Hint Ring

The Hint Ring (ヒントリング) is a recurring gimmick in the Sonic the Hedgehog series which first appeared in Sonic Heroes. It is a variation of the Hint, which provides the player with additional help during gameplay.

Description
The Hint Ring's design has varied slightly over the course of the series. However, its general motif is a floating question mark surrounded by several colors.

In gameplay, the Hint Rings can be found in several places across the various types of playable levels. When touching it, the game will provide the player with information about the surroundings, gimmicks, objects, enemies, and how to play the game. How these messages are relayed differs between games, although they are usually accompanied by a message box and/or text.

Sonic Heroes
In Sonic Heroes, the Hint Rings are presented as a rainbow-colored question marks surrounded by a ring of circles in different colors. When using a Hint Ring, one of the characters on the player's team will speak out its information as a trialogue between the team's members (normally with subtitles).

Every character has their own description of the information contained in the Hint Ring. However, there are cases where the characters do not speak and only subtitles appear, which is most likely a glitch. After being activated, the Hint Ring will not become usable again until after the characters finish speaking.

Shadow the Hedgehog
In Shadow the Hedgehog, Hint Rings are circular multicolored question mark rather than the usual design. Like in Sonic Heroes, every character including Shadow himself has his own type of description to the gimmick or attack that the player can use, whether in an evil phrase, or on a scientific one. In Shadow's case, he will talk in "First Person" and guides the player to control him, while the other characters talk in-normal with him.

In the Expert Mode, they just act like a phone which are used to hear the supporting characters that appeared in the game, wishing a good luck for Shadow in his test.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
In Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), The Hint Ring retained its normal design to that appeared in Sonic Heroes, more with more colors and a special announcer does speak each hint instead of the character. Unlike the Hint Rings in the previous games, they mostly describe attacks, rather than objects. If the player does run on a Hint Ring, while the character is talking, the dialogue will change to the Hint Ring and the character's one will cut.

Sonic Unleashed
In Sonic Unleashed, they are Xbox 360/Playstaion 3 version exclusive. The design is very similar to that of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), but is the colors are changed to fit with graphics of the game which made them more colorful and rotate in the air. In this game, every time the player runs into a Hint Ring, he will be unable to control the character until he finishes it and Chip is the one who describes it, but without a voice. Additionally, the Hint Rings' information do not move automatically and the player can continue reading/close it by pressing the / button. In some cases, the Hint Rings do vanish after using the gimmick, if the player did not use them at the first place.

Sonic Colors
In Sonic Colors, the Hint Ring takes the same design of Sonic Unleashed, but is modified to fit with game's engine. The Hint Ring here is used to describe attacks, bosses and Wisps with their Color Powers. Whenever the player touches a ring, the screen fades black and the gameplay does freeze while Tails is describing the object/attack with the subtitle being able to control by pressing the Jump button. After using it, the Hint Ring will vanish and return again, except in the boss battles where they cannot be used freely. In this game, the Hint Ring can also be seen floating in the air as well.

''Sonic Lost World
In Sonic Lost World, they reappeared in the Nintendo 3DS version. In this game, many hint rings are seen in the tutorial act of Windy Hill and on other stages in smaller numbers.