Article Date: 18 February 2016

Article Number: 2

Insta-shield and super peelout as Sonic, fly and swim as Tails, glide and climb as Knuckles, and hammer attack as Amy.

Play as all four characters solo or in any simultaneous combinations.

Each character takes up a player slot, which can be individually assigned for other people (online and offline) to play as. A.I. characters can also be set up to follow other person-controlled characters.

Air Dash with the Fire Shield, Double Jump with the Electric Shield, and Bouncy Stomp with the Water Shield.

Along with these 3 returning shields, Sonic 5 will include an additional 6 more elemental shields.

The Neutral Shield also makes a reappearance, and while it lacks any special moves or attacks, it now protects for 2 hits, balancing it out amongst the elementals.

There are many driving forces behind Sonic 5, but these are a selection of particularly notable influences that have inspired, and continue to inspire, my work on the project:

Sonic Retro Forums, for the great ideas and enthusiasm of classic 2D. Sonic games; ShayMay, for his excellent analysis of the Sonic franchise in his Sonic Spitball YouTube series; Game Developers Conference, for hosting a plethora of insightful video game presentations on YouTube; and LakeFeperd's Sonic After The Sequel, a fantastic 2D. Sonic fan game.