Sonic the Fighters

Sonic the Fighters, also called Sonic Championship in English arcades, is a fighting game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The game's original title is used in North American and European releases of Sonic Gems Collection.

Story
Doctor Robotnik has released the Death Egg II, and now Sonic and Tails must stop him. However, their new airship only supports 1 passenger, and to defeat Eggman they need the 8 Chaos Emeralds (7 in the majority of Sonic continuities). The eight wielders of the Chaos Emeralds, including Sonic and Tails themselves, take part in a battle tournament, with the winner taking all the Chaos Emeralds. The participants, in order of combat, are:
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Amy Rose
 * Bark the Polarbear
 * Espio the Chameleon
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Fang the Sniper
 * Bean the Dynamite
 * Sonic the Hedgehog

Whichever character the player is controlling is cloned by Robotnik during their battle, so that the player fights all eight of them. For instance, if the player controls Sonic, then in the eighth battle, Robotnik will create a clone of Sonic.

After arriving at the Death Egg II, the heroes get a surprise visit from Metal Sonic. After defeating him, the Death Egg II begins to fall apart as Doctor Robotnik in his mech suit challenges the victor (the round must be finished to complete the story). Unlike other battles in the game, the player only gets one shot to take down Robotnik.

The victor escapes the Death Egg II before it explodes, however, the post credits scene shows Robotnik and Metal Sonic also escaped the explosion and head back to Earth.

Characters
Sonic can also become Super Sonic in story mode. Without losing a life since the 1st fight, the player enters Hyper Mode in the 2nd Round against Metal Sonic.

Hacked Characters
Unused and scrapped characters can become playable via hack.
 * Honey the Cat
 * Eggman
 * Eggman (Mecha)
 * Eggman (Spaceship)
 * Eggman's Robo
 * Metal Sonic
 * Rocket Metal

Arenas

 * South Island
 * Flying Carpet
 * Aurora Icefield
 * Mushroom Hill
 * Canyon Cruise
 * Casino Night
 * Dynamite Plant
 * Giant Wing
 * Death Egg's Eye
 * Death Egg's Hangar

Saturn version
There was a plotted Sega Saturn version to the game, but it was canceled for unknown reasons. There are also numerous unused objects like apples and rockets, which could have been used.

Trivia

 * A special theme plays when pitting Sonic and Knuckles against each other in either story and versus.
 * Even in English localities where the game was called Sonic Championship, the title screen was listed as Sonic the Fighters. This is an example of how Japanese and American names would slip out on occasion.
 * Amy's muzzle is apricot in all her promo pics, but white on her playable character.
 * Honey the Cat was a character who was going to be in the final game, but scrapped for unknown reasons. She is playable through hacking.
 * Dr. Robotnik's name was misspelled Robotonic in the intro of the game for unknown reasons, however inDr-robotonic.jpg the final battle the character is listed as Dr. Eggman, and through hacking, it can be seen that the character is fully listed as Dr. Eggman Robotnik. Oddly enough, this exact mistake is made again in a scene of Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut when E-102 Gamma refers to Dr. Robotnik as Dr. Robotonik.
 * Eight Chaos Emeralds appear in this game, whereas the majority of other games in the series include only seven.
 * Ray the Flying Squirrel was originally set to appear in the game as an announcer, but was scrapped.
 * Many of Sonic's attacks in Super Smash Bros. Brawl can be traced back here as well as Sonic Battle.
 * On one of the two pictures of Sonic (the ones where he appears to be in the air), the picture has the gold buckle on his shoe, and the other doesn't.
 * The rocket in the Sega Saturn commercial (next to Mirror Honey) is Tails's rocket from Sonic the Fighters.
 * This game's character select icons of Sonic, Knuckles, Amy and Fang are all taken from their Sonic Drift 2 artwork.
 * The only way to play as Super Sonic is to reach the 2nd round against Metal Sonic without losing a round. Many fans state that this is the hardest Super Sonic transformation requirement in any Sonic game.
 * In the Dreamcast game, Shenmue, many of the characters in this game appear in their promo art as collectible capsule figurines that Ryo can retrieve from a dispenser, or in special cases, such as obtaining Super Sonic and Metal Sonic, they can be won in a lottery. These figures serve no real purpose but to simply be collected. That would also mark the second time Bean and Bark appeared in another game.
 * Interestingly enough, in Shenmue, if one were to rotate the Fang figurine where he is standing on both feet, his right hand appears to have five fingers while his left hand has four.
 * This game marks the first apearance of Amy's Piko Piko Hammer, which played a major role for most of Amy's attack techniques in future games.