Chaos is real.

Well after the torture that was Sonic 4: Episode 1, surely going back to Episode 2 would calm the storm right?

Like in episode 1, I also had 2 more emeralds to get. I headed into Sylvania Castle Zone 1 to collect the 6th emerald. A little tough at first but easily clearable. I jump into the big ring and prepare for the special stage! The first section wants me to have 150 rings. We start in a tunnel with rings of spikes. With 10 ring rings in the middle of each. Each ring getting a bit higher than the last. And those definitely seem important to collect because I was struggling in the first part. Though thankfully I did end part 1 with 178 coins. 28 over the needed total. Next up we jump up to 300 rings. Doing some weaving around spikes to collect rings. Thankfully I easily conquered this section with 327 rings. The last section needed me to get 450 rings. And of course the last section uses the stupid challenge mechanism where you have to collect the required rings to get a bonus. So by the time I finished, I was 45 rings under. Thankfully it's stress free to restart the special stage since you'll know if you have enough rings or not before you cross the finish line.

After a few restarts, I got closer. But sadly I was 3 rings short. Curses. And I felt myself restarting a lot especially after hitting spikes I felt I shouldn't have hit. I need to hold on to these rings like they're my babies. Thankfully, only 23 total minutes into the stream, I finally got the 450 rings the stage wanted and got granted the emerald! Definitely took me less time than the special stage I played in episode 1. Now it was a matter of hoping the last emerald would also have a not very difficult special stage. But of course I had to get through Oil Desert Zone 1. Which was a level I had not yet played. And yeah... it's a desert level. You see oil being dug up. You see these spider looking badnicks that seem impossible to attack even with homing them without losing your rings. Surely those little guys won't be a problem. Actually no scratch. They were a problem. Because they're put in such bullshit places and if you're unable to avoid their big balls they blow up, and you get hit by it, you lose all your fucking rings and I found myself restarting the level because of that. And I didn't know how much longer the level would go or how many more rings I could collect.

I did find a shield in the level. It was short lived. Though I could simply despawn a blown up ball and then go back and... oh... it doesn't despawn. Or I didn't go far enough. Cool. Thankfully it seems like this level was generous with rings. What it's not so generous on is fucking level design. There's this one part with death warning signs. Oh thank you game. I'm so glad to know there's a shit load of death pits below me. At least Tails is here to help me. So I have him carry me through the sand winds and... oh... it would appear there's this random ass down beam I suddenly have to fly under no matter. I do that and I am pretty close to the next platform and... oh... it would appear Tails is suddenly fucking tired and I fall to my death. Excellent. I do eventually get back to the flying section and... of course Tails gets tired too quickly again. Cool. And it's such an illusion because it feels like I am able to easily land on the safe platform.

Finally after nearly 20 fucking minutes of constant restarts, I finally get past the section. But the celebration is short lived. There's another flying section. And this one is even HARDER! Now there's hazards in my way and I can't go fucking slow because then Tails will get tired but if I bump into a hazard, then I fall to my death anyway. So let's see, Episode 1 has shit special stage design. Episode 2 has shit general level design. I think both episode 1 and 2 have extreme flaws. Maybe that's why not many people remembered Sonic 4. And it seemed like no matter what I did how where I went, Tails would get tired too damn quickly. So... HELP ME YOUTUBE! And it turns out that... I just had to conserve Tails' energy. Seems like if you don't spam the fly button, he doesn't get tired as quickly... WELL NOW I KNOW! Thankfully after that, it was onto the special stage! Hopefully this wouldn't take me long. Although I'll tell you this, I started the special stage at 55 minutes into the stream. And the stream is an hour and 50 minutes long... oh boy.

120 rings is required to beat the first section. Which doesn't seem too bad. Though I hit a few spikes too many so I had to restart. This level also utilizes a tether power which tethers you and Tails together and I think the rope between you two can also collect rings. That did help me get the 120 rings I needed. In section 2, I needed 350 rings. So I somehow needed to collect 230 rings in this next section? Oh boy. Gotta love upwards slopes which makes spikes fucking impossible to notice. There's also this big loop section at the end with rings but for some reason, I couldn't seem to get around it. Sonic always kept falling down. By the end, I only had just over 200 rings. I was 150 short... oh boy. How the fuck am I going to do this? Later on I got to the end with 247 rings. Better but still beyond off. Every ring here is beyond important. Including a 10 ring at the end of the first section that is rather tricky to collect but possible. And 3 10 rings towards the middle too.

I struggled with section 2 for so long. Longer than I anticipated. And I was over an hour into the stream at this point. I wasn't feeling good about section 3. And I was stuck on section 2! Though I did remember I had the ability to speed up in these special stages which would give me the ability to run all around the loop. Still seemed to have trouble getting the rings around the loop though. Eventually I did get really close and did collect a good chunk of the rings in the loop. But I was still short by 25 rings. Eventually I was restarting a LOT. I did not want to lose or miss any rings because I felt like each one was heavily important. Just over a half hour... yes... A HALF HOUR into the special stage, I got so close with 346 total rings in section 2. Still 4 short but I was getting REALLY CLOSE. Maybe it was possible... I just needed just one more optimization. There is a section that has 6 10 rings guarded by spikes. I actually found it might have been more worth it to voluntarily run right into the spikes rather than try to jump over them. After that I had a clean loop and got a shit load of rings and finally got past section 2 with 421 total rings! HUZZAH!

But now... time for section 3. And once again this one uses the ring challenge where I have to collect the needed rings to get a bonus. Overall I needed 500 rings. Which doesn't sound bad given I only needed 79 rings to get. But of course because of these stupid COLLECT RINGS challenges, I only found myself at 437 rings by the end. Leaving me 63 short. Fantastic. I'll be here all damn night. At least I was getting through section 1 and even section 2 consistently. But section 3 was a pain in the ass because even with Tails and I being tethered, and only a needing a low amount of rings to be collected, I just couldn't get past any of the challenges. And it didn't help that the zappers just slow you down and throw you off and stop you from getting rings. I was definitely considering pulling the plug here if I didn't get the emerald sooner rather than later. I was already 46 minutes overtime into the stream. However... going on now nearly an hour into the special stage, yes that fucking long, I got 3 straight challenges just completed out of nowhere. And I only needed 15 more rings with still 2 challenges to play. I didn't complete them but thankfully you do get to keep what rings you do collect while you are doing the challenges. And I JUST... I JUST... got enough rings to get the emerald. I got 501 out of 500. But hey... it was enough. And I got the last emerald. And I unlocked Super Sonic! Of course I was way overtime into the stream so episode 2 Super Sonic will have to wait.

At least I can sleep happy knowing I am part of only less than 14% of people who got all 7 emeralds in episode 2!