- NM: Jossed, an interview with Takashi Iizuka confirmed that Superstars and Frontiers have no overt connections whatsoever. At best the most barebone surface level similarities can be seen, like Chaos Emerald lore, multiple islands, and a new antagonist being introduced, but no actual connection as far as The Ancients are concerned.
- Also, Classic Sonic is just Sonic's past self as confirmed by TailsTube episodes 4 and 5.
- NM: Jossed. Ian has confirmed on X that he is not involved with Sonic Superstars. He did however write the animated prologue and prologue comic promotional tie-in material.
- Jossed. They make no appearances in the story mode or supplementary material.
- Jossed. It strictly takes place on Northstar Island.
- Red = Fire
- Yellow = Electricity
- Green = Wood
- Cyan = Water (one of the power ups shown in the announcement trailer allows Sonic and friends to turn into water and travel up waterfalls)
- Blue = Wind
- Purple = Darkness
- White = Light
- Possibly jossed. The Blue Emerald's power is Avatar while the Purple Emerald's power lets you see hidden platforms and items.
- Fully jossed, Gameinformer just released an issue that goes in detail about the Emerald Powers. The line up is: Blue = Avatar, Cyan = Water, Yellow = Slow, Red = Bullet, Green = Ivy, Purple = Vision, White = Extra Character Ability, and all seven grant Super as usual. Although, ALL characters can use Super!
- That said, it's still possible. Though a bit of a stretch, bullets are fired from a gun, electricity powers Time Machines, wood is associated with plants, cyan is water, the duplicates in Avatar move in a straight direction like wind, vision lets you see things in the dark, and the player characters are heroes and therefore on the side of light.
- Fully jossed, Gameinformer just released an issue that goes in detail about the Emerald Powers. The line up is: Blue = Avatar, Cyan = Water, Yellow = Slow, Red = Bullet, Green = Ivy, Purple = Vision, White = Extra Character Ability, and all seven grant Super as usual. Although, ALL characters can use Super!
- Modern Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Robotnik
- Sonic Boom
- Sonic Riders
- Sonic and the Secret Rings
- Sonic and the Black Knight
- Sonic Prime
- The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog
- LEGO (they've confirmed a costume for Eggman, so why not the others)
- Confirmed, there will be additional Lego skins as DLC. Lego Sonic will be free, while Lego Tails, Amy, and Knuckles will come with the digital deluxe edition.
- Sonic's favorite clothes and Knuckles' cowboy hat
- Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles
- Confirmed as skins for battle mode.
- Mecha Sonic and Mecha Knuckles
- Mecha Sonic Mk I is confirmed as a skin for battle mode.
- EggRobo
- Eggman Nega
- The Westernized Greg Martin designs
- Sonic The Comic's characters designs with Sonic's Bob Beaky outfit as well as Super Sonic. The Knuckles Metallix design would appear as a skin for battle mode.
- Jossed, only Eggman, Trip, and Fang are the antagonists of Superstars.
As for the "rival" part? They're bumbling, yet working with Eggman. It's probably another misguided foe ala Eggman trickery situation, like Knuckles. But, unlike him they'd still be opposed to Sonic in some way and going to compete with him rather than be his outright (easily duped) ally.
As for the 5th playable character part? There's a spot above Knuckles and parallel to Tails that has an explicit animation of the latter looking to said spot in confusion. Fang is hired by Eggman to work for him in Superstars, so this new character is the only one that makes sense to be made playable. Additionally, the rival bit would lead to a nice Mega Man & Bass or Sonic Adventure 2 situation.
- Confirmed on at least the first part, as Trip's description on the official site says she's a girl.
- NM: Two out of three confirmed! (Playable and being female). As Sonic would say in Sonic Adventure: Yeah, not bad.
Iizuka and Sonic Team as a whole have come to be more receptive towards fan feedback and criticism with the last couple games and the return of Hyper Sonic is something fans have been clamoring for decades. Dummied out files in Sonic Mania even suggest they were going to return in that game, so we know that the idea has at least been flirted with in the past.
The main issue with this theory is Sonic Team's reluctance to reintroduce Hyper Form since, according to Christian Whitehead, they reportedly don't want to deal with a multi-tier power system. And as it stands, Hyper Form is just Super with extra bells and whistles. But this just serves as the perfect excuse to give the forms their own variation of Divergent Character Evolution, like say Super Form is the standard "buff Sonic and pals' base abilities" deal while Hyper is more focused on being able to cycle through stronger versions the Emerald Powers, just to give an example.
- Jossed. Only the Super forms are used in this game.
- Confirmed as his description on the official site states he "has been known by many different names over the years, likely due to his "WANTED" status with the authorities." The prologue comic confirms he's gone by a variety of aliases (Nack the Weasel, Jet the Jerboa, Fang the Sniper), with his current name being Fang the Hunter and he's just a jerboa now.
- Unlikely; Trip has been confirmed to be a sungazer lizard, not a lemur.
- Fang is also holding a Chaos Emerald in his art, and Trip has an emerald at her feet in hers. Eggman holding an emerald in his character art means nothing it doesn't also mean for the other two villains.
- Jossed, the final playable character is Trip the Sungazer.
- A red panda. A couple people online say that her tail somewhat looks like a red panda.
- A lemur, if the theory about her being related to Tangle is true.
- Some sort of lizard. If not spiky fur, it might be actual spikes, which is an attribute of some lizard, although I can't think of one in particular.
- A common guess on X is either an armadillo lizard or pangolin; the former of which is a lizard that bites its tail to curl into a ball-like shape and the latter is a mammal that looks like a lizard and is also able to somewhat curl up into a ball.
- Confirmed. According to an interview, Trip is a sungazer lizard.
- Or the empty spot will be for a Super form to show that it is unlocked.
- Jossed, Trip is the final playable character.
- Avatar/Blue Emerald: Azure Avatar
- Ivy/Green Emerald: Blueberry Beanstalk
- Slow/Yellow Emerald: Sepia Slowdown
- Bullet/Red Emerald: Pearl Pinball
- This one in particular kind of struggles to make sense, as Bullet already has a Wisp counterpart, given how the ability seems to be based off of Red Burst from the DS version of Colors.
- Water/Cyan Emerald: Cerulean Cascade
- Vision/Purple Emerald: Sapphire Specs
- Jossed. TailsTube confirmed that Classic Sonic is still just Sonic's past self. It's just a weird slap dashed together way of incorporating the fact that Time in the real world is just another dimension of reality.
- Mecha Sonic Mk II has used the Master Emerald before, maybe he can use the Chaos Emeralds powers as well.
- Jossed.
- Confirmed.
- It might be a minion or incarnation of THE END.
- Alternatively, the creature is somehow related to the ancient civilization of Sungazer Lizards on North Star Island. Its spiked central body somewhat resembles Trip’s, and Trip’s Super Form is a flying golden dragon (albeit one far smaller than the Great Dark Dragon). Perhaps an ancient Sungazer Lizard attempted to make their Super Form permanent, and succeeded. Moreover, it may be related to the gang’s repeated usage of the Chaos Emeralds’ new abilities. In Frontiers, it’s hinted that the emeralds’ repeated usage by the main cast over the years weakened them just enough for THE END to get a toehold of influence outside of Cyberspace. If the gang’s discovery and usage of the Chaos Emeralds’ new powers on the North Star Islands was related to their actually being on said islands, perhaps said usage was related to the dragon being able to escape. If the heroes figured that out, it would also justify why they never used those particular emerald powers again, for fear of the beast getting out.