I would recommend taking a crash course in how the progression of game difficulty should properly be applied, because that was some of the most ridiculous boss attack patterns, right out the gate.
Also, as others have stated: I concur. Those Special Stages are horribly painful to play. Everything moves far too fast, and you have a split second to react to ANY Rings that appear on screen. The amount present within each Special Stage is not the factor.
Spikes everywhere, enemies appearing on screen immediately in your path hurting you before you even have a moment to react (and often with terrible-to-haphazard placement)
Some decent spritework here, and the levels at least feel somewhat like they belong in a proper 2D Sonic game, but the overall balance is borderline Kaizo levels of bulls---.