I played it a few days ago, and loved it. I had never even considered the idea of a Sonic VN but, honestly it works really well. The detectiving was fun, I didn't out figure Espio was the murderer until the very end, I don't if that's a result of clever writing and storytelling or if I'm just unobservant. I enjoyed the THINK! minigame, it has a good difficulty curve and was actually a little challenging by the end of the game. Though I will say the last set of levels were a little disorienting, having the entire screen scrolling messed with my eyes and made it hard to focus. I know it's an April fools joke, but I would actually like to see more stuff like this. Writing this good in a Sonic game is refreshing and it would be nice to see more from the people that made this.
Really enjoyed this, it's nice seeing the cast just chill out in a fun setting with some proper writing. Frontiers could get a bit "Hey remember x???"* but I enjoyed how this worked in stuff like references to the OVA, the Mirage Saloon-themed carriage and other parts of the series all together without being too distracting. If it wasn't free I'd be more critical but as is I think SEGA's social media team really knocked it out of the park and I'd love to see more world-building stuff like this from time to time that still has a comedic (but not too 4th-wall breaking, still-probably-canon) feel to it. * I'll take it over the opposite where the world-building was non-existent and the plot regularly made no sense post-Generations, but it's not the most subtle form of fanservice either.
I finished the game just now with my girlfriend. We had a blast. The script was funny and witty with a classic Ace Attorney flavor, the references were subtle and not in-your-face like Frontiers was, the characterization was on-point (sans some slight flanderization on Rouge and Shadow, but still better than before) with lots of cute little quirks, and oh my god the art. The art is so good. I cannot stress that enough. Eggman felt off admittedly, but other than that? This is some of the best Sonic art I have ever seen. The expressions were incredible, the outfits everyone had were cute and stylish and sold me on the idea of male Sonic characters wearing clothes, and the style feels very "SEGA" in a way that a lot of IDW/Archie art doesn't (I hope that makes sense). I really, REALLY want this artist to do more. Spoiler The mystery was mostly well-done, although...the wardrobe thing made absolutely no sense and felt very contrived. Like, it's a train, not a mansion. How is a secret passage to two cars down even possible? And why does it exist in the first place, if this supposedly was a normal train before being converted? Also, the ending portion felt rushed, like they wanted to do more but ran out of time. If they explore the idea of a Sonic VN in the future, I want them to go all the way and have less handholding, and a less linear setup. Somehow, I get the feeling this wasn't just a joke, and they're testing the waters. The special stages were fun and challenging, although I'll have to echo what TheCleanerDragon said about the fullscreen ones at the end messing with my eyes. And towards the end, they were getting a little repetitive and I wish they were skippable. But for an April Fool's joke, and a FREE game, I honestly have no right to complain. This was incredibly well-done.
Min Ho Kim is actually already doing work on IDW, having done cover A for #57 and designed several of the Scrapniks for Scrapnik Island. Regardless, I do absolutely adore the specific things they've done for this game, particularly with the half-tone texture and how the colours reach just outside the linework. Small nuances like that really enhance the art that bit more and nail the vibe of the game. Spoiler With regards to the secret passage, it's said at the start of the game that the Mirage Express isn't an ordinary passenger train but specialises in these murder mysteries and escape rooms. I don't think the "how it works" is all that important but I'd say the secret passage is intended for people to find as part of these games.
Honestly I think the weirdest omission is Cream. She gets name-dropped by Blaze and Vanilla is even mentioned by Knuckles, but until the 2010s she was the Tails to Amy's Sonic, so it's weird that they don't even try to explain why she's absent from Amy's birthday party.
Maybe a murder mystery isn’t appropriate for her? Idk, but it is weird they didn’t give some kind of reason. The team would likely realize that the fans would end up asking the question. Though if you had Cream, then people would ask, “Where’s Charmy,” and if you had Charmy, then they’d ask, “Where’s Omega,” then there’s Silver, etc. etc…. You have to draw the line somewhere I guess. Is this referring to the main character? I’m pretty sure they just designed the characters to be ambiguous so players could self-insert and the developers could save time. I think it worked as I just think of him as a boy after playing. Do any girls here see the character as a girl?
Crimson Neo most likely mistook "genre" for "gender". I would know because I'm also brazillian and I do this all the time since portuguese has a single word for both of these two different concepts (it also doesn't help that they are very similar to each other) But now that we are actually talking about gender, I'll briefly mention that I see Barry as enby. I think it's always nice to see devs using gender neutral pronouns for ambiguity without feeling the need to make the character's design fit the "traditional ambiguity" you usually get with characters like that
I do appreciate the use of non-binary terms, but I also think it's a tough sell when Barry's design follows the design conventions for male characters to a tee. Even the whiteboard drawings in the sketch style depict Rouge and Blaze's clothing. Hindsight's a bitch, but the decision to only clothe female characters has really shot SEGA in the foot when it comes to these things.
I assumed that they designed Barry as a man, and then thought later on "lets make him a self insert," but at that point they didn't have time to make a female version, so just made his gender ambiguous. It honestly isn't very convincing since he's clearly designed like a male Sonic character.
Yeah, I don't think children would fit in at a murder mystery party. Clearly they're not forgotten but it'd be a bit silly. I'm not surprised Cream and Charmy haven't been around since Gens since Lost World and Frontiers focused on smaller casts and children in a war story like Forces would also be a bad fit. Tails doesn't count for some reason. Maybe next game.
Tails has been directly involved in actual end-of-the-world scenarios and government conspiracies. He's hardened enough that it's pointless to preserve his innocence. Plus his genius skills are too useful to be ignored in wartime, and regardless, he has no parent or guardian to take care of him. But for this particular case, considering what the game was SUPPOSED to be, which was basically a "tag, you're it" kind of harmless fun, it wouldn't be inappropriate for Cream to be here. The board game Clue is for children 5 and up, after all.
Ah, okay. The phrasing was odd and people don’t normally focus on that stuff here (it’s something I’d expect on Reddit or Twitter), but I had briefly seen people mentioning interpreting the character that way on other sites so I wasn’t sure. Whether or not they should explore different genres… I hope they do so. I really enjoyed getting spin-offs back in the day and now that the series is on its way back up, it’s probably profitable to do so. The story here gave similar vibes to Battle in particular, in the way you get to see the characters interact in more “typical” settings. Maybe they can have a few people on Sonic Team assigned to direct/produce spin-offs which would have the bulk of development done by third parties similar to the Advance and Rush games. People act like Dimps were the creative force behind those titles, but they were still led by Sonic Team staff.
I had a fun time with the game, it was like interacting with a one shot comic or side story. This kind of thing is what I’ve been itching for lately and I hope they continue to do odd things like this going forward. Probably never going to replay it but I love some of the gags like omochao or the “hang in there” poster.
The only possible reason I can think of for Sticks not being here properly is that it's a game that's stuck on Steam as its only option, meaning it's technically so low level that it's not even like if they introduced her as part of Team Rose in Team Sonic Racing, which admittedly not many more eyes would be on. Cream never really seemed like a super good fit as Amy's "Tails". Not that I have a problem with the two hanging out, but like, the biggest reason someone draws the comparison is that the two characters fly and hang out with a hedgehog. Sticks ends up being so unfitting that she wraps back around to being fitting just because both Amy and Sticks are different kinds of crazy.
Spoiler This got me wondering, I can see how a secret passage might be able to fit on the train, and it is designed for special occasions so it's not entirely out of place. But how on Earth is there an elevator and an entire second floor in the Casino Car. All the exterior shots of the train show it as a single story tall, yet somehow the Casino Car can fit an entire room above it without being any taller. What magic did they use to get that room to fit there?
