Video Game / Sonic Robo Blast 2

When it's done.

^{Click here to see the title screen used in Demo 2 to 2.1}

Sonic Robo Blast 2 is a 3D freeware fangame based on the Sonic the Hedgehog games and created on the Doom Legacy engine. It was started in 1998, and has been in development ever since.

It is a sequel to Sonic Robo Blast, a very crude fangame by a user named Sonikku. The original Sonic Robo Blast was created in the Klik and Play game making program, and was very primitive and quite buggy. Despite this, the game is full of secrets, and is renowned for being one of the first Sonic fangames ever created.

The sequel was originally intended to be a 2D game similar to its predecessor. This concept was scrapped when the team (at the time made up of users SSNTails and Sonikku) decided to make the game using the 3D Doom Legacy engine. Early tech demos featured basic Sonic gameplay but still showed its Doom origins. As more releases came out, the game consistently became more Sonic-like, as well as adding online netplay including Co-op in the single-player levels, a unique Deathmatch system, Capture the Flag, and racing.

In 2005, the inaccurately titled "Final Demo" Version 1.09.4 was released, and development was considered to have stalled for 4 years. In 2009, Version 2.0 was released and was the biggest update to the game, containing 7 new single-player levels, an overhauled Match system, and a lot of new options for level-developers. 2.1 was released in mid-March of 2014 after 4 more long years of wait, containing level updates, graphics revamps, new stages (single and multiplayer) and more. The current version, 2.2, released in December 2019 and heavily altered or remade most levels in order to include slopes (which wasn't previously possible on the engine) and bring their design and level of detail up to par with the Techno Hill Zone Act 2 redesign published 5 years before.

You can find more information about the game on its official website and download the latest version, with archives of older versions also available. The same applies for its soundtrack.

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This game contains examples of the following tropes:

• All Deserts Have Cacti: Arid Canyon Zone, justified as it is inspired by Road Runner cartoons and the Grand Canyon. Averted by the multiplayer stage Desolate Twilight, which has no cacti whatsoever.
• All There in the Manual: Knuckles' purpose for helping Sonic is only stated on the game's website. In a somewhat shoehorned fashion, too.
  • There exists Dummied Out cutscene data that was meant to be used after GFZ3 to insert Knuckles into the story. The 2.2 update eventually added him to the opening cutscene, but with no explanation — he and Tails are just suddenly there.
• Anti-Frustration Features: In version 2.2, the player gets extra starting lives for each spent continue, even after running out of continues. The more game overs, the more lives earned at once — and they're very welcome.
  • Further updates to 2.2 eventually made continues infinite in save files, relegating limited continues to a no-save game and as an option for mods, and made it so the game autosaves every act instead of at the start of a zone, rendering lives nearly meaningless except for the fact that continuing or loading a save puts you at the beginning of the act.
• Art Evolution: As the game evolved, the characters eventually took on a hand-drawn and digitized sort of look. By 2.1, Knuckles got his sprites entirely reworked, looking more like something in line with the game sprites from the main series or Sonic Advance Trilogy, and Sonic and Tails received the same treatment come 2.2 (though even before that, the downloadable FSonic character mod served as a preview of Sonic's updated sprites, combined with abilities he lacks in 2.2).
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Somehow averted. Going into any areas in Egg Rock Zone that are in open space will begin a countdown much like in the underwater levels that appear seconds before the player drowns. With space, the countdown timer begins immediately. Played straight with the special stage Black Hole Zone.
• Big Fancy Castle: Castle Eggman Zone, thanks to both acts being ripe with Marathon Level.
• Bleak Level: Pre-2.2 Castle Eggman, on behalf of it being the first of Eggman's personal headquarters with dull colors and constant rain and thunderstorms running throughout. It also represents an increase in difficulty thanks to being filled with many stage hazards and pits.
• Bonus Level of Heaven: Aerial Garden Zone, the second Challenge Stage.
• Bonus Stage: Older versions of the game had players traverse around an open area, tasking them with collecting a set number of rings within a time limit. Newer versions are basically fanmade levels from NiGHTS into Dreams…, with the player's character temporarily transforming into their Super form to emulate Ni GHTS' flight. The original Special Stage type is still accessible in Multiplayer.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Black Eggman would be completely invulnerable to attack if they didn't place a giant waterfall of acid in the room that can strip them of their protection. Especially notable, as the mechanic requires him to walk directly into it.
• Boss-Only Level: As with Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island, the third act of every Zone is an arena where Eggman is faced in one of his machines.^note The only exception is Black Core, where the first act is a race against Metal Sonic that serves as the closest thing to a normal level in the zone, and the other two acts are both boss battles.
• Boss Remix: Inverted; the music for Castle Eggman Zone is a (very heavy) remix of the boss theme.
• Bottomless Pits:
  • They start appearing at Castle Eggman Zone and don't stop afterwards.
  • Egg Rock Zone plays more like a Mega Man level than a Sonic level. It even includes a few disappearing platform puzzles!
• Brutal Bonus Level:
  • Haunted Heights Zone, a long Halloween-themed level with a complicated mix of hazards from previous zones and Cacodemon-style bots that can be difficult to hit.
  • Aerial Garden Zone, which is ported from the Mystic Realm mod. That is, all three acts from that and the bonus Starlight Palace Zone put together into one massive stage of platform hell. Version 2.2 also changes the enemies to a beehive badnik that spawns swarms of bees that follow the player all over the place.
  • Azure Temple Zone, a very difficult fully underwater level unlocked by completing Aerial Garden Zone. Features gargoyles that shoot green fire, and bug enemies inside bubbles that can make you fall into a Bottomless Pit if you grab their bubbles. The stage theme is also a Darker and Edgier counterpart to the Deep Sea Zone theme.
  • The special stages have Black Hole Zone, which can only be unlocked by A ranking the other 7 special stages, a feat in itself.
• Bullfight Boss: Metal Sonic takes this to an extreme in his boss battle — in his last phase, he'll charge up and charge directly at the player's position, and then bounce continuously on walls until he hurts himself, giving the player a chance to attack. The less life he has, the more time he spends in this state. Good luck managing to do this without getting hit in Time Attack.
• Call-Back: Quite a few areas are designed to resemble stages in previous Sonic games. For example, the red skyscrapers in the outdoor sections of Techno Hill Zone Act 2 resemble the upper reaches of Chemical Plant Zone.
• Cast from Hit Points: In competitive-based game types outside of Competition and Race, players attack each other by throwing rings — the same rings used to protect themselves from attacks. When using one of the special Weapon Ring types, the player consumes one standard Ring and one Weapon Ring for each ring tossed.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: To better enjoy Sonic Robo Blast 2, players must put aside what they know from the official 3D Sonic games (or 3D platformers in general) and adapt to the game's unorthodox control scheme and physics, which are closer to 2D Sonic games with a modern mouse/twin stick camera system.
• Death Mountain: Arid Canyon Zone is a large wild west-themed canyon with rockslides, crumbling terrain, chunks of the ceiling that conveniently collapse when you cross under them, and of course, some lethally steep drop-offs.
• Defeat Means Playable: In version 2.2, Fang the Sniper and Metal Sonic, though the latter isn't unlocked as soon as you beat him, as you'll also have to defeat Black Eggman and complete the game once.
• Developer's Foresight: Three cases, all involving secret characters.
  • First off, when facing Fang or Metal Sonic with at least one player using their playable versions, the fight will take place as normal, with the caveat that Eggman will create a grayscale doppelganger of the character in question, akin to Sonic the Fighters.
  • Secondly, in regards to Metal Sonic. He's a robot, so he's obviously unable to drown. So instead of drowning, if Metal Sonic spends too long in water, he'll start malfunctioning with sparks of electricity appearing around him, with increasing frequency as Metal Sonic gets closer to 'drowning' (yes, it does still play that music, and yes, this does happen in space as well). This was obviously done so that Metal Sonic has what amounts to an air meter, and thus cannot cheese Azure Temple.
  • Thirdly, when playing Frozen Hillside, Amy will not appear at the end to hug the player character if you are playing as Amy herself.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Sonic himself doesn't have Tails's flight abilities, or Knuckles's glide and climb abilities. That said, he is the fastest, and the stages were built with him in mind.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Black Eggman serves this role in the current versions of SRB2 due to having been originally designed to be the boss of Dark City Zone and was placed in Black Core Zone Act 3 as a placeholder for the actual Final Boss.
• Easter Egg: The Ultimate Cheat, which closes the game when activated; the Disco Room in Egg Rock Zone; and literal easter eggs which only appear in old versions of the game. You can also find an animated wall sculpture of Cirno in Deep Sea Zone Act 1 if you play your cards right.
• Elite Mook: You know those silly, weak Crawlas running around the early stages? Well, the hovering, hopping, lunge-attacking Crawla Commander is neither silly nor weak. It also takes two hits to smash, changing its attack pattern when damaged. It only appears in one unlockable level, however, and it can be defeated surprisingly easily by just revving up a spindash and waiting for it to charge into you.
• Embedded Precursor: An incomplete remake of SRB1 (without bosses) used to be an unlockable in the game. It served as something of an amusing reminder of the more primitive days of Sonic fangaming. It got dropped in 2.2., but it's been stated that it'll return in the form of an add-on.
• Enemy Mine: After being unlocked, Fang the Sniper can join Sonic and the other heroes in defeating Dr. Eggman.
• Eternal Engine: Techno Hill Zone, Egg Rock Zone, and several multiplayer stages with those themes.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Before 2.2, the Lance-a-Bot was named the Castlebot Facestabber, which appears in Castle Eggman Zone, is a robot, and stabs your face.
• Flying Brick: Once he reaches his maximum speed, Metal Sonic gains an energy ray which makes him destroy enemies and spikes on his path. In his ring battle, he can charge it in place before dashing in every direction.
• Freeware Games
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • The Stupid Dumb Unnamed Robo Fish is exactly what you would expect it to be.
  • An enemy called the Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard, that flies at a high speed towards you.
• Gang Up on the Human: Approach a group of enemies and then leave them unharmed. Then watch as they form a line and go after you. Also, never do this to a group of flying enemies. Just don't.
• Game Mod: The game itself is an open-source mod of the Doom Legacy engine, and the community promotes user-created levels and characters with a section for releases on the official forums and a bimonthly contest for level designers that anyone can take part in.
  • One of the most well-known mods is The Mystic Realm, which adds eight new zones and was made by Mystic, a former developer. The old site can be found here, with the latest release being found here.
  • Sonic Robo Blast 2: The Past acts as a playable museum that recreates and restores content from older versions of Sonic Robo Blast 2 across the game's long development history.
  • Another well-known one is Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart, which basically turns the game into Mario Kart.
  • Then there's the less dramatic examples — firstly, there's the Battle Mode alternative to the Ringslinger multiplayer, to create a less shooter-esque multiplayer mode.
  • There's also many custom characters, with the most interesting ones introducing interesting new abilities and mechanics to master. This is not an exhaustive list in any category, there's often new stuff on the game's forums, along with other modifications, new levels, and much more.
    • There are, of course, several existing Sonic characters from across the series' history — Eggman (with a jetpack, who also rides an ACME rocket for special stages), Eggrobo, Mecha Sonic, Silver, Blaze, Shadow, Tails Doll & Metal Knuckles, etc. There's even the Werehog!
    • As one would expect, there are multiple custom versions of Sonic — at least two "Modern" versions, mainly Modern (based off of the Boost games) and Neo (basically a faster but more Difficult, but Awesome version of Sonic), as well as a version of Sonic based on the Advance games, a version of Sonic based on Sonic X-Treme, a version of Sonic that is based on his appearance in the OVA and the Sonic CD cutscenes as originally animated by Studio Junio, and earlier versions of Sonic's sprites from past versions of this game. And then there's SRB1 Sonic as a Joke Character. In recent years, there's even a version of Sonic based on his based on Sonic X of all things, in development and according to the gameplay reveal trailer, is set to release some time in 2024.
    • And then there's a fan-made super form of Sonic called Super Mystic Sonic, or SMS for short, whom can be selected as a skin or transformed into from any of the prior versions of Sonic (yes, even SRB1 Sonic). SMS can completely break the game... if you master his very complicated controls, that is!^note To note, there was a TAS using SMS' own super form. Not counting level transitions and the credits, the speedrun, which gathered all the emeralds (by yoinking them out of Eggman's cage at the end of Black Core Zone Act 2), lasted all of two minutes, with Deep Sea Zone Act 2, the longest level in the game, being the only one that took more than ten seconds to complete. To quote the creator of SMS, Golden Shine:
      "While Super Mystic, it isn't the game, but your own limits as a player that will define how far you can push Sonic."
    • Someone made Yoshi into a playable character! And he's basically pretty faithful to how he plays in Yoshi's Island, with some extra abilities from Super Mario World.
    • And then another crazy genius did the same for Kirby, complete with 14 copy abilities, a dedicated brand new tutorial just for the pink puffball (complete with Bandanna Dee as the instructor), and a unique super form based on the starship from Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star.
    • There's also Metroid Vanguard, which is a fully playable Metroid Prime-style Samus Aran with her own storyline sorta-adjacent to Sonic and friends where she is actively hunting down a smuggler who brought Metroids to Sonic's world after the Aether incident — Eggman and his robots are more of a hindrance than her objective. Her campaign even includes unique stages, including Deep Sea Zone's boss fight being against an Omega Metroid, and that's just the first original stage included. Unfortunately, in her storyline, Fang is viciously murdered by Dark Samus through Phazon exposure, and after defeating her, Samus decides that while her ship is being repaired, she should do something about Eggman, since she has no intention of allowing him to conquer the planet while she's there.
    • Another character mod with its own storyline, the Delta Warriors, Kris, Susie, and Ralsei, who can be played individually but also as a team, with the ability to swap between them, having their own Power Trio dynamic, with Kris being the fast agile fighter (and also the only one among the three able to use shield abilities), Susie being the powerhouse capable of wrecking enemies, bosses, and many obstacles with her axe, and Ralsei with substantial vertical and horizontal mobility and a projectile move. Their individual strengths and weaknesses encourage the player to switch between them regularly, and they have their own storyline and dialogue very much in the style of their original game, where the trio attempt to stop Eggman from not only utilizing the power of the Black Rock, but also a Dark Fountain, which Eggman is unaware would cause an apocalypse if not shut down. Also, Lancer is the playable character in special stages using his bike, and Rouxls Kaard hijacks one of the boss fights.
    • And then there are the joke characters. There's at least three versions of Knuckles (the old ugly Knuckles sprite from earlier versions of SRB2, SRB1 Knuckles and Knuckles with his hat from the OVA), the aforementioned SRB1 Sonic, "Hard Sonic", and, uh... this hideously overpowered monstrosity, amongst others. And last but not least, for a combination of Black Comedy and Crosses the Line Twice in one in-joke, the original character of one of the community admins in a wheelchair.
  • And just when you think the mods couldn't get crazy enough comes a mod that was in development for a long time: Sonic Robo Blast 2 Persona, which changes the gameplay to be like that of, well, the Persona series, specifically being a fusion of the plot of Persona 3 and the gameplay of Persona 5.
    • Naturally, Mario was also modded in with his full moveset from Odyssey (except instead of having Cappy, he uses his hammer). In fact, all of the non-level specific music tracks like the "level end" have been replaced.^{Full list of music related Easter Eggs} the music played on the continue screen is an HD rendition of Super Mario Land 2's music, the Game Over music is an HD version of the original Super Mario Bros.'s game over music, the music that plays in-between Ringslinger/race matches is outright the intermission theme used in the VS modes of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and there's genuinely so much tunes that have been replaced to the point that we wouldn't be able to fit HALF OF IT into this page. His super form is also from Super Mario Bros. Z (with the addition of him being able to throw golden fireballs), and he also has support for the mod listed above, and he has action commands and uses his hammer along with various abilities from the Mario RPGS instead of a persona like everyone else. Also, all of the shields are replaced with different power-ups.
• "Get Back Here!" Boss: In Black Core Zone, the first act has you race against Metal Sonic — failing this has you restart the race from the beginning. It is only when you win the race and reach Act 2 that you can actually hurt him.
• Glacier Waif: As explained below, Amy Rose is a slow, power-based character despite being a small, pink colored Sonic in a miniskirt.
• Glass Cannon: All characters apply as such to some degree when they’re not protected by any ring.
• The Goomba: Crawlas. Also, real Goombas straight from Super Mario Bros. appear in the Pipe Towers secret level.
• Gravity Screw:
  • Egg Rock Zone, so much. Of both 'The Variable Gravity Chamber' and the 'Fun With Gravity' variety.
  • The CTF map Twisted Terminal Zone has this as the main gimmick, each base has a chute that flips the gravity of any player that enters, allowing them to roam the center points of the map in reverse gravity.
• Green Hill Zone: Greenflower Zone in the game proper, and Jade Valley Zone and Meadow Match Zone in multiplayer. Sapphire Falls contains Green Hill Zone textures and music.
• Guest Fighter: Early incarnations of Sonic Robo Blast 2 contained two particular non-Sonic characters that would only appear for one version and then be scrapped afterwards:
  • Mega Man was playable in Demo 3 and used sprites from Mega Man 7 and Mega Man Soccer. In place of a jumping ability, he used the Mega Buster to shoot at enemies with.
  • Zim was a multiplayer-exclusive character in Version 1.04 with custom (albeit never completed) sprites. He functioned as a Moveset Clone of Knuckles and had custom taunts.
• Guide Dang It!: In earlier versions of the game, the rotating chains in Castle Eggman Zone that allow the player to launch higher in the air could be a pain to work with since they move so slowly and never seem to throw the player far enough. What the game didn't tell you is that trying to move while hooked on one speeds it up and launches you significantly further, which is a necessity if you take a certain route at the end of Act 2. Version 2.2 averts this by giving them fixed speed and launch power.
• Guilt-Based Gaming: Of the various funny phrases the game can throw at you when you try to quit, few punch as hard as "You're trying to say that Sonic2K6 is better than this, aren't you?"
  • To make it more fitting for a (formerly official) mobile version, the phrase was edited for the Android port; "Sonic2K6" was replaced with "Sonic Dash".
• Hailfire Peaks: Techno Hill Zone's first act is a mix of Green Hill Zone and Eternal Engine elements^note Especially in the pre-2.1 releases, when the grass was actually green rather than the sickly sepia it is in 2.1 onwards, and the sky was blue rather than sunset orange, then it goes full-out Eternal Engine for the second act.
• Holiday Mode: There was a Christmas Mode, present from at least Demo 4 to Final Demo 1.09.4, which activated during the twelve days of Christmas (or any day of the year, when the program was launched with -xmas). Most of the game's more natural textures changed to have a more wintry feel (eg: dirt took on a frosty blue shade and grass turned into snow, while metal retained its texture), as well as changing some of the decorations in the game (flowers turning into poles and Christmas trees). Demo 4 even had a map exclusive to this mode, where you would search for Chaos Emeralds amongst Santa's workshop; this map was retained in later versions as "Emerald Hunt", available any day of the year. Christmas Mode was eventually deleted in 2.0, due to its tendency to riddle netgames with consistency errors.
• Ice Palace: Ice Palace Zone from the pre-2.2 SRB1 remake contained these. There's also the Diamond Blizzard Zone and Frost Columns Zone maps used in Match.
• Idle Animation: As with the mainline Sonic games, all the playable characters do this if left idle for several seconds. Sonic taps his foot impatiently, Tails yawns, and Knuckles starts chuckling. Fang reclines on his tail, Metal Sonic performs his taunt from before his race in this game and Sonic CD, and Amy sways back and forth.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Black Eggman's name is spelled normally in the game's sound test, though the wiki refers to him as "Brak Eggman", with his files using "BRAK" as well; his original English name, Metal Robotnik, on the other hand, isn't used at all (possibly due to connections with the Black Rock).
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Techno Hill Zone and Egg Rock Zone feature these.
• Invincible Minor Minion: Turrets cannot be harmed by the player at all, and can only be destroyed if the level is nice enough to provide a way to crush or submerge them.
• Joke Level: Aerial Garden Zone is a serious unlockable, but was initially created as a ridiculous test map to see if the engine would cry from cramming 4 full acts of a Zone into a single, massive map that stretches out almost to the hardcoded map boundary. It proved to be playable with some tweaking, so they threw it in.
• Ledge Bats: Egg Guards are usually an annoyance at best, but get them near a ledge and they become aggravating. 2.2 upped their game, positioning Egg Guards in ways so that they hide the more dangerous Lance-a-Bots or push the player into whichever of the many hazards happen to be nearby.
• Lethal Lava Land:
  • Single Player mode's Red Volcano Zone is a volcanic cave filled with lava that destroys rings if you lose them. Some rooms of Egg Rock Zone and Black Core Zone are also filled with lava.
  • There was a level in the SRB1 remake simply named "Volcano Zone", which had a lava pit that flushed you right off the 2D plane and into a bottomless pit.
  • Infernal Cavern and Molten Fissure from the multiplayer rotation also qualify.
• Lighter and Softer: Version 2.2 compared to the previous versions, which opened with Eggman demonstrating the Black Rock's power with a straight-up mass murder. 2.2 instead has him carve his face into an (as far as we know) unpopulated mountain.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • In multiplayer modes, Sonic players know to use and abuse his very fast and powerful jump dash, but without a Whirlwind Shield, he has problems climbing up stepped terrain quickly.
  • Once Metal Sonic reaches full speed, he gains an energy shield which makes him virtually unstoppable, as he can destroy enemies and even spikes in his path.
• Loads and Loads of Loading:
  • Not present in the main game, but in full effect in multiplayer. When attempting to join a netgame that has WADs the player does not have downloaded, the game will begin attempting to add each individual file to a "DOWNLOAD" folder located in the same directory as the main game. However, the download speed can be painfully slow, and if the size of one file exceeds over a few hundred kilos, the download either slows to a crawl or under most cases, stops completely, requiring the player to return to the title screen, go back into Multiplayer, and attempt to join the server again to start another download attempt. Sometimes, it won't even begin downloading the necessary file(s).
  • In net games themselves thanks to the outdated net code, "join lag" (a game-wide freeze whenever someone joins the server) is pretty much unavoidable, and woe be the other players if the joiner encounters a hitch of any sort in the process.
  • New in version 2.1 is the re-sync feature, which will pause the game and attempt to restore consistency to a player who de-synced rather than immediately kicking them from the game. If someone has a particularly nasty de-sync the game can be halted by re-sync attempts for several minutes.
• Macro Zone: The Mini Sonic gimmick from Metallic Madness returned in Egg Rock Zone, until this section was removed in 2.2. However, Egg Satellite (Egg Rock's corresponding special stage) retains this section.
• Made of Explodium:
  • Arid Canyon Zone certainly learned from its inspiration. There are TNT barrels everywhere, proximity dynamite sticks, missile-shaped bird bots, explosive minecarts, Minuses carrying TNT…
  • Metal Sonic, when you're playing as him, will explode upon death, no matter how he died.
• Marathon Level:
  • Castle Eggman Zone Act 2 is perhaps the largest level in the game, and while not as long as Egg Rock Zone 2, it's far easier to get lost in.
  • Egg Rock Zone Act 2 is an incredibly long and daunting gauntlet. Best stockpile lives in advance. (To make matters worse, Act 1 has possibly the largest collection of instant-death hazards in the game.)
  • Aerial Garden Zone. That's because it is made up of all 4 acts of Aerial Garden Zone from a popular mod, crammed into a single map. It just barely fits in the engine's limitations.
• Mighty Glacier:
  • In multiplayer modes, Knuckles gets a faster firing (sorry, throwing) speed to compensate for his average agility and other movement disadvantages. This makes him excellent for area denial or just plain spamming projectiles. Although, he's also surprisingly good at cloak-and-dagger tactics, since gliding and climbing walls make no sounds...
  • For single player, Amy Rose is not as quick on foot and can’t spindash, but she can easily demolish hard walls like Knuckles can and rip up spikes into nothing, a feat unique to them and Metal Sonic.
• Nerf: Several relating to the final zones were added in 2.2:
  • To prevent new players from being too frustrated, Egg Rock Zone was split into Egg Rock and Black Core. Previously, this meant that if you Game Over at the final boss gauntlet, you'll restart in Black Core Act 1 to race Metal Sonic again rather than have to redo the death gauntlet that is Egg Rock, but an update to 2.2 changed it so that the game now saves per act instead of per zone.
  • Speaking of the race, everything involving Metal Sonic was made slightly easier. The race and battle were split into two acts.
  • A large portion of Egg Rock 2 was cut.
• Nintendo Hard: From Castle Eggman on, the game's platforming demands very precise control over the characters' physics and the camera. Egg Rock Zone will probably eat up most of your lives the first time you play it, and Black Core Act 1 might take hundreds of attempts! The Challenge Levels, a series of hidden stages, are also intended to invoke this.
• No Ending: As of version 2.2, the ending simply shows the Black Meteor either exploding into Eggman's face or fading out into the player character's face, depending if you got all the chaos emeralds. Compared with the opening cutscene, it feels rather lacking. At least it's a step up from the earlier versions, which cut straight to the credits with no cutscene.
• Non-Indicative Name:
  • Deep Sea Zone is set inside a cave. In the earliest version of the game, however, it is set in the sea. 2.2 fixes this by making parts of the level actually take place in the sea.
  • Zero Ring Zone may have been lacking in rings compared to other arenas, but there were rings to be found.
• Non-Standard Character Design:
  • While most sprites in the game have a 2D appearance, Black Eggman appears to use pre-rendered sprites from a 3D model. This even applies to his movement, which is more like a vanilla Doom monster than the typical moving object.
  • In Version 2.1, Knuckles was updated with new sprites years before everyone else would receive updated sprites in Version 2.2, leaving a large contrast between older assets (including the other two playable characters) and the updated Knuckles sprite set.
• Nostalgia Level: Downplayed. Techno Legacy Zone, the final unlockable zone in the 2.2 version of the game, is a near-spot-on port of the pre-2.1 Techno Hill Zone Act 2, complete with the pre-2.2 mix of the Techno Hill Zone Act 2 music. The only major difference between this port and the previous version is that the formerly purple chemical waste (which was harmful to Sonic before 2.1) was colored green, so that the player wouldn't expect the "thick and buoyant but ultimately harmless" behavior from the current Techno Hill Zone's purple chemicals.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: In the main series, Eggman is a comical villain. In earlier versions of this game, he starts things off by destroying a city and killing everyone in it. However, this was Retconned in the 2.2 intro, in which Eggman merely blows up/carves his face into Greenflower Mountain instead.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: Per Sonic standard when you have no rings, but taken to the extreme in the hidden Ultimate Mode, which removes all rings and item boxes from the game. You also only have one life, which turns the game into an I Wanna Be the Guy-like suicidal Death Course where one scratch from anything, anywhere, is a ticket back to square one.
• Oxygen Meter: As usual, with appropriate Hell Is That Noise music when you start to run low.
• Palette Swap: In netgames, players can pick a custom color to play as, which expanded to 62 colors in 2.2.
• Palmtree Panic: In older versions of the game, Emerald Coast Zone.
• Platform Hell:
  • The latter half of the game. Unusual controls (more akin to a first-person game than a standard 3D platformer) and the lack of shadows cast beneath your characters twists the knife (though the latter was rectified in v2.2.1, which finally added shadows for the player and all other dynamic entities such as players, enemies, rings, etc). Also the CTF stage Nimbus Ruins, which is nothing more than a few floating platforms above a giant death pit.
  • Most of the levels in the removed SRB1 remake had tricky platforming. It starts in Ice Palace Zone and gets sadistic once you get to Sky Lab Zone, which fortunately is a Knuckles-only level.
• Rearrange the Song: Besides the usual remixing/rearranging of music between Acts 1 and 2, and the various arrangements of the theme tune for the various powerups and Super Modes, the tune for Deep Sea Zone is redone for Azure Temple Zone. Also see Boss Remix above.
• Secret A.I. Moves: Fang and Metal Sonic have attacks during their boss battles that cannot be used as playable characters. Fang can toss bombs and Metal Sonic has laser blasts.
• Secret Character: Three of them: Amy Rose, Fang the Sniper (a.k.a. Nack the Weasel), and Metal Sonic.
• Secret Level: Twelve in total:
  • The three challenge stages: Haunted Heights Zone, Aerial Garden Zone, and Azure Temple Zone.
  • Four bonus stages that can be unlocked by collecting enough emblems: Frozen Hillside Zone, Pipe Towers Zone, Forest Fortress Zone, and Techno Legacy Zone.
  • Black Hole Zone, an eighth special stage unlocked after clearing the original seven.
  • Four additional NiGHTS-styled bonus stages unlocked by reaching certain ranks in the special stages: Christmas Chime Zone, Dream Hill Zone, and the two-act Alpine Paradise Zone.
• Shout-Out:
  • Word of God mentioned that it's not a coincidence that Tidal Palace Zone bears more than a passing resemblance to Maridia.
  • One of the colors players can pick for their character, Moss, was named Zim in earlier versions.
  • A few of the devs are Touhou Project junkies, and the three ice-themed multiplayer stages all are named after Cirno's Spell Cards (Icicle Falls, Diamond Blizzard, and Frost Columns). She's also present in a hidden mural in Deep Sea Zone 1.
  • One of the multiplayer zones available in some versions was called "Zero Ring Zone", which had the words "All your rings are belong to us!" posted all over the arena and a Suspiciously Similar Song to the Genesis/MegaDrive cutscene sequence in that game. Due to design issues, it was cut late in the "Final Demo" release cycle.
  • Pipe Towers Zone (which is fully playable with its own secrets, emblems, and enemy set) is a great shout-out to the Super Mario Bros. series. In previous versions, this unlockable was called Mario Koopa Blast and had two additional acts played as a sidescroller.
  • In Castle Eggman Zone Act 1, just before the collapsing bridge sequence is a tower with a bonfire on it and a tilted pathway up to another tower.
  • Castle Eggman 3 has Eggrobo spectators set up around the arena, cheering on Eggman with giant #1 foam gloves. Get too close to them and they will bat you back into the arena (probably into the thorny ground or Eggman's mace balls) with a ping sound.
  • During the Final Boss fight in the old version 2.0, one strategy for attacking Black Eggman is to catch one of the missiles he launches and throw it back at him, in the same vein as the Black Eggman/Metal Robotnik fight in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, which even becomes mandatory to land the final four hits.
  • Amy Rose is unlocked by completing Frozen Hillside, where she runs up to the player character at the end of the level and hugs them, much like in Sonic the Hedgehog CD.
• Sidetrack Bonus: As usual for Sonic, this game is loaded with extra rings, shields, 1-ups, and emerald tokens for those willing to look and experiment with different routes and characters.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World:
  • Oddly averted in the main Single Player game, though played straight with Frozen Hillside Zone, a bonus zone unlocked after finding 5 emblems, and Christmas Chime Zone, a NiGHTS-styled stage unlocked by getting an A rank in any special stage.
  • The theme also gets around in multiplayer, with the Match stages Frost Columns Zone and Diamond Blizzard Zone, plus the Capture the Flag stage Icicle Falls Zone.
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Techno Hill Zone Act 2 and Egg Rock Zone. The beginning of pre-2.1 Techno Hill Act 2 had a particularly vicious set.
• Sniper Rifle: The Rail Ring fires an instant hitscan shot forwards.
• The Spiny: Spincushions are a conventional example, while Green Snappers are a bit different. Their tops are completely bare, but the enemies themselves are guarded by spiky feet that make spindashing useless.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: It's a Sonic game, what did you expect? The worst offender is Techno Hill Zone which goes especially crazy with these, even by Sonic standards — so much so that the standard enemies carry springs on their back.
• Stylistic Suck: Oh lawd the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff mod.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Enemies that try to ram you will gladly run straight into a revving spindash, which generally kills (or at least hurts) them and leaves you unhurt.
  • The Lance-a-Bot, however, solves this problem by charging at you with its lance forward, inflicting pain to an unaware spindashing player. The Green Snapper in Arid Canyon has spiky feet specifically to prevent this, and the Minus enemies were buffed in 2.2 to be able to hit spindashing players when popping out of the ground at the cost of having to wait about half a second before doing so.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: As soon as you enter the Disco Room in ERZ2, you find two 1-Ups just sitting there in the corner. To say the least, you are about to need them.
• Support Party Member: Though Amy's attacks can break breakable walls and floors, her primary ability is being able to give her teammates a free (pink) pity shield using her hammer swing.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: Why Eggman needed to place switches that raise the cage otherwise protecting him in his battle arena in Castle Eggman Act 3 is up for debate.
• This Is a Drill: The Minus badniks from Arid Canyon Zone are skull-wearing rocket-powered black spheres with a pair of drill horns. They use these to visibly burrow through the ground, jumping out to attack whatever technicolor critter treads above it.
• Took a Level in Badass: The Castle Eggman enemies in 2.2 are now adept at one on one combat. The imposing Lance-a-Bot takes two hits to smash, can and will charge at the player from all the way across the room, and will not take damage from the front while doing so, spindashing or otherwise. It refuses to suicidally charge off a cliff, too. The Egg Guards patrol a set area with giant bouncy shields that are practically always pointing towards some kind of hazard, and will run madly after the player if their shields go down. The Robo-Hoods, meanwhile, snipe at the player with volleys of arrows from afar and jump away to escape potential attackers.
  • Downplayed in the case of the Robo-Hoods, who can sometimes jump into pits and dispatch themselves for you (most are positioned too high up to be approached, however) or eliminate another enemy with a missed shot.
• Turns Red:
  • All of the bosses go into a panic phase (called a "pinch" phase on the wiki) when you've whittled them down to three hits left.
  • Spincushions look cute and innocent enough, as well as slow and we- what's that sound? OH GOD AHHHH
  • Subverted by the Egg Guards. Destroying their shield causes them to change color to red and gain a speed boost, but without said shield, they are little more than a slightly faster Crawla.
• 2½D: The Sonic Robo Blast 1 Remake levels — well, before 2.2 cut them, anyway.
• Under the Sea:
  • Deep Sea Zone is your standard Sonic water level, with the usual air bubble pockets that can refresh your air supply.
  • Azure Temple Zone, the third and final challenge level, stretches your Oxygen Meter management to the max, because the entire level is submerged.
• Underwater Ruins:
  • As a tradition for Sonic games, Deep Sea Zone happens in a temple sinked under the sea.
  • The same goes for Tidal Palace Zone and Azure Temple Zone.
• Unique Enemy: As with Sonic 2 and 3, most enemies in the game only appear in one particular Zone^note There is one notable exception in a secret area in Egg Rock Zone, which features a room containing several enemies from previous levels.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Sonic may run fast and spin, but he doesn’t have many options besides that and his air dash attack which can be fatal to unprepared players. However, levels are conceived with him in mind, meaning there’s always a way to tear yourself out of a situation with him.
  • Amy is a bit slower than the others, can't spin like other characters, fly like Tails, or float like Knuckles, and she has to get close to enemies to defeat them. However, she jumps higher than others naturally and her hammer covers a large area when used on the ground, she can break hard rocks and grounds with it (a feature exclusive to her and Fang the Sniper), allowing her to take unique paths, and she can even destroy spines with it, something Metal Sonic can only do at full speed.
• Video Game Demake: The game's mods include full demakes of Sonic Heroes and Sonic 2006.
• Villain Opening Scene: The opening cutscene begins with a recap of Eggman's previous defeat in SRB1, before showing him witnessing the arrival of the Black Rock and hatching the plan that leads to this game's events.
• Villain Protagonist: Metal Sonic can be sent off on a journey of his own to fight his creator after the game is completed once.
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • Tails is not as effective as the other characters in a multiplayer melee, but being able to fly around to nearly everywhere on a map is a plus and he makes a good sniper, thanks to the increased projectile speed and good Rail angles he has. This is an inversion of his Single Player prowess, where Tails is pretty much easy mode.
  • Fang qualifies as this even in Single Player. He can't spin like most characters can and is barred from being able to destroy breakable walls as a result, but his tail bounce is great at building up both horizontal and vertical distance, and his popgun lets him take out enemies with ease. His tail bounce can also break certain floors, a feature exclusive to him and Amy Rose.
• Your Size May Vary: In older versions of the game before Egg Rock Zone 3 got redesigned, Black Eggman was much taller. In the current version, his appearance in Black Core is noticeably smaller.

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