This is a short guide to have text documentation on the simple route and the requirements for the Best Ending.

Best Ending Requirements:

• Get the seven chaos emeralds (they are shared among all four characters, so you can get any emerald with any character)
• Beat the game with all four characters

Chaos Emeralds

Each Chaos Emerald is obtained by finding its corresponding special spring in a stage and clearing the special stage after hitting it.

The following acts have a special spring in them, and using the following characters is fastest for the special spring:

• Neo Green Hill 1 - Tails
• Secret Base 2 - Knuckles
• Casino Paradise 1 - Knuckles
• Ice Mountain 1 - Tails/Amy - about the same speed
• Ice Mountain 2 - Amy
• Angel Island 2 - Tails
• Cosmic Angel 2 - Tails

Clearing the game

All four characters are available off of a fresh file, so you can beat the game with any character order you'd like.

• The game saves you clearing the game with a character after the score countdown & whiteout of X zone. It is safe to reset the moment you see the cutscene of your character falling from the sky.
• Unlocking Moon Zone requires beating the game with all four characters beforehand. As accessing Moon Zone requires beating X Zone with Sonic, this means you will ultimately have to beat X Zone with Sonic twice, because you must have already beaten the game with Sonic if you want to access Moon Zone.

So the route & reset points overall looks like:

1. Beat the game with your first character. Reset after X-zone's score & whiteout.
2. Beat the game with your second character. Reset after X-zone's score & whiteout.
3. Beat the game with your third character. Reset after X-zone's score & whiteout.
4. Beat the game with your last character. Reset after X-zone's score & whiteout.
5. Go to Sonic's level select and scroll down. You should see "Moon Zone" in gray below X Zone. Beat X Zone and you should see the extra cutscene at the end with Sonic going super.