[Antoshi]

It seems that even though I managed to get an "A" in the Hard Mode mission, I'm incapable of getting the 14,000 needed to for an A-Rank in the first mission of Sky Rail. I always come up about 2000 points short of it. Aside from that I've died way too many times trying to find a quick route.

I thought a good idea would be to look at Cybrax's fastest time. And even though I was blown away by what I saw, he only managed to get about 11,000 points. So that didn't help.

Any suggestions? I'm seriously stumped, and I have no guides other than the ones posted on the internet. And those pretty much just tell you the requirement for A-Rank without giving any insight to the mission.

Thanks!

[yse]

Well, there's five factors that affect your score:

- enemy kills,
- "trick" points (which come from as varied sources as linking of enemies all the way through to performing a certain action)
- rings (but they're only ten points each)
- item boxes, which are 200 points unless they contain rings
- end-of-level time bonus

Obviously you want as much of all of these factors as possible, but a fast time conflicts with, for example, getting all the trick points available. So you have to compromise.

In general, the aim is to maximise your enemy kills and trick points, while still paying regard to your time, but not giving it priority. Sky Rail 5, off hand, should take at least three minutes.

If you've got the Ancient Light powerup, there's a decent chain of enemies there that you should take advantage of - at least a thousand points all up, plus the rings afterwards. If not, you should skip the spring leading to the first checkpoint and stand on the platform behind (the one with the spinning spiked balls I think). As you approach the left side of it, the chain appears.

[Buizel]

The first thing you might want to do (after collecting the 12 rings on the rails that you start on) is to get the extra life on the platform below where you end up landing. After getting the Awesome bonus from jumping off the rail, quickly go down and grab the extra life. As long as you make it back up in less than 10 seconds, it will be worth your time, plus you'll have an extra life to boot.

After that, as mike already said, you should go to where you got the Ancient Light upgrade and combo the enemies there...although what I do is take the spring right after the rocket and grind down the rail there for 500 points, then charge a spindash (towards the rail) and go back up the rail and back to where the spring is (turn after passing the spring so you don't go shooting off and falling off the level), and then go and combo the enemies up there. You can always practice this since you should have gotten the extra life earlier, so that if you mess up, you can restart and retain the same number of lives you had.

Another thing you might want to do (if you haven't already done so) is to get the capsules on the pumpkin monoliths after the second checkpoint; that is, do a homing attack on the beetle right after the rails turn for the first time, then use the spring and get the extra life and the 10- and 20-ring capsules for 500 points. To get back on the rail, jump down and do a homing attack on the 5-ring box below (although make sure you're around the same height as it, otherwise you won't home in on it and will likely fall to your doom), then nudge Shadow toward the rail slightly to make it safely.

There are plenty of capsules on Church Mountain that you can get (if already haven't) if you take the time to look.

Jumping off the rail after the third checkpoint to get capsules, then getting back on the rail rewards you with tech points (also you did get the Gold Beetle, right?).

That's pretty much all I know of that many gamers would overlook. Hope that helps!

[SadisticMystic]

I finally found RocketDarkness's old video that gets 20680 points in Sky Rail.  You can watch it at http://www.soniccenter.org/videos/RocketDarkness_SkyRail1s_20680.avi

Doing everything in that video is certainly overkill, so you can choose which 6000-odd points you want to throw out for being too risky.

[Antoshi]

Wow, I didn't know there was Score Records videos as well!

Thank God, the video helped me get 16,000, on both Mission 1 and Mission 4 (Which I had a B Rank in). But not before I died about 50 times in doing so, and fighting off the urge to hit something. Especially when I keep falling in the same place!

But yeah thanks a lot for the help. I'm sure I can get lots of help if I need it at this great site. Kudos. :D