Sonic Legends is a fangame by the Ultra Ring Team, which aims to reinvent and update over 20 years worth of Sonic fangaming history, starring many famous zones over the years and redesigning them in a similar vein to Sonic Mania. It started off as a mod for Mania before evolving into a full-blown fangame.
Taking place after the events of Knuckles' Chaotix, Dr. Eggman has decided to expand upon his Dark Ring experimentation by incorporating a Chaos Emerald into the mix. Using the Liquid-based substance known as Phossil as its power source, the doctor immediately starts mining out the Island where it is most expensive; Christmas Island, Sonic's very own birthplace, to power his Dark Rings, as well as his newly developed "Ultra Ring", as an attempt to gain powers not dissimilar from Chaos Rings.
Of course things don't go as planned, and soon our heroes arrive just in time to be involved in a much bigger problem. The entry point to the "Nexus Dimension" being opened up thanks to a mishap that was caused by the so-called "Ultra Ring" acting more like a standard Chaos Ring thanks to its control Emerald, ripping the Master Emerald right out of its altar on Angel Island, and creating a converging point spanning multiple timelines that have merged together in order for the Chaos Emeralds to seek refuge from creating energy too powerful for the world to handle...
The trial version of the game, containing both Sunrise Gate Zone from Sonic Overture and Panic City Zone from Sonic Utopia can be downloaded and played here
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Starring Stages
- Sunrise Gate Zone (Sonic Overture)
- Bronze Lake Zone (Sonic: Project Mettrix)
? Sunset Shore Zone (Sonic Nexus)note
This fangame contains the following examples:
- Adaptation Expansion: The visuals and level design of Panic City Zone in this game are far more elaborate than they were in the source game, practically being its own thing besides some chunks of reused level design.
- Adapted Out:
- Sunrise Gate Zone does not feature the ancient golden city from Act 3 of Overture. Instead, Sonic visits a cave area with a miner robot to illustrate how Eggman has been extracting resources from Christmas Island.
- Instead of Toxic Sewers from the Sonic Utopia 2006 demo, Panic City Zone's second act is an interpretation of what the never-revealed "Midnight Building" act could be like, and with visual inspiration from the romhacks of MarkeyJester.
- Art Evolution: The teaser trailer of Panic City from Sonic Utopia (2006) shows the zone with far more detailed graphics than it had in its home game.
- Author Appeal: Sonic Utopia's usage of "Nokosareta Toki" from Mahoromatic led to developer ScarlyNight getting into the series after finding the source of the music track. Because of that, the recreation of Panic City in Legends retains the song and features multiple nods to the series.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: The Sunrise Gate Boss flies just out of Sonic's reach, requiring the player to exploit the quakes from when it slams its hands into the floor to bounce onto it. However, the sides of the arena are slopes and they can be used to jump higher and beat the boss much faster.
- Call-Back:
- The title cards for each level are styled akin to those seen in Sonic XG.
- After the Sunrise Gate miniboss is defeated, it drops a Dark Ring which evaporates after bouncing for a few moments.
- The mech Eggman pilots to attack the player at the end of Sunrise Gate Zone Act 2 bears a striking resemblance to Thirteen from the old Twin Stars concepts predating Sonic.
- As of the CGS '23 demo, selecting Sonic and Tails to play as together refers to them as "the Unbreakable Bond".
- The Cameo:
- Upon being warped across dimensions after the Sunrise Gate boss, Sonic flies over screenshots of various fangames. It's unknown which ones will be featured in Legends.
- Panic City used music from the anime adaptation of Mahoromatic in its home game. Cementing this connection further into Legends, a flyer featuring the silhouette of the lead heroine, Andou Mahoro, can be spotted on one of the news stands.
- Comedic Sociopathy: When the Rabbit rival is introduced, he bounces off the player character's head. Sonic brushes it off, but Tails is knocked onto the ground.
- The Multiverse: The Nexus Dimension merges select locales from "Different Timelines", effectively treating every fan game as an event that can be seen as canon in another timeline.
- Green Hill Zone: Sonic Overture's Sunrise Gate Zone is mostly based on pre-release concept art of the Trope Namer. It has few hazards and no real stage gimmicks, with a very vertical and layered level design of curved slopes that allows players to maintain speed and repeatedly jump onto higher paths. Like Green Hill Zone itself, the player is the one in control here!
- Mythology Gag:
- In Sonic Utopia, Panic City, Toxic Sewers and an unknown Midnight Building level were all part of Metropolis Madness Zone. In the Legends recreation of Panic City, "Welcome to Metropolis Madness" is seen written on billboards in the same font used in Utopia.
- Panic City contains flag decorations with the title card pattern of Sonic Frenzy Adventure, another fangame by BlueFrenzy, the developer of Sonic Utopia 2006.
- Nostalgia Level: The game features several levels from throughout the Sonic fangaming community with a fresh coat of paint and new boss fights.
- The Rival: The rabbit character from early concepts of what would become Sonicnote appears as a rival who keeps hopping around the hedgehog just to grab attention for himself. He also counts as an Unwitting Instigator of Doom, due to triggering the Ultra Ring into activating the dimensional warp thanks to the Master Emerald and a Chaos Emerald he stole from Robotnik.
- Speed Echoes: Characters gain afterimages while running at top speed.
- To Be Continued: In the Sunrise Gate demo, after the player character is sent through a portal with many zones showcased, they emerge in a new location called Bronze Lake Zone, before setting off on their way before the credits roll.
