Urban Legend Of Zelda / Sonic the Hedgehog

• A rumor that Sonic Lost World has a secret ending spawned from a supposed quote from a Sega employee and people's disappointment in the story's end. After the employee implied it was a misquote and the most obvious methods for unlocking a new ending yielded nothing, the rumor died down, being replaced with the rumors of a direct sequel to the game.
• Sonic Generations had persistent rumors of new DLC stages, which turned out not to be true (barring the downloadable Casino Night Zone pinball minigame).
• There were a few rumors about some bizarre secret levels in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. They do exist (kind of), but they were Dummied Out mid-development. Urban legends arose out of extant music and screenshots. The Android/iOS version of the game includes a recreation of the most famous of these levels, Hidden Palace Zone, as a secret level; with a cheat code, you can also unlock the original incomplete version from the leaked beta as an Easter Egg.
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the subject of numerous rumors, including:
  • That you can play as Knuckles in Sonic 1, Ecco the Dolphin and Streets of Rage 2. This was a relatively common magazine hoax as people were experimenting with connectivity between games. Australian magazine SEGA Megazone even claimed you can play as Tails in Sonic 1 as well. These days, you can play as Knuckles (and Tails) in the Android/iOS exclusive 2013 Sonic 1 enhanced port. Sega did originally want to make Sonic & Knuckles connectable with Sonic 1, but they couldn't get the Knuckles sprite to work in game, because many sprites share Sonic's palette and would look weird should it be overwritten with Knuckles'.
  • That you can unlock something cool if you play all the Blue Sphere levels with Sonic 1 connected. That "something" can be playing as Hyper Tails, Metal Sonic, or Robotnik. There are over 100 million Blue Sphere levels — assuming you're able to solve each one in two minutes, it would take roughly 400 years of solid play to finish them all. And nothing would happen anyway, as no data exists for these hidden characters being playable.
  • That you can defeat the miniboss of Angel Island Act 1, who makes an early appearance in the level to set the whole place on fire; you can jump on it while it's present, causing it to flash with the "hitting a boss" noise, and it was presumed you can destroy it if you're fast enough. Doing so supposedly lets you play the rest of the level without the fire effects. It's not possible, and even if it were, that doesn't take care of the other robots flying around during that scene doing the same thing.
  • In a similar shade to EGM's Sheng Long hoax, the official UK Sega Magazine one had a contest where they offered one milion pounds to whoever could unlock the secret character "Rankles the Otter" in the game. The whole thing was revealed as fake at the bottom of the very page where the contest was featured (alongside a real contest where you could win a Sega CDX by proving that you know how the ending cutscene of Sonic 3 and Knuckles goes by). Also, "Rankles"'s artwork was blatantly a green Knuckles with part of his head crudely cut off, no spikes on his gloves and the feet replaced with cheap-looking CGI spheres with spikes on them.
• Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2:
  • These games gave us Chao, a breed-able Mon (and the craze that followed). Some rumors immediately after release, such as getting Chaos Chao or Knuckles' Air Necklace, turned out to be true, so more rumors followed, including the presence of any number of "secret unlockable items." The most infamous of these is the Chao Cookie, a Rare Candy that greatly boosts your Chao's stats, and is only obtainable after collecting all of the emblems. There is also a rumor that collecting all the emblems allows you to buy the "White Market", which is like the Black Market but includes really rare Chao egg colors.
  • "Dark Sonic" arose from glimpses of Shadow during the first game's promotion; people spun incredible stories about the character. Sega wouldn't reveal him outright until right before the game's release. Possibly coincidentally, Sonic X introduced Dark Super Sonic years later.
  • There's a rumor that Chao can be born stillborn if you inbreed your Chao. This isn't true.
  • Both Sonic Adventure 2 and its subsequent remake have an interesting aversion with Chaos Chao, which are immortal and always have the same physical features depending on alignment. Chaos Chao are in the game, and can be unlocked by having the Chao in question reincarnate at least twice and giving them every single animal in the game at least once. This in turn lead to even more rumors, such as the existence of a Chaos Chao Garden, and the belief that the player could not give their chao chaos drives, or it had to be every animal exactly once. Neither of which are true, the only chao gardens are the Hero, Dark, and neutral gardens, and there's no criteria to check how many times a specific animal has been given to chao, nor do chaos drives affect the process.
• Since the dawn of Sonic, but especially pre-Internet, a popular schoolyard rumor suggested that cheat codes can give Sonic a variety of firearms, from pistols to rocket launchers. The sheer persistence of these rumors (and requests to Sega) led to Shadow using them in his own game; unlike Sonic, it would be in-character for him.
• In the demo for Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), a gem known as the "Rainbow Gem" is featured in the store but can't be purchased, teasing the idea it is in the final game and might give Sonic the ability to become Super Sonic. When the final game was released, multiple rumors sprouted that one has to beat the Hard Mode stages, finish every stage in a certain time, or finish every stage with a near-perfect or perfect score. As it turns out, Sega dummied it out so they could release the game early.
• In Sonic Heroes, it was rumored that you can play as Metal Sonic by achieving an A rank in every stage, as you can in Sonic Adventure DX. A further rumor suggests that rather than a simple re-skin, doing so will unlock a "Team Metal" who chases Team Sonic through difficult stages like in a time trial. While it is possible to play as Metal Sonic (or Metal versions of every other playable character), it's just an Easter Egg for the game's multiplayer mode. The only unlockable mode in Sonic Heroes is a hard mode.
• Despite common belief, the Japanese version of Shadow the Hedgehog does not contain Maria's original death scene or any red blood. It's just as censored as the English version.
• A schoolyard rumor surrounding Sonic the Hedgehog 2: When Sonic gets pancaked by the giant pistons in Metropolis Zone, players will on rare occasions see Sonic fall off the screen followed by a pair of eyeballs.

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