What happens when you write the premise for Luigi's Mansion with characters from Sonic the Hedgehog? You get Sonic Boom: Haunted Mansion Mystery, a Sonic Boom fanfiction written by CVGW James.
Sonic and Knuckles receive a letter in the mail from a mysterious woman named Madame L that they won a mansion at Bygone Forest; an unusually creepy mansion. Turns out, it’s a trap, and Madame L is actually the evil sorceress Ghouleena, and Sonic and Knuckles are now her captives. Meanwhile, Amy receives a similar letter, but unlike Sonic and Knuckles, she knows something smells fishy, and calls both Tails and Sticks. Come to find out, they’ve received similar invitations, but haven’t gone into the mansion. Now Tails, Amy, and Sticks have to infiltrate the mansion, rescue Sonic and Knuckles, and defeat Ghouleena.
The story was started on October 10th, 2020, then finished over two years later on November 28th, 2022 with a total of sixteen chapters.
You can read it on FanFiction.Net here
, or on DeviantArt here.
Sonic Boom: Haunted Mansion Mystery contains examples of:
- And I Must Scream: Once Ghouleena’s power reaches its peak, victims trapped in her paintings (i.e. Sonic and Knuckles) will be frozen, but conscious as they helplessly watch the world fall to ruin, if we take Knoal Seir’s word for it.
- Back for the Finale: Cornelius Monkey disappears from the story for a while after providing the trio with the Ghost Vac in Chapter 5, but returns in the final chapter to take back the Ghost Vacs and take care of Ghouleena’s staff.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Discussed in the final chapter. After finally saving Sonic and Knuckles, Sticks mentions that they might want to leave the haunted mansion before Dr. Eggman carpet-bombs it.
- Big Bad: Ghouleena, an evil sorceress and the author’s Original Character. This is what she looks like.
- Bland-Name Product: Super Plumber Bros. is a parody of... well, you know.
- Breather Episode: Chapter 12 follows the fight with the Dark Phantom with a relaxed hangout at the mansion’s swimming pool. Not only that, but our heroes have had hefty encounters with Friendly Ghosts before the Dark Phantom battle, and in Chapter 12 run into two more. The buildup to the final battle with Ghouleena occurs after that.
- Composite Character: While Ghouleena is an obvious Expy of King Boo, being the Big Bad of the story inspired by Luigi's Mansion, she also has some shades of an evil Rosalina, due to both her design and her name.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Tails, Amy, and Sticks triumph over Eggman’s robots in Chapter 6 pretty easily, since he came shorthanded.
- Sticks grabs the key from Shantaia in Chapter 14 with no difficulty.
- Cutaway Gag: In Chapter 14, Amy fears Dr. Eggman would cause a ruckus again. Cut to Eggman’s lair, where he wonders if someone was thinking of him.
- Dark Is Evil: One of the hostile ghosts serving Ghouleena is a creature called the Dark Phantom.
- Defeat by Modesty: How the trio takes care of the Dark Phantom. Once his cloak is removed, he loses his intimidation, and is easy to suck into the Ghost Vac from there.
- Destroy the Villain's Weapon: Downplayed. After Ghouleena is finally defeated by Team Sonic with her own staff, they decide to just bury the staff somewhere and leave it to be forgotten.
- Disney Villain Death: How Ghouleena meets her end... for now.
- Distressed Dude: Sonic and Knuckles are in Ghouleena’s captivity for the majority of the story.
- The Dragon: Shantaia is the mansion’s housekeeper, and the one taking direct orders from Ghouleena.
- The End... Or Is It?: Despite our heroes defeating Ghouleena, the author has plans to bring her back in a future story.
- Expy: Considering this is Luigi's Mansion with Sonic characters, expect to see characters fulfilling familiar roles and jobs; Original Characters, that is.
- Cornelius Monkey shares the old mentor role that Professor E. Gadd had, providing the ghost-sucking vacuum cleaner to our heroes. On the topic, the Ghost Vac is the name of the Sonic gang’s Poltergust equivalent.
- Ghoulsania Vixen is a ghostly painter like Vincent Van Ghoul. Unlike Van Ghoul, however, Ghoulsania is friendly.
- Knoal Seir the fortune teller is this fic’s answer to Madame Clairvoya.
- Friendly Ghost: One detail that separates this fanfic from Luigi's Mansion is that a good majority of the ghosts bear no hostility to Team Sonic, even sometimes willingly allowing themselves to be sucked into the Ghost Vacs after the trio does something that makes them happy. It helps that ghosts that are sucked into the vacuum are released into the afterlife, rather than getting trapped in a portrait.
- Greater-Scope Villain: As it turns out, Ghouleena is serving Shahl’tor’ohk, ruler of the underworld.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Ghouleena is defeated by her own staff once Amy gets her hands on it.
- Lame Pun Reaction: Amy is annoyed with Tails’ Pun in Chapter 14. Sticks, not so much.
- Mr. Exposition: Knoal Seir is the one who notifies Amy, Tails, and Sticks of Ghouleena’s presence, what the ghostly sorceress intends to do, and where Sonic and Knuckles currently are.
- Not Me This Time: Discussed in Chapter 4. Tails and Sticks are quick to blame Dr. Eggman for the suspicious invitations, but Amy isn’t sure this is his work. Of course, the audience found out two chapters ago that Eggman is indeed not behind this.
- Official Couple: Sonic and Amy are in a relationship in this story.
- Original Character: All of the residents of or outside the mansion, good or evil, are characters that the author created.
- Plot-Irrelevant Villain: Dr. Eggman attacks Tails, Amy, and Sticks in Chapter 6, but has nothing to do with the mansion setup.
- Shout-Out: Unsurprisingly, to Ghostbusters. After the trio use their Ghost Vacs for the first time, Tails refers to them as Ghostbusters.
- Small Role, Big Impact:
- Rere’cros Ev’li Krad’s only role in the story is to provide the mail to Sonic and Knuckles that they won the mansion. After that, he’s never heard from again.
- Cornelius Monkey provides Amy, Sticks, and Tails with the ghost-hunting technology that’s definitely important, but doesn’t do much else in the story.
- Visual Pun: As Amy, Sticks, and Tails discuss the disappearances of Sonic and Knuckles as well as the suspicious invitations, they find all of this "fishy". Cue the talking fish from the Sonic Boom cartoon.
