SonicMario
Star Spirit
First 2 ideas are nice. But the 3rd is confusing me. What if more then one person makes it to the Warp zone and ends up in a different area? Unless somehow all 4 players are warped there when one player decides where everyone goes if they get there first. It just turns into something that delays the battle (In stock of course, would just make Time battles boring as noobs who want to have a chance will simply go into a warp and wait for sudden death).