SEGA Heroes

SEGA Heroes is a mobile game developed and published by Sega. The game is a role-playing puzzle game starring various characters from Sega franchises, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Shinobi, Super Monkey Ball and Golden Axe. The game will include events, a PvP arena, bosses, and a survival mode. Players will be able to upgrade their characters and "Quest through SEGA history, as you build an all-star team".

Story
An evil being named Dremagen (the master of a thousand dimensions) begins to collect heroes from across different worlds and rule them all. She does so with a clone army she made of the heroes.

In the dimension that Dremagen forced several heroes into, Amy Rose meets Ax Battler and requests his assistance to help their friends. They soon run into a clone of Joe Musashi and manage to defeat him. Afterwards, the duo meet up with AiAi and continue their quest with him. Along the way, they run into opponents that are helping Dremagen's cause, such as Death Adder, Lassic, Mr. X, Shadow and Dr. Eggman. Thus Amy, Ax, and AiAi team up with more heroes to take down Dremagen.

Gameplay
SEGA Heroes is a match-3 game. By matching at least three tiles of the same color, the character assigned that color will attack. Enemies can be targeted by tapping them before a move is made, and once targeted, all attacks will be directed at that enemy. Each move is counted as a turn, and will allow the enemy's cooldown timer to decrease by one. When an enemy's timer becomes an "!", it will attack after the player makes their next move.

Matching purple Rally tiles will fill up the Rally Meter. Each Rally Level increases ally damage and healing by 0.1x (does not include status effects). Some characters gain added effects once a certain Rally Level is reached.

Matching tiles in such a way to cause more matches to happen will allow the the player's team to attack more in one turn.

Matching four tiles at once will create a Star Tile on the spot the player moved to, which, when matched, will cause the character of that color to use his/her Star Skill.

Matching five or more tiles at once will create a Super Star Tile, which will clear a 3x3 area surrounding it when activated and allow that character to use his/her Star Skill. Any Star Tiles cleared in the blast will activate, allowing those characters to also use their Star Skills. Some characters gain an added effect when their Star Skill is activated by a Super Star Tile.

Star Rally tiles and Super Star Rally tiles add five Mana to the Rally Meter.

Clearing tiles will give Mana to the appropriate color. A Mana bar is located beneath each of the player's party's portraits. Once the Mana bar is full, tapping the character's portrait will activate his/her MAX Skill. Each character has his/her own amount of Mana needed to be able to use his/her MAX skill. Matches made by the enemy team do not count towards the player's own team's Mana.

If a MAX Skill causes matches to happen, it will still be the user's turn afterwards.

The Stun Status effect will not allow that hero to attack, use MAX skills, Star Skills or gain Mana.

Silence will only prevent the MAX Skill from being used, but will allow all other moves.

When the board currently has no possible matches, it will reset to a state where matches are possible.

Upgrading
Characters can be upgraded by using resources that can be collected through gameplay.

Player Level
Player Level determines the maximum level that characters can reach and increases Energy available in both campaigns. At certain levels, more features in the game become available. Experience is needed to level up and can be acquired through Daily Quests and completing Stages in the Campaign, Beyondering, and XP Rush Events. 1Daily Quest Completion Chest

Character Levels
Characters can be leveled up through Training. The maximum level characters can reach is equal to the player's current Player Level. At certain levels, Skills and the ability to upgrade them become available. Training increases Power, Health, Match Damage, and Skill Attack/Healing Power (certain percentages and number of turns are unaffected).

Promotions
Promotions require the appropriate amount of Hero Shards for that specific Hero and uses Gold. Promotion consumes the Hero Shards used for that Promotion. Promoting a character increases a character's Power, Health, Match Damage, and Skill Attack/Healing Power (percentages and number of turns are unaffected).

Enhancements
Characters can be Enhanced after every level that is a multiple of 10 and requires Spirit Stones. Enhancements increase Health, Match Damage, and Skills.

Hero Skills
Hero Skills vary for each character, but all require Reagents, Skill Stones and Gold to upgrade. It should be noted that the Max value for damage or healing skills is based on Max Skill Level, Max Star level, and Max Character level at the same time. They scale with the power of the character. Preview Next Level only considers the next Skill Level.

Rarity
The Rarity of a character predetermines their max Power, and Match Damage. Health is character specific however. It should be noted that some characters can boost their strength and health further with Passive skills.

Music
During the initial release, there were only three songs in the game. Two of them are from former games and one seemed to be an entirely new song. Since then, the unidentified song has been replaced by tunes from various Sega games, giving each world a theme.

Trivia

 * This game was initially known as SEGA Legends.
 * When Amy meets Joe Musashi for the first time, she does not think highly of him as she has a friend who is a ninja as well, referring to Espio the Chameleon. Similarly, a discussion between Amy and detective Blaze Fielding references fellow private eye Vector the Crocodile.
 * Ax calling Amy a rabbit (despite her appearance) may be a tongue in cheek reference to Sonic the Hedgehog's original design, where he was formerly a rabbit.
 * Froggy appears as a cameo during Big the Cat's victory animation. He is also referenced multiple times during the campaign.
 * An orca makes a cameo appearance as part of Big the Cat's "Whale!" attack.
 * Phantasy Star is the first series to have more than one Legendary character.
 * It is also the first series to have more than one Legendary in a set, the second being House of the Dead.
 * The Hermit appears as a cameo as part of Dr. Curien's "Unleash Creature" attack.
 * Shadow and Rouge are the only Anti-heroes known as Scoundrels.
 * Similarly, the Crazy Taxi crew are not labeled as Virtuous or Scoundrel due to the fact that their wild, destructive nature is limited to the flavor text and the player's control.
 * Also ironically, despite the nature of the Jet Set Radio characters, Captain Onishima, whose job in the Jet Set Radio series is to keep the streets clean and safe, is a Scoundrel (albeit he cleans the streets in a very aggressive and villainous way), and Beat and Gum are considered Virtuous despite their motives in their series being to deface property for territory gain (albeit with freedom of art as the ultimate goal).
 * It is implied early on that the real Shadow may or may not be working with Dremagen, which may explain why Sega heroes labels him as Scoundrel. SPOILER - Despite this, Shadow never appears in cutscenes in Campaign.
 * Sega Heroes is one of few globally released games to not refer to the House of the Dead series as just Curien Mansion, but as its proper name.
 * The special Trophy events seem to play theme music most closely resembling the theme of the event, regardless of the stage background.
 * Ebitan is the first hero to be a common enemy from the series it is from. Normally this role is reserved for the enemy groups the player battles (e.g. Buzz Bombers).
 * Though similarly, Dr. Eggman and Metal Sonic are the only unique enemies that are not also Heroes. Death Adder lampshades this in Campaign mode.
 * As an April Fools joke on 1 April 2019, a new enemy named Chester was offered as a free chest by Dremagen.
 * It does not have to be defeated to win the prize, though it is a simple battle. It is not clear if winning or forfeiting affects the prize that the player wins.
 * This is the first time a Survival Key was offered as a reward. Despite the three key maximum, the player can have more than three keys if they earn or purchase excess keys.
 * SEGA Heroes was announced as game of the day by the Apple App Store on 18 April 2019.
 * Elemental Weakness is the original name of Volatile when it was on the soft-launch version of Lassic.