YMMV / The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

• Adorkable: The Player Character. Seeing their reactions about how unfamiliar with the main game cast along with playing detective alongside Tails is very cute to see. The player also has their own set of quirks, such as insisting there is a clue in the trash, trying (and failing) to win the slots, and some of the dialogue choices.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Initial reactions to the "Sonic is dead" Twitter announcement dismissed it as a Forced Meme at best, and few expected a game tie-in. And even then, the very concept of a Sonic the Hedgehog mystery Visual Novel is extremely bizarre. The game releasing for free on April Fools Day didn't inspire much confidence either. The game being not only genuinely good, but having some of the best ever writing for Sonic's Ensemble Cast, caught everyone by surprise. It ended up getting over 1 million downloads within its first week, became one of the highest rated Sonic games on Steam, and even managed to become the 61st highest-rated Steam game for a bit.
• Awesome Art: Min Ho Kim, a.k.a. DEEGEEMIN, who works on the IDW comics, provided the character artwork for the game. The results are quite impressive and expressive, making the whole novel feel like an interactive one-shot comic of the series.
• Awesome Music: There is no shortage of good tunes in the franchise, with this visual novel being no exception. There are plenty of them in this game, composed by Troupe Gammage (Solar Ash, Mutant Mudds) and Joel Corelitz (Halo Infinite, Hyper Light Breaker, Eastward).
  • In general, some of the songs in the game during some of the investigation and interrogation segments feel right at home in Ace Attorney, Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, or Danganronpa games.
  • While the player character is experiencing a Heroic BSoD, who better than Sonic the Hedgehog himself to give a Rousing Speech to perk up their spirits, accompanied by an upbeat remix of his theme, "It Doesn't Matter," from Sonic Adventure 2.
  • The most impressive piece of music is the one that plays during the last "THINK!" segment of the game, where Sonic saves his friends from the train's cars, followed by a track saved for the Final Boss, with Sonic fighting the train itself.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: Some fans stated they experienced this after playing the game. This is a visual novel that lasts only about two hours, but it was released for free on April Fools' Day, so its length makes sense for the occasion and the price. However, it also features some well-written dialogue, jokes, music, Mythology Gags, and characterization of the cast in a low-stakes adventure that treats its source material very respectfully. As such, many fans were left wishing that Sega would continue producing more games like this — games with a focus on the extended cast in a plotline that doesn't require them to save the world.
• Character Rerailment:
  • Knuckles clarifying that he can, in fact, read, is clearly meant to be seen as this for the Adaptational Dumbass treatment he's received in the 2010's.
  • While still cold and aloof, especially to the protagonist, Shadow in this game is noticeably calmer and shows a softer side to him that hasn't been seen in a while. Especially him ordering concert tickets for Amy and trying hard to cover it up until the surprise was ready. And in the climax he never once chastises Sonic when he's revealed to be hurt and helps Sonic rescue Amy.
  • This game has Amy Rose being a Genki Girl like how she was in Sonic Adventure, Sonic Riders, and Sonic Unleashed; her eccentric personality having been severely downplayed in most media ever since Sonic Lost World ^note Granted, the story/tone of Sonic Forces and Sonic Frontiers didn't allow for Amy's bubbly side, but an absence is still an absence. Not only is Amy brimming with excitement about the murder mystery party, even responding to Sonic's "murder" with glee (unaware that he's actually injured and not playing along with the game), but she rushes ahead of the player character and Tails to solve the mystery first.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The entire announcement of the game. A new Sonic game where the title character is announced to be dead after over 30 years? Upsetting. It being an April Fools' Day joke? Funny for some, not so funny for others. The trailer saying that Sega is taking the franchise in a new direction, followed immediately by a shot of Sonic lying in the memetic Family Guy death pose with "He's Dead" below it? Hysterical.
  • Vector's character in the mystery game is a butcher, complete with apparent dried blood on his smock. It's a decent while into the game before you find out it's ketchup, and in optional dialogue at that. He also tried to sneak a knife onto the train just to stay in-character.
  • If you opt to ask to marry Blaze, she casually inquires about your bloodline and if your ancestors had committed any war crimes.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Conductor and his wife are decently popular with the fandom, with the wife having gotten plenty of fan art despite only having a few minutes and scenes in the ending. She and the conductor would both even make a quick cameo in Winter Jam one-shot comic of Sonic IDW.
• Fandom-Specific Plot: Fans have created their own interpretations of what other characters from the Sonic universe would look like or play the role of in this game. This has seen fan art of characters like Surge and Kit, Gadget and Infinite, or even Sage and the Ninja Guardian all dressed up and participating in Amy's Murder Mystery Party.
• Fanfic Fuel: We know everyone on the train except Shadow got Amy a present, but we never find out or see what any of their presents were except, again, Shadow's, leaving room for speculation. It's also stated that by the time Amy reached Shadow, only him and Sonic hadn't given her their presents yet, so if Sonic ever gave his it would've had to have been after the game's events. This sparked a lot of fanart and fanfiction, especially from shippers.
• Fan Nickname: Since the MC has no canonical name, fans simply call them "Barry", as that was what was put on their nametag in the trailer.
• Genius Bonus: Eggman putting a "bounty" on Sonic to encourage competition and therefore success among his Badnik trains is similar to the idea of "Evolutionary Computation", a method for optimizing code and AI inspired by natural selection.
• Jerkass Woobie: The train. It tries to kill Sonic, deliver him and his friends into Eggman's clutches, and hold its conductor prisoner forever, but it's all motivated by a fear of losing what appears to be its only friend, combined with a naïve understanding of what friendship entails. It comes off as childish and emotionally stunted rather than outright malicious, and even apologizes to the conductor for the trouble it caused as it's dying, suggesting a capacity for empathy. Of course, it likely never gets a chance to mature and develop that capacity, since no one seems motivated to rebuild it with a more ethical power source.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Did anyone really think that Sega was going to kill off their golden boy? On April Fools' Day? In a Visual Novel that wasn't made by Sonic Team?
• Narm Charm: Any time Sonic's "murder" is brought up it's hard to take it seriously, from Amy being excited about it, to the culprit's remorseful confession. But the game wasn't trying to make it serious anyway (unlike the injury and the bigger plot) and it provides a good amount of out of context humor.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Sonic doing Peter Griffin's death pose from Family Guy upon his "murder" is only the second Shout-Out to said meme in the franchise. The first was when Surge the Tenrec, Sonic's new doppelgänger in Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) comic series, flunked a training session early in her debut miniseries.
  • This isn't the first time Sonic had to take down Eggman's train car-by-car as the Final Boss.
• One-Scene Wonder: Sage and Metal Sonic, who only appear at the very end of the game with Eggman, are both wearing party hats and T-shirts that say "Let's Go Dad."
• Play-Along Meme: Fans naturally started running with Sonic's "death" upon the games' announcement, pretending the Blue Blur really had been murdered and that there will be no more games as a result. Series critics reacted with rare good humor, suggesting Sega was "finally giving [the critics] what they really wanted!" The official Atlus Twitter account even tweeted out a suggestion for Jack Frost to replace the hedgehog, to which the official SEGA Twitter account simply stated "approved." Another example is claiming that the player character is teaming up with Tails from the hit multimedia franchise Tails.
• Signature Scene: The planning and bomb disposal sequence in the casino car is often thought of as the funniest part of an already very funny game. Between the several ridiculous options to choose from, the protagonist's Butt-Monkey status on full blast, and fan favorite Blaze getting to show off her stoic but lovable personality for the first time in several years in the franchise, it makes for a very funny scene between characters that never really interacted beforehand.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: A subset of fans have taken to shipping this game's player character and the Rookie/Gadget from Sonic Forces, mainly on the basis of them being avatars for the player who start out without much confidence. DEEGEEMIN, the official character artist for the game, approves of the ship itself, dubbing them "Gary" as well. So much so that they both appeared together in the Winter Jam one-shot Sonic IDW comic.
  • There's also been a rise combining Gadget and Barry's ship with the pre-existing ship of Infidget (Infinite/Gadget) for a One True Threesome. DEEGEEMIN has liked art combining the three of them on their Tumblr as well.
• Surprise Difficulty: While the majority of the game is a comfortable VN that gives you plenty of leeway when it comes to solving puzzles, the "THINK!" segments are deceptively brutal if you opt to play on the default settings, with the mini-games giving little-to-no room for error starting from the second room.
• Take That, Scrappy!: In the Saloon car, Tails and the Player Character come across a "Wanted!" Poster of Omochao. What horrible crime has Omochao committed? Medical malpractice.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While the game deals with Sonic's "murder", Dr. Eggman only becomes involved in the story after the mystery is solved (Eggman himself only being incidentally responsible) and Sonic has fully recovered, meaning we miss out on his reaction to his nemesis' apparent death.
• Unexpected Character:
  • At the end of the story, practically no one expected Sage's cameo in the ending alongside Metal Sonic, as Sonic Frontiers was less than six months old at that point, and the end of the game left it unclear if she would stick around as a character afterwards. One of the dialogue options that the player can have with Eggman can lead to him namedropping her before she's revealed in the final scene with her creator and Metal Sonic.
  • To a lesser extent, Blaze's inclusion was a surprise for many, as she tends to be left out of plots involving the wider cast.
• Win Back the Crowd: The way Shadow was written, hearkening back to his original characterization as a serious and reserved person who still cares about his friends, was very well-received by his fans who had been frustrated by his Flanderization over the previous decade (due to SEGA mandates) into Sonic's jerk rival with few, if any, redeeming qualities and no friends.

---