Sonic is dead. A day that begins so innocently as a birthday celebration for Amy Rose takes a nefarious turn in this Murder on the Orient Express inspired title. The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog is a new direction for the franchise, swapping out the super-speed action of navigating stages for a point and click, visual novel adventure. Of course, it’s also tongue in cheek having been released for April Fools’, but has Sega landed the punchline?
The plot of The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog is simple enough: Sonic and friends are taking part in a murder mystery on a train for Amy Rose’s birthday when things take a bit of a turn and Sonic ends up dead. As you start to disentangle the mystery, figuring out the suspects, it soon becomes clear that everything is not as it seems.
Instead of putting you in the deductive boots of an established Sonic character, you play as a brand new character that you can name yourself. It’s actually your first day on the job on the train – that train being fittingly named the Mirage Express.
With the game’s opening out of the way and Sonic murdered, the game is afoot. Tails takes the lead as the main detective while you act as his assistant, going from carriage to carriage looking for clues and interrogating potential suspects. It is a simple affair because as Tails poses his questions he will ask the player character to select the right clue that will move forward the interrogation forward.
However, that is not the only part of the questioning, which also features an endless runner-style mini-game where you play as Sonic, collecting rings and dodging hazards like spikes. You have to collect a set number of rings to be successful in using a piece of evidence, but it’s not the end of the world if you fail as you simply replay the mini-game until you succeed. If you do find the platforming mini-game an issue you can make adjusts in the settings, such as making Sonic invincible or lowering the amount of rings required to pass.
The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog has some really detailed and colourful artwork, with each of the characters represented really well. The script is humourous and does keep you engaged for the approximately two hours it takes to complete the game. The soundtrack is also very good too with a decent set of tunes accompanying the mystery.
