I just finished unlocking Expert Mode on Shadow today, and I've been working my way through it... on Central City, though, I had something really strange happen. I got the first three or so big bombs detonated; after the third one (the one in the green slime that has the robots drop down to defend it with the explode-able wall to a pole behind it), I climbed up the pole, ran down the street and grabbed the rocket. At this point I got thrown off by a level difference; usually I jump off the rocket in midair, land on the sidewalk and hit a springboard that launches me up to a ledge with a GUN robot and a shielded soldier; however on Expert that springboard doesn't seem to exist. It didn't occur to me to turn around and get in the truck next to the checkpoint to get across the slime in the street, so I just started jumping and homing attacking my way across, taking damage repeatedly as I did so since there is no sidewalk there.
Eventually after losing 30 or so rings I made it to the other end, jumped out where the big bomb was supposed to be and... nothing. No bombs, no cage, no robots, no cars. It was like the game forgot to load any objects, just the stage layout. I thought I might have accidentally gotten into an area that Expert Mode wasn't using and that I wasn't supposed to be in, because I went down the higher road that leads in the other direction and still didn't encounter any objects.
Eventually I got to one of the big metal doors that seals off routes, and had to use a spindash jump with the ramp effect to get myself up and over it and back into an area with loaded objects. By this point I was getting very irritated, because I had already been in the stage for around 11 minutes and was running out of places to look for bombs. I doubled back through the whole stage, checking again, and eventually wound up at the rocket again. I took it again, but this time, I dropped straight down on the other side of the metal wall to the checkpoint with the truck next to it and got in the truck. I drove through the slime instead of jumping through it, and... boom, there were the robots, rubble, the bomb, and the springboard to get up to it. I was annoyed that for whatever reason, the game hadn't loaded it the first time around, but was glad I could at least move on with getting the stage over with, so I detonated the bomb, went down the other road and... sure enough, enemies, rings and objects were loaded. Found the final bomb, blew it up and finished the stage.
I'm wondering if this is a glitch in the game that can be reproduced (like in The Doom where one GUN robot won't spawn unless you leave the room and come back after taking it out of draw distance), and if it's not, if it means my Gamecube is about to crap out. I really wish I'd recorded this. After I finish getting through Expert Mode, maybe I'll try to make it happen again.
