Throughout Sonic's story, there are Gems that gradually become available for purchase from the shops which grant Sonic abilities such as slowing down the environment around him, giving Sonic a burst of speed and even allowing him to throw the Gem in a grappling hook-like fashion. These are supposed to drain his meter in the bottom right-hand side of the screen (which works properly for Shadow and Silver), but due to programming errors, they don't do anything. As such, it is incredibly easy to exploit your way past disliked sections of stages.