So after Sonic & Tails encounter Eggman at the end of Green Hill Zone, he uses the Phantom Ruby to warp them to Chemical Plant Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the game that introduces us to Tails, as well as Super Sonic.

Speaking of Super Sonic, I get the last two Chaos Emeralds I needed in this game. No matter who you are, you can get them all as soon as Chemical Plant Act 1 as long as you know where to find all of the big Special Stage rings between Green Hill and Chemical Plant!

Originally, using Super Sonic was like in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, where Sonic needed to get rid of his shield before he can transform. But then, a patch made a Quality-Of-Life change to this by making Sonic transform with a different button that wasn't used for jumping. This means that he can transform AND keep his shield, now! Just like in Sonic Megamix (a Sonic 1 hack that Stealth made before working on Mania).
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In this game, just like in Green Hill, Chemical Plant combines the layouts of the original version's Act 1 and 2 together for this game's Act 1, including Act 2s purple "Mega Mack" water. It also now has the 4-way pipe system from Sonic CD's Metallic Madness.

In this game's Act 2, however, the layout's completely new, and introduces a stage gimmick where you have to inject chemicals into dark blue fluids.

When they turn light-blue, the bounce you around like Mushroom Hill's giant mushrooms in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. But when you inject them again and make them green, they'll instead bounce you really high, just like the glowing checkered floors of Wacky Workbench in Sonic CD. Both effects even have tweaked versions of their original sound effects!

There's also a twisty pipe system here that reminiscent of what can be found in Sonic 3's Carnival Night and Sonic CD's Quartz Quadrant.
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But the biggest surprise is at the very end of Act 2, where for its boss battle, Eggman fights you...

IN HIS MEAN BEAN MACHINE!

Yes! Sonic Mania is such an homage to the games on the Sega Genesis/Megadrive, that they even reference the one "Sonic" game that originally had nothing to do with Sonic at all! They managed to put Puyo Puyo right into this game via its modified form of Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine!

I made myself suck at this, here. I was trying to go for a bigger chain, but I lost track of what I was doing too fast. If you lose this puzzle match, it's instant death, but its difficulty is set kinda low for those who don't know anything about Mean Bean Machine/Puyo Puyo to begin with.

Winning the puzzle match allows you to proceed on ahead and finish Chemical Plant. Sonic & Tails then take one more high-speed pipe into a brand new place...
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One more thing, the Toxic Caves music at the very beginning of this video was edited in by me. All in the name of referencing Sonic Spinball, because when Sonic shakes himself off from the purple liquid, he does so almost exactly like he does at the beginning of Toxic Caves in that game.

There are actual references that Mania makes to Spinball, however. Not even that American-developed spinoff game will be left out of this game and its massive nostalgia voyage!

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