How many Blue Sphere stages are in Sonic Mania?

While working on my Blue Sphere unlock guide, I've started noticing that the bonus stages sometimes repeat themselves.

This means that, unlike the standalone Blue Sphere (which had 134,217,728 levels), Sonic Mania most likely has a limited pool of pre-made bonus stages.

How many unique Blue Sphere bonus stages are in Sonic Mania?

Solution 1:

Sonic Mania has 32 premade Blue Sphere bonus stages accessible from checkpoints.^1,2,3

Blue Sphere is based on the special stages seen in Sonic 3, with 32 unique stages, each one rewarding you silver or gold medals based on your performance.
_{Eurogamer - Sonic Mania special stages}

Additionally, collecting 32 medals will unlock a near infinite supply of randomly generated Blue Sphere stages in the Extras Menu.

Collecting every single Blue Sphere metal will unlock Blue Sphere mode where you can play a million or so versions of procedurally generated Blue Sphere stages.

These new sphere stages have two types of modes:

• Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Which is what we all know and love
• Mania Mode: Which introduces brand new mechanics into the blue sphere game, such as spheres that need to be collected twice or spirits that will teleport you across the map

^{Sonic Mania: The Completionist Review (27:29)}

For reference, GameXplain has a 50 minute video showcasing all 32 premade bonus stages.

Sources

• That One Video Gamer: Sonic Mania - The Completionist Review featuring Tails Channel (22:05 & 27:29)
• Eurogamer: Sonic Mania special stages
• GameXplain: Sonic Mania - All Bonus Stages (Blue Sphere)
• IGN Wiki: Blue Sphere Stages