure you level up and stay
leveled up so you can kill enemies quickly, Team Blast does not take
time from the clock, in these missions killing enemies is usually not as
important, just make sure you get through the level as quickly as
possible killing enemies only when you can Team Blast or you know you
can do so quickly. Another technique to use is to walk past easy to kill
enemies in Power Formation so you are still going somewhere and your
teammates are earning points for you.
However in a few of these such as Grand Metropolis 2, you need to kill
enemies also to get the A-rank, the importance of enemy killing varies
by level.
You might want to do these missions after you are already very familiar
with the layout of the level so you are not wasting time bumbling
through it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.a.3. Team Chaotix Item Hunt Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: Team Chaotix: Seaside Hill Missions 1&2, Grand Metropolis
Missions 1&*2 Power Plant Missions 1&2, BINGO Highway Missions 1&2,
Bullet Station Missions 1&2, Lost Jungle Missions 1&2, Hang Castle
Missions 1&*2, Mystic Mansion Missions 1&2, Final Fortress Missions 1&2
*These Team Chaotix Mission 2s have another type also
Not only do you have to go around gathering points, but in these
missions there is something else to find too and the level will not end
until you have found everything you have to, there is a flower at the
end of the level that warps you back to the beginning. The difficulty of
finding whatever varies, in the first missions where you typically have
to find only some of the objects it's pretty easy, but when you have to
find all of the things in a level it can get quite frustrating. The
objects vary in what you have to do, sometimes you just have to pick
them up and sometimes you have to destroy it but the main tip is this,
if you want to A rank know where all of them are so you don't go crazy.
There is a very good Team Chaotix guide on GameFAQs and I hate to admit
it but I used it a couple of times, if you can't find something no shame
in looking up it's location unless you are seriously determined, but
don't blame me if BINGO Highway or Mystic Mansion mission 2 drives you
insane, a lot of those objects are hidden very well! Here are some other
good tips:
Time does not matter much, in fact in some stages, BINGO Highway and
Bullet Station really come to mind, there are flowers set up so you can
go back to get items you missed in a particular section of the level, it
doesn't hurt your chance at an A rank to go back and many items
especially in the stages mentioned above are hard to get even if you do
know where they are.
Make sure you are still killing lots of enemies and still racking up
those points, and don't die if you are trying to get an A rank even
though you still have all the objects you have found already because you
lose all of your points of course! And remember that in this case Team
Blasts gives you more points via rings and in some of these levels you
get points for finding the objects!
For most of the Mission 1's you don't have to find everything in the
level, but it still helps if you know where the first ones are just to
make the level shorter, you can still get an A rank. The only exception
is Final Fortress, I will discuss that more later.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.a.4. Team Chaotix Stealth Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: Team Chaotix: Ocean Palace Mission 2, Frog Forest Missions
1&*2, *Hang Castle Mission 2, Egg Fleet Missions 1,*2
*These Team Chaotix Mission 2s have another type also
In these missions you must not be detected! You are detected if a robot
or in the case of Frog Forest a frog sees you and an exclamation point
appears over their head, then you lose a life! So how do you remain
unseen? This is where you get to have some fun with Espio's
Invincibility, you can sneak by then undetected and still attack some
with the Shriken Stars, but those stars happen to be pretty weak plus
you don't get help from your team. Anyway here are some more tips:
Remember while invisible don't get hit or Espio's invisibility is gone
and well you get detected, stay a good distance away from robots/frogs.
You might not want to even mess with the enemies, but you still need to
kill at least some anyway because these are points scored missions and
more importantly you may have to destroy some robots to advance further
in the level. If the Team Blast meter is not full the safer way is to
use Shriken Stars, but they are weak and slow and useless against
shields. If you are brave enough and if it is appropriate you can still
Homing Attack an enemy without being detected for some reason. Sometimes
you can also attack from a distance with Vector's ground attack, but
well for some reason it doesn't work all the time. But the hands down
best way to attack is Team Blast! You can sneak up on a group of enemies
and then all of the sudden hit them with Team Blast plus of course the
ring bonus you get helps to fill up that meter again. Hit enemies with
Team Blast as much as possible. Anyway it can get frustrating to kill
enemies without being detected, you probably want to go faster through
the level. This is also easier in Frog Forest where the enemies can
still detect you but you just have to get past froggies...
Also in half of these missions there is something else to worry about,
two of them in fact are also a time trial, this could really try your
patience! but just breath, relax and you will be okay.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.a.5. Team Chaotix Ring Gathering Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: Team Chaotix: Casino Park Missions 1&2
Casino Park is different of course in that you get a huge time bonus
that makes up the vast majority of your points in those levels, so in
fact you should treat these missions exactly like a Team Rose Collect
200 Rings so you might want to look at that section, also you should of
course read the level specific tips I give in the list section.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.b. Time Scored Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Unlike the Points Missions the Time Missions are only ranked by how much
time you successfully complete the mission not how many points you get
at all. The missions in this category include Team Dark's Second
Mission, Destory 100 Robots, Team Rose's Second Mission, get 200 Rings
and all Bosses. Bosses have their own categories, the "Egg Birds", Team
Fights, Robots and the Final and Extra boss and have their own section.
The great thing about these missions is this, for the stage missions you
do not have to worry if you happen to die when you are attempting an A-
rank. You will loose all of your points and you will not be leveled up
anymore which may hinder the mission a little, but you still can get a
nice time to get an A-rank. Mainly focus on your mission and try to take
as many shortcuts as you can while still making the requirement, but
sometimes you may want to take a slower route to gather more rings/get
more robots, it is sort of a tradeoff in time vs. reward. It is a
principle I studied quite a bit as a Zoology student, if animals can
make those sort of decisions I am sure you can! Anyway following is more
detailed tips for this type of mission.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.b.1. Team Dark Destory 100 Robots Time Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: All Team Dark Mission 2
Basically the idea is simple, kill 100 robots as fast as you can. The
bad thing is how long these missions are, just check out some of the
times... The good thing is that with Team Dark Team Blast is on your side...
After Team Blast use the 10 seconds of free time you have to your
extreme advantage, run like crazy to save time later on! Also remember
you can and sometimes have to hit the Back ring where the Goal Ring used
to be and start again at the beginning of the stage so don't worry if
you don't hit 100 the first time through. Another good hint if you feel
like cheating a little is to use the Team Blast Gauge Fill Glitch
explained in the Glitch section, you could theoretically use this to get
through a level in very little time indeed, I have not tried it yet
since I found out about this glitch not long ago. There are a few
cautions I will give you about Team Blast however:
First it can be inconvenient if you happen to use Team Blast in a place
such as in front of a fan, in front of a door that opens, etc, you will
be stuck until time unfreezes, so try not to get stuck. But there is one
place where you look stuck but are not, it's a glitch where if time is
frozen in front of a pole that comes out of the ground, you can still
use Tornado and you will go up an invisible pole! If you are stuck then
don't waste the time, attack randomly, I like to use Thundershoot to
help fill up your Team Blast gauge again so you can use another time
saving Team Blast sooner.
Second, some robots will teleport into the area when you get near them,
beware when time is frozen you might run totally past these areas and
the robots will not appear, but remember in these missions it is
perfectly okay to hit the back ring and the time advantage might
override getting those few robots you happen to miss.
Third try to use Team Blast to take out a least a few robots with it,
only occasionally will I use a time freeze in another place, one good
place is to freeze the rocks in Ocean Palace, but I will talk more about
that in the Ocean Palace section.
Note: Team Chaotix Grand Metropolis kind of resembles this mission, but
it is still more of an object-hunt mission and points matter, but there
are similarities in how it is played.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.b.2. Team Rose Collect 200 Rings Time Missions:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Applies to: All Team Rose Mission 2 (Team Chaotix Casino Park Missions
1&2)
Like all Team Rose missions this is simple and straight forward, just
find 200 rings as fast as you can. Unlike other missions you might want
to avoid enemies in this one just so you do not risk loosing rings,
attack them with long-range attacks like Thundershoot and Big's attacks.
Anyway you want to level up Cream anyway because level three Flight
Characters add a ring-attracting component to Thundershoot so you can
much more easily gather rings, so touch checkpoints and use Team Blast
sometimes. Also get those nice Shields to protect yourself, with Team
Rose you automatically get invincibility for a short time too so yeah
use Team Blast whenever possible. An often looked over source of rings
are the springs that have three stars, light all three stars up, I
actually like Thundershooting them and you get a reward, most of the
time it is 5 rings, they can make a lot of difference. And of course you
want to avoid dying because if you die half-way into the level you will
loose all rings but keep the time you have already gathered which is not
good at all in this particular situation. But trust me, none of these
missions are very hard, you should have no problem except maybe in a
couple of the levels like Power Plant which I even wrote a walkthrough
for.
(Team Chaotix Casino Park mission 1 and 2 are points scored, not time
but there are so many points awarded for time bonus they should be
treated just the same as these missions)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.c. Bosses:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
There are 7 bosses spaced out at the end of each similar two stages. The
first 6 are sore of in a pattern of what "type" they are and are sort of
fought the same, while the Final and Extra Boss have their own
strategies. Most of these bosses are fought pretty much the same way no
matter what team you are using, but I will sometimes give team specific
tips. The Extra Boss has 4 different sections fought by the 4 different
teams.
The main thing to remember about a lot of these bosses is this, there
may be a lot of other robots and a lot of other things around you to
get/attack, but often you want to completely ignore and go right for the
boss if you want to A-rank them. Here are the basic strategies for each
boss, instead of putting them in order the first 6 are categorized
because of their similarity.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.c.1. The "Egg Birds":
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This category includes the first boss, the Egg Hawk and the fourth boss,
the Egg Albatross. The Egg Hawk only has one machine you have to defeat,
but the Egg Albatross had three separate stages and the last one is in
fact the Egg Hawk again, just a little harder. I use the same strategy
for all teams, but the Egg Hawk and Egg Albatross do have slightly
different strategies, the main thing is that these are not Team Blast
bosses, and that you need to ignore all the robots and other junk around
you.
EGG HAWK:
First the Egg Hawk flies kind of backwards along a straight path firing
at you, but then it gets to a wider circular areas where it stops and
comes down to the ground and spins around, the "Rotary Attack". Ignore
all the robots and stuff you see. What you do is when the Egg Hawk is
flying away from you make sure you are in Speed Formation, run and catch
up to it then just Homing Attack like crazy. When it reaches the
circular platform then switch to power formation. With Team Sonic and
Dark use the ground attack to punch at it, with Rose and Chaotix you
will want to jump and press B button to attack from above. You should
destroy it before it even has a chance to take off again.
EGG ALBATROSS:
This time this contraption has three parts and it always travels away
from you between platforms connected by rails, the main thing is to
attack with nothing but Homing Attack. Try to ignore all the other
robots again. In the first stage if you are using Homing Attack on the
front of it it will do no damage at all. So instead when the boss begins
run to the back of it between the wings that have the cannons mounted on
it, it will stop momentarily and you should easily get to it, and use
Homing Attack at the back of it. When you Homing Attack you will creep
forward, if you get too far forward where you can't damage it them
carefully jump off when it is safe and go to the back again, but if you
are careful and keep pressing up you should be able to stay in the safe
spot at the back of the machine hitting it till the first stage is
destroyed.
Stage 2 has a big propeller on it, you can just Homing Attack this and
stay with the machine constantly Homing Attack till it is destroyed.
Stage 3 is the Egg Hawk again, it does not stop, so just run up to it
and Homing Attack again till it is gone.
Some people use Thundershoot to slow it down, but I don't find this
necessary, follow these instructions and you should be fine.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.c.2. Team Battles:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The two team battles are boss number 2 and 5. There are two different
platforms and the second one is a little smaller and the team you are
fighting during the second battle will use Team Blast pretty early, but
it should not matter what platform or team you are fighting. Yep, you
might be fighting a different team, but this is in fact the easiest to
A-rank. Basically what I do is start attacking immediately with
Tornados, hopefully this should send them flying off early which you
have to anyway to A-rank, if they don't well just try again. You should
have no trouble with this except possibly with Team Chaotix, Espio's
Leaf Swirl is really not that great of an attack.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.c.3. Robots:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This category is boss 3, Robot Carnival and boss 5 Robot Storm.
Basically Eggman sends wave after wave of robots for you to destroy.
Here are some good tips:
Remember the best way to kill each type of enemy and use it! Refer to
the part of the guide where I talk about destroying specific enemies,
but it can be frustrating when especially at the end of Robot Storm he
just sends out tons of crazy enemies at once. Also pay attention to what
characters are leveled up or not, it can make a difference of how fast
you destroy them.
Don't worry about points, this can actually mess you up, just worry
about killing everything very quick.
The best attack especially at the end of Robot Storm is to use Power
Formation combos. Not only are you actually invincible when using a
combo, but you will send a fiery rain of destruction on the stage,
killing enemies as soon as they appear and is also a way to fill up Team
Blast when in a dangerous situation especially with hammerbots.
And the best of all is to use Team Blast and to remember how to take
advantage of them, also if you jump on the spring at the beginning of
Robot Carnival you can hit a balloon that will fill up your meter right
away. Here is a quick overview of taking advantage of Team Blast after
effects for each team:
Team Sonic: You can use Light Attack for 10 seconds afterwards, still
enough time to attack more enemies when they start appearing, I like to
send Sonic out when if flight formation, just pressing B and watching
Sonic automatically kill the next wave of enemies, Light Attack can even
kill hammerbots.
Team Dark: The Time Freeze may seem annoying at first because it doesn't
seem to help fill up Team Blast again, but don't let the frozen time go
to waste. Attack especially in flight formation to help fill up that
Team Blast bar again or even use the Team Blast glitch, especially at
the end of Robot Storm you will defiantly want your Team Blast, if you
really get stuck remember to use Power formation to fill up your meter.
Team Rose: Basically just use your invincibility and shield to your
advantage, but Team Rose's is not as hard as the other team's anyway.
Team Chaotix: VERY great, you can horribly use the Ring advantage and
usually fill up your Team Blast meter immediately again after using it!
If is not quite full remember you still have 10 seconds to start killing
the next wave of enemies and getting more rings. I have topped 999 rings
with these bosses using this team. Also not the special note I have for
this team regarding the cannon part of Robot Storm, don't use the
cannon, fly over there and use Thundershoot, you can't reach those
robots with Team Blast!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.c.4. Final Boss, the Egg Emperor:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Definitely one of the hardest bosses, basically the same technique for
all 4 teams, but with slight differences and the interesting fact is
that it is pretty easy with Team Dark if you do it right and hardest
with Team Sonic.
The Egg Emperor has several attacks. You are either on a straight away
platform and he is going away from you, or he is in the middle of the
circular platform and is attacking you while cannons and other robots
will try to mess with you. If he is kind of far away, he will send out
energy slashes with his sword, usually easy to dodge but can be
devastating if they get you when jumping to the next platform. But if he
is too far away, he will charge you, pretty muck impossible to avoid
unless you go into Power Formation and do a combo attack. A little
closer and he will send out missiles, pretty easy to avoid. Anyway here
is the basic strategy:
First part in speed formation, make sure you hit the very first level-up
boxes. Keep up with him so he can't charge you. When going to the first
to second straightaway, you will see a balloon floating there, I like
using flight to make sure I get it, it is another Flight power core, you
definitely want your flight character to be level 2. Then before you get
to the circular platform you can use the star flap thing in Power
Formation to get a power powerup, but not necessary. Now he is in the
center of the platform. Now your first mission is to take out the
cannons, they will hurt you later on usually if you don't and they
contain items. Sometimes after this your Team Blast meter will be
already full, then attack. If it is not go up to Metal Madness and start
Thundershooting till it is full and you can Team Blast. Thundershoot
slows him down and he can't attack nearly as much. You can take care of
the other robots also if they are bother you, Team Blast should destroy
them for you. He might still be able to then get away then you have to
chase him again, make sure he is not going to hit you while crossing the
gap between the circular area and the next straight away, and now that
your flight character is leveled up you can even try to attack him on
the run and I often will be able to use Team Blast again before he
reaches the next circular area. He should be almost gone or gone when
you get to circular area #2. Here are some team-specific tips:
Team Sonic: The hardest team, the Team Blast after-effect may not help,
he will probably run away again before you can finally stop him. The
robots in the circular area are shielded so you can't kill them with
Thundershoot, I try to ignore them and let Team Blast take care of them.
Team Dark: Easy because there is even a glitch that happens sometimes.
Team Blast is very important in this case, so you might want to even
have the gauge full before you get to the first platform, what helps is
killing the red robots one the straight-aways, they kind of get in your
way anyway. Using Team Blast freezes time making it very easy to attack
of course and often he will die just after using Team Blast once then
continuing to attack with Thundershoot even though you should have not
even taken that many points from him. But beware, when he gets down to
very low health with this team he just charges continuously, so the only
way to kill him is to switch to power and attack into nothingness till
your Team Blast meter fills up, then use Team Blast as he is BACKING
AWAY from you so he is not protected by his shield, then attack while
his is frozen, but using the strategy above it should not get to this
point. The robots in the circular areas are a couple of E-2000's and the
beams can be very annoying but they do not move much, I take care of
them with Team Blast.
Team Rose: Easy because there are 20 ring item boxes in three of the
cannons and a shield the fourth, you should have the Team Blast gauge
filled up after you get these rings, then he should be almost dead and
you can take advantage of your invincibility, finish him off with
Thundershoot, if he moves off to the next area aggressively pursue him.
Team Chaotix: Ehh, pretty average but beware, the robots that are in the
circular areas are capture type, have Vector kill them as soon as
possible. Also two of the cannons contain tough golden shield robots,
instead of killing them right away let Team Blast get them for added
rings.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
4.c.5. Extra Boss, Metal Madness and Metal Overlord
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
In order to unlock the Extra battles, you must first get all 7 Chaos
Emeralds from the Special Stages of every second stage, the stage before
the bosses. Then because it is easy to miss, go to story mode, then
arrow over to the right past Team Chaotix and you will see Last Story.
It will appear in Challenge mode after beating it once. Anyway the fight
is broken up into 4 parts, one for each team, the first three being
Metal Madness and the last being Metal Overlord you fight with a Super
Team Sonic. Anyway if you die in one of the four parts you will start
over again at the beginning of that particular part so you can die and
still A-rank it. The only problem with dying during the Metal Madness
part is the fact that how fill the Team Blast meter is and rings are
actually transferred to the next team once you defeat a part of it. Also
remember that how many lives you have in each part is determined by how
many lives that particular team has already earned so if you are
inexperienced make sure you have plenty of lives for each team. The
truth is however like most Extra Bosses in Sonic games it is actually
not that hard, trust me if you follow the instructions I have here you
will make it well under the 7 minute time limit.
METAL MADNESS, TEAM ROSE PART:
Metal Madness' Attacks and other info:
The spot you hit in order to damage Metal Madness indicates what attacks
you CAN'T use against him. In Team Rose's part the spot is always blue
so you cannot use speed formation, Amy, to attack him at all. Cream
cannot level up very well, so basically you should attack only with Big.
Metal Madness' attacks are pretty basic and include a tail swipe across
the platform, and fiery attack across the platform and a spike attack
where you have to avoid the spikes that come at you.
General Technique:
The easiest part of course. Immediately switch to Power formation and
stay there. Grab a few rings and break open one of the two wooden boxes
on the back of the platform, they contain Team Blast Item Boxes. Get one
of them and then walk over to the front of the platform, the large red
spot in general is always the best place to attack from, and perform a
Team Blast to really deliver a heavy blow. Attack the enemy with Big
using his B button ground attack shooting Amy and Cream at Metal
Madness, jump after shooting Amy and Cream so you do not go into a Combo
Attack which does no good in this situation, you will be invincible of
course so you just have to attack, jump, attack. When you loose your
invincibility he should already be mostly finished. Go to the other box
and get the other Team Blast Item Box, but DO NOT USE TEAM BLAST AGAIN!
Team Blast can be passed onto the next team in this boss, if you use it
now you will just waste it. Instead go back to the front of the
platform, it should only be a few more hits and you will be on to the
next part.
METAL MADNESS, TEAM CHAOTIX PART:
Metal Madness' Attacks and other info:
He attacks the same as in the previous part with one added devastating
attack, he will send spikes at you that can freeze a character in the
team and trap them. If all three team members are trapped you lose a
life, so if a team member gets trapped attack the ice dome and free them
as soon as possible. The spot on Metal Madness in this part alternates
between red and yellow, when it is red no Power attacks, Yellow no
flight. That means that you could attack with Espio the entire time, but
that is too slow, alternate between Charmy and Vector. There is also a
cannon toward the back of the platform in this part, you could use it to
attack and you do at one point in the instructions I give, but in
general you do no want to use it to attack, but see the balloons? They
do contain useful level-ups.
General Technique:
Team Blast will have been passed on to Team Chaotix, but before using it
first you need to level up Charmy to level 2. First change to Flight
formation and head for the cannon, it will fire you out into the air and
you will hit a balloon above the platform that will level you up. The
second balloon up there levels up Speed, I never seen the need to get
it, but it's easy enough, so ehh. Then change to Power Formation and get
in the cannon again, this time you will have to aim the cannon. See the
balloons in the air off the back of the platform? First aim the cannon
at the left balloon, it contains another Flight power core. You could
get the second balloon, a Power power core, but instead I then aim the
cannon right at the spot on Metal Madness which is yellow to start of
with and fire the last two shots getting a couple of hits in and doing
that makes sure the characters land safely back on the platform. Now go
to the front of the platform, the red spot again, and Team Blast him.
After the Team Blast the spot is usually red, now just keep attacking,
when it is red attack with Thundershoot, when it changes to yellow
switch to Vector, on the red spot, and use his ground B button attack to
shoot Espio and Charmy at him. Keep switching like this, when attacking
with Charmy you might want to fly up in the air to avoid stuff. If the
ice gets you then free your teammates. Anyway I found it a little fast
in the end if you actually take your time and fill up your Team Blast
meter a little more at this point, because a full Team Blast Meter does
help with the Team Dark part a lot, but you can get by with it at least
half-full.
METAL MADNESS, TEAM DARK PART:
Metal Madness' Attacks and other info:
His attacks are the same as in the Team Chaotix part, but he dishes them
out faster and the platform is a little smaller. This time around the
spot alternates between all three colors, but I still alternate between
flight and power, attacking with flight when the spot is blue or red and
power when the spot is yellow.
General Technique:
The Team Blast meter from the Chaotix part is about half-way full if you
kill the Team Chaotix part most efficently, if it is full them it is a
little easier at first but in the long run it is actually a little
better if you do not come into this part with the meter perfectly full.
First level up your characters, the metal boxes contain Power of course,
the wooden boxes are Speed and if you fly up in the air you will find
three balloons containing flight of course. Anyway you want to have your
Team Blast meter full, so if it is just use it, or fill it up, but
actually make sure you don't almost kill him or kill him outright before
you use Team Blast, this saves time. You might just want to fill up the
meter faster, for example blowing away the spike pillars with Rocket
Accel is a good thing. Once that Team Blast meter is full it is great
because time is frozen, then you need to alternate between Rouge when
the spot is blue and red and Omega when it turns yellow, to attack with
Omega you have to jump first before pressing B to fire Shadow and Rouge
at him, this is harder than attacking with Big or Vector, the red spot
on the platform is the best position again to do this from. Even if he
is not dead after you pounded him during that 10 seconds just alternate
between Rouge and Omega still till he is gone.
If you are really good then these first three parts will be done in
about 2 minutes.
METAL OVERLORD, TEAM SONIC (SUPER) PART:
Actually not that hard, all you have to do is fill up your Team Blast
gauge and use Team Blast 5 times to defeat him. The only way you can die
is if you run out of rings, or the very unlikely possibility all three
teammates are frozen at the end of the spike attack. In this battle
unlike previous super battles you lose one ring every 2 seconds which is
good. Anyways Metal Overlord has about three main attacks that are
countered by Speed, Power and Flight. Countering the attacks with the
correct formation will help fill up your Team Blast meter and make sure
you hit the balloons containing rings also. Anyway there are a couple of
different techniques. If you have a very nice time from the first three
parts, the simplest way to do this part is a Tails only technique, just
stay in Flight formation and keep Thundershooting to fill up your meter
ignoring Metal Overlord's attacks, often you can do this and still get
within the 7 minute time limit and get an A-rank. But the battle will go
a lot faster if you counter the attacks correctly, here is how:
The Crystal Attack is countered with Speed, it is best to just Homing
Attack the large crystals to break them. You can press B at the right
time and use Light Attack on them, but this does indeed burn up rings
and I see no point in doing this.
The Spike Attack is countered with Flight, just keep thundershooting the
spikes. Anyway toward the end of the attack the spikes will start to
freeze, if a teammate is trapped make sure to rescue them.
The Battleship is countered with Power, when you see him go beneath the
clouds change to power and fill the area with fireballs with the B
button attack. You get a nice boost in Team Blast meter by destroying
it.
Sometimes especially if the fight goes on for a while Metal Overlord
will freeze time for 20 seconds, he can't hurt you but well you end up
losing 10 rings if he does this.
Don't forget you can also use the Team Blast glitch here too. Anyway if
you follow these instructions you should be well under the 7 minute
requirement.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5. Missions List:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This is a nice long part of the guide. It covers all the stages/bosses
in order, all the boss info in contained in the first part of this
guide. Each stage is followed by the team names, and under each team
name is the in game description of both team missions which is followed
by type of mission, score/time requirements for the mission and in some
cases specific things to keep in mind when trying to get an A rank, but
often I will put nothing here with means to just follow the general
strategy for that specific type of mission. The bosses are greatly
covered in the first section, only very brief info is contained here.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.a. Stage 1: Seaside Hill
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level:
The first level is the easiest of course. It's music is a remix from
Sonic Adventure's Emerald Coast. Anyway the most annoying missions for
this level are Team Chaotix's find 20 hermit crabs, they did hide a few
of them very well, and Team Sonic's time trial is sort of tight but
really not that bad if you focus more on getting through than on
enemies, but besides that you should not have any problems A-ranking
this level at all.
No formation really dominates and no shortcuts to speak of.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Head for the whale island!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 60,000 points
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 5 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 50,000 points and 5 minute completion
Special Notes:
5 minutes is tight for this level, but you should be find if you focus
on getting through it instead of on enemies, and there are a lot of
light speed dashes, you should make it with more than enough points.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Get to the whale island!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 70,000 points
Special Notes: None, pretty easy.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 7 minutes
Special Notes:
A good amount of time, only about 100 enemies in the level, you will
probably miss some of them in the cart part but it is perfectly okay to
hit the back ring at the end.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Get to the other side of the sea!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 48,000 points
Special Notes: Easy
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 2 minutes 30 seconds
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Find 10 hermit crabs!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points and 10 hermit crabs
Mission 2: Find all 20 hermit crabs!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points and 20 hermit crabs
Special Notes:
A few of them are very well hidden, a few or the harder ones include the
very first one that is near a 1up off the side of the cliff near where
the first obvious crab is and a couple hidden under movable ruins and
breakable blocks. Consult the guide if necessary.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.b. Stage 2: Ocean Palace
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: This level is sort of similar to Seaside Hill, but
has a more "closed" feeling to it, and also all teams except Team
Chaotix go through the turtle area where you get to choose formation and
which platforms to go on, and Team Sonic and Team Dark have to outrun
giant rocks at the end. Team Dark has the hardest time in this level.
This level requires more use of the Power formation than in Seaside Hill
because it has fans and doors/bricks to break and Speed is used quite a
bit too, Flight not so much.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Escape from the ancient ruins!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 50,000 points
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 5 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points and 5 minute completion
Special Notes:
Kind of tight, focus on getting through not extra points.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Flee from the ancient ruins!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 90,000 points
Special Notes:
Kind of hard for some reason, make sure to get as many points as
possible in level and use Team Blast to save time. Also pretty soon
after the first checkpoint there is a choice of paths, fly up to the
left or break a block then a lower speed path, go the fly path and kill
the robots up there for more points, at the turtle part more robots are
found if you get in the cannon in Fly Formation.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 5 minutes
Special Notes:
5 minutes is tight, in order to make it you need to use Team Blast as
much as possible except in front of fans of course them run like heck
killing robots along the way, and go the fly path instead of the lower
path were described in mission 1, and get in the cannon in fly formation
at the turtle part. If you do that and get all other robots in the level
you should make it under 5 minutes and have 100 robots a little before
you reach the rock part at the end.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Find the ruins floating on the sea!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 5 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes: Pretty easy if you focus on gathering rings, there are a
lot of rings on the flight path instead of the speed path, in the same
area described in Team Dark's section.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Rescue the Chao trapped in the palace!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 50,000 points
Special Notes:
Only one item to find at the end so treat as a normal level.
Mission 2: Rescue Chao without being detected by the enemies!
Type: Team Chaotix Stealth
A-rank Requirement: 43,000 points without being detected by robots
Special Notes:
Not a hard stealth mission, definitely use Team Blast to kill all the
enemies guarding the Chao at the end, fill up your Team Blast meter
beforehand if you have to.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.c. Boss 1: EGG HAWK
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Egg Bird
A-rank Requirement: 1 minute
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.d. Stage 3: Grand Metropolis
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level:
This futuristic city level is all about speed. The vast majority of it
should be played in Speed formation, and the blue paths happen to
increase your speed more, in fact Power and Flight are not used very
much at all overall. No parts are really that annoying, it's pretty fun
to speed through, the Team Sonic missions are the hardest.
Most shortcuts involve just crossing gaps by Homing Attacking robots or
with Light Speed Dash in Speed Formation, nothing really major to speak
of and are pretty obvious.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Rescue the city under the control of Eggman!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 60,000 points
Special Notes:
Like I say in the time trial section, killing enemies is important but
try to go fast too and make sure to get all the bonus points from making
Light Speed Dashes across gaps.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 5 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 58,000 points and 5 minute completion
Special Notes:
The vast majority of this level is Speed Formation and the level
shortcuts are mainly catching Light Speed Dashes across gaps, definitely
level up Sonic.
You get a lot of points from Light Speed Dashing rings and 5 minutes is
enough time, but the points for an A-rank for some reason can be
elusive, killing enemies is more important in this time trial than most,
make sure to light speed dash all the rings you can and kill enemies you
see also. You have to master the Light Speed Dash and Homing Attack to
do this one well. To give you an idea, I spead through this level in
only 4 minutes and ended up with 57,000 points, a B Rank, then I went
slower killing enemies only making it with about 20 seconds to spare and
had over 70,000 points.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Crush the city under the control of Eggman!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 65,000 points
Special Notes: Easier than Team Sonic, you really don't have to try that
hard to get enough points. Also beware that Team Blast can get you stuck
in a few places, and Team Blast also stops movement of the blue paths.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 8 minutes
Special Notes: In several places, especially after checkpoint 2 and
beyond, you can miss robots if you go over certain gaps or go up to
higher places instead of going the lower route, so you need to make sure
you get these robots. There are only about 100 robots in the level, it
is okay to a certain extent if you do not reach 100 by the end of the
level and have to use the back ring, but a little tight, going through
the level once will put you a little over the 7 minute mark probably.
Also remember to hit the switch at checkpoint 2, or you will miss 5
robots in the two rooms!
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Stroll through the modern city!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 50,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 45 seconds
Special Notes:
This one is kind of tight, but if you get the rings that you see and
continue on quickly 3 minutes seems possible.
Right after you encounter the first enemy there are a couple of Fly
monitors and a boost rings, instead of hitting the boost ring go to the
area below that where you will find a cage guarded by robots containing
20 rings and also other rings including a 3 star spring. There is one
more important cage with 20 rings later on surrounded by enemies out in
the open.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Clear out the enemies in the city!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 65,000 points with all 85 robots destroyed
Special Notes:
Extreme Team Blastage and Ringage because of Team Blastage!
There are a lot of robots, but all of them are pretty darn obvious and
you will get so many rings from Team Blast you should defiantly be able
to keep that meter full, not hard at all, make sure your cannon aim is
on target when you get to the ones you have to kill with the cannon.
Mission 2: Clear out the enemies within 8 minutes!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt/Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 60,000 points with all 85 robots destroyed in 8
minutes
Special Notes:
8 minutes is a good amount of time and you should make it if you are
quick at killing enemies, treat pretty much like the above mission but
you have to do it in one go through the level, Team Blastage!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.e. Stage 4: Power Plant
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level:
Unlike it's sister Grand Metropolis, Power Plant has a lot of Flight
formation oriented areas, but also some Speed areas. One thing that
really stands out is the fact that you have to defeat enemies in order
to progress further. Also Team Sonic and Team Dark have to deal with a
rising lava area at the end that can be very nerve-racking, they even
give you a 1up before hand because they know you will be taking quite a
bit of time to get through it. This level is pretty challenging for all
teams except Chaotix.
Like Grand Metropolis, the shortcuts in this zone are mainly going the
high route in some areas, nothing really unobvious to speak of.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Escape from the chaotic plant!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Special Notes:
The energy tank part at the end is quite rough, it just takes practice
in getting through the various parts quickly to avoid the rising lava.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 9 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points and 9 minute completion
Special Notes:
No drastic shortcuts. A lot of enemies to kill to get to further
sections and you should get enough points from that, ignore most other
enemies.
In the two rooms with gray walls that are multi-layered the high path is
much quicker than the low path where you will just have to encounter
more enemies you have to kill to go further.
Pick speed over flight.
The first part when you are the rising platform should be done in Flight
Formation, the second part mostly in Flight but change to Speed so you
can Light Speed Dash the spirals of rings for lots of points.
Same note about the energy tank as for mission 1.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Escape from the chaotic plant!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 72,000 points
Special Notes: Just like in Grand Metropolis, be careful where you use
Team Blast, it can get you stuck in places where platforms raise up
after killing enemies or blue paths appear and other places, in fact you
get stuck most places if you use Team Blast, so you might want to
consider using it anyway and use the time you are stuck to fill your
meter up again. Shortcut the first rising platform area in Flight
formation by hitting the booster rings, the second one is shortcut in
Speed formation by using multiple Light Speed Dashes.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 7 minutes
Special Notes: More robots are found on the lower paths in the "room"
section of the levels, so don't go up high. Also don't shortcut the
rising platforms, kill the enemies on them. 7 minutes is pretty tight,
the best I can do is about 6 minutes 30 seconds.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Escape from the energy plant!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes:
This one is difficult actually and a lot of the rings are not that
obvious, so here is a walkthrough, almost entirely in Flight formation:
For the very first part which is the rising platform you want to be in
flight formation.
The first three balloons are all flight power cores so it is fine if you
just get one or two, but for the next two circles of balloons fly up and
hit the boosters so you have a chance of popping them all, there are a
total of 30 rings in the balloons. When you get to the top circle around
the room to pick up rings and Cream should be level three. When you get
to the top kill the enemies in Flight formation and the blue path will
appear. Get the rings on the path and make sure to jump and hit the
balloon before you fall lower. Now after that blue path and you are spit
out of the dome you will see a speed and fly choice, pick fly so you can
pop the balloons in the boost rings and even get an extra 10 in the air
before you fall back down on another blue path. At the checkpoint ignore
both the boxes beside it that only contain power cores and the boost
rings and balloon you see above, hit the speed pads on the floor
grabbing the line of rings along the way. In the area you are in now
first thunder shoot like crazy to activate the 3 star bumper for more
rings and to destroy the enemies, when the enemies are gone a cage opens
and you get a nice 1 up as a reward, also grab the rings on the floor
below where the enemies where. Now go up the blue path up the wall and
you will be by another blue path and you will see a Special Key in a
cage. Go along the blue path and grab the rings, you will find two 3
star springs, activate them with thunder shoot to get 10 rings but don't
bounce on them, then go back to where that Special Key is. Now fly up
and hit the booster above the key to get another cool 20 rings from
balloons in the air. Now land near the weight and use Thundershoot to
safely gather the rings on the ground then fly over the weight and go up
to the next area, don't worry about the 3 star spring, it isn't rings.
Now carefully avoid fireballs when going up the next blue path but don't
go too high up afterwards and hit the rainbow hoops, go lower and kill
the enemies before going uphill to get a few rings there. In the next
room with the turtle, use Team Blast to make it easier, then break the
boxes in Power formation and get your meter filled back up from the
boxes to the left and 10 rings in the boxes to the ring and also grab
the 6 rings on the floor before changing back to Flight formation and
going up the blue path that appeared when you killed the turtle. Go
through the next room killing the enemies, grab the handle and land on
the floor near the blue path going up the wall but be careful of
fireballs, when going up the next blue path there are rings you can
gather. At the top of the blue path you will see a target, try to hit it
off-center so you are rewarded rings instead of a 1-up or Team Blast. In
the next room gather the rings on the floor, if you did the first part
perfectly there should just be enough rings to get 200, if not kill the
enemy so the pillar goes up, there will be boxes you have to thunder
shoot before you can continue on. After the next checkpoint go down
instead of up in the huge area and you will find a huge amount of rings
on the floor, if you are not to 200 after that forget it.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Defeat the 3 gold turtle robots!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points with 3 gold turtles destroyed
Special Notes: To save time get the first three turtles because there is
a huge amount of level between the first three and the last two. Kill
the turtles with Team Blast instead of opening the cages, a lot quicker.
Mission 2: Defeat the 5 gold turtle robots!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points with 5 gold turtles destroyed
Special Notes: Same as before, but with less points, must know where all
5 turtles are.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.f. Boss 2: TEAM Battle #1
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Team Battle
A-rank Requirement: 30 seconds
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.g. Stage 5: Casino Park
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level:
Casino Park is basically pinball tables separated by level areas. There
is a huge time bonus, and it is very important if you want an A rank in
pretty much everything except Team Rose's second mission and the Team
Chaotix missions NOT to play around on the pinball tables very much at
all. Some of the pinball tables are quite tricky to get off of, so I
will write a general guide to the pinball tables and how to get off of
them fast. Not all teams encounter all these tables, this will be noted.
For the ring gathering missions the second table you encounter is much
more profitable, well in the case for Team Chaotix anyway, Team Rose's
is pretty easy, I will explain this later under those sections.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS!:
This section is almost like general walkthrough, I numbered each pinball
table and slide, and also included a couple more shortcuts inbetween
tables too, but some teams don't make it to some tables. Anyway this is
how to get off each tables as fast as possible, I'm not really going to
go into much detail about Team Chaotix because with them you should end
your journey quite quickly if you won enough rings.
Pinball Table 1 (Team Sonic, Team Dark start here): Small table, exit is
at the top, pretty easy to hit yourself up there.
After Pinball 1: Slightly different for Team Sonic and Team Dark, but
basically go the high route, you will end up using Light Speed Dash,
slightly faster but not by much. (Team Rose starts here)
Slide 1: This is related to shortcutting Pinball 2, at the end of Slide
1 are three paths, the middle path puts you right in the position to
easily make it out of Pinball 2, if you can't get in the middle path,
roll to the bottom right, the character will be rolling at you at this
point, this will take you to the right hand part of Pinball 2, read the
Pinball 2 section for more info.
Pinball 2 (Team Chaotix starts here): This is a huge pinball table with
three distinct sections, the huge middle section, and two smaller
sections. There are cannons beneath the two smaller sections, beneath
the large section you will find you will have to go through a small
section to get to the right cannon, this is annoying and only makes
sense if you want to kill the robots for Team Dark's second mission but
not really worth it, but Team Chaotix actually starts out down here. The
exit is at the very top and middle of the huge middle section. The
easiest way for all teams except Chaotix to escape the pinball table is
to have already chosen the middle path at slide one, this puts you at
the top most set of flippers and it is very easy to escape from there
unless you somehow mess up and end up falling lower on the table. If you
could not make it to the middle slide, the right slide takes you to the
right small section. Here you will see two half-tube slides going up,
try to get in to the top one. The left slide pretty much puts you in the
middle of the huge section and you will not find it that easy to make it
out. If you end up at the cannon below this section get in the cannon in
either Speed or Flight position and it will shoot you in the right
place, you will have to reposition it if you get into it in Power
formation. Team Chaotix starts in the level area below this pinball
table that leads to this cannon and has to use it, so you have to get
into speed or flight then get into the top slide to get out of this
table, you can try to earn your rings here but it is best to go to the
next table, see the Chaotix section for more details.
Slides After the Roulette Table: There are two slides that you can
choose from after you get off the Roulette Table, this leads to Pinball
3. Take the left slide in order to start off higher on Pinball 3.
Pinball 3: A small table, take the left slide as described above to
start off higher.
Pinball 4: This is the great one to get rings at for Team Rose mission 2
and both Team Chaotix missions, it has two section and the exit is in
the middle of the right hand section. If you fall of the bottom you will
end up in a little bit of a level section, you want to keep going there
and getting back on the table if you are trying to earn rings... there are
also three robots down there for Team Dark's second if you care. but for
other teams there is a way to bypass this table completely. This is a
little risky, but you need to go into Flight formation and then jump off
the platform in front of the table or if there are dice floating in
front of the table off of those, then sort of head toward the bottom
right corner of the table, but go under the table, you will find a
platform under the table you should either be able to land on or fly at
the last minute. Or if you want a safer alternative, jump off the dice
in front of the table in Flight formation and try to fly to the table's
exit.
(Team Rose's Goal is in between these tables)
Pinball 5: This is a huge double table. There is really no need to get
on the top table unless you want to find the switch to open up the VIP
table with Team Sonic, Dark or Rose. The exit is at the top and just
like table two if you fall down to the bottom you are punished by having
to go through a section of the level to get back on it, you only want to
go down here with Team Dark Mission 2 to kill robots. The quickest way
is to get in the cannon that shoots you to this table and sort of aim it
to the left or right a little, the left side of the table happens to
have the best arrow boosters to shoot you up a little higher but more
likely that you will end up in a slide that sends you to the top table.
VIP Pinball Table: Nice stuff up there and you get double the winnings
and it can be a little bit of a shortcut straight to pinball 6 if you
don't stay on it long, but well not really worth taking the extra time
to throw the switch. Team Chaotix goes through here naturally but if you
get this far with Chaotix then well you are not getting an A-rank... Go
the regular was instead.
Pinball 6: Easy, the exit is at the bottom, that leads to a slide that
takes you to Team Sonic's and Team Shadow's goal.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Dash through the giant theme park!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points
Special Notes:
This level treat as a time trial! To A-rank ignore playing on the
pinball tables, get through as fast as possible, see the above section
to know how to get off each pinball table as soon as possible and kill
lots of enemies.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 5 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points and 5 minute completion
Special Notes:
Same notes as mission 1 but even more urgent, you defiantly need to
scoot out of the pinball tables, this one can be rough to do under 5
minutes if you accidentally get stuck on one of the tougher tables! You
need to be very fast and kill enemies with maximum points bonus to A-
rank. I barely A-ranked this one truthfully.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Blast through the giant theme park!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 50,000 points
Special Notes: Treat as a time trial just like Team Sonic's missions and
Team Rose's first mission, use the shortcut guide above, but you also
might want to kill many of the robots in your path also.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 10 minutes
Special Notes:
Normally you do want to get off pinball tables as quickly as possible
even though there are robots on them, because the danger of being hung
up on them is too high. But if you look at the pinball guide above,
there are level areas underneath tables 2, 4 and 5, the ones underneath
2 and 4 are not really worth it, but you might want to go to the area
under 5. You can also exploit Team Blast like crazy because using it in
most places will not hang you up. It might be possible to get 100 in one
go, but very unlikely, try to get through it fast with about 60-70 in
about 5-6 minutes, then hit the back ring and go through the level
again, you will have plenty of time.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Play the giant pinball tables!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points
Special Notes: Also treat as a time trial, VERY short level and not many
in-level points are to be had.
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 4 minutes
Special Notes:
Easy, you will probably easily get them before you even get to the
second pinball machine, but if you don't treat like a Team Chaotix
mission for this level.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Win 200 Rings!
Type: Team Chaotix Gather Rings
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points and 200 rings
Special Notes:
Get off the first (#2 in the list) pinball table as soon as you can! It
is kind of hard to earn rings there. Follow the instructions under the
general level shortcut section to get out of the next two quickly, you
will want to go to pinball table #4 in the list above, for Chaotix it is
the third one you encounter. There are two dice floating in front of the
table going in a circle around a bumper and a third one in front of the
slot machine on the table. Get into fly formation and get on the dice,
then fly from the dice right into the top of the slot machine. You will
have three balls in the machine so the bet is tripled and you will get
triple the winnings. Now after falling out of the machine just let the
characters fall down the pinball table, you will have to get past star
bumpers but these give you rings of course and down there is a mini slot
machine you should hit to try to get a few more rings and then exit at
the bottom. Now move toward the screen and you will find springs that
will take you to a cannon, make sure you are still in Flight Formation.
The cannon will fire you back to the starting point in front of the
three dice. Just keep going into the slot machine with three balls and
falling out again, with triple the bet you will earn enough rings a lot
faster, but also remember you will lose more if you are unlucky, you
might have to try more than once, it is a mission of luck you know.
Also remember to activate star bumpers and even more importantly Team
Blast all enemies to earn more rings. Also remember to go back a little
after you hit the first checkpoint, there is a metal star box that has a
switch, it opens a door and there are 20 rings inside.
Mission 2: Win 500 Rings!
Type: Team Chaotix Gather Rings
A-rank Requirement: 14,000 points and 500 rings
Special Notes:
Same as for mission one, just takes a lot longer.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.h. Stage 6: BINGO Highway
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level:
Getting through this level quickly is a little easier than with Casino
Park, but now you have the BINGO slides! The last one especially is
dangerous and it is easy to fall off to your doom. All I can say is
practice makes perfect. Getting Bingos is great, doesn't take extra
time, but don't bother with pinball machines. Team Sonic mission 2 is
VERY hard... I made a walkthrough for it, and also the shortcuts described
in it can be used by the other teams also, but some of Team Chaotix's
chips are off the main path a little.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS!:
Read the Team Sonic Mission 2 walkthrough, all the shortcuts are in
there and most of the other teams can use them too, but in reality you
really only need to worry about them when doing Team Sonic.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Blast down the high speed slides!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points
Special Notes:
Make sure you do not die, but easier said than done with the awful BINGO
slides. Like in Casino Park don't get hung up on pinball machines, but a
little less important in this case, get through fast, but you don't have
to be as fast as you are in the Time Trial.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 6 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points and 6 minute completion
Special Notes:
This one is just plain awful, not point wise, but time and dying
wise!!!!! Not only is it hard to make it through without dying because
of falling off of the BINGO slides, but 6 minutes is very, very tight in
this level. In fact it is so tight, I decided to write a walkthrough, if
you follow it exactly and you do not die once it should get you there in
about 5 minutes 45 seconds and you will have an A-rank, but not dying is
a lot easier said than done...
Starting on the slide, you want to hit the first ramp, you will see
three slides below you, there is a balloon above the middle slide. HIT
THE BALLOON THEN INSTEAD OF GETTING ON THE MIDDLE SLIDE QUICKLY MOVE
OVER AND GET ON THE LEFT ONE! The balloon gives you Team Blast but the
left slide is the quickest route through. Now when you get off that
slide, you will end up in front of a door with a search light robot. Now
for extra points if you want, get in front of the searchlight and
activate it so more robots appear, then quickly use Team Blast to kill
them while you are standing next to the door for a quick 1000 points.
Now the door is open, use Light Speed Dash on the rings on the floor,
then switch to Power and use the fan. The balloon at the top is a
shield, I say don't worry about getting it. If you are quick enough
maybe Team Blast meter is still going and you can quickly jump as
Knuckles and send Sonic to Light Attack the robots you find next to the
glass floor, but your main priority is breaking through that floor. Off
the next slide you will hit springs, then you will see a silver search
bot and a case. Jump up as Knuckles and then press B to Fire Dunk the
search light bot. The case opens and then hit the switch. This makes the
dice up ahead solid. Get into flight formation, and just jump from one
dice to another instead of going into full-blown flight, make sure to
make it across to the checkpoint, hit the checkpoint at Tails. Now
switch to power and hit the machine as Knuckles and you will be on the
first BINGO slide. On this slide try to get at least 2 BINGOS to fill up
your Team Blast meter. After that ride you will be on a pinball table.
This one is kind of tricky, the exit is at the top, you have to use the
paddles that line the center to keep hitting you upwards, it is kind of
easy to get stuck on this part unfortunately, get off as soon as
possible. In the next room is a bunch of capture bots you need to
destroy to continue on, use Team Blast, preferably near the left edge so
you get the searchlight bot above you also. Once the capture bots are
gone, the dice will be straight and you can fly on it to get higher,
kill the bots up there too if Tails is at least level 2 or Team Blast is
still in effect, if not just try to ignore them or just shoot at them
once to knock them down. Now go across the next two dice, and hit the
checkpoint as Tails. Now switch to Knuckles if you want, and now you are
on a slide again, don't worry about the pinball inside, just keep going.
You will hit some springs, go through star bumpers, and then find a
flying silver robot with electricity coming out of it guarding a switch
and two armor robots. Team Blast meter will not be full. Instead just
focus on getting the switch, you should not get hurt if you just punch
around it with Knuckles. Then when you get the door open head down the
hallway, kill the enemy at the end and use the fan of course. Don't
worry about getting that balloon, go down below and have a kill fest
with Knuckles to destroy all those robots so you can continue on. Open
the case, hit the switch, break the glass at the end of the hallway, and
you are on your next BINGO slide. Getting a BINGO here is not as
important, but helps to fill up Team Blast again. You will end up on the
next pinball table, this time the exit is down, so just fall down and
exit. Now you will see lots of springs and star bumpers, just spring
across this large area just focusing on getting across, don't go down.
Now you will come to a couple of capture bots and a robot with a tough
shield, you will probably have Team Blast, DON'T use it! Focus on
getting past them instead of killing them, but make sure the capture
bots don't get you, I like using Thundershoot to knock them out. Now use
Homing Attack on the green star bumpers so you can get to the next
checkpoint. Use the machine as Knuckles, hit a spring and you will now
be at a huge area with glass floors and 6 robots. This is where you use
Team Blast of course, right in the middle of the area. The switch to
activate the dice is in the last glass area on the left next to the
dice, in a steal box right in the lower left hand corner of that
depression, don't waste time breaking all the glass and stuff. Now get
into Flight and go up the dice, try to jump from dice to dice as they
reach their highest point, a lot faster that way. Hit the balloon and
kill the enemy if you want, but it is more important to get on the
slide. A long tube, but shortly you will find yourself on the last BINGO
slide. Now on this one really focus on staying alive instead of getting
BINGOs, it is very hard, and very disappointing if you plunge to your
death here, but remember you still have hope if there is the chance that
one of your teammates is still on the slide when you fall off. There are
a few sections to this slide, but the most important one is right at the
end. You will find three smaller slides to choose from again, all three
lead to the last pinball table that contains the goal in the center, but
you really want to aim for the center one that takes you to Ariel BINGO.
Now this may seem a little slow, but it is very easy to get numbers and
earn rings as points, plus you land right on the goal, if you get on the
pinball table you have to fight to get to the goal and break through
star bumpers, possible but more often than not when I go this way I end
up dying right here from lack of time. GOOD LUCK!!!!!
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Try the high speed slides!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 42,000 points
Special Notes:
Try to get a fast time and kill lots of robots, the Team Sonic Mission 2
guide above will help.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 12 minutes
Special Notes:
You will actually find more robots if you take the slower paths instead
of the faster ones as in a lot of Team Dark levels, you have a pretty
good amount of time.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Try the BINGO slides!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points
Special Notes: Get through it quickly and take the level shortcuts,
easy.
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes: Easy, especially if you get to the BINGO slide as fast as
possible and win BINGOS.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Collect 10 casino chips!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points with 10 chips
Special Notes: Just concentrate on getting the easier chips, pretty
easy.
Mission 2: Collect all 20 casino chips!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 20,000 points with 20 chips
Special Notes: Some chips are VERY hard to find or get! Consult the
Chaotix guide if necessary, use flowers to go backwards in various
points in the level to grab chips again, you really don't have much of a
time burden here.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.i. Boss 3: ROBOT CARNIVAL
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Robot Destroy
A-rank Requirement:
Team Sonic: 2 minutes 30 seconds
Team Dark: 3 minutes
Team Rose: 1 minute 30 seconds
Team Chaotix: 3 minutes
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.j. Stage 7: Rail Canyon
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: Lots of rail grinding... kind of fun, but wait till you
try to A rang Team Dark's and Team Chaotix Second mission especially!!!
It is very awful! You have to take all the shortcuts and get everything
just right!!! Grrrr....
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS!:
Swirling rails (Team Dark, Chaotix): Near the beginning you will find
that the rails you are one start spiraling down, you can just jump from
the top of this spiral in Flight formation and land on rails below, Team
Chaotix needs to hit a switch in order to continue on from here.
At the part blocked by lasers (Team Chaotix):
Instead of bothering with the switches use Leaf Swirl and become
invisible to get past the lasers then switch to fly and use Charmy to
open the flower.
Racing the rhino trains part: The inside tracks are faster, but more
dangerous, safer to get through this part on the middle rail.
"Nausiating Rails" Part: After the racing the armored trains part is a
lot of messed up rails and platforms, confusing! In this mess is another
checkpoint, hit it, it looks like you have to kill enemies and open a
cage that has a switch in it to continue, ignore this. A HUGE shortcut
is at this checkpoint get in fly formation and try to jump through all
the rails, you will see an orange tunnel below and ahead where the rails
eventually lead, land on top if it then jump inside of it and land on
the rails, this bypasses some of that sort of nauseating rail grinding
in this area.
Shortcut the switch part at the end (Team Chaotix):
To totally bypass the switches when you get into the puzzle area at
first just go straight on the rails and go past the first switch that is
surrounded by the train going around in a circle, get into Flight
Formation. You will go up a hill and at the top slow down, you will be
under a sign pointing up, this is where the blue laser rail starts. Now
jump off and go to your right and you will find the rails that you would
normally have to activate a switch to get to. It is sort and curves
around, SLOW, you don't want to go far. Look ahead and you will see the
area that the second red rail would have connected you to, it is right
behind the sign that points to the right. Jump for the sign, the camera
will change angle on you but don't let that bother you, see the entrance
to the tunnel, the stuff sort of sticking out behind the sign? They are
very solid, land on them, then jump and fly till you find a yellow and
black striped platform, then from there fly up to the rails that lead to
the second switch puzzle which I explain below.
Last switch puzzle (Team Chaotix):
You can either just use the standard shortcut described in the general
section so you don't have to worry about what switches you hit, or you
can remember a combo that works, here is one that does even though it
might freak you out:
Hit the first two stitches on the middle rail, then switch to the left
rail and stay there, you will look like you are going toward doom, but
you end up hitting a switch again that gets you the correct laser rails.
There is probably an easier one, but I usually use the above trick and
haven't really researched this much.
Rails near a checkpoint (Team Sonic, Dark): There are a set of rails
that you can either choose to go the top way, or to hit a checkpoint
below, the top way is faster even though you miss a checkpoint. Team
Dark Second Mission Note: Homing attack the line of robots, then go down
to the checkpoint, more robots that way and the upper way is not as much
of a shortcut for Team Shadow as it is for Team Sonic.
Last terminal station (Team Sonic, Dark, Chaotix) : Near the end you
will encounter a lot of rail grinding stuff before you get to the last
orange terminal that has the goal ring inside. But from high up you can
actually jump off the rails early and head toward the last orange
terminal station and run across the roof! Very handy in the Team Chaotix
part to bypass the last switch puzzle. Then just fall through right at
the Goal Ring!
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Head for the terminal station!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points
Special Notes: Nothing that spectacular to say, use shortcuts if you
want to, hit rainbow rings.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 5 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points and 5 minute completion
Special Notes: Arrgghhhh!!! Not as bad as the Team Dark or Team Chaotix
second mission, but you still want to research the level shortcuts!
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Find the entrance to Eggman's base!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Special Notes: You need to kill things too to get enough points, but the
shortcuts don't really hurt.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 10 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes: THIS ONE IS PURE EVIL!!! There is a huge part of the
level at the beginning where you are killing no robots except for the
two rhino bots that crash and die on their own. What makes it worse is
the fact you need to go thorough the level twice!!! If you ever want to
A-rank this, you must absolutely take every possible shortcut, grind on
the rails as fast as you can as Shadow, but most importantly you have to
horribly take advantage of Team Blast! Use it as often as you can!!! I
would write a walkthrough, but the last time I beat this was months ago
and I can't do it anymore without cheating, and when I did do it, I
barely made it after so many tries!!! There are a couple of Team Blast
item boxes near the beginning, one is after the spiral rail portion you
can shortcut at the beginning, hit the speed booster to make sure you
are going fast enough so when you launch off the end of the rails you
will hit the Rainbow Rings. After you go through them you will hit a
balloon that contains a Team Blast fill-up, use this shortly after the
first checkpoint where all the robots are near the key. Another one
involves the fact that the area below the second checkpoint is set up
differently for Team Dark, there is a wall separating this area in two,
when you get to the second checkpoint jump below it, so you can kill
more robots, and in the room, the same room that often has a switch for
other teams, you will find a Team Blast item box.
If you don't want to go through the pain of this level, the Team Blast
glitch works, but sort of defeats the point if you use the frozen time
to charge up another Team Blast, run through as much of the level as
possible killing robots along the way, then use the glitch to fill up
afterwards.
This mission takes a lot of skill, defiantly know the level well before
attempting the A-rank.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Go beyond the rails!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 38,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 4 minutes
Special Notes:
Pretty easy, get 3 star springs and break stuff open and change rails if
you see rings on another rail later on.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Infiltrate the terminal station!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points
Special Notes:
Not that hard actually if you know how to work the switch puzzles at the
end or completely go past them, look at mission 2 if you want to know
how. It is mission 2 that will give your nightmares...
Mission 2: Infiltrate the terminal station within 6 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 34,000 points and 6 minute completion
Special Notes:
EXTREMELY hard to do in 6 minutes! One of the last emblems I got let
alone A rank! Take ALL shortcuts you can, don't worry about killing
things but definitely get rainbow hoops and look over the handy shortcut
list for this level, even the crazy ones, but I will warn you even with
all shortcuts you will have like 15 seconds left if you are lucky! Here
are a couple more tips:
Level up Charmy, you will especially need him in the end when doing the
switch part which you should thunder shoot, that is if you do the switch
part, there is a way around it and most shortcuts are flight formation
and you want maximum flight time if you goof and you have to fly to get
back to rails.
Fast like crazy! Stick to the fastest rails, even switch rails if you
see a booster on one beside you.
This is one that definitely takes a lot of skill, know the level
extremely well before attempting.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.k. Stage 8: Bullet Station
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: Actually kind of refreshing after Rail Canyon, but
Team Sonic Mission 2 is still pretty darn hard.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS:
To Puzzle Area: Right after the first train part, where you are an
inside tunnel actually on the train and you have to blow it up with
Power formation, the rails will spiral down, then you take the cannon up
to the area where you have the small switch puzzle. But instead of going
all the way down to the cannon area, just jump off the rail before it
starts spiraling down directly to the puzzle area. Not recommended for
Team Chaotix and Team Rose second mission because of capsules/rings down
there.
Small Rail Shortcut: After that part near the next checkpoint you will
see two rhino trains on rails to your right and left, the right rail is
a shortcut, but be careful of the trail if you decide to take it.
Cannon (Team Sonic): Right before the first part where the giant cannon
spits you out and you have to duck spiky balls and get balloons in the
air, there is a little cannon you get in to get to this area. Get into
this cannon in Power formation and fire, you will go through a wall and
find metal boxes, bust trough these and you are in the cannon room,
easier than the other way around.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Destroy Eggman's base!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points
Special Notes: Kill stuff, get Light Speed Dashes, etc...
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 6 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points and 6 minute completion
Special Notes: HARD!!! 6 minutes is tight even with the few shortcuts,
and you need to kill things to get points!!! Also make sure you don't
lose any characters in the cart part, that really slows you down!!! Use
Team Blast to kill enemies as much as possible, but really try to focus
on getting through it quickly too. Would walkthrough maybe... I don't
really see it as really necessary.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Annialate Eggman's base!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 55,000 points
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 11 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes: You will not get 100 robots in one shot, but not that
bad, just get through it quickly while killing robots, take the few
shortcuts there are, some Team Blast exploitation, don't lose characters
in the cart part, etc... I've done it in 10 minutes easily.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Find Eggman's base!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 38,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 4 minutes
Special Notes: Kind of difficult and there are only about 200 rings in
the entire level, I probably should write a walkthrough, but for now all
I will say is to get rings on rails, make sure to pop all balloons in
the cannon part, there are a lot of rings in boxes and capsules, in fact
destroy the capsules on the train for 30 rings, get 3 star springs and
at the last cannon go in it in power formation and fire the cannon
slightly off-center so you bounce up just right off the springs to get
over the fence for those last few rings.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Destroy 30 capsules!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points with 30 capsules destroyed
Special Notes: Pretty easy if you know where most or all of the first 30
capsules are and kill everything well, can go back and repeat sections.
Mission 2: Destroy all the capsules!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 26,000 points with 50 capsules destroyed
Special Notes: Know where the 50 capsules are, you will probably need to
use flowers to go back and repeat sections to get capsules you missed,
especially the cart section.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.l. Boss 4: EGG ALBATROSS
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Egg Bird
A-rank Requirement: 2 minutes
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.m. Stage 9: Frog Forest
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: Frog Forest seems to me to at least be slightly based
upon the Mushroom Hill level in the Genesis/Mega Drive game Sonic and
Knuckles. In fact on of Knuckles' comments on one of the flower rides
seems to refer directly to this... Anyway this is an odd level where the
frogs must summon rain for you to make plants grow in order to get to
further parts of the level, or in the case of Team Chaotix you must
avoid the frogs summoning rain... Anyway this is one of my favorite levels
in the game and actually pretty fun and easy, the greatest danger being
the risk of falling to your doom, you have to be careful when attacking
enemies on those platforms! This level has a few areas where you really
need to use Flight a lot. The Team Sonic time trial is a little rough,
but not nearly as bad as some of the others in this game.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS:
To first checkpoint quicker: Normally the rail you grind after the first
frog in the first part of the level sends you to a lower area, then you
have to make it rain so you can eventually bounce on mushrooms to make
it up to the first checkpoint is. Instead of doing that, while you are
still grinding on the rail get in Flight formation and there is a point
where you can jump off it toward the checkpoint area, and when you get
close to it then start flying and you should be able too make it to the
checkpoint without having to mess with the stuff below to activate the
mushrooms, if you understood what I just said that is!
Alternate, higher second flower ride (Team Sonic, Dark, Chaotix): There
are actually two flowers you can take for the second flower ride, the
typical one leads to a lower, long path and you get to pop 5 rings
balloons during it, and the second one leads to a higher, much shorter
path and you not only get to pop 20 rings balloons, but for Team Sonic
and Dark it leads to rainbow rings and a lot more points in general, for
Team Chaotix it doesn't lead to much, but still sort of worth going up
there... The higher flower is located on a platform above and to the
right where the other flower is. But each team gets to the higher flower
a different way:
Team Sonic: First you need to take the highest route over the huge gap
before you get to the area of the flower ride, to get here you need to
climb to the very top of the plant that grows after it rains, then you
will see it. This route is high platforms with targets you can hit in-
between. Then you go to the higher area on the other side of that gap to
your left and you will find a frog. Then a plant grows giving you a
platform so you can go to another platform so you can cross a gap, and
there is your higher flower. This is the flower where Knuckle's makes
the comment about how there are giant mushrooms on his island too
Team Dark: To slightly shortcut this, you can just jump on a vine in
front of the platform with the flower, then fly up from there. To do it
the usually way you need to free the caged frog you see after you cross
the gap. To release the frog, you must first kill all the enemies in the
area, including the two Golden Turtles, make sure you even get the Gold
Turtle that is right by the regular flower. Now go back to the freed
frog to make it rain, a plant will grow next to the platform that has
the higher flower on it and it will sprout fruit, use Homing Attack on
the fruit to reach the high flower.
Team Chaotix: It's as if you really weren't meant to go up there, you do
get to pop the 20 rings balloons and it is shorter, but it leads to a
totally empty higher path. But what Charmy says is pretty much worth
going up there if you want to hear him say something that could be
misinterpreted badly... Anyway you can fly up there by just jumping on the
vine below the platform and flying for there, you shouldn't have to use
the Team Chaotix fly glitch.
An interesting thing that comes out of this is the fact that you can fly
up and reach the higher platform from the vine in front of it with Team
Dark and Team Chaotix, but you can't with Team Sonic. Is the level
formatted slightly different, or can Charmy and Rouge fly higher than
Tails? I'm not sure...
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Get through the forest where the wild animals live!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points
You could just follow the shortcuts and stuff, not hard.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 5 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 38,000 points and 5 minute completion
Special Notes: A tight time trial. The most important thing to remember
is to take the most direct routes in the level and don't venture off and
get extra stuff, you don't have time. Also use the general shortcuts
mentioned above especially the higher flower ride, I never A-rank this
level without going this way. Also don't kill enemies that you don't
have to, ignore them, and you will have more than enough points for the
A-rank.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Get through the forest where the wild animals live!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Special Notes:
Because you have to fight shielded robots near steep drops, use Fire
Dunk in Power Formation or Shadow if he is level 3 so you will not fall
to your doom. Team Blast freezes frogs, but not flower rides. Take the
higher second flower ride for more points.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 14 minutes
Special Notes:
Staying alive is not as important as for mission 1, but well there are
only about 50 robots in the level. I actually like to skip some of the
more out of the way ones, you will be more likely to make it in time if
you end up reaching the Back ring 2 times, going through all the level
twice and part of it a third time. Take the level shortcuts above, you
miss some robots with the first one but you save A LOT of time and the
higher flower ride is not only shorter but it leads to more robots. It
is still bad to die because you loose your level ups, a leveled up
Shadow is invaluable for killing the armored robots and turtles near
steep places. There are also a lot of golden robots, find the gold one
in a group and kill the others instantly, a lot faster, and also
remember frogs are frozen by Team Blast, but not flowers!
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Explore the forest where the frogs live!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 30 seconds
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Get through the forest without being detected by the frogs!
Type: Team Chaotix Stealth
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points without being detected by frogs
Special Notes: Use invisibility to get past frogs, Team Blast enemies...
actually pretty easy.
Mission 2: Hurry and get through without being detected by the frogs!
Type: Team Chaotix Stealth/Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 42,000 points without being detected by frogs in 4
minutes
Special Notes: Shortcuts are great, the second flower ride does lead to
an empty platform, but those 20 ring balloons come in really hand point-
wise and it is a shorter route, you can jump from this empty platform
and end up just a short run away from the goal. Speaking of flower
rides, make sure that Espio isn't invisible when you grab the flower or
only Espio will get on the ride and it will be harder to pop balloons.
Also as a quick note, after the second checkpoint up ahead you will see
the way where Charmy has to sting a flower and it grows slowly to get up
to the area of the first flower ride, instead at the checkpoint turn to
your right to find the much quicker Power way and a Power level-up. Of
course Team Blast enemies and use invisibility to remain undetected by
frogs.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.n. Stage 10: Lost Jungle
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: I don't like Lost Jungle as much as Frog Forest,
because of the overall swampy feel, the black frogs that cause the bad
rain and the fact I don't like hammerbots that much! Also with Team
Sonic and Team Dark you have to face the horrible Alligator chase! The
many shortcuts can help cut the level's completion time dramatically,
but even with these Team Sonic's time trial is a doozy. Flight is very
important in this level.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS!:
Get to first checkpoint much faster (Team Sonic, Dark): Get on the small
platforms that are around the first vine you grind by flying from the
vine. Then you can jump and fly over to the area where the first
checkpoint is. With Team Sonic you will see this checkpoint from here
and there is a plant that you can use to help get over there, jump from
these platforms so that the black frog will not see you and cause the
bad rain to kill the plant. Team Dark doesn't have this plant but can
still easily make it over there in Fly formation.
Skip Hammerbots: This is a little after checkpoint one for Team Sonic
and Team Dark, Team Rose and Team Chaotix start their level here. There
is a vine you can grind to skip the lower part of this level, Team Sonic
and Team Dark land on this vine naturally and can skip one or two
hammerbots. Team Rose and Team Chaotix must fly up to this vine at the
start of their levels, for Team Rose this skips the first hammerbot, for
Team Chaotix you not only skip the first hammerbot but if you are in
flight formation, jump off the end of the vine you should be able to fly
over the black frog and land on the plant that normally dies when the
black rain falls, this might take practice till you learn when to jump
to avoid the black frog, then you will find a booster at the top of the
plant and it will take you further up the level, you save quite a bit of
time doing this, but you skip the first 3 Chao, so this is good for
Chaotix mission 1, not 2.
Freed Frog Shortcut (Team Sonic, Dark): After checkpoint 2 there is the
huge gap you must cross, after that gap will be enemies to defeat, for
Team Sonic a Hammerbot that you should Team Blast and Team Dark capture
bots, this will release a green frog from a cage, this rain will make a
vine grow that will be a slight shortcut and get you past enemies.
The High Area That Makes All Second Missions Easier!!!: This area is
before the hammerbot room where you have to destroy the hammerbots to
open a spring in a cage to go further (Team Chaotix has a chao and a
flower), it is where there is a checkpoint before the patch curves
sharply through a room. You will want to fly above this room if you are
doing any second mission because for each team what's up there is very
helpful!
Team Sonic: Up there you will find two flying enemies and a green frog,
good rain will make things grow, a mushroom springs you up to a vine
swing, that swing leads to a vine that gets you past the hammerbot room
without having to fight them at all, then after hitting the path another
vine grows and takes you to a quick 1up! A Great shortcut for the time
trial!
Team Dark: Contains 4 robots and a Flight powerup, very, very good for
the robot killing second mission!
Team Rose: Lots of rings and a Special Key for that ring gathering
mission and getting into the Special Stage!
Team Chaotix: The enemies are guarding a Chao in a cage, have to get it
to complete Chaotix's mission 2!
High Path Through Level (Team Sonic, Dark): This is after the Hammerbot
room, you can skip a huge part of the level by taking a higher path that
leads you past a lot of enemies and even hammerbots.
Team Sonic: After you either beat or skip the hammerbot room, the path
you are on leads up to a green frog. Wait till the good rain had made
everything grow and then get on the platform that appears behind a frog
in Speed formation, you really don't want to bounce on the mushroom that
appears behind the frog. Homing attack the magenta flying enemy, than
the fruit you see have grown. This will take you to a high platform, get
in fly formation, don't worry about the flying cage with the 1up, fly to
the next platform, then fly out to the booster ring that will lead to a
platform with a Team Blast item box on it. You can then grind the vine
past the hammerbot, or better yet go to the hammerbot, use Team Blast on
it, that opens a cage that has another Team Blast item box in it, you
use that one to kill the hammerbot you meet at the end of the next
flower ride.
Team Dark: Starts a little bit later and more obvious than for Team
Sonic, the good rain causes platforms to grow you fly up these, then
Light Speed a line of rings
Flower Ride Behind Lasers (Team Sonic, Dark, Chaotix): After the second
flower ride there is a tunnel blocked by lasers, it leads to another
flower ride that is a huge shortcut, but I don't know how to use it for
Team Sonic unfortunatly.
Team Sonic: I never figured out how to turn off the lasers, I really,
really wish I did, it's a huge shortcut and would be great for Team
Sonic's shaky time trial, if you know please e-mail me and tell me.
Team Dark: Thunder shoot at the flying enemy behind the lasers, the
lasers turn off when it is destroyed.
Team Chaotix: Go thorugh them with invisible Espio, in fact you have to
go this way.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Venture through the deepest part of the jungle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 6 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 30,000 points and 6 minute completion
Special Notes: Close to the time limit, need to use all the shortcuts,
only kill the hammerbots that I mention in the shortcuts above. A
leveled-up Tails is very important, but that's easy to do since you even
get a level up at the very beginning on one of the platforms by the
first hammerbot, which actually you should not fight, you don't need to.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Explore the deepest part of the jungle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 14 minutes
Special Notes: Don't take all the shortcuts but you will make it
eventually if you do, try to get 50 robots by the time you get to the
end of the level.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Escape the jungle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 42,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 45 seconds
Special Notes:
Pretty easy if you ignore most enemies, don't fight the hammerbot at the
beginning and don't bother killing the spiked flying enemies especially.
Make sure to pop all balloons, use thunder shoot if you have to. There
are a couple of semi-hidden 20 ring item boxes, soon after checkpoint #2
you will kill 2 capture robots, this opens a semi-hidden cage to the
right of there with 20 rings inside, and shortly before the next
checkpoint after that in the area that is sort of walled in is another
20 rings, when you see the 3 star ring you bounce up to get higher look
behind you and you will see it, plus the area mentioned in the shortcuts
section if you have to.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Rescue 10 Chao!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points with 10 chao
Special Notes: Use the second level shortcut detailed above, you will
skip three chao, but you will save a lot of time and end up with more
points overall.
Mission 2: Rescue 20 Chao!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 32,000 points with 20 chao
Special Notes: Know where all 20 Chao are before attempting, don't use
the shortcut.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.o. Boss 5: TEAM Battle #2
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Team Battle
A-rank Requirement: 30 seconds
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.p. Stage 11: Hang Castle
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: Hang Castle is crazy! Not only does the who thing
turn upside down and back again several times but well, it's spooky!
Team Sonic's time trial is probably the hardest mission.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS!:
Shortcut Opening the Door to the Castle (Team Sonic, Dark): This is the
part where you find the castle doors are closed and you have to go down
the hole to your right, push a switch down there, then end up grinding a
rail. Then there is a platform area to get by, then you flip another
switch and you are in the area you were before and now the doors are
open. Actually as soon as you flip the castle once and are on the rail,
you can turn around and head back up the rail and go back in the castle,
drop down a hole, and immediately reach the switch it normally takes
going through that long platform area to get to that flips the castle,
and be back by the doors. If this seems familiar, this is actually the
route Team Rose takes, they don't go through the platform area. The
characters say that the doors are open, but they are not!!! The switch
that flips the castle is not the switch that opens the doors also, it is
the same switch that creates the lines of rings you Light Dash. To get
there quicker, at the point where the rail loops, jump off of it in
flight formation, a little easier if you jump off from the solid area
next to the rail and head to your right and you will be able to make it
to the platform with this switch on it. Team Chaotix can do this
shortcut too, the same switch opens the warp flower and you must then
use it to warp to the same area the Light Speed Dash takes you, but if
you do this you miss a key, and you need all the keys to complete even
mission 1, the only way I would see this necessary is if you then go
back and get it later by starting at the beginning again, but why do
this?
Small Shortcut to Checkpoint: Soon after you opened the castle doors,
you will come to an area where a rail spirals down a tower, when you are
done grinding there is a checkpoint, instead of grinding all the way
down just jump from the top toward the right and you will make it to the
checkpoint a little faster especially if you can do it in speed
formation, remember Team Chaotix has to grind up this rail to get a key.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Infiltrate the mysterious castle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 6 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points and 6 minute completion
Special Notes: Hard time trial, the shortcuts at the top help some,
there are also a couple more little, dangerous shortcuts but are
trivial, focus more on getting Light Speed Dash and Rainbow Hoop Points
than enemy points. Also note that for the doors you open by killing
enemies, you only need to destroy the robot sleeping in front of the
door to open it.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Enter the spooky castle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 65,000 points
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 11 minutes
Special Notes: You have to hit the back ring and do part of the level
over again, but Team Blast doesn't get you stuck anywhere at all, very
easy to do within 11 minutes.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Find the haunted castle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 30 seconds
Barely over 200 in the entire level but 3 minutes 30 seconds is plenty
of time, hurry through the level and if you are a little short of 200 by
the goal ring, remember there are a lot of rings right at the beginning
of the level to make up for that.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Get the keys inside the haunted castle!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 35,000 points with 10 keys
Special Notes:
A couple of keys are pretty well hidden, know where they are before
trying to A-rank and especially for the next part.
Mission 2: Collect the keys without being detected by the enemies!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt/Stealth
A-rank Requirement: 23,000 points with 10 keys without being detected by
robots
Special Notes:
Not that bad actually, sneak up on most of the enemies while invisible
then kill with Team Blast, the keys are obvious because you had to find
them all for the first mission anyway.
Ignore the very first enemy guarding the switch and the first search
light robot, a lot of enemies can't or very hard to attack without being
detected because Espio can't kill them, sneak past them, start Team
Blasting large groups of enemies later on.
Near the end of the level right after you pull the two switches to open
the door to the room where the key is behind a breakable wall, you want
to use Team Blast right up against this breakable wall so you kill not
only the three enemies in that room but also the dangerous searchlight
robot in the hallway. In the tower area use Team Blast where the switch
is that flips the level so you kill all four enemies in that area at
one.
Pumpkin ghosts do not count as enemies.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.q. Stage 12: Mystic Mansion
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: Unlike Hang Castle, this indoor level does not have
any major shortcuts. Power type is used a lot in this level, make sure
to level up the power type character. Team Sonic, Dark and Chaotix has
this annoying spider web part, and Sonic and Dark have to get past the
three alters of doom! It is frustrating for all teams but Rose to get
through this level without dying once.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Escape from the haunted castle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 36,000 points
Umm, try not to die.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 7 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 36,000 points and 7 minute completion
Special Notes:
No shortcuts, ignore enemies you don't have to kill to continue on to
the next part of the level, get the 20 rings before the trolley and pop
the balloons in the trolley part and if you don't die you should get
there within 7 minutes with enough points from in level and time bonus
but with less than 30 seconds remaining, but be careful you do the alter
part correctly and stuff it can be frustrating going through it one shot
without dying.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Escape from the crazy castle!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 58,000 points
Special Notes: Have fun trying not to die before making it to the end.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 11 minutes
Special Notes: 11 minutes is a lot of time, and you don't really have to
stay alive making this easy compared to the first mission!
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Escape from the haunted house!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 45,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 3 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes:
Barely 200 rings, but it is a short level. Not that bad if you pop all
of the balloons during the cart part, and at the end the balloons on the
platform are worth 10 rings each and there are balloons in all three
skeleton positions which means if you are brave enough especially when
the skeleton is at the hardest position to fly to the platforms (right
switch) if you get the rings in all three positions that's 60 rings,
nothing to laugh at.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Blow out all the red torches!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 25,000 points with all 60 red torches blown out
Special Notes: Not hard at all if you kill things too.
Mission 2: Blow out all the blue torches!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 20,000 points with all 46 blue torches blown out
Special Notes:
The blue torches are a lot harder to find of course, you might want to
consult a guide.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.r. Boss 6: ROBOT STORM
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Robot Defeat
A-rank Requirement:
Team Sonic: 4 minutes
Team Dark: 6 minutes
Team Rose: 2 minutes
Team Chaotix: 4 minutes
Team Chaotix, when you get to the cannon part where you are suppose to
shoot at flying enemies from the cannon in Power Formation, instead
switch to fly formation, fly over toward the enemies and just hover
there pressing the A button and attacking with the B button at the same
time till they are all dead. Then just fly over to the boost rings that
were behind the enemies and hit them to get back to the platform, it is
a lot quicker that way.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.s. Stage 13: Egg Fleet
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: This level has a lot of things off to the side to get
and stuff, but overall for the A-rank it is not worth getting them or
bothering to destroy all the cannons because they are worth so few
points. Instead focus on getting through the level quickly. Anyway there
is a lot of cannon fire and places where you encounter the tough E-2000
that shoot out powerful lasers, often you must destroy them to get
through. The shortest way through the level is usually the most direct
way you see, if you go off to places not on the main path it is usually
not worth the time going there, except to get extra robots for Team
Dark. I don't want to go into detail about the specific little shortcuts
since they vary by team, but there are a couple I will mention. Flight
turns out to be important to level up to thunder shoot at a few cannons
that may be in the way.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS:
Most Direct Rail to First Battleship (Team Sonic, Dark): When you start
off the level falling, don't push forward, the rail you will land on is
the most direct route to the first battleship.
Team Rose Beginning Shortcut (Team Rose, duh): Jump in speed formation
off the first rail you are grinding on and use Propeller Hammer to reach
the Rainbow Hoops, this leads to a high Speed-type path which is much
quicker.
Nice Rainbow Hoop Shortcut (Team Sonic, Dark): When you destroy the
first battleship, you change automatically change to power formation.
You will see rainbow hoops, but you need to switch to Flight formation
and then you can jump and fly to the rainbow hoops to get a huge bonus
and there is a shortcut past the slower fans.
Last Propeller Ride (Team Sonic, Dark, Rose): Stay on the ride the whole
way through instead of landing on the battleship with the 1up, not worth
it.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Get to Eggman's flagship!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 20,000 points
Special Notes: Instead of bothering to destroy cannons, run across ships
very fast to avoid the cannon fire, you can treat like the time trial.
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 9 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 30,000 points and 9 minute completion
Special Notes: 9 minutes is plenty of time, but for this time trial the
time bonus is good enough where if you can ignore cannons/enemies you
don't have to kill to go further and you get to the end in about the 7
to 7 minute 30 second range you should have an A-rank. Use Speed
formation wherever possible, use fans over other ways to get across
certain areas. Level up Tails so you can take care of E-2000s much
easier, save Team Blast for E-2000s.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Land on Eggman's flagship!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 30,000 points
Treat like Team Sonic's first mission, try to do it kind of quickly. Can
be hard to exploit Team Blast because it prevents large doors from
opening. Heavy cannon fire and Omega falls off edges easily while
attacking, can be hard to get through in one go.
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 13 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes: Kind of hard, Team Blast can get you in trouble because a
lot of robots in this level teleport onto the scene and running through
the level like this can mean missing robots. Get the robots on the
platforms around the first rails you grind. There is a lot of
cannonfire, so be careful. Don't try to do Power-type combos in many
places, Omega has a terrible tendency to want to fall off the edge. Go
through the level and get all the robots you see, even if slightly out
of the way.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Find Eggman's fleet!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points
Mission 2: Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 5 minutes
Special Notes:
The main issue here is making sure not to lose rings, there are plenty
of rings in the level, but make sure you have a shield and stuff so you
do not get hit. A good start is to start off the level on the upper
path, you start the level on a rail, jump right at the end of the rail
and just keep A pressed and you will go into propeller hammer and
hopefully hit some rainbow rings that will take you to high platforms, a
good area with lots of rings, but anyway if you keep from getting hit
you should make it well within the time limit.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Infiltrate the flagship without being detected by the
enemies!
Type: Team Chaotix Stealth
A-rank Requirement: 33,000 points without being detected by robots
Special Notes: A very interesting level, it is short, but the major
frustration is the fact that it is a Stealth mission but you have to
solve little puzzles to figure out how to open doors and getting past
areas undetected. Your first time going through this level was probably
frustrating, but with a strategy it's actually easier than other Team
Chaotix missions. To make it easy on you, I wrote a walkthrough,
following this will give you an A-rank in this and the second mission.
The first group of enemies are just guarding one switch in the middle.
You can either sneek up on the switch as invisible Espio, then just go
past them when the door opens, or if you want more points you should
charge up Team Blast, either just thundershooting away from then and
getting the rings below the first rail you were grinding, or using the
glitch, them sneak up on them with invisible Espio then Team Blast them
giving you a lot of rings and points, what's best depends on whether you
are doing mission 1 or the Time Trial. However you do it, continue on
till Checkpoint 1, hit it with Fly Formation to level up Charmy. Fly up
there are you will see a heavily shielded robot in the way. Get the 5
ring and the 10 ring item box to your right, the proper way to bypass
the robot is to get into Power Formation and hit a spring to your left,
this will send you to the big fan, use Bubblegum Decent and float around
and pop the two balloons while floating above the fan for 15 rings, then
hit the booster ring above the fan to end up on the other side of the
robot, get the rings by the three star spring if you want to, then go
into the tunnel. You will see lasers, use invisible Espio to get past
them and hit a switch to turn them off. From here get into Flight
formation and fly up, there are two platforms with ring item boxes, but
don't leave the room the obvious way, instead fly up from the platform
near the exit and you will find a booster, this will send you a rail,
now STAY in flight formation because for some reason this doensn't work
out well in the other formations, there is a little fan with a balloon
over it and it will give you a 1up, then you will be on another rail,
still stay in flight formation till you are off it. This shortcut gets
you past some robots and is a lot quicker. Anyway hit the three star
bumper you get to and you will be at the next checkpoint, level up
Charmy. The next area you just fly across platforms and thunder shoot
and destroy cannons with Charmy till you get to the next room. More
lasers, just like before use invisible Espio to get across them and hit
a switch to turn them off. You have to fly up, then in flight formation
go off the booster, you will hit one booster ring, than another, then
you should land on a rail, switch to speed if you want, this takes you
to the next battleship and the next Checkpoint. Now the group of robots
on this ship are guarding a switch and two more switches in cages. You
need to Team Blast them, but if you have been gathering rings like I
said you meter should be full already, if not Thunder shoot or glitch it
full. Sneek up and then Blast. Now just use Vector to free the caged
switches, these three have to be active at the same time, the easiet way
being to switch to flight and put one character on each switch to open
the door. Continue on and you will hit a bumper and see you have the
choice between two warp flowers, also thunder shoot to get ring item
boxes next to both flowers. Choose the right one, it's a much easier
route and you avoid having to sneek past sleeping robots. Use the fan to
float across and pop the balloons. There is an Invinsibility item box in
the pile of steel boxes to your right, but you want to be careful
because in Power formation your partners might homing attack the nearby
sleeping robots and wake it up, you really don't need this powerup. Hit
the booster to head to the next battleship and Checkpoint. This is a
little different situation, a total of 7 switches, two in cages and a
laser guarding them. There are two sleeping robots off to both sides.
Another Team Blast situation, not only to kill the robots but also to
get rid of cannons. Anyway to get rid of everything with Espio go near
the closest switch, that's the best spot. Now preferably with long
distance attack use Vector to free the caged switch, then use invisible
Espio to hit all of them without danger of hitting the laser. Anyway
continue on an a Warp Flower will take you to a very odd puzzle area.
There are switches lining the hole you are pretty much in and a fan
underneath, and then you see a caged target thing for Power and a pole
that hasn't gone up. Ignore this stuff, it's stupid and wastes A LOT of
time. Instead jump off the flower to the left. You will find a Fly sign,
fly up and there are two lasers moving up and down in front of you and a
cannon on the other side, thunder shoot quick to knock out the cannon,
then time it just right to fly through a gap the lasers make. Now before
you hit the three star bumper, break the steel containers to get rings,
and make sure Team Blast is powered up. The last part is weird, there's
one huge cannon and smaller ones. There is a E-2000 hiding behind the
large cannon. Now inside the huge cannon is a Team Blast item box, it is
possible to get it in order to kill the E-2000 but that takes time and
is stupid, just power up Team Blast before you get up there and make
sure to use Invisible Espio so the cannons will not fire at you. This
will open up the path to the Goal, either use Invisible Espio or just
Rocket Accel to the Goal.
Mission 2: Hurry and get to the flagship without being detected by
enemies!
Type: Team Chaotix Stealth/Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 30,000 points without being detected by robots in 6
minutes
Special Notes:
Follow the mission 1 walkthrough and you will finish well under 6
minutes with an A-rank, spend a little less time gathering rings, just
go past first group of robots.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.t. Stage 14: Final Fortress
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Overview of Level: This is it, the Final level! As you can imagine, it
is hard, there are lots of E-2000s and hammerbots, and just all sorts of
obsicles. The hardest part is not trying to get enough points, but to
stay alive all the way to the end. There are some great shortcuts, but
the shortcuts are kind of hard, learn them well before attempting,
especially Team Sonic's Time Trial. Power is very important in the end
for the Hammerbot battles, but Flight is important to level up first to
fight E-2000s, then Speed because some of the poles for the shortcuts
are easier to catch in Speed Formation, then level up Power. The laser
part at the end can be frustrating also, make sure you switch rails very
quickly, the last huge laser you can avoid by either grinding as fast as
you can to reach the part of the rail that curves down before it fires,
or if you can't make it get in flight formation and fly over the laser
hovering in place till it stops. Anyway in order to A-rank any of these
mission make sure you know the layout and dangers of this level very
well.
MAJOR LEVEL SHORTCUTS!:
First Shortcut: This involves grinding one particular high rail at the
beginning of the level, but different between teams.
Team Sonic: You first need to make the short Light Speed Dash after you
hit the first three star bumper in order to grind the higher rail. Go
into flight formation, you will notice a Shield below the end of the
rail on the little silver platform, get it and then fly higher. Up there
is a hammerbot, but be careful, don't attack it's feet because if you do
then you will break steel boxes and fall down a hole. Instead kill it
with Fire Dunk. This will free a switch in a cage, this causes rings to
appear, light speed them and you will then be on a shaking and falling
platform with a balloon, switch to flight, the balloon has a 1up, then
jump off the platform right and land on the first checkpoint.
Team Dark: Ignore the first couple of robots and the cannon, because you
need to land off the very first rail onto the higher, shaky areas. Then
to get on the high rail you mush Homing Attack a E-2000, then an Eggbot
on a sign, then finally one on the rail itself. You will hit a booster
ring at the end of the rail, but be sure to go back and get the Team
Blast item box that is on the little silver platform below the end of
the rail. Use this to destroy the two hammerbots in the area above, but
don't go down the hole blocked by metal boxes in the floor. This opens a
cage that has a Light Dash Ring just like for Team Sonic, but the
platform that was shaky for Team Sonic is now sturdy because Team Blast
has frozen it! Get the 1up balloon and then just like Team Sonic go to
the checkpoint below.
Team Rose: It is possible to jump from below at one point and fly to
this rail, but there isn't anything up there.
Team Chaotix: Just like for Team Rose, there is a certain place you must
jump from from the bottom to be able to fly up to this rail. But it's
very interesting! You do need to use that silver platform at the end of
the rail to get higher, but up there is a part of the level you don't
normally get to until a little later, basically a flower normally takes
you up there! But you could quickly grab the key that is up there then
fall down and complete the rest of the level normally, but don't do this
if you want to A rank the first mission..., or well play the last part of
the level first :P.
Long Tunnel After Checkpoint 1: The easiest way of course is the low way
through this high walled but narrow area right after Checkpoint 1, but
each team goes through it a different way.
Team Sonic: Jump toward the balloon in Fly formation then fly, it has a
Flight Meter fill-up, while still in fly formation switch to speed, you
of course really won't change to speed until you land on the shaky
platform. Very quickly jump from here and Triangle Jump all the was
across, if you do you will be able to pop the highest balloon at the end
of this area, a Team Blast item box, the lower one is just another
shield. Use this Team blast item box to kill the first Helmeted
Hammerbot you meet.
Team Dark: Homing Attack the Eggbot on the sign, you will see the laser
disappear, then while still high start using Triangle Jump to pop the
highest balloon at the end which just like for Team Sonic contains a
Team Blast item box, the bottom one is a shield, use the Team Blast to
kill the next yellow e-2000 robot you encounter and also so you can use
the Team Dark Pole Glitch at that location.
Team Rose: Amy can't Triangle Jump so you can't get across like the
other teams, to pop the high balloon you need to hit the three star
bumper underneath in Flight formation, then fly even higher, it's a
shield.
Team Chaotix: A Power activated machine sends you onto the shaky
platform, you need to quickly change to Espio so you can Triangle Jump
across, there are more lasers, because Espio can hang on forever just
dodge them, or if you dare try to use Leaf Swirl before the platform
falls. Just like for the other teams the top balloon is a Team Blast and
the bottom is a shield.
Major Shortcut Before Checkpoint 2: Another major level shortcut that
each team does a little different, the rail I refer to is the one you
grind a little ways after the shortcut above, for reference you pass two
platforms with cannons on them at the beginning, actually if you destroy
the two cannons you will find something nice inside, but anyway...
Team Sonic: At the end of this rail you will see Speed signs, you need
to catch the pole you see at the end of the rail before you fall down
lower, so you have to jump and use a tornado near it, very unlikely you
will have level 3 Sonic at this point. This sends you up a couple more
poles and then a small rail, grind it hard so you hit a lup near a three
star bumper. Spring off the bumper and at the highest point then start
Triangle Jumping across the gap, pass the robots, lasers till you see
checkpoint 2, but then a door closes and you have to fight a yellow E-
2000 to open it again. When you do get past the lasers by standing on
the boxes by the door and then flying up from there to fly above them,
you can thunder shoot the Special Key in the cage to knock it down and
get it with Knuckles if you want it.
Team Dark: You have to jump off the end of this rail and hit a three
star bumper, then head a little to the right were you will find an
eggbot you have to Homing Attack, then use a Tornado on the pole you
see. The rest is identical to Team Sonic except having to kill a couple
of robots toward the end to get rid of lasers and you have to face a
helmeted hammerbot before checkpoint 2, if you use Team Blast remember
the door won't open, use the time to help charge up another Team Blast.
Team Rose and Chaotix: Can only shortcut a little bit by being in Flight
formation on this rail, then when you hit the spring flying to where the
cannon is to get higher, you can't get to the higher rail.
Major Shortcut after blowing up first Battleship: This is another high
route and you catch it at the end of the first set of rails that lasers
are fired on, also different for each team.
Team Sonic: It looks like another pole you have to use tornado on, but
for some reason this pole is hard to catch and after you use it you
often don't land on the circular rail above you are suppose to. Instead
get in Flight Formation and jump off the end then fly up to this rail.
You will find another pole, use a tornado, then yow will find yourself
on a shaky platform, you must jump off it quick above the lasers and
Triangle Jump. At the end you will see rings, so you have to jump off
the wall and hit B-button near them to dash them. Then you will hit a 1-
up balloon and will be on another high rail. This leads to the high
puzzle area, from here on follow the next shortcut below for Team Sonic.
Team Dark: Just like for Team Sonic easiest if you just fly up to this
rail, but then you have to grab one of the two handles at the other end
of this rail, do this in Flight Formation. The rest after this is
identical to Team Sonic, except for the fact you have to switch very
quickly to speed so you can begin Triangle Jumping as soon as you hit
the shaky platform. Follow the next shortcut too if you are not doing
the second mission where you are trying to kill a lot of robots.
Team Rose: There is just a 1up on top of the rail and nothing else, the
goal is down below.
Team Chaotix: This shortcut is actually split into two parts, and the
second part is not really a shortcut.... Like for Team Rose, all that is
up there is a 1up, but Espio can then Triangle Jump across the gap from
here, but you miss the key being guarded by the yellow E-2000 down below
doing this. For Team Chaotix however, the same high rail that is part of
Team Sonic and Team Dark's shortcut that leads to the high puzzle area
is important to get on, because this is the only way Team Chaotix can
get up there and there is a key up there! Near the beginning of the rail
that leads to the lower puzzle area is a three star bumper, jump on it
in Flight formation then fly higher to catch this rail to get there.
Bypass Puzzle Area (Team Sonic, Dark and Chaotix): This area has a hard
part on a huge platform below with a hammerbot, destroy it and you will
have to solve a new puzzle in the area above, this has three large
platforms and a circular rail for each team. The shortcut involves going
past a huge gap and ending up near a booster that sends you to the next
set of rails details for each team:
Team Sonic and Dark: Grind the circular rail you see, don't go to the
area below. Get on the large platform. Kill the hammerbots with Knuckles
or Omega instead of Team Blast.. yow want to save it, but instead of
pushing the switch and stuff jump off the end of the platform in Flight
Formation and do a very long jump, best if you jump from on top of the
blocks you can break in Power Formation. Land on the narrow solid area
with speed booster, if you want a special key go to the left to get it
before hitting the booster, the booster also sends you into Rainbow
Hoops before finally landing on the rails below. Risky and really
doesn't cut much time, but every second counts. From here follow the
next shortcut for Team Sonic especially.
Team Chaotix: They normally go to this booster, but faster if you do the
same jump as Team Sonic and Dark.
Shortcut the End Robot Battles (Team Sonic, Dark): This is the area you
get to after the puzzle area mentioned in the shortcut above. You
normally end up at the bottom of an area with different platforms at
different levels, you usually have to fight all the very hard robots on
one platform, then you can move to the next, the very top platform
contains the last Hammerbots you have to defeat in order to open the
door to the last rail grinding area leading to the goal. Shortcut this
entire process by getting in Flight formation on the rails leading up to
it, try to get on the right most rail. When the spring at the end of the
rail springs you up, start falling to your right and use flight if you
have to in order to land on the high rail. Now all you have to do is
fight the robots on this platform and the one above to be on your way to
the last hard rail part toward the goal! It would work for Team Chaotix,
but well not only do you miss a key, but the pole is broken on that
platform unless you pick up that key at the very bottom, so you are
forced to fight all those robots with them.
TEAM SONIC:
Mission 1: Destroy the flagship's core!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 62,000 points
Special Notes: Can shortcut, have fun getting through without dying!
Mission 2: Get to the Goal Ring within 9 minutes!
Type: Time Trial Points
A-rank Requirement: 40,000 points and 9 minute completion
Special Notes: Tight time trial, I could have written a walkthrough, but
decided not too. All level shortcuts are pretty much necessary and it
can be hard to catch every single one in one go of the level and also
stay alive! Just be persistent, level up Tails first, then Sonic, then
Knuckles. Takes quite a bit of practice.
TEAM DARK:
Mission 1: Get to the core where Eggman is!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 100,000 points
Special Notes: A lot of points, but you should get them if you take the
shortcuts, just going through the level slowly alive should get you the
points also, but yeah, hard to stay alive!
Mission 2: Defeat 100 enemies!
Type: Team Dark Defeat 100 Robots
A-rank Requirement: 100 robots in 12 minutes
Special Notes: A little frustrating. There are about 100 robots in the
level, but the problem is like in a lot of Team Dark levels, most of the
robots are in the lower, much slower routes, you will probably not make
it in 12 minutes if you try to kill them all. I finally A-ranked it by
taking only one level shortcut and going the low route the rest of the
way, reaching the Back ring then killing the first few robots in the
level. You can't afford to take more than one shortcut because of
sections in the level with few robots, you will find yourself going
through the level the second time around and finding you can't find
enough robots in time. Choose to skip one of the two major level
shortcuts. I have done it with the method above in 10 minutes 53
seconds.
TEAM ROSE:
Mission 1: Hurry and find Eggman!
Type: Normal Points
A-rank Requirement: 36,000 points
Mission 2:
Collect 200 Rings!
Type: Team Rose Collect 200 Rings
A-rank Requirement: 200 rings in 4 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes:
Easy to make it within the time limit but be familiar with the level and
make sure not to get hit and lose rings.
TEAM CHAOTIX:
Mission 1: Find the keys to the cell where the client is locked up!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 65,000 points with 5 keys
Special Notes:
Surprisingly hard to A-rank for a first mission. To A rank you need to
kill enemies, you will not kill enough enemies if you get the very first
5 keys in the level, no matter how hard you try you will probably end up
with a C or B rank. So skip one or more of the first 5 keys and continue
on in the level killing more enemies.
Mission 2: Find 10 cell keys!
Type: Team Chaotix Item Hunt
A-rank Requirement: 55,000 points with all 10 keys
Special Notes:
No worries about what keys to get/ignore here, just be very careful, it
can be hard to stay alive and make sure you know where all 10 keys are,
some are kind of hidden.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.u. Boss 7 (Final): EGG EMPEROR
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Final
A-rank Requirement: 3 minutes 30 seconds
Special Notes:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
5.v. Boss 8 (Extra): METAL MADNESS/METAL OVERLORD
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Type: Extra
A-rank Requirement: 7 minutes
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
6. Questions?:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Got Questions? I will answer them if they are not stupid. And as I noted
before,
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) 2004
