Sonic Gets Murdered in "The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog"
they did it. they killed him. pay no attention to today's date
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is the Sonic franchise's first dive into the visual novel genre, shaking up decades of platformer history. Despite some typos, I'd say the foray is successful! It's a simple plot with a kid-friendly story, coupled with a platformer-style ring-collecting minigame that gets quite challenging in the eleventh hour.
Note: This is a spoilers off post. I won't spoil the ending or the murderer, but there will be no spoiler tags in this writeup.
Content warnings
Here's what you're in for with The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog:
The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is a lighthearted murder mystery with some mildly scary situations. Characters are occasionally harmed by cartoon violence and a notable sequence involves the threat of a bomb, but (big spoiler) no one is actually killed and status quo is preserved.
Narrative hardware
The first ten
Here's the setup: It's Amy Rose's birthday, and the core Sonic gang have all rented out a high-tech train for a murder mystery party to celebrate. Amy's sent her friends "lore cards" that establish their party character's backstory and potential motive, and everyone has (begrudgingly, in some cases) dressed in character for the occasion.
The train itself is an events-only train that hosts parties, escape rooms, and more. It's fully equipped with robotic arms that can serve snacks and clean messes. Its conductor, a teal rabbit with a fluffy mustache and a big laugh, has been running the joint for more than thirty years. It's his last day of work before he retires and goes on a well-deserved vacation with his wife. Isn't that nice?
The player character, a red cat with a VN-standard fill-in-the-blank name, joins the team as an employee of the train. Their job is to serve food (read: heat chili dogs in the microwave) and make sure everyone is having a good time. As the only other employee on the train, the conductor entreats the player to do a good job and make sure the guests are happy. Seems easy enough—the party brought their own entertainment and no one seems hungry right now.
The mystery itself
As Amy explains, all of your favorite Sonic characters have gathered for her birthday to celebrate via a murder mystery party, so no actual crimes should be involved here today. One of the attendees is secretly a murderer and has one hour to "kill" (heavy on the air quotes) any other partygoer. Amy and Tails play neutral parties who can be neither murderer nor murdered, so the pair stays separate from the potentially guilty parties. Meanwhile, the rest of the party mingles and works their character-acting magic as someone is "murdered."
Once that setup time is up, Amy and Tails will be let loose into the party to track down the killer with such tried-and-true mystery-solving tools as discovering pieces of evidence and interrogating suspects about their alibis. Amy plays an investigative journalist with a nosy streak, while Tails plays a more classic detective with a tragic backstory. You, as an employee of the train, have no role, so you can't participate in the event's kayfabe. You can take orders for dinner later if you want.
After the train suddenly ramps up to unsafe speeds, the player, Tails, and Amy encounter Sonic's "dead" body. He's in the Stock Family Guy Death Pose, so you know it's serious. But as Amy scampers away to play her role as the nosey journalist, Sonic whispers to you: "...body...numb...can't move..."
Is there more to this scene than meets the eye? Tails seems to think this is all part of the fun. We're on a train full of friends, after all, and everyone wants to make sure Amy has a good time at her party. No one would really try to murder Sonic the Hedgehog. Not on Amy's birthday. Right?
Time to THINK!
The fact that the game's setup involves a murder mystery party instantly undercuts some of the title's implied gravity. But even though the hedgehog himself is taken out of play right at the start, he's given plenty of screentime in the form of a GameBoy DreamCast DreamGear platformer.
The THINK! minigame is a twist on classic Sonic platforming mixed with an endless runner's level design. The player controls Sonic as he runs along a narrow, endless path, avoiding obstacles and picking up rings. In the murder mystery game, it's characterized as the player gathering their thoughts according to Tails' favorite adage: "What would Sonic do?"
The player character, whose social skills are cooked enough to be categorized somewhere between "toast" and "raisin toast," relies on these platformer breaks to compose an answer to a question posed by Tails or a suspect under interrogation. The player character's dialogue responses are usually geared toward comedic effect, and you'll never accidentally lock yourself out of content for daring to explore the sillier side of MoStH. Picking the wrong piece of evidence or accusing the wrong suspect just prompts Tails to gently nudge you to try again, sometimes with a hint. Even blowing a THINK! segment doesn't count as a game over—you'll just be kicked back to the start of the minigame to try again until you win.
Gameplay
Controls, accessibility, and saving
If you're finding THINK!ing challenging, there are a handful of accessibility options you can tweak to your liking, called "Assist Mode" in the pause menu. Saving is manual and can be accessed at any time before the endgame, at which point you'll be locked in until the end of the game—about a 10-15 minute segment, depending on how good you are at the minigame.
The rest of the game is played with more typical visual novel controls: a click of the mouse or spacebar to advance dialogue, and clicking on points of interest to investigate an area for clues or choose which character to speak to. There are plenty of goofy dialogue options your player character can avail themself of if you choose. And never fear: these options are almost always purely for comedy and will never lock you out of content for wanting a laugh.
Hunting down the murderer
Moving through the train is extremely easy. You and Tails will enter every train car in order, look for clues, interrogate that car's occupants, and move on once that's done. There is no backtracking and Tails will clearly indicate when you've found all the evidence you need to move on. Barring a cataclysmic breaking of the game itself, you will never find yourself in an unwinnable situation.
Your player character is more fastidious than kleptomaniac in this game. While a running gag suggests they're very invested in checking trash bins for clues, they're not in the habit of carrying more than they need, greatly decreasing the mystery's complexity. As each train car's interrogation is completed with evidence found only in that car, there's no need for a huge inventory, anyway.
In the endgame, Tails will gently guide you to the right answer if you're not on the same page. There are no penalties for guessing wrong, and you can complete the game via brute force if you're well and truly stumped (or just roleplaying a cat who is).
Narrative software
Story: What are friends for?
For what it's worth, I had a great time solving Sonic's murder. Espio is one of my all-time favorite Sonic characters, and seeing him in action as a poet for Amy's murder mystery party was a delight.
There are little nods to lore and character relationships, but nothing a total newcomer to the series wouldn't catch onto relatively quickly. The player character being an outsider (but evidently familiar enough with the gang's exploits to be starstruck) is a fun way to on-ramp newbies without alienating series veterans who are here to see old friends. The interactions between characters may not be very deep in terms of character development, but they're friendly and fun. Everyone's here for a party, after all! There's a lightness to the story not unlike when rivals Mario and Bowser set aside their differences for a go-kart tournament. In a game that doesn't set out with the world-ending stakes of, say, Sonic Frontiers, the tone is amiable and focused on fun.
Most important is the pressing issue of the murder. Who killed Sonic the Hedgehog? The murder mystery game takes Sonic out of the running immediately for obvious reasons, but I found Tails to be a fun choice of companion for the player. While the player character is nominally a sidekick, you're really running the investigation: Tails will throw the ball your way when it comes time to answer a question or present some evidence. He'll guide you to the right conclusion if you're not getting it, but there's nothing stopping you from reaching all the correct conclusions yourself.
The eleventh hour
But of course, it can't be that simple! Solving the murder prompts the discovery of another, bigger problem that Sonic and the gang must solve via more traditional means. The player character takes a backseat for an extended THINK! sequence toward the end as Sonic roars back into action to bail his friends out of a jam. I won't spoil the story, but I'll reassure you that the game's tone remains light overall even as the mood turns a little worrisome.
Pacing
This game goes quickly, at just about 2 hours of playtime if you're a fast reader and decent at the platformer sections. As a result, the story stays tight by being relatively uncomplicated: most alibis require 2-3 pieces of evidence to break or confirm. Even hunting down all the comedic flavor text as you explore the train cars is simple and straightforward, as everyone and everything you can interact with has a helpful green outline if you mouse over them.
Aboutness
This game is about the murder of Sonic the Hedgehog. I don't know what more you want from me.
What I like about this game is that it is deeply, deeply unserious, which only adds to its charm. Just because it's not serious doesn't mean it can't still be a fun or good experience. I appreciate the game's light tone and how unafraid it is to get silly with it.
Broadly, this is a game about friendship. The gang's all here to celebrate Amy's birthday. The train conductor is finally retiring and must leave his beloved train behind. Fizzlebop the Microwave Master may not become one of the core Sonic team by the end, but they have a brush with these friends and have a good time doing it. On a special day like a birthday or April Fool's Day, what more could you want?
Game taxonomy
Star points
Narrative: 7. It's uncomplicated as a murder mystery and derives most of its charm from its humor and the banter between well-established franchise mainstays. Mystery-wise, it may be nothing special, but that's almost certainly not why we're playing a Sonic game in the first place.
Gameplay: 7. The visual novel gameplay is no more difficult than advancing dialogue or clicking an option. The endless runner, though, can get fiendishly difficult toward the endgame.
Style: 8. I really liked the 2D, newspaper-comic vibe of the art and especially the character sprites. The screentones and slightly muted colors brought me back to stealing the newspaper from my dad so I could read the comics.
Innovation: 2. This game is not doing anything tremendously daring with its gameplay. If you've played almost any other visual novel, you've seen every VN mechanic this game will use. If you've played an endless runner or any other Sonic game, you will see a ring and know what to do when it's time to THINK!
Satisfaction: 8. There's really no other way for me to say it. I had fun playing this game and think fans of murder mysteries, visual novels, and/or Sonic the Hedgehog will probably have a good time, too.
Tetris-Higurashi Rating Scale
I give this game a +6. The story takes place entirely in its VN segments, and there's certainly more content in these story-oriented pieces, but all progression is basically locked behind getting good at the THINK! sections (or just turning on those assist options until you can get past them).
Fave five
Favorite dialogue option: Brainstorming ways to defuse the Fabergé Chao egg.
Favorite moment: Tails and the player character doing the Phoenix Wright point as they accuse the murderer (click for a spoiler-free image).
Favorite train car: Library car. We should bring back passenger trains on a large enough scale that "I'm going to the library car" enters common usage.
Favorite lore tidbit: Learning that the entire train was powered by one Flicky running on a hamster wheel. The Flicky goes on to just... cheerfully go about its life after decades of running this high-speed rail vehicle.
Favorite menu item: Knowing that it's all microwaved by a sweaty red cat, you couldn't pay me to order anything.
Flinn played The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog on PC via Steam. The game is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One/X/S.
