Shake and I were talking about this recently, and we came to the conclusion of a couple things.
One, explore Sonic's character and outlook more. One thing that we forget is that Sonic is just a kid. He's 16 in human years (I guess anthropomorphic creatures have normal human lifespans lol) and has been through so many trials, has thought his friends have died a handful of times, and straight up died himself. Sonic has already been said to hide his tears from everyone else literally always, so it'll be interesting to see what that does to his psyche. If he makes his snide remarks to hide the trauma all the world takeovers and eldritch horrors he had to fight.
Two, bring back the Super Emeralds. This is the main thing Shake and I were talking about. It was such a cool concept that was dropped after one game, and it showed that Sonic had a sort of symbiotic relationship with the Emeralds, as he's the only one who was able to bump them up to the next level, and has shown greater prowess in the Super Form than even Knuckles, who has an innate connection with the gems. It's not just a free powerup for him, but it shows that he can make the power his own. Something unique to him.
Three, don't make the Hedgehogs Saiyans. By that I mean how unless you're a Saiyan, you're irrelevant in Dragon Ball. But in Sonic, replace Saiyan with Hedgehog. Sonic took over Knuckles' task of being strong, and every other character that's not Shadow or Silver is useless, barring Tails due to his intellect.
Four, expand the lore of the Emeralds. Their the main macguffin for a reason. Shake and I had a long convo about this one. We came up with our own theories. And it related to the one line of Sonic telling Shadow to save his energy in Super or else he'll disappear. But that was dropped literally instantaneously. We had theories that ineptitude with the form shows a paler Super form. Sonic in the earlier games had a pale yellow, but became mostly golden once he's taken the power as his own. Shadow in SA2 had a more silverish tone to his Super form, but come 06, he can use it easily. And it's why Silver's is so pale. We also said that it's why Hyper Sonic is white. That because Sonic has only used it once, and how volatile the form is with how strong it is, it shows a straight up bleached fur color. Of course, all of this is headcanon, as the Sonic Team hasn't confirmed any of this, which is why I'd say this would improve it.
