 , known as sonic championship on arcade versions in north america and europe, is a competitive fighting game developed by sega am2 for sega's model 2 arcade system. the game, which allows players to fight using characters from the sonic the hedgehog series, was released in arcades in japan in may 1996 and north america in june 1996. the game was included in the compilation disc sonic gems collection for playstation 2 and nintendo gamecube in 2005. a hd port for xbox live arcade and playstation network was released in november 2012. ==plot== thumb|left|sonic vs. knuckles dr. eggman (erroneously named "dr. robotonic" on the opening title) has built the death egg ii, along with metal sonic. tails manages to build a rocket ship called the lunar fox, capable of flying into space in order to stop eggman's plans. however, the lunar fox only contains one seat and requires the power of all the chaos emeralds (unique to this game's canon, there are eight chaos emeralds total rather than the usual seven). with each emerald in possession of an individual who each wants a shot at eggman, a fighting tournament is held to decide who will ride the lunar fox into space. ==gameplay== sonic the fighters is a competitive fighting game in which characters fight against each other. players win each round by knocking out their opponent or by having more health than them at the end of the round. in the arcade mode, players will fight against each of the characters (including a greyscale clone of their chosen character) before fighting off against metal sonic. after defeating metal sonic, players face a bonus round in 
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