Eh, fair enough. Sorry if that comment ended up being a bit rude...
No its fine, I didn't take it as rude, you were just asking why it is not free and pointing out that I don't own the rights to use them. The game was not made to be free straight off, I am still testing to see if retro console games are a good move or not and using Sonic and Mario as playable characters in my own game, was probably not a good move. I will change the game into a free but option to donate version now along with the 3DS version, as it leads to confusion. And will aim to use my own characters in the future.
Many Thanks
Well, there are plenty of homebrew games (with a good chunk of them being free) out there and several of them are notable, so this is definitely a good move. Also it's not that you can't use Sonic or Mario characters at all, it's just that it's not (legally) recommended to use them in "commercial" projects without explicit approval from Nintendo or Sega. There are plenty of free fangames out there that prominently feature both of these franchises' characters, assets, etc. and most of them haven't been taken down (in fact, in the case of Sonic fangames, Sega has pretty much endorsed them). And I have seen that you are using original characters (or at least generic ones) in games like Boulder Crash for the GBA and DS. I do understand that you may need some money for whatever reason and that you aren't just doing this out of greed. Keep devving homebrew games!