The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

Definitely an extremely simple game but you get what you pay for which is nothing in this case. In all seriousness, this game is just a short visual novel where you are just vibing with some of your favorite Sonic characters. The writing and characterization are so on-point that I was having enough fun just seeing the character interactions and callbacks from the whole franchise. I understand that this is hardly a detective game but I think if you are playing this game in the first place you definitely find enjoyment just hanging with the Sonic cast.

The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog, released on 1st April 2023, is supposed to be an April Fool of sorts. It's really just a visual novel about the gang playing a murder mystery game on a train; Mirage Express. It's not got that many ties to the Sonic universe really, you could easily switch out the characters.

You play as a Mirage Express worker. You, alongside Detective Tails, team up to solve the mystery. Amy is also trying to solve the mystery but she runs off on her own, and joins you near the end.

You work your way through each carriage. You click several objects in the scene to investigate. Once you have found all the clues, Tails will prompt you to interrogate the suspect(s) in that particular carriage. He will prompt you to choose a piece of evidence to back up his theory. To go through with the accusation, you need to play a mini-game for some reason.

The main character's DreamGear then appears. I would imagine this is supposed to be a Game Gear but why couldn't they use it when it's an official Sega game? It's a bit random anyway - how is it giving the character inspiration? Anyway, in this mini-game, you control Sonic in an Isometric view, you move and jump to avoid hazards and collect rings. You need a certain amount to progress, and failing to meet the target means you have to try again. The difficulty of these mini-games can be configured in the options, which I imagine younger players will need to do so because I thought the targets often seemed pretty strict, especially on the "final boss".

There's no voice acting, so there's a lot of reading involved. It will take 2 hours at most.

I found it difficult to picture what this train really looks like given that it seems to have a hidden path through some carriages, and an elevator.

It's pretty basic, but it is free so I can't complain too much.