Chaos Emeralds

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The Chaos Emeralds, as depicted in Sonic Advance from a side view.

The Chaos Emeralds (カオス エメラルド, Kaosu Emerarudo) are seven fictional gemstones from the Sonic the Hedgehog video games. The Chaos Emeralds have mystical properties and abilities, and the holder of them all can use them for a variety of purposes, including transforming into a powerful "super form". Each emerald is an everlasting source of energy and is capable of floating in the air on its own power. The emeralds are commonly and traditionally collected within a Special Stage. While they were more like "bonus" items in the early games of the series, the Chaos Emeralds became necessary plot devices in Sonic Adventure, and that trend has continued throughout the later 3D games.

Game Background

In the original Sega release of Sonic The Hedgehog there were only six Chaos Emeralds and when they were all collected they gave the player no special abilities, disappearing at the games end. When sega released Sonic the Hedgehog 2 they became the The Seven Chaos Emeralds and if the player collected them all as sonic he could achieve a super form. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 changed the color sceme of the emeralds slightly and altered their shape. During Sonic & Knuckles the players could collect a set of 14 emeralds transforming the original seven into super emeralds ganting Sonic the ability to transform into Hyper Sonic while Tails and Knuckles could only achieve a standard super form.

Other Sonic games have also had many different character oriented abilities and also many varying shapes and colors usually going with a common theme.

The Chaos Emeralds in themselves are usually used to power machines, for weapons of mass destruction, Chaos powers, and activating Super Transformation. The energy can also be given from one super form to another character to allow that person to achieve a super form of his own, as seen at the end of Sonic Heroes and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). And some cutscenes and gameplay times have shown that accessing their powers is possible without being in direct possession of an Emerald, the user is merely required to be close to one or more of them..

The 7 Emeralds and the Super Sonic transformation were widely viewed as a homage to Dragon Ball Z and the Super Saiyan transformations within. When asked if comments about this were received from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, former Sega executive producer Yuji Naka smiled and said no.

Role in the games

Throughout most of the early games, Doctor Eggman tries to obtain the Chaos Emeralds in order to fuel his doomsday weapons. The player can choose to collect the Emeralds in their Special Stages in order to unlock a "good ending", a super form, or both.

In Sonic Adventure, the Chaos Emeralds were collected by Eggman in order to feed Chaos, the former guardian of the Chao and Emeralds, who can change its form every time it received one of the gems. With all seven, it became Perfect Chaos, and used up all of the negative energy in all seven Emeralds before dropping the unpowered and colorless Emeralds onto the ground. Sonic then picked up all seven emeralds and used the positive energy to become Super Sonic and neutralize Perfect Chaos.

In Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic and Shadow had the ability to use the Chaos Emeralds to utilize "Chaos Control", an ability that alters time and space to teleport or freeze time. (However, Sonic didn't know that he could use Chaos Control until he absolutely had to in order to save himself from a sticky situation; furthermore, Sonic managed to use the ability with a fake emerald.)

In Sonic Rivals, Silver has returned and does not remember anyone; just that he is once again trying to save the world from Eggman Nega. Eggman Nega has a camera that seems to have the power of a Chaos Emerald. The camera locks a person/character in a card and freezes time for that person. The cards give off almost the same power of the Chaos Emeralds, like they are an unending power source.

In Sonic Heroes, Sonic becomes Super Sonic, and allows Tails and Knuckles to use the Chaos Emerald energy to transform into imitations of their super forms, the only visual changes being two spheres of golden energy surrounding Tails and Knuckles.

In Shadow the Hedgehog, the Emeralds were found throughout the stages again (except this time, they're obtained by beating the stage they're in), and Shadow used their miraculous powers to slowly reassemble his memories with each emerald. Shadow collected all seven by the end of the game, only to let them be stolen by the evil alien Black Doom, who used them to warp the Black Comet to Earth's surface with Chaos Control. Shadow then used the chaos emeralds to transform in Super Shadow to defeat Black Doom.

In the 2006 game Sonic the Hedgehog the Emeralds fully take on the power to "transform thoughts into power", just as the Master Emerald was said to be capable of doing in Sonic Adventure.

It has been hinted in Sonic Rush Adventure that the Chaos Emeralds have the ability to think and are capable of decision. They also seem to want to aid Sonic and others which is why they remain stable around the characters.

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the Chaos Emeralds appear as part of Sonic's Final Smash. He also holds a Blue Chaos Emerald during one of his victory shots.

Appearance

Amount

The amount of emeralds was six in the original game but has since then been changed to seven.

Colors

The colors of the Chaos Emeralds are red, blue, yellow, green, white/grey, cyan, and purple.

Power source

The Source of the emeralds power has not been established.

Super transformation

Super transformation is a frequently recurring gameplay feature and story element that allows the player to play as a powered up version of the character, traditionally obtained by collecting all of the Chaos Emeralds in addition to 50 Rings, as was the case in the Genesis games starting with Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The player can also collect the Sol Emeralds, activate the Super Emeralds, or break open an Item box with an "S" on it.

Features

Super transformation generally gives the character enhanced speed, similar to using a "High Speed" power up. The transformation also originally gave the character the same effect as the "Invincible" power up. As of Sonic & Knuckles (and all games since), taking damage while using super transformation will result in the character being thrown back a small distance. Even with the transformation enabled, during gameplay the character can still die by falling in a bottomless pit, being crushed, or drowning. Also, in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 release), Solaris is capable of damaging Sonic even when under super transformation.

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Super Sonic as seen in Sonic the Hedgehog.

The compromise in super transformation is that the power is sustained by Rings during gameplay. It originally took 50 Rings to enable the transformation, which are then gradually drained over time. Starting with Sonic Adventure, players are no longer allowed to manually transform, but are simply given the ability through the story. The rings are only used as a gameplay mechanic to limit how long the form can last. The exception to this was Sonic Riders, where only one Ring is needed. Running out of Rings in a final boss battle results in an instant loss of a life, usually due to the character being in unsurvivable conditions such as over a flooded city street, in the cold of space or the magma filled core of a planet.

Another general super transformation ability is flight. This was originally unique to Super Sonic as he would fly above the ground at maximum speed, and take to full flight at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. The ability is now shared by all transformations and is a defining trait. A character can also hover in midair as, beginning with Sonic Adventure 2, the transformation is usually used in areas high above the ground. The air can also act as the ground as shown in Sonic Heroes, enabling the player to use the same controls as if in a regular level.

Although it is a power up in itself, the super transformation can be powered up further. To do this, the player must collect all seven of the Chaos Emeralds and reactivate them in their powered up state as the "Super Emeralds." Once transformed, the character will then leave afterimages in its wake and be given an ability to instantly kill all enemies on screen (excluding boss battles). This was seen only in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles.

If multiple people are around when the chaos emeralds are being used they can both enter "Super Form" (such as Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Sonic Heroes, and Xbox360 Sonic the Hedgehog), however, even though there can be multiple users, they share the same amount of rings that keeps them in "Super Form".

Chaos Control

Chaos Control is an ability derived from a single or multiple chaos emeralds to warp time and space or to generate energy attacks.Shadow was the first character to use this ability as seen in Sonic Adventure 2 but characters like sonic can also use it.

Other Chaos Powers

Appearing first in the 2-player mode of Sonic Adventure 2 and then canonized in the final level of Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic X, Chaos Spear is an attack whereby bolts of energy are thrown at an opponent. Another related power, that first appeared in the game Shadow the Hedgehog, is Chaos Blast. It is a large explosion of energy radiating outward from its creator. These powers have been altered and expanded upon with game-specific abilities by subsequent video games.

Master Emerald

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The Master Emerald being towed by the Tornado plane.

The Master Emerald (マスー エメラルド, Masutā Emerarudo) is a large, green emerald. It has unbound power, and is used to keep the Angel Island afloat in the sky. The Master Emerald also has the power to fully control everything that the Chaos Emeralds do, as according to the ancient saying from Sonic Adventure: "The servers are the 7 Chaos. Chaos is power, power enriched by the heart. The controller is the one that unifies the chaos." The Master Emerald also possesses the ability to both negate and empower the Chaos Emeralds, meaning it can stop the energy of the Chaos Emeralds, or enhance them, as seen in Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, respectively. Only descendants of Knuckles the Echidna's tribe are capable of controlling it. Although, in Sonic & Knuckles, Mecha Sonic also absorbed its energy to obtain an enhanced form very similar to Super Sonic.

The Master Emerald can be shattered into any number of pieces, but can always be put back together flawlessly, with no loss of power.

Guardians

The Chaos Emeralds are guarded by Knuckles The Echidna.

References

In addition to information taken from the Sonic the Hedgehog games themselves, content from the instruction booklets of the U.S. and Japanese versions of the games were also used as references for this article.