Favorite Arcade Bonus Stage

[IntvGene]

I was just playing a game of Pooyan tonight and enjoying the two (!) bonus stages in the game, and I was thinking about which bonus stage (i.e. the one where you can't get killed and are rewarded with extra points or an extra life) is the best in the arcades (any era is ok)?

Some of my all-time favorites are:

Shinobi
Galaga '88
Ladybug

It's really too bad that these are pretty much a thing of the past in arcade games. Anyway, any other favorites?

[krbrunn]

I always loved beating the crap out of the car is Street Fighter 2. I didn't like breaking the barrels as much, but it was still fun to do.

[joshnickerson]

I always loved beating the crap out of the car is Street Fighter 2.

"OH MY CAR!"

[chrisbid]

i love bonus stages, they probably stem from game shows of the era

other good ones

mario bros
flicky
karate champ

[MegaDrive20XX]

I always loved beating the crap out of the car is Street Fighter 2.

"OH MY CAR!"

That was from Final Fight actually and the original "Fighting Street"

My favorite was SF2's Barrels, Car, and the Bricks

Mortal Kombat 1's "TEST YOUR MIGHT" was fun

Space Harrier bonus stage with the white dragon was awesome.

DOOM II...The 2 Wolfenstein stages that were hidden were awesome.

Super Mario Bros. 3. The White airship, rare when it appears, but always was a blast to find one, or the mysterious "White Mushroom House" with awesome rare items.

Super Mario World, when you found the SPECIAL ZONE, and you were able to play the demo stage shown at the bootup screen was sweet..

Sonic Adventure, when you discover there is a NIGHTS themed pinball game (Thank you Sonic Team)

Finding out that Metroid Zero Mission has the original NES Metroid as a bonus game was a nice touch.

[Xexyz]

I'm also a big fan of the SFII/Final Fight bonus stages where you beat up the cars. I give the edge to FInal Fight though. That poor guy and his horrendously digitiezed voice "Oh my car" as he kneels down and sheds a tear... priceless.

Question: What game has you beat up an SUV? I know it's a Capcom game and I know its more recent than the early 90's?

[Kuros]

I'm also a big fan of the SFII/Final Fight bonus stages where you beat up the cars. I give the edge to FInal Fight though. That poor guy and his horrendously digitiezed voice "Oh my car" as he kneels down and sheds a tear... priceless.

Question: What game has you beat up an SUV? I know it's a Capcom game and I know its more recent than the early 90's?

Street Fighter 3 Third Strike

On topic: I like the parry practice with Sean in SF3 Third Strike.

[devilman]

Always liked the button-bashing balloon-inflating at the end of Level One on The Simpsons arcade game.

[felix]

I always like the bonus stages of Street Fighter 2.

[buttasuperb]

On topic: I like the parry practice with Sean in SF3 Third Strike.

Same here.

[Flack]

I would say Shinobi and Paperboy are my favorites. The ones in Gyruss are kind of similar to the ones in Galaga but I was always better that the Gyruss ones. ;)

[Crutch]

I always like playing Life Force mini game in the break during the first or second period in Blades of Steel. Even though I had Life Force, it was still awesome.

[chrisbid]

how can anyone forget the "challenging stage" on galaga? :)

[Sanriostar]

I spend most of my time trying for a perfect Bonus stage on Super Pac Man: IE shortest route, 5000 bonus. I can get the time around the 7000's, and hit the 5000 every time, but only on a real arcace game, the PS Namco vol2 has 'issues'.

[demen999]

The car wrecking stages in the Street Fighter 2's does it for me.
Oh I also like the Special Zone in Super Mario world. Those echo effects were pretty cool in their days hehe.

Where is this nights level in SA?

[rpepper9]

Super Mario World, when you found the SPECIAL ZONE, and you were able to play the demo stage shown at the bootup screen was sweet..

Where was this located? I haven't played for quite some time but I think I may have missed this. On the start up screen I have 99 of the possible 100 points listed next to my character, maybe this is the point I am missing.

[Ed Oscuro]

Another vote for Shinobi, and Shadow Dancer too.

[bargora]

I spend most of my time trying for a perfect Bonus stage on Super Pac Man: IE shortest route, 5000 bonus. I can get the time around the 7000's, and hit the 5000 every time, but only on a real arcace game, the PS Namco vol2 has 'issues'.
How so? I just thought that I suck! Do you need to use an arcade stick?

[grimbal]

Being able to shoot the dog in the bonus stage of the Duck Hunt arcade machine.

After all those years of that dang dog laughing at me on the NES I finally got to extract my revenge. :D

[Tron 2.0]

SFII and Finalfight for me as well 8-)

[MegaDrive20XX]

Super Mario World, when you found the SPECIAL ZONE, and you were able to play the demo stage shown at the bootup screen was sweet..

Where was this located? I haven't played for quite some time but I think I may have missed this. On the start up screen I have 99 of the possible 100 points listed next to my character, maybe this is the point I am missing.

The name of it is called "Groovy" I think (Part 5 of the Special Zone)

[Griking]

The first bonus stage that came to mind when I read the question was the vegetable harvest in Ladybug.

[Vectorman0]

how can anyone forget the "challenging stage" on galaga? :)

I have to go with this one too. This isn't saying much as I have little arcade experience, and don't have much to compare it to. I'm really hoping that arcades, or something of similar form become popular again. Online games are cool, but head to head trash talking and the whole arcade experience is something else. This is probably why games like those of neo-geo are loosing so much popularity here. Great games, that just aren't being presented in the right manner.

[fergojisan]

I like the Challenging Stage in Galaga, although very rarely have I gotten all 40 (even with 2 ships).

I looooved Pitfall:The Mayan Adventure when it came out, and of course finding the 8 bit scorpion walking around in the game to play the original Pitfall.

Does the Watermelon level in Food Fight count? I guess not, since the chefs are still there. Oh well. :(

[Sanriostar]

I spend most of my time trying for a perfect Bonus stage on Super Pac Man: IE shortest route, 5000 bonus. I can get the time around the 7000's, and hit the 5000 every time, but only on a real arcace game, the PS Namco vol2 has 'issues'.
How so? I just thought that I suck! Do you need to use an arcade stick?

It's a combination of needing an arcade stick and that PS Namco Museum compresses the video horizontally a bit. Have you noticed that the Ghosts have a bit of a 'conehead'? That means that the corridor for the right move is shorter that on a real, vertically-mounted raster monitor. If you could hook up your PS to a cab with a Vertical monitor and a real arcade stick, and use the 'montor flip' option in the menu, then that should fix the problem.

As for my 'perfect pattern', I'll cook up a pic if you guys want it.

[chadtower]

I spend most of my time trying for a perfect Bonus stage on Super Pac Man: IE shortest route, 5000 bonus. I can get the time around the 7000's, and hit the 5000 every time, but only on a real arcace game, the PS Namco vol2 has 'issues'.
How so? I just thought that I suck! Do you need to use an arcade stick?

You need to use a 4 way stick, an 8 way directional (like a D pad on your controller) only confuses the game by sending multiple directions at once. There are very few pac home versions that don't suffer from this.

My favorite bonus stage is definitely Space Duel. Very short, closing walls, super bass sound.

[Immutable]

I would have to agree on Shinobi. You had to be rather quick for some of those ninjas. :)