tragic events in history: sonic's death. while boarding a train he got shot in the ass and F*CKING DI-
this one ALMOST fulfills my dream of a sonic game where the characters are written a la jehtt or snapcube videos. tmosth (wow, that's an ugly acronym) has certified fanfiction vibes. it goes places. it appreciates that every sonic character has depth, and it made me squeal like a little girl nearly the entire time i played it.
first impressions- the character costumes are SOOOOOOOOOO cute. knuckles, my favorite sonic character (i was holding my knuckles plush through the whole playthrough), doesn't get much screentime but he's got this silly cowboy getup that make me giggle. amy has this super pretty frilly dress that pops way more than her typical fit; i'd think it apt for how confident and pinkie-pie-esque she is here. none of that lovey-dovey sonic-obsessed BS! i love it. the rouge costume & characterization are also fan-freaking-tastic. deadass one of my FAVORITE CHARACTERS EVER. an absolute queenie. pretty as heckin heck (i might have a giant crush). stylin' on everyone in her mondo cool jacket 'n jeans combo. i'm not entirely convinced she didn't sneak a gun onto the train. however, though she might be my favorite character, my favorite costume is tails'. it's so simple but he's just so gosh darn adorable. the little detective smans gets a big spotlight in this here murder mystery and i think he deserved it bigtime. he's degraded to a nonautonomous sidekick too often in the main games, so seeing his linux user ass investigate around and nerd out about books made my heart uber happy. every time his puppydog eyes sprite came on scream i SCREAMED. my only initial complains are the lack of silver (and 06 callbacks in general) and the sonic-forces-fursona-ass-inself-insert-oc main character, but Cjer named him Mike Schmidt which made up for his exceptionally lame personality.
alright, y'all know my ass puts a bigger emphasis than most on sound design and music. so how does the shiny 5-star fare in that department? ...pretty poorly! it sits in a sweet spot between typical and grating. if i had to pick a favorite ost, i would pick the jazzy lounge car theme (though that's the midi-jazz addicted section of my brain talking). oh, on the note of the traincars- i haven't even introduced the main concept of the game yet. it's a murder mystery on a train. musically underwhelming though it may be, the devs did make up for that aesthetic weakness with the visual design of the traincars. each one makes up the equivalent of a telltale episode. every character (or duo of characters) gets their own traincar; this way, everyone gets their own tailored little environment and slot of screentime. very swag B). shadow's car/the lounge car is my favorite, with its little chao band (called the Big Chao Band). the Big Chao Band had two drummers and two bassists and two pianists because the assets kept glitching and duplicating on cj's screen. tbh shadow's car should have had emo music. he's a certified guyliner user. he's also a certified "kid who cried to linkin park in their room because they were gay and in the closet", though i'm too much of an amy x shadow person to 100% call him gay. their dynamic is perfect here. i appreciate the writers showing his soft side considering sega's trying to turn him into this 1 dimensional cool guy as of recent.
what were we talking about?
any good sonic game has one confounding game design choice that sours the experience for normies. surprisingly, this visual novel has a huge one in the form of mandatory gba-ass isometric platforming sections. i feel bad for whatever 7 year old didn't get to see the ending after getting filtered by the final section's projectile gauntlet. luckily, i watched cj play the game over call, so i get to ignore all that and proclaim that this is a perfect game. like any other kamige, the message is obviously to live happily. i'll say i certainly came out of the murder of sonic the hedgehog happier than i did subahibi! i know this is an april fools game, but sega: i would kill for a sequel. my face hurts from how much i've been smiling.
"to the confident, unshakable, and radiant amy rose!"