Sonic the Hedgehog Found Dead!

By Rose

Sonic is dead, and it's up to you to find out who killed him. SEGA's (early) April Fool's joke comes in the form of a fan-made visual novel which tasks the player with solving the murder of the famous blue hedgehog. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, available for free via Steam, features a handful of the franchise's most beloved characters taking on new identities in a murder mystery game set up for Amy's birthday, and on average should last you around three hours.

As a new hire on a train-based event planning service, your job is supposed to be to microwave selection of snacks for the guests, until Sonic is found unresponsive. Is he really dead? Or is this all just part of the game? The player teams up with Tails to move between themed train cars, solving a simple point-and-click mystery in each one to hear and examine each partygoer's alibi and find out the truth. Your ability to connect the clues together is dependent on running through quick ring-collecting minigames called "THINK levels." These are mostly pretty easy, taking a steep hike in difficulty near the end, but the game has a decent set of accessibility options to make it as easy as you want. It's a pretty fun time all around, though nothing hugely new or inventive for the series (it is, after all, still mostly an April Fool's joke).

All in all you don't have much to lose with this one. It's short and free, the art is easily the best part of the whole package, and the story is cute. It's not unlike KFC pulling a similar stunt with a visual novel a few years back. If you can get past some sloppy line-level writing and minor grammar mistakes, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog feels like a perfectly competent fan project with SEGA's seal of approval. And I had more fun playing this than I did watching the trailer for Sonic Frontiers, which I won't be playing, so that probably counts for something.

Pick up The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog for free!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2324650/The_Murder_of_Sonic_the_Hedgehog/​

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