The best sonic title ever. Ring bonus = 1,000 x rings collected beating the level quickly will not be good enough for the S-rank as you're missing out on a ton of rings and special bonuses. In Tropical Resort Act 3, if you're stacked up on tails saves, you can take advantage of it by collecting the third 100 ring item, then falling down the chasm. You will retain your points and rings, but be sure to take the upper zipline to collect the final 30 rings before you exceed 6 min 25 seconds. My high score is over 5.266M pts. In Aquarium Park acts 1, 4, and 6, the time limit is 8 min 9 sec. I managed to score over 4M twice on act 6, over 3.9M on act 1, and 3.306M on act 4.

Colors' ranking system really encourages getting as many points as possible within an time limited that doesn't require you to do it really fast. But here is how I tackle it.

1. Use as many color powers as you can because they give you bonus points, especially ones like Drill and Spike because you get points for just staying in the color power.

2. Try to collect most, if not all 5 Red Stars Rings in one run. I found that these can be the main factor in getting an great rank, and majority are placed in a way they you'll be more than capable in getting all 5 of them.

3. Watch the time, while you don't have to race to the goal for a big time bonus in Colors, you can get punished for being in the stage for too long, and even longer can have an red text to say "Time's Up' meaning you can't get any more points.

4. Again, bonus points! Colors just throws points at you, so utilize that!

5. Cheese the Tails saves. The points save, so it'll help.

From what I gather is that Speed isn't the only factor. Freeing and using *Wisp Powers*, defeating badniks and doing multiple Gimmick tricks add up the score. Rings also add a decent sum to it. However don't get hit else that counter declines.

nothing about how it calculates your score i.e. how to get an s rank? because clearly fast clear times don't matter very much