Blue Sphere

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Blue Sphere is the secret easter egg game created by locking on Sonic & Knuckles to Sonic the Hedgehog. It is a compilation of 134,217,728 Special Stages in the same style (and engine) of the ones featured in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles. After completing all 2^27 levels, it repeats from the beginning. In fact, there are actually only 128,016,000 distinct stages: after 128,016,000, the level layouts ("stages", in the game's terminology) repeat, even though the level number continues to advance. However, after level 134,217,728, everything repeats.

There is a slight difference between these special stages and those in Sonic & Knuckles: Here, the ring counter counts down. If you complete the level with all the rings, called a "perfect", you are presented with a screen showing the stage's difficulty level and skip ahead 10 levels.

The game is accessed from a "No Way!" screen that appears to inform you that the game that is locked on is not Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Pressing the A, B, and C buttons at the same time changes the screen to the level select menu of Blue Sphere.

Blue Sphere can also be created by locking on Sonic & Knuckles to any other Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis game, producing one of the levels featured in the Sonic the Hedgehog Blue Sphere, based on something in the header of the game. Beating this level will not take you to a new one; however, if you get a perfect on it, you will be given a password. Enter this password into the Sonic the Hedgehog Blue Sphere and you will be taken to that same level, with the slight modification that the Sonic characters in the background will be purple and still as if you had locked on a different cartridge, and beating the level will not take you to a new one. Note that there are two passwords for each level: One for the ordinary version, from which you can advance, and one for this version, from which you cannot.

The name Blue Sphere comes from the name shown in its listing in Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Mega Collection Plus.

Unlocking Blue Sphere in Sonic Mega Collection

Play Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic 3D Blast 20 times each. To save time, you can also play Sonic Mega Collection with a Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II save file on your memory card.

Passwords

There are two 12-digit passwords for each level, one for the version from which you can advance and one for the version from which you cannot. There is a simple algorithm for generating those of the first kind; see http://drspud.no-ip.com/bluesphere/ for a web-based password generator. (The PHP file is available for download for those who want to learn the actual algorithm.)