This Sonic Mania Special Stages Locations Guide will help you find the seven special stages in Sonic Mania and offer you some tips on how to complete them.
For more help on Sonic Mania, read our Boss Guide, Tips and Strategy Guide, and Drop Dash Guide.
Sonic Mania Special Stages Locations
To beat the Special Stages, you need to collect every blue orb as it will speed you up and you will be able to catch up to the UFO faster to collect the Chaos Emerald. For more tips on how to clear special stages, read our Sonic Mania Tips and Tricks Guide attached above.
Green Hill Zone – Act 1
Find a pair of ‘S’ shaped Tunnels and make your way through them. Then bust through the wall and move past the area with the rising and falling pillars. Make sure you jump over the Spike pits, the special stage should be right up ahead.
Green Hill Zone Special Stages – Act 2
Ring 1
Jump through the ground and start moving right. Keep moving until you see a bounce pad. Jump up, then cross the bridge and the platforms to reach the upper area of the map. Here you will see another bridge.
Cross it and look for a ring to the right of the yellow bounce pad. Jump up on the yellow bounce pad and wait for the ledge to crumble. This will drop you onto another yellow bounce pad which you can use to access an alcove on the top left which should have the ring.
Ring 2
Take the lower path behind the water fall and collect the fire shield. Head further right and stay low until you have passed the arena consisting of some piranhas and two bats. Get bounced up towards the curved ceiling to the left by a yellow ring ahead.
There will be an item box to your left with a spike trap above it. Squeeze left through the wall and you will reach the ring.
Chemical Plant – Act 1
Keep on running along the lower tube. Eventually, Sonic will be bounced backward and through a loop. There should be a clear tube near a ring box around your location. Enter it and follow the underwater chemical passage through the loops and an open door.
Soon you will enter a new area which will have a metal like a backdrop. Now all you need to do is to drop down and find the hidden path which will lead you to the ring.
Chemical Plant – Act 2
Ring 1
Head right and jump on the second yellow switch to bounce up. Head left then and stick to the purple platform and then ride up. Head further right until you reach the area to bounce on the liquid.
Turn left from there and keep going until you cross a wall on the left. Go through the secret path and you will find the ring at the top.
Ring 2
For this one, you will have to reach the area with the metal grates in the foreground. Ride the rotating yellow platform up to the top and you will find the ring up there on the left.
Studiopolic Zone – Act 1
Go towards the right and you will reach a downward ramp having red bumpers above it. There is a platform above the exit of the ramp that you need to reach using your Tail’s flight ability.
Take this higher platform’s ramp down and left. At the end of the ramp, you will find the special stage ring behind a yellow pane of glass in the foreground.
