History GameBreaker / SonicTheHedgehog

* The Spindash returns in ''Frontiers'', and it is as powerful as it was in ''Sonic Adventure'', if not more so. On its own it gives Sonic a massive speed boost with near-zero acceleration, and unlike this game's incarnation of the Boost it can be used to deal damage to enemies; however, when used on a surface with enough of an incline, it can be used to gain both immense distance ''and'' incredible altitude, and when used right it can sequence break a fair number of platforming challenges. While it's not unlockable until the last island of the base game, the ''New Horizons'' update not only gives it to Sonic as a basic move, it makes it an unlockable skill for ''all four playable characters'', meaning that it can be chained with Tails' flight and Knuckles and Amy's glides to gain incredible speed, height, ''and'' distance, breaking a vast number of platforming challenges.
* Similarly to Sonic's Spindash, the strength and usefulness of Tails' flight rivals its ''Adventure'' incarnation. He performs almost exactly the same as he did in ''Adventure'', only this time in an open world, which means that many of his platforming challenges can be completely skipped by simply flying towards the objective from a high enough position.
** The one thing even more broken than Tails' regular flight ability is his full-ring special move, [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 the Cyclone]]. Once this skill is unlocked, if Tails boosts with a full ring gauge, he summons the Cyclone, which not only boasts incredible speed but can even be used as an actual plane to gain ''unlimited height''. Its one limitation is that it uses the boost meter as fuel, but even that can be addressed with a simple infinity Cyloop to gain ''infinite fuel''. Simply put, with the Cyclone, one can practically skip ''almost all of Tails' challenges''.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'', all seven Chaos Emeralds could be gathered in ''the first zone'', since there are enough checkpoints in Emerald Hill Zone to get all the emeralds. This (naturally) allowed you to breeze through the game casually, the only challenge being the final level, in which the player has to fight Silver Sonic and Dr. Robotnik with no protection.

* Bosses can be one of the more difficult aspects of ''Sonic'' games, because if you get hit, your rings can potentially scatter out of reach. However, in most 2D ''Sonic'' games, your last ring will ALWAYS fly to the left if you get hit. This means that in most boss areas, as long as you DON'T wander too far to the left, it's usually possible to get hit and recover your one remaining ring again and again, effectively preventing you from ever dying. Even better, your character will always fly in the direction opposite of where they were facing when damaged, meaning as long as you attack ''only'' while facing right, you can easily recollect that one single ring as needed.
** Some games such as the ''VideoGame/SonicRush'' series combat this trick by either having the single ring fly in a random direction when you're hurt. Some games may also combine this with having the recollected ring(s) fly increasingly farther from your character if you continuously get hurt within a short time frame; eventually resulting in them ''instantly flying out of bounds'' if you continue to abuse this trick. Some games such as the original ''Sonic Rush'' will even go as far as to give bosses a special attack and/or hazard that ''[[OneHitKill kills you outright if it hits]]'', [[NoFairCheating regardless of your ring count]]. Thankfully, these attacks are usually very telegraphed.

* Tails in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', due to his flying ability. In Windy Valley, you can skip the entire level just by flying over everything. Compared to other 3D Sonic games, this one has easily the most overpowered flight ability. Tails gets a lot of height and distance, moves quickly, and goes even further and faster with the Jet Anklet. He can slowly descend to the ground or quickly dive down. There's no real height or distance cap beyond your momentum and flight stamina, which only drains while you're holding the jump button. Other levels, such as Sky Deck, become laughably easy once you find all of the shortcuts that you can reach just by flying. And that's ''without'' the Jet Anklet.
** With the Jet Anklet? Tails is even faster than ''Sonic'' when he flies! The upgrade makes Windy Valley a joke and makes the rest of the game noticeably easier (when you're not wrestling with the camera, anyways). It's also one of the only upgrades you can get as soon as the intro ends, as there is literally nothing stopping you from getting it.

* Tails in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', due to his flying ability. In Windy Valley, you can skip the entire level just by flying over everything. Compared to other 3D Sonic games, this one has easily the most overpowered flight ability. Tails gets a lot of height and distance, moves quickly, and goes even further and faster with the Jet Anklet. He can slowly descend to the ground or quickly dive down. There's no real height or distance cap beyond your momentum and flight stamina, which only drains while you're holding the jump button. Other levels, such as Sky Deck, become laughably easy once you find all of the shortcuts that you can reach just by flying. [[UpToEleven And that's]] ''[[UpToEleven without]]'' [[UpToEleven the Jet Anklet.]]

* Ray, still in ''VideoGame/SonicManiaPlus'' is absolutely ''ridiculous''. His glide can reach insane levels of speed and he [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=1FUNTwnUrAc can]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=RRdtr9u9lKE speedrun]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=1JkRvAakjO0 a]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=6OBmYTCZfwY level]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=TOlBxjmDikQ faster]] than ''Super Sonic can ever hope to''. Now, knowing that the Super Forms grant you SuperSpeed, try to think how fast [[UpToEleven Super Ray can get the job done]].

** Some games such as the ''VideoGame/SonicRush'' series combat this trick by either having the single ring fly in a random direction when you're hurt. Some games may also combine this with having the recollected ring(s) fly increasingly farther from your character if you continuously get hurt within a short time frame; eventually resulting in them ''instantly flying out of bounds'' if you continue to abuse this trick. Same games such as the original ''Sonic Rush'' will even go as far as to give bosses a special attack and/or hazard that ''[[OneHitKill kills you outright if it hits]]'', [[NoFairCheating regardless of your ring count]]. Thankfully, these attacks are usually very telegraphed.

[[folder:Sonic 3 And Knuckles]]

** Some games such as the ''VideoGame/SonicRush'' series combat this strat by either having the single ring fly in a random direction when hurt. Or some game have the recollected rings fly increasingly farther from your character if you continuously get hurt within a short time; eventually resulting in them ''instantly flying out of bounds'' if you continue to abuse this trick.

** Some games such as the 'Sonic Rush' series combat this strat by either having the single ring fly in a random direction when hurt. Or some game have the recollected rings fly increasingly farther from your character if you continuously get hurt within a short time; eventually resulting in them ''instantly flying out of bounds'' if you continue to abuse this trick.

* Bosses can be one of the more difficult aspects of ''Sonic'' games, because if you get hit, your rings can potentially scatter out of reach. However, in the earlier 2D ''Sonic'' games, your last ring will always bounce to the LEFT if you get hit. This means that in most boss areas, as long as you DON'T wander too far to the left, it's usually possible to get hit and recover your one remaining ring again and again, effectively preventing you from ever dying. Even better, your character will always fly in the direction opposite of where they were facing when damaged, meaning as long as you attack ''only'' while facing right, you can easily recollect that one single ring as needed.

* Tails in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', due to his flying ability. In Windy Valley, you can skip the entire level just by flying over everything. Other levels, such as Sky Deck, become laughably easy once you find all of the shortcuts that you can reach just by flying. [[UpToEleven And that's]] ''[[UpToEleven without]]'' [[UpToEleven the Jet Anklet.]]

* In any game the form is playable outside of the FinalBoss, [[SuperMode Super Sonic]] and the other {{Super Mode}}s tend to be this. Not only does it make them invincible, far faster, and possibly deal more damage, it's usually easy to keep the ring total up, depending on how fast it consumes them.
* Bosses can be one of the more difficult aspects of ''Sonic'' games, because if you get hit, your rings can potentially scatter out of reach. To counter this, keep in mind that in almost all 2D ''Sonic'' games, your last ring will bounce to the LEFT if you get hit. This means that in most boss areas, as long as you DON'T wander too far to the left, it's usually possible to get hit and recover your one remaining ring again and again, effectively preventing you from ever dying.
** Even better, in many of the 2D games, your character will always fly in the direction opposite of where they were facing when damaged, meaning as long as you attack ''only'' from the left, you can easily recollect that one single ring as needed. This has been abused for so long that recent titles have started making rings fly in random directions and/or [[NoFairCheating farther and farther away from you when you're repetitively damaged in a small period of time]], eventually to the point where they'll fly ''completely offscreen no matter where you are'' if you're struck again.

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 version of the game adds another GameBreaker — the ability to save the game whenever you wanted, and reload from that save without penalty. With ''the ability to [[SaveScumming use save states]]'', suddenly the game's challenge goes right out of the window.

* Really, in the retro ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, Super Sonic is a Game Breaker. Faster than normal Sonic, can jump higher, and is invincible to everything bar death pits, crushing, and drowning. The only drawback is that once your rings run out, you're defenseless unless you managed to pick up a shield, but rings are easy enough to come by, especially in ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles''. Speaking of which, Hyper Sonic, Super Tails, and Hyper Knuckles are even more Game Breaking because of their abilities. Hyper Sonic can destroy all enemies on screen by double-jumping (and can double-jump in any direction, including straight down), Hyper Knuckles can do it by gliding into walls, and Super Tails's Flickies will automatically home in on and destroy any enemy near them. Bosses with Super Tails become a joke because all you have to do is just stand there and let the Flickies do all the work for you. Super Sonic is such a Game Breaker that it's easy to see why Sega made it an EleventhHourSuperpower in their newer games. Another Game Breaker in a meta sense is the acquisition of emeralds in ''3 & Knuckles''; the impossible-to-miss first giant ring in Mushroom Hill comes back if you quit and reload (it's special on purpose, long story), making collecting all 14 Emeralds a matter of completing the Special Stages. With infinite retries.
** Super/Hyper Sonic becomes an even worse Game Breaker in ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'' once you pick up the electric shield, which magnetically pulls rings towards you, and as long as you can move through the level consistently quickly, you can pretty much stay Super/Hyper through the whole level.
*** Also, even without Super/Hyper Sonic in ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', each of the shields in the game trivialized bosses and several levels — whether it was the fire shield to allow players to stand underneath most bosses and jump, or the electric double jump that ruined the whole point of the boss being out of reach. Heck, even Sonic's Insta-Shield's reach is just enough to break several boss battles if you time it correctly. A definite fan favorite is the fire shield for the otherwise intimidating Lava Reef boss, which allowed Sonic to walk on lava and laugh off every attack except the spike balls at the end of it.
*** There is one instance of Super Tails backfiring. His swarm of Super Flickies automatically targets enemy units. But the Death Egg Act II boss can only be hurt by using the gravity-switching elevators to knock its drone units into it. This is next to impossible when they keep getting destroyed by Super Flickies. So he's powerful in a good way and a bad one.
*** Also, there's these switches in Launch Base that the player characters destroy that open up new pathways and close others. With the Super Flickies, it's possible to prematurely break such a switch in Act 2 that'll [[UnwinnableByMistake trap Tails until the level's time limit expires]].
*** In addition, Super Tails can render the Sandopolis miniboss, the Stone Guardian, {{unwinnable}}, but only if you stand to the left of the boss to make it face left. If facing left, the boss gets knocked to the right and away from the quicksand pit, which can happen pretty easily with the Flickies. However, if you stay to the right of the boss and make it face that way, the Flickies will knock the boss towards the sand pit.

* Not even a "super" character, Tails in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', becomes something like this in some of his levels due to his flying ability. In Windy Valley, you can skip the entire level just by flying over everything. Other levels, such as Sky Deck, become laughably easy once you find all of the shortcuts that you can reach just by flying. [[UpToEleven And that's]] ''[[UpToEleven without]]'' [[UpToEleven the Jet Anklet.]]

[[folder:Sonic Adventure 2]]
* Sonic is this if you have acquired the Magic Hand and the Bounce Bracelet upgrades. For the Magic Hand, you can have the option to turn your enemies (except ghosts) into balls and for the Bounce Bracelet, this can be useful for the two Shadow boss fights and the Big Foot boss fight. For the former, just quickly defeat Shadow by repeatedly using the Bound Attack and for the latter, you can use the Bound Attack to get a good height to home attack Big Foot without having to stand on the boxes. Shadow never gets these upgrades, sadly.
[[/folder]]

* Cream in ''[[VideoGame/SonicAdvanceTrilogy Sonic Advance 2]]'' renders every boss powerless as her Cheese attack move will always hit from any distance during the fight. Simply pressing B repeatedly without even moving can guarantee an easy victory.
** Cheese does that in every single ''Sonic Advance'' game[[note]]except the first, in which he doesn’t exist[[/note]], trivializing all but the [[EleventhHourSuperpower Super Sonic]] bosses.
*** [[FridgeBrilliance Suddenly, its name makes perfect sense]].

** Tails is cheap thanks to the fact that his Spinning Tails attack does damage to the boss from below, considering most bosses are designed to be hit from above.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', there was Team Rose, who was supposed to be the game's version of easy mode, but they took it to the next level, considering that their Team Blast gauge charged up extremely quickly, and once it was at full power, their [[LimitBreak Team Blast]] destroyed all the enemies in the vicinity, gave them a shield, Power Sneakers, invincibility, ''and'' powered them up even further by instantly raising each character an entire level, which made reaching the max level of 3 all too easy. Combine this with the fact that their levels are about half the length of the other teams’ levels, and you have absolutely no reason whatsoever to struggle to beat their portion of the game.
** Team Chaotix counts for this to a certain degree considering that [[DreadfulMusician their Team Blast]] destroys all enemies ''and'' turns them into rings which fill up your Team Blast gauge, [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill which can chain endlessly in certain areas]] [[CurbStompBattle and make several boss fights a complete joke as a result, especially when they were at max level.]]

* From ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', we have Sonic's Purple Gem custom action, which turns Sonic small by holding down a button. It may seem like a novelty at first with the high price of 14,000 Rings, but you'll realize why it's a Game Breaker. While small, Sonic's Homing Attack is replaced with an ''infinite double jump.'' This allows you to pass some sections of Action Stages just by double-jumping or easily find Silver Medals. And you can buy this ability ''right before Sonic's final level.''
** Oh, and on a lesser note, Sonic's Red Gem custom action, which slows down time. Including ''the in-game timer'', making it a bit easier to S-rank some missions.
*** Also, it's possible to skip large sections of Omega's levels thanks to a bug with his hover function. Essentially, pressing the hover button in midair makes Omega ''cancel all vertical momentum'' briefly. This means that, by rhythmically tapping the hover button, you can make Omega ''fly''. This also allows Omega to visit places he isn't even supposed to go, including Shadow's section of Wave Ocean (you even get Shadow's dialogue!) and Sonic's, though the latter has no enemies to fight.

* Cream the Rabbit from ''VideoGame/SonicChronicles''. Seeing as you barely have to go out of your way to get her on your team, she definitely applies here. She has a move called "Refresh" that, when used, restores PP for everyone on the team. She can also heal everyone at once, rid everyone of status effects at once, etc. Her inputs kind of tricky? No problem. Equip her with Ferox, a Chao that makes all POW moves never fail, and watch the game suddenly become piss-easy.
** Also, that move Refresh? It also affects Cream, and at rank two (which you can get the minute you recruit her thanks to LeakedExperience), the move costs 8 PP and restores 10. That's right, It ''pays for itself'', meaning everyone else can perpetually use POW moves for absolutely no cost.

[[folder:Sonic Colors]]
* Super Sonic returns to his Game Breaker status in ''VideoGame/SonicColors''. Though sort of an InfinityPlusOneSword due to how long it takes to get him (you have to first obtain all Red Star Rings, which there are five of in every stage, then you have to complete all the Game Land stages, which are seven stages with three acts each), getting him will tear the game apart. The main reasons being that for one, he can boost infinitely, for two, you get a 2000-point "Super Sonic Bonus" every second you spend in Super form, and for three, just using him in a stage means you're guaranteed an S-rank, no questions asked if that stage has no Wisp; otherwise, you’re not getting an S-rank anytime soon.
** Additionally, Super Sonic is literally a Game Breaker in ''Colors''. In order to play as him, you have to activate a Super Sonic Mode in the options. When active, [[DungeonBypass Super Sonic mode alters the object layouts in ALL the acts so that Sonic can beat them without wisps, with the ability to transform into Super Sonic taking up the Wisps' slot on the HUD.]] This extends to acts where you aren't even able to scrape up enough rings to transform in the first place!
* The DS version gives us Unlimited Boost, which not only lets you still use Wisps, but it can be used on all modes and acts — even bosses that aren’t the true final boss, Sonic Simulator, or time attack.
[[/folder]]

* Super Sonic has similar attributes in ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'', too (both Classic and Modern). They attempted to {{nerf}} him by making his rings decrease much faster when boosting and in 3D sections, boosting made you fly. While this made you bypass all obstacles in 3D sections, you wouldn't be replenishing rings either. That said, you can still just not boost and enjoy invincibility.
* The Act 1 shield powerups. The Flame Shield lets you air-boost to speed through linear and open-air sections, and the Thunder Shield allows you to double jump.

* The Super Forms are back. Even better, Tails can now become Super Tails after getting all seven Chaos Emeralds, something that he couldn't do before.
** Speaking of which, if you're exploratory and persistent enough, you can get all the Chaos Emeralds before Chemical Plant Zone Act 2, which gives you access to the Super Transformation ''from just the second zone in the game''. This allows you to almost easily ''breeze'' through the rest of the game, especially since most stages are very generous with rings.

** Team Chaotix counts for this to a certain degree considering that their Team Blast destroys all enemies ''and'' turns them into rings which fill up your Team Blast gauge, [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill which can chain endlessly in certain areas]] [[CurbStompBattle and make several boss fights a complete joke as a result, especially when they were at max level.]]

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 version of the game adds another GameBreaker — the ability to save the game whenever you wanted, and reload from that save without penalty. Yes, that's right, it gives you ''the ability to [[SaveScumming use save states]]''. Suddenly the game's challenge goes right out of the window.

* In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', there was Team Rose, who was supposed to be the game's version of easy mode, but they took it to the next level, considering that their Team Blast gauge charged up extremely quickly, and once it was at full power, their [[LimitBreak Team Blast]] destroyed all the enemies in the vicinity, gave them a shield, Power Sneakers, invincibility, ''and'' powered them up even further by instantly raising each character an entire level, which made reaching [[OverNineThousand the max level of 3]] all too easy. Combine this with the fact that their levels are about half the length of the other teams’ levels, and you have absolutely no reason whatsoever to struggle to beat their portion of the game.

* The Super Forms are back. ''Nuff said.''

* Here's something fun to try: In either ''Sonic 2'' or ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'', rev up a Spin-Dash, but don't release it. Then activate debug mode. Plop badniks onto your character, and watch your score skyrocket. [[GoodBadBugs Because you get an extra life at every 50,000 points, and because your frozen-in-place Spin-Dash allows you to quickly increase the score for defeating enemies to 10,000 points a pop, it's possible to generate a literal ton of lives in only a matter of minutes!]]
** In ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'', this can even be done ''without'' debug mode, in one specific place. Launch Base Zone has alarm sirens that summon dive-bombing Fybots, but if you hold a spin-dash in the alarm's trigger area, it will continuously defeat them, allowing you to rack up a massive score and the accompanying extra lives.

* Modern Sonic becomes this when hacked into Classic Sonic's levels. The Sonic Boost is able to overcome utterly everything thrown at Modern Sonic, and his (vastly superior) Homing Attack and Stomp techniques can make robo-butter out of anything and everything. [[WeaksauceWeakness Just don't let him get his hands on a skateboard. His physics makes it easy for him to get trapped against a wall.]] Classic Sonic can be this in the opposite situation, although his lack of Quick Step and Sonic Drift and randomness of his spindash in 3D areas (not to mention the fact that you can't even use it before entering a 2D area, lest the game screech to a crashing halt) makes him DifficultButAwesome at first. Once you work around his weaknesses, he becomes [[LightningBruiser an absurdly fast TANK that not only can reach above and beyond Modern Sonic's top speeds, but is able to keep his speed and momentum far better than Modern Sonic if you time your moves correctly.]] [[UpToEleven And this is without his shields or Homing attack upgrades.]]

* Ray in ''VideoGame/SonicManiaPlus'' is absolutely ''ridiculous''. His glide can reach insane levels of speed and he [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=1FUNTwnUrAc can]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=RRdtr9u9lKE speedrun]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=1JkRvAakjO0 a]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=6OBmYTCZfwY level]] [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=TOlBxjmDikQ faster]] than ''Super Sonic can ever hope to''. Now, knowing that the Super Forms grant you SuperSpeed, try to think how fast [[UpToEleven Super Ray can get the job done]].

* In any game the form is playable outside of the FinalBoss, [[SuperMode Super Sonic]] and the other {{Super Mode}}s tend to be this. Not only does it make them invincible, far faster, and possibly deal more damage, it's usually easy to keep the ring total up depend on how fast it consumes it.
* Bosses can be one of the more difficult aspects of Sonic games, because if you get hit, your rings can potentially scatter out of reach. To counter this, keep in mind that in almost all 2D Sonic games, your last ring will bounce to the LEFT if you get hit. This means that in most boss areas, as long as you DON'T wander too far to the left, it's usually possible to get hit and recover your one remaining ring again and again, effectively preventing you from ever dying.

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 version of the game adds another GameBreaker - the ability to save the game whenever you wanted, and reload from that save without penalty. Yes, that's right, it gives you ''the ability to use save states''. Suddenly the game's challenge goes right out of the window.

* Really, in the retro ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, Super Sonic is a Game Breaker. Faster than normal Sonic, can jump higher, and is invincible to everything bar death pits, crushing and drowning. The only drawback is that once your rings run out you're defenseless unless you managed to pick up a shield, but rings are easy enough to come by, especially in ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles''. Speaking of which, Hyper Sonic, Super Tails and Hyper Knuckles are even more Game Breaking because of their abilities. Hyper Sonic can destroy all enemies on screen by double-jumping, Hyper Knuckles can do it by gliding into walls, and Super Tails's Flickies will automatically home in on and destroy any enemy near them. Bosses with Super Tails become a joke because all you have to do is just stand there and let the Flickies do all the work for you. Super Sonic is such a Game Breaker that it's easy to see why Sega made it an EleventhHourSuperpower in their newer games. Another Game Breaker in a meta sense is the acquisition of emeralds in ''3 & Knuckles''; the impossible-to-miss first giant ring in Mushroom Hill comes back if you quit and reload (it's special on purpose, long story), making collecting all 14 Emeralds a matter of completing the Special Stages. With infinite retries.

*** Also, even without Super/Hyper Sonic in ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', each of the shields in the game trivialized bosses and several levels. whether it was the fire shield to allow players to stand underneath most bosses and jump. or the electric double that ruin the whole point of the boss being out of reach. Heck, even Sonic's Insta-Shield's reach is just enough to break several boss battles if you time it correctly. A definite fan favorite is the fire shield for the otherwise intimidating Lava Reef boss, which allowed Sonic to walk on lava and laugh off every attack except the spike balls at the end of it.

*** Also, there's these switches in Launch Base that the player characters destroy that open up new pathways and close others. With the Super Flickies, it's possible to prematurely break such a switch in Act 2 that'll trap Tails until the level's time limit expires.
*** In addition, Super Tails can render the Sandopolis miniboss, the Stone Guardian, {{unwinnable}}, but only if you stand to the left of the boss to make it face left. If facing left, the boss gets knocked to the right and away from the quicksand pit , which can happen pretty easily with the Flickies. However, if you stay to the right of the boss and make it face that way, the Flickies will knock the boss towards the sand pit.

* Not even a "super" character, Tails in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' becomes something like this in some of his levels due to his flying ability. In Windy Valley, you can skip the entire level just by flying over everything. Other levels, such as Sky Deck, become laughably easy once you find all of the short cuts that you can reach just by flying. [[UpToEleven And that's]] ''[[UpToEleven without]]'' [[UpToEleven the Jet Anklet.]]
* Sonic's Spin Dash is unusually flexible in this game, as it activates at the press of a button and can be started anywhere (similar to Classic Sonic's move in the HD version of ''Generations''). An easy way to build up speed is to simply spam the action button. Combining a Spin Dash with a well-timed jump on a slope also allows Sonic to fly into the air, allowing some degree of sequence breaking.

** Cheese does that in every single ''Sonic Advance'' game, trivializing all but the [[EleventhHourSuperpower Super Sonic]] bosses.

* Amy Rose may be more of an example of DifficultButAwesome, but using her hammer attack on springs in ''Sonic Advance'' and ''Sonic Advance 3'' makes the spring launch her twice as far, often times sending her soaring over large chunks of the level. In ''Sonic Advance 3'', having her as your partner replaces everyone's ground attack with a hammer attack similar to hers. [[NotQuiteFlight Enjoy your flight.]]

* In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', there was Team Rose who was supposed to be the game's version of easy mode, but they took it to the next level considering that their Team Blast gauge charged up extremely quickly, and once it was at full power, their [[LimitBreak Team Blast]] destroyed all the enemies in the vicinity, gave them a shield, Power Sneakers, invincibility, ''and'' powered them up even further by instantly raising each character an entire level, which made reaching [[OverNineThousand the max level of 3]] all too easy. Combine this with the fact that their levels are about half the length of the other teams levels, and you have absolutely no reason whatsoever to struggle to beat their portion of the game.
** Team Chaotix counts for this to a certain degree considering that their Team Blast destroys all enemies ''and'' turns them into rings which fill up your Team Blast gauge, [[TheresNoKillLikeOverkill which can chain endlessly on certain areas]] [[CurbStompBattle and make several boss fights a complete joke as a result, especially when they were at max level.]]

* From ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'' we have Sonic's Purple Gem custom action, which turns Sonic small by holding down a button. It may seem like a novelty at first with the high price of 14,000 Rings, but you'll realize why it's a Game Breaker. While small, Sonic's Homing Attack is replaced with an ''infinite double jump.'' This allows you to pass some sections of Action Stages just by double-jumping or easily find Silver Medals. And you can buy this ability ''right before Sonic's final level.''

** Also, that move Refresh? It also affects Cream, and at rank two (which you can get the minute you recruit her thanks to LeakedExperience) the move costs 8PP and restores 10. That's right, It ''pays for itself'', meaning everyone else can perpetually use POW moves for absolutely no cost.

* Super Sonic returns to his Game Breaker status in ''VideoGame/SonicColors''. Though sort of an InfinityPlusOneSword due to how long it takes to get him (you have to first obtain all Red Star Rings, which there are five of in every stage, then you have to complete all the Game Land stages, which are seven stages with three acts each), getting him will tear the game apart. The main reasons being that for one, he can boost infinitely, for two, you get a 2000-point "Super Sonic Bonus" every second you spend in Super form, and for three, just using him in a stage means you're guaranteed an S-rank, no questions asked if that stage has no Wisp other wise your not getting an S-rank anytime soon.
** Additionally, Super Sonic is literally a Game Breaker in ''Colors''. In order to play as him, you have to activate a Super Sonic Mode in the options. When active, [[DungeonBypass Super Sonic mode alters the object layouts in ALL the acts so that Sonic can beat them without wisps, with the ability to transform into Super Sonic taking up the Wisps' slot on the HUD.]] This extends to acts were you aren't even able to scrape up enough rings to transform in the first place!
* The DS version gives us Unlimited Boost which not only lets you still use Wisps can be used on all modes and acts even bosses that isn't the true final boss, Sonic Simulator, or time attack.

* Modern Sonic becomes this when hacked into Classic Sonic's levels. The Sonic Boost is able to overcome utterly everything thrown at Modern Sonic, and his(vastly superior) Homing Attack and Stomp techniques can make robo-butter out of anything and everything. [[WeaksauceWeakness Just don't let him get his hands on a skateboard. His physics makes it easy for him to get trapped against a wall.]] Classic Sonic can be this in the opposite situation, although his lack of Quick Step and Sonic Drift and randomness of his spindash in 3D areas(not to mention the fact that you can't even use it before entering a 2D area, lest the game screech to a crashing hault) makes him DifficultButAwesome at first. Once you work around his weaknesses, he becomes [[LightningBruiser an absurdly fast TANK that not only can reach above and beyond Modern Sonic's top speeds, but is able to keep his speed and momentum far better than Modern Sonic if you time your moves correctly.]] [[UpToEleven and this is without his shields or Homing attack upgrades.]]

* Really, in the retro ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, Super Sonic is a Game Breaker. Faster than normal Sonic, can jump higher, and is invincible to everything bar death pits, crushing and drowning. The only drawback is that once your rings run out you're defenseless unless you managed to pick up a shield, but rings are easy enough to come by, especially in ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles''. Speaking of which, Hyper Sonic, Super Tails and Hyper Knuckles are even more Game Breaking because of their abilities. Hyper Sonic can destroy all enemies on screen by double-jumping, Hyper Knuckles can do it by gliding into walls, and Super Tails's Flickies will automatically home in on and destroy any enemy near them. Bosses with Super Tails become a joke because all you have to do is just stand there and let the Flickies do all the work for you. Super Sonic is such a Game Breaker that it's easy to see why Sega made it an EleventhHourSuperpower in their newer games. Another Game Breaker in a meta sense is the acquisition of emeralds in ''3 & Knuckles''; the giant rings come back if you leave the game and reload, so you can keep using the same one in Mushroom Hill, which means the only hard part is actually completing the Special Stages.

* Not even a "super" character, Tails in ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' becomes something like this in some of his levels due to his flying ability. In Windy Valley, you can skip the entire level just by flying over everything. Other levels, such as Sky Deck, become laughably easy once you find all of the short cuts that you can reach just by flying.

* Sonic is this if you have acquired the Magic Hand and the Bounce Bracelet upgrades. For the Magic Hand, you can have the option to turn your enemies (except ghosts) into balls and for the Bounce Bracelet, this can be useful for the two Shadow boss fights and the Big Foot boss fight. For the former, just quickly defeat Shadow by repeatedly using the Bound Attack and for the latter, you can use the Bound Attack to get a good height to home attack Big Foot without having to stand on the boxes.

*** The Super and Hyper mode were 100% completion type bonuses which took a while to unlock and gave you the true ending, so it was seen as an award for doing so (the first Sonic had emeralds but no Super/Hyper mode and they added in there to reward the player. It might have been removed because using it at insane speeds on casual stages would have been more difficult.) so it doesn't intrinsically ruin a normal runthrough of a game, and it *is* optional. Also, to get super emeralds, you have to first give away your chaos emeralds, which means no Super Sonic while gathering emeralds for Hyper Sonic. The lightning shield did make some fights easier (like the fire shield did on fire bosses since you were immune to all of their attacks), but the game wasn't a cakewalk with it. So YMMV.

*** There is one instance of Super Tails backfiring. His swarm of Super Flickies automatically targets enemy units. But the Death Egg Act II boss can only be hurt by using the gravity-switching elevators to knock its drone units into it. This is next to impossible when they keep getting destroyed by Super Flickies. So he's broken in a good way and a bad one.

*** [[FridgeBrilliance Suddenly, her name makes perfect sense]].