No, the title is not a typo. UA-cam demonetized the original upload because of the word "murder". Good reason to support us over on Patreon though so that we can care less and less about that sorta thing! Watch this week's episode of Zero Punctuation on Dead Island 2. www.escapistmagazine.com/dead-island-2-zero-punctuation/
What the actual fuck? There are so damn many true crime channels that talk about murder? This fucking “advertiser friendly” shit is absurd. There are literal Nazis on this platform. But the figurative murder of a fictional cartoon hedgehog is a bridge too far?? Like, I kind of get that they made you guys go back and censor Yahtzee’s use of the N word in early 2010’s episodes. Fair enough. But this is just silly.
I had a friend that was a "Lore Consultant" for a game studio. She had a Masters in Library Science, aka, went to school to be a librarian. She absolutely loved her job, until her company was bought by a larger one.
honestly being a lore consultant seems like a legitimate job for any series long enough in the tooth that your fanbase will get upset if you haven't spent a weekend spelunking into various wikis You keep the story straight for the people who care and the people who don't... don't care either way!
@@edfreak9001 Couldn't agree more. Specially for Sonic, since i know VERY well how this franchise can be so inconsistent and confusing in terms of lore/story and characther writing. Thankfully now since Frontiers, mostly thanks to Ian Flynn; they actually care to organize everything and make all related Sonic media being unified.
@@edfreak9001 Yeah I agree Lore Consultant does actually sound like a great job idea for a long running series Hell i'd love to do it, I can memorize lore so well I wonder why my memory is so terrible everywhere else
the actual prank with The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is getting people to stream it thinking it's the haha sonic dies funny meme game and then it's a completely earnest two hour showcase of what people like about these characters - Bobby Schroeder
Honestlly the main appeal of the game is the interactions between the characters, we almost never get to see sonic and his friends just hanging out without it being during yet another fight with eggman
Was especially nice to get a few less common characters in there, like Espio and Blaze. Espio especially has gotten like zero screentime since Sonic Heroes (even Vector had Free Riders and an episode of Sonic Boom). But even stuff with how Shadow acts around Amy and Tails (and guest) without Sonic there to spark him was nice to see.
I would absolutely be down with more character interactions as firends with the Sonic cast. Maybe a future Sonic game could look into that as side content or mini games in between the main game. Like, Sonic could move to the next level or area, but if he shares a milkshake with Knuckles or goes to the gym with Shadow their friendship bond ranks up so maybe he should do that first.
Wow Yahtz, a "sonic inflation" joke?? What year is if, 2010? Actually, maybe it's a mark of monumental self-control that it took him this long to let that one out.
My biggest takeaway from this is that Yahtzee not only knows what Hatoful Boyfriend is but knows the the joke is that it's actually a gripping and dramatic story covering the themes of loss, youth, government corruption, and more while presenting it as a game where you try to smooch the prettiest pigeon.
@@Kuraerisu That game was great. I bought it because "Girl dating photo-realistic pigeons" is hilarious (especially when you can also see them as dreamy anime boys), but was actually impressed with the story, which went way deeper and darker than I was expecting.
Seeing some folks' reception to this new generation of Sonic feels like how people refuse to accept that the class clown/party animal finally got their life together by the class reunion. The kicker is that the sincerity was always what made Sonic appealing to a lot of fans, but that kept getting undercut by subpar games and their social media arm playing damage control to the point of irony poisoning and the expectation that Sonic is not to be treated as anything more than a joke.
And just like a class clown/party animal, give him a bit of encouragement and he will go back to his old ways, it happened before with Sonic and it can certainly happen again (Sega is a mix of M. Night Shyamalan and George Lucas, not evil but stupid and baffling decisions all in once)
@@petarpoljak6918 Anything's possible, but the reason why I have faith in the current Sonic staff is because they've really been trying since the 30th anniversary to be consistent. Add to that, I think the success of Frontiers has shown Sega to finally trust Sonic Team's instincts when it comes to handling the franchise. So long as they allow folks like Tyson Hesse, Ian Flynn, Kishimoto, and Christain Whitehead, etc. to play to their strengths, we shouldn't see as many embarrassments as we used to.
@@DTFauxClassicSonic Frontiers was overrated beyond all belief. Such fanfare for an OK game, my friend said it the best "if every game in the last 10 years is shit, an OK Game will be gold in the eyes of Sonic s****."
@@petarpoljak6918 I mean, we can hash out whether Frontiers' praise is deserved or not, but my overall point is that the franchise is fairing better when passionate artists and devs are in charge. You can see across all the mediums (including social) that Sonic is moving past the post-'06 era of an over-reliance on meta humor, irony poisoning, and self-deprecation. There's still some of that, but way more weight being put into sincerity (which we see shine with this new visual novel), and the fans are loving it.
l understand where Yahtzee is coming from, but l think it was quite healthy for the sonic franchise as a whole to have a light-hearted low-stakes silly game where there can be a lot of focus on interaction with/between sonic's friends. Very often SonicTeam struggles to find a way to let the extended cast shine in sonic games but this was a great opportunity and l think it did fine enough in that regard. l wouldnt mind playing more of these bite-size silly adventures where we can just have the cast goof about, especially if it's free!
remember when Yakuza did an april fools video of a Yakuza game that was like dragon quest but then everyone was like "yes! that! but unironically!" and it was received very well? it's proof that sometimes a silly mix can be the formula for gold.
1:32 The idea of Hellraiser's Pinhead being rendered completely powerless by the simple awkwardness of being cornered in a public bathroom is pretty damn good.
Man the game's got a highly positive rating because they took the exact opposite approach from what Yahtzee wanted here: Instead of the joke being it's a ridiculous april fools game, the april fools joke is that it's a legitimate sonic visual novel. With solid, in-character writing for the entire cast, more interactions between them than has been seen in any game in the last decade, and lots of dumb references to the franchise's history. It's not trying to be a joke, it just used the joke for advertising.
@@OrangeDog20 the game is good, though. if you go into it just expecting a lighthearted visual novel where you get to see some characters hanging out in a casual setting instead of "joke game where sonic actually dies for real" then it's a genuinely nice experience.
@@OrangeDog20 I'm inclined to side with Alice and Popchip here, for a visual novel it was surprisingly solid and had more effort put in than a Sonic visual novel has any right to have. If visual novel's aren't Yahtz thing or he's not a good judge of them, he could dislike the game but that doesn't mean he's the de facto judge of it's quality, it's just his opinion.
LOL, Yahtzee is somehow upset that the creators of a Sonic the Hedgehog game don't hate Sonic as much as him. I'm not even a Sonic fan, i thought it was good. You get locked in a room and you think, I got to solve some kinda Point and click puzzle to get out, nope sonic just runs real fast through door. The game does just enough of everything to be enjoyable without staying around too long to get super annoying.
This was a definitely a game for the fans, because the characterization was phenomenal, and it took itself just seriously enough that it made fun of itself without exaggerated self deprecation. It's more straightforward that non-fans would have liked, but it was a joyful romp for those of us already sucked in past the point of no return
I hear the job of "lore consultant" was a recent addition over at Sega, because now they actually want to keep accurate account of all Sonic-related events in the games. It's an interesting choice, too, because a few things within those same games don't quite mix. Like Blaze and her backstory in relation to Sonic 06.
Oh yeah, there's definitely gonna be some retcons and plotholes, but I suspect the end goal is to consolidate as much of the stories into one timeline. Not unlike the Zelda games which only really started leaning into the "Zelda timeline" around TP or SS.
I guess the way to deal with that would be to say that the Blaze in the future is the Blaze of Sonic's World, whereas the Blaze in Rush is Blaze from the Alternate dimension. But even not only is it very "overly convenient", it gets trickier when you introduce Silver into the mix and his future appearances along with Blaze (stating they both come from another dimension?). I mean Sonic 06 pretty much yeets itself out of canon with the ending erasing all the events in the game. Which is unfortunate because some character development (mainly Shadow) was pretty good in that game (is that why he's back to being an edgy son of a hog in future games?).
Shoutouts to Eggman Nega being from Blaze's Dimension NOPE he was lying, he's from Silver's future and that HAS to be canon because otherwise Silver has no First Appearance.
Ngl, expecting Sega to actually kill their child-friendly mascot even as a joke and then getting disappointed when they don't is like getting mad that rain decided to be wet today too.
Not really surprised that "The guy who doesn't like Sonic" plays a short VN for fans of the characters doesn't like it, but Yahtzee seemed to have expected this game to be something crazily subversive or something.
Honestly, I don't know what he was expecting. Even the Steam description say's it's a fake murder mystery for Amy's birthday, so they weren't exactly hiding the twist.
The title shows up before the description. The title is misleading. Therefore, any understanding of the game will be disappointing. And they knew what they were doing when they picked the title, the intention being to get people to think they did something novel and gutsy, but actually didn’t at all
@@VideoGuy232 "The title is misleading. Therefore, any understanding of the game will be disappointing" That's a baresurface level way to view literally anything, the tittles of most things don't refer to the game in any literal form and would by this metric be misleading. What a roundabout way to cherry pick blame.
Even though Sega's golden boy doesn't actually get killed off in this, I think it's pretty good. I love the visual novel style, the music is amazing, and Detective Tails is the greatest, most adorable thing ever. I know that sort of thing isn't really Yahtzee's cup of tea, but oh well.
I think you went in expecting too much Yahtzee. I knew from the trailer he wasn't going to die, and my question became "how are they going to NOT kill Sonic?" and what I got was a pleasant visual novel experience watching some characters I enjoy interacting.
Amy was too gleeful for that to actually have happened. But I gotta say the extent to which they almost killed him was more than I thought they would dare to.
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, it does seem like Yahtzee was a victim of his own expectations more than anything else (The UA-cam of Yahtzee the Croshaw, if you will). On the other hand, Yahtz has a well-documented disinterest in visual novels and an even-better-documented disdain for the Sonic franchise and how it's been handled by Sega. The game is charming and silly, if a bit trite, and doesn't do anything bold with its story or subversive to the overarching canon. It's a game for existing fans, not a game that strives to bring fresh light or new attention to the series. All in all, none of the elements were in place for a positive critique. Yahtzee is speaking (as always) from his perspective and his tastes; he wasn't going to love the game because the game isn't for him and that's okay; that doesn't mean the game failed at what it set out to do, nor does it mean he's wrong for wanting something the game didn't (and frankly wasn't going to) deliver.
Maybe it's because I'm cheap and it was free but I actually quite enjoyed the game myself. It really scratched that Phoenix Wright banter itch, even if the mystery elements themselves are pretty meh. Tails commenting on how he's never actually stopped and played a game at a casino before because they were always busy running through them gave me a smirk. The trash bin gag, too, is pretty solid. Just a nice little snack game that people put a lot of love into.
There's a certain irony to the fact that I enjoy watching these a week late. Not because I don't want to support the show, I would if I could; but rather because I need a buffer between hearing about anything AAA game industry related.
@@maudlife Well yeah, but that also means it's another week between any hype-trains the game might have had, or controversies it spawned. Like when he did that new Harry Potter game people were flipping their crap over, it had all but entirely died down by the time I saw the review, so I barely had to hear about it at all.
Yeah, you can tell this was a video rushed out in a day. This rant isn't even worth ire. It's just eye-rolling, stock "why didn't I get to actually murder Sonic the Hedgehog in this licensed game?" faux outrage, topped off with the usual refusal to engage with the story of the game *because* it's Sonic. Game's good. It's a full loaded short story with enough charm and wit to properly elucidate what a rando civilian would think crossing paths with Sonic's gang (fear, mostly) and does a great job at the concept of introducing people new to the franchise to Sonic's wider cast of characters in a comfortable, continuity-friendly setting. Because shockingly, it *is* canon (unless contradicted.) '06 is non-canon, this gives a wink and a nudge while providing gentle shout-outs to SATAM and the OVA, alongside games of every era. It's a passion project, and you can genuinely tell if you have one iota of care for the franchise as more than a punching bag.
If Yahtzee wanted a subversive gag game that absolutely did not get approval from IP holders, has he played Sonic Dreams Collection before? Ben Esposito of Neon White fame worked on that.
"What kind of Sonic Fan are you?" the corpse hissed at him from the tree. "I need a Sonic game that's twisted and brutal yet somehow beautiful, something out my darkest primordial nightmares but wearing a cute red headband," the detective answered. But that wasn't quite enough. "And..." he added, his rancid breath starting to fog the air "And... I'd like it to pay ME to play it."
The lore consultants are mostly just people who were writers for the sonic comics, or social media people, but regardless, they are far more than faceless corporates. There's a lot of easter eggs in this game for sonic fans.
This game really touched me on a personal level. When I was a few years younger, my long-held pet weasel UA-cam'd of old age, and being stomped on by the Comcast router repairman. The personal narrative of this game really helped me process the grief I felt over the event in a new light, and I'm happy to say I no longer fear UA-cam itself; UA-cam gives meaning to our life, by making it temporary, and pushing us to live well instead of wasting the time we have. Thank you, Yahtz, for bringing this masterpiece to my attention.
To be fair the last time they ACTUALLY killed Sonic was in the year 2006. It uh... it didn't work out well, I can understand not wanting to repeat that.
The fact that Yahtzee knows about Danganronpa scares me a little, because if he ever played it he'd probably eviscerate at least two of the three games, and I'm *not sure which ones*
So basically Yahtzee is mad that Sonic wasn't cynical and self-loathing enough, failing to realize that concept would only appeal to HIM and turn away everyone else.
I just played it yesterday, and it was actually surprisingly delightful. The isometric viewpoint was somewhat frustrating, but those bits were short enough and had a good enough difficulty curve that it looped back around to engrossing, IMO. [EDIT: Also, the music for those sections slapped *hard,* especially by the end.] I kinda want to see more of these games, with increasingly elaborate mechanics and stories. [EDIT: It could be Sonic's take on a Paper Mario style spinoff series, though a non-motion controlled Storybook Series could also fill that niche.]
Franchise is large enough a gaiden game like that wouldn't be out of place. Plus we've already seen a sloppily botched RPG game in the series, thanks Bioware. It can only improve with this.
It sounds like Yahtzee really wanted to play a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame written by people who don't like or respect Sonic the Hedgehog as a franchise, which is a recipe for terrible parody. If you're going to make a fanwork that's 2-3 hours long, that fanwork's plot ought to ooze love for the source material from every pore. Which is what this game does. That love is visible even to people who've never played a full Sonic game, and it's why the game has 98% positive reviews.
It's a free game Published By Sega called the Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog. My only complaint was that the Isometric levels strained my eyes a bit near the end. Other than that I got what I expected and more.
...I really don't like saying this sort of thing, especially of a reviewer, but he's kinda missed the point. He walked in expecting a subversive gag game where Sonic legitimately dies but... okay I'm gonna go into spoiler territory in case anyone actually gives a damn but... The fact it's a murder mystery party is on the steam page, so it's not like they were hiding that. They played up the "Sonic's dead" angle for the trailer but at the same time... what the heck would they even do if they went the full way with it? We'd be looking at the first 10 minutes of forces, basically. So the point of the game is just an earnest character exploration of Sonic and friends in an unfamiliar situation, with an outside observer ("Barry") bouncing off them. Tellingly, despite what Yatz said about Barry finding Sonic and his friends to be cool, he actually initially thought they were completely insane because of their various quirks, such as Rouge not bothering to play the game in favour of robbing the place, Knuckles getting frustrated enough at a video game to smash it and Episo's horrendous poetry due to his dedication to his role. The whole thing really doesn't WORK if you don't already like Sonic's friends, which Yatzhee has made pretty clear before that he doesn't, but if you do it's a legitimately charming little story.
I don't know why Yahtzee took the premise so seriously. This isn't Sonic Frontiers, it's a free April Fools game. I'm actually surprised that the STAFF took development so seriously and actually made a full on visual novel.
I think the issue is that Yahtzee is viewing the game as a gag game when that's not really what it is, it's a fairly sincere visual novel story that takes place in the Sonic world, and it seems he's unable to see past that made-up version of the game Yahtzee created in his mind and consider the writing, which is arguably the most important part of a visual novel.
Tbf releasing on April Fools day and having the premise of "Sonic the Hedgehog fucking died" in an official product very much makes it feel like a joke, even if it isn't one
It's because yahtzee adamantly refuses to see how sonic could be anything but what he was in the Dreamcast days. As he defended in both his Frontier review and his follow up Extra Puntuation on that point, to him sonic has to have the one tone and it's so obvious as to why that he "doesn't know how to explain it to us." This was sonic and the gang chilling at a birthday party, exactly what it says in the description, but that's not the high-energy cartoony nonsense he demands so it falls short. The gag was really just that it's a sincere love letter to the fans who're still interested in the characters after all these years. Which is funny because of their history has been anything but kind.
This is a joke I've seen elsewhere years ago. Either it crossed Yahtzee's path and he decided to adapt it into his script or he got the same brain cells firing as the others who made similar jokes previously.
I kind of love that Yahtzee was so salty feeling let down over the premise, he couldn’t appreciate what many found to be basically a much-higher-quality-than-it-needed-to-be refreshing free diversion. He just wanted it so bad and couldn’t forgive the burn.
"Not stupid enough" is rarely thrown out as criticism, but yeah I see it. Frankly I was just thrown off by this thing's actual existence, which I really enjoyed since I collect the IDW comic
@@dannybeane2069 It probably depends on the type of animal that lacks fur since I know--thakfully only in passing--reptile fursona people tend to be called "scalies". So I assume that aquatic creatures have their own or three given there's so many different aquatic creatures (despite humanity's best attempts to UA-cam over the ocean). But, uh, yeah, *don't* search engine any of that. I imagine the inflation "joke" in this video was actually Yahztee's dead-serious lament, just without bothering to change tone.
This whole review reminded me of that comparison he did in Totally Accurate Battlegrounds with the fake steak, with Yahtzee being the one trying to eat the rubber steak.
Two problems I have with this review: 1: Reviewing a game from a franchise you hate just to complain about the franchise as a whole. 2: The criticisms are all just "this game isn't like the version I made up in my head", which is especially egregious when it outright says it's for a party in the Steam description. Edit: Like, at this point, you're reviewing a game of a genre you hate, from a series you hate, and your main point of argument is that it's not like what you pictured in your head.
Not to mention that for a large portion of the game you're led to believe that Sonic is actually dead / dying - and while he does survive he really did get almost murdered and fought for his life. So Yahtzee's saying "hi hi it's all play pretend" is misleading at best and an outright lie at worst - which is delightfully ironic considering his jab at the people leaving positive reviews "not playing the game".
@@happymoomoocow Mostly a mixture of annoyed and baffled. And the annoyance is mostly that he didn't actually review the game, just talked about how he wants it to be entirely different.
Honestly, whether people like it or not, sonic has a pretty deep lore and it's best stories, I feel, are where the characters take the situation seriously, even if it's kinda ridiculous. That's what the fans actually enjoy. That and the character interactions. And as such why it's not really a series that appeals to critics.
even I, a complete moron, knew that sonic wasn't actually gonna die. so I don't know what the fuck Yahtzee was on to think sega would actually let that happen
I love how contriving an elaborate joke to make the punchline “I looked up [insert character here] inflation” is just a recurring gag now among certain content creators. I remember Brian David Gilbert doing it in one of his Mario videos
I can't be the only person who saw the title and thought this was going to be a video essay about the gradual decline in the quality of post-dreamcast sonic games.
@@dimitridsmoreira I reread what I wrote and still don't understand what made your butt fall out unless you own unvested Sega stock or something. I didn't even say sonic games are bad. I said that I thought that that's what this video was going to be about. Calm down, fanboy.
@@JohnSmith-vb5ze Oh sorry, i am just so used to people making jokes and shitting on this franchise and not presenting an actual good and compelling argument, other then "Sonic '06 bad, sonic kissed a princess, give me views". Which to be fair, that's what this video gave me vibes off.
I'm just confused as to why this exists. Yahtzee doesn't care for visual novels, openly dislikes sonic games, and has multiple recent episodes on why he specifically hates when Sonic has any tone other than cheery cartoony fluff. So why cover something that is decidedly trying to be everything you dislike, you're usually quite adamant about not doing that, hence skipping multiplayer shooters whenever possible. Hell, some of his expectation gripes are directly at odds at what the game's description says it is, and being mad because you expected something the description directly says it isn't counts as the rarely seen "invalid criticism" in my book. Sorry Yahtzee, the floor is indeed made out of floor, little weird you thought otherwise but I fail to see the problem. I'm assuming Nick twisted your arm on this one? Or did you just not have time for anything else? The "gag" was that it wasn't a gag, on april fools. Alternatively, the gag was actually giving a genuine love letter to the fans, because we usually just get another kick to the kidney.
The beauty of the game is that it's pretty good as simple detective game and as simple story. The actual ending twist was foreshadowed well and makes logical sense unlike something like Tangled Towers and character dynamics and jokes aren't far from IDW run.
Not like it invalidates any of your opinions on the story, but for most of the game you the player are left to believe sonic might actually be dead, and the player character just decides "oh well I guess he's just really good at acting, I don't wanna ruin their fun"
The only thing ironic about Alanis Morissette is that she made an entire song called Ironic and there was not one ironic thing in it. But even that's a stretch. Rain on your wedding day is only ironic if you're marrying a meteorologist who picked the date or your from a rainforest and you picked a venue in some rain-free place like Arizona.
my first thought was, "why the fuck are *you* reviewing this?". then i remembered that whenever you talk about sonic, it always gets more clicks and i honestly got what i expected from it: a funny, charming and well-drawn little visual novel where i get to see some characters i like goof around for a couple hours. someone like you has basically nothing to gain from it (...except clicks. from people like me)
He says why he played it at 0:30. He didn’t make it an ambiguous statement either. Plus, the game has been reviewed by multiple reputable game magazines because it’s still a sonic game. The irony when Sonic fans have the attention spans of goldfish lol As a side note, expecting a game to be mid going in and being able to enjoy it on that level, does not change the fact that the game is mid and low effort…
@@VideoGuy232 i saw that part, bro. guy had to get something out quick. but i'm pretty sure he could've just done a retro review or something instead of taking a low blow (on a game that came out a while ago, btw. an april fools' game basically only holds relevance on april fools' day) and like, i didn't expect it to be mid? i said exactly what i expected, and i liked it, especially being for free. "low effort" isn't at all a term i'd use for it, either
@@VideoGuy232 For a free visual novel style Sonic game it had more polish than it should have imo. Music was especially good. Characters had fun dialogue. The interrogation/puzzles were very simple, but that was probably to make it a quick and easy playthrough for any age group. As someone who now tends to care more about the comic series than the games, I got what I wanted out of this little freebie, which was the characters doing stuff that didn't revolve around fighting Eggman.
@@justinianthe1st790 Oh ye, like the deadline magically existed again for the youtube reupload and yahtzee now had more time to get it out! I understand! :D
Dumbass can’t comprehend that Sonic fans like Sonic characters and like it when the free visual novel gives them a Sonic story with Sonic characters The reason that it has so many positive reviews is that the game knew what the fans were looking for and made a game that wrote the characters well An extreme tone-shift M-rated game would be funny in an absurdist sense to non-fans but the actual joke is that they made a heartwarming product instead of a cheap prank
5:13 The Sonic Team are going by the logic that every game is canon, given that Frontiers even referenced the bloody Team Sonic Racing game as a past event. I'm also pretty sure Murder of Sonic is canon to the continuity since they refer to Frontiers like it just happened. I will admit, I wish the puzzles were harder. It felt so easy, I wanted to test my mind.
@@AzafuseKingTora I get that's a joke but it would also imply the Archie Sonic continuity is canon, along with Sonic X and other media. Essentially though, for the sake of Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog, it is canon since it doesn't really contradict anything set up from previous titles. Sonic is a very status quo reliant series.
IDK what you're on about Yahtzee, this game is a blast. Also "non-canon"? Haven't you heard, everything is canon now, even the IDW comics are considered canon to some extent (of which we have yet to learn as of right now). This is a Sonic game for Sonic fans who love the characters and their interactions, with some references and plenty of humor added on. Like how "Berry" will flash back to when they were told to look after the passengers and each time, the conductor says something different. The isometric stuff meanwhile isn't comparable to Sonic 3D blast, because it's good. The player isn't doing anything complicated that would make it awkward, they can see what's in front of them, and there's a steadily growing challenge behind it's design. It's also there since this is a Sonic game, and Sonic games need a bit of that speed, going by my past experiences of someone somewhere always complaining when there isn't some element of speed. Sorry Yahtzee, but I'm going to have to heavily disagree with you on this one
Yahtzee says all the positive reviewers must not have played the game because there isn't a murder and the cast is doing a murder mystery party. Except I wonder if Yahtzee actually played this at all, because (SPOILERS) there's an actual attempt on Sonic's life during it. I'm sorry, an Extra Punctuation video can't be released on how Yahtzee actually likes games as a reviewer, before turning around and complaining about a game they never played.
I now want a game about Sonic the Hedgehog being murdered in a nowhere hotel, and detective Yahtzee was sent to investigate but was overcomed by depression and drank himself to oblivion.
If Yahtzee was hired to find the person who killed Sonic, he would do so with incredible vigor and efficiency. He would track down the killer, just to high five them for a job well done.
West of Loathing and Shadows Over Loathing have the best justifications for ditching quest items or skillbooks in your inventory after their relevance has passed or they've been used. Skillbooks usually get destroyed in some.comical manner, often relating to the skill you've just learned and because your character is enthusiastically testing out the new hotness. Quest items tend to be frankly and quietly discarded as a matter of course, because your character has a preternatural sense that they are no longer needed - or you just hand them back to the questgiver because it's not truly yours, you're just borrowing it to complete their task. Keys? They get left in the lock so you'll "know where they are" later, or you use them and they immediately destroy themselves in the lock (forcing it unlocked for all time in the process.)
I've never seen a man so disinterested in a game before. Shock of all shocks, the guy who doesn't like Sonic or visual novels... didn't like the Sonic visual novel! That's not to say that you can't make an objective, unbiased review of a franchise or genre you dislike, though, I mean, IGN does it all the time. But you didn't. From your criticisms and your language used here, you failed to engage the game in good faith, instead letting your biases take the wheel and writing a piece putting words in the mouth of developers, making assumption after assumption of the team behind the game, and marking the end of it all with a profanity-ridden rant about higher-ups reigning in a team of developers who, from what came out within the literal weeks after the game came out (weeks that _you had_ to do even the littlest bit of research), didn't have too much of a hand in actually making the game, instead choosing to distribute it. You couldn't handle the fact that fans of a series you hate got their shot to be fans of a series you hate, and express it in an official format. You decided, instead, that there was some outside force keeping the game from actually being grim or edgy, and shat on the game for being something you expected it to be. In that expectation, you failed to take the game for what it was; a love letter by fans of a franchise and its characters. You can make a video about any number of triple-A games and make all the claims you want about it. But the second you allow your biases to get in the way of your review, it no longer becomes an objective review, and rather an opinion. Now, to be fair, you can have an opinion on something. And that's great! Your opinion is valid. But you can't assume everyone shares your opinion. You can't assume everyone has the same idea in their head that Sonic is the worst thing conceived by mankind. Because, and this is proven by the comments both here AND on the Escapist page, _that just isn't the case._ You talk like you're an edgy UA-cam reviewer from 2010, not a professional journalist. And you think, as an indie developer yourself, you'd have a little more respect for people who not only are mostly just fans of a franchise, but are getting their _start_ with this game. This is not a review. It's a failure that is just UA-caming arrogant and fueled by a sense of self-importance, spite, and cynicism.
Week 3 of asking for Pizza Tower I’m going away for training for a new job soon and I’ll likely have little free time for UA-cam, so I’m really hoping he reviews Pizza Tower before then
Considering Yahtzee's points against the game was more "Oh it's very Silence Brand-worthy" and not "The UI in a visual novel sucks," does speak to the game itself being competently designed. Could they have gone further with the non-canon? Probably. Did they give the vibe of being something straight out of a diehard Sonic fan's dreams? According to all of you, absolutely.
Watched a playthrough of this game, and I absolutely adore it. This thing isn't perfect by any means, but it was _way_ more polished and well-made than it had ANY right to be.
making a dumbass "subversive" story where they make fun of the series would've been way more calculated and corporate than just writing a story normally. Also way more cringe
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer They might have, I'm not sure. Since I haven't heard about one recently and the modern hybrid rhythm game is pretty recent. There might be a DDR clone (Mario has an old DDR clone).
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer The closest thing Sonic has ever come to a rhythm game is the submarine minigame (Deep Typhoon) in Sonic Rush Adventure, and the execution of special moves in Sonic Chronicles (both DS games weirdly enough).
This review feels very unnecessarily harsh. Like its a couple hours worth of free content and amazing characterization for fans of the sonic series, packed with refrences, jokes, and details that i literally saw multiple streamers scream in excitment about. Even if its true that this game would mean nothing to a non-sonic fan, you have to realize that this is a full free game with amazing art and charming characters.
No, the title is not a typo. UA-cam demonetized the original upload because of the word "murder". Good reason to support us over on Patreon though so that we can care less and less about that sorta thing!
Watch this week's episode of Zero Punctuation on Dead Island 2. www.escapistmagazine.com/dead-island-2-zero-punctuation/
I love that "UA-cam" being used as a swear is catching on
@@nicolasjamo maybe one day we'll reach the point where, like in one of Yahtzee's books, mathematical terms will be used as swear words.
God damn it, UA-cam
Jesus YouTubing christ, UA-cam has gone full YouTubing UA-cam! What the UA-cam is wrong with these UA-cams?!
What the actual fuck? There are so damn many true crime channels that talk about murder? This fucking “advertiser friendly” shit is absurd. There are literal Nazis on this platform. But the figurative murder of a fictional cartoon hedgehog is a bridge too far??
Like, I kind of get that they made you guys go back and censor Yahtzee’s use of the N word in early 2010’s episodes. Fair enough. But this is just silly.
I had a friend that was a "Lore Consultant" for a game studio. She had a Masters in Library Science, aka, went to school to be a librarian. She absolutely loved her job, until her company was bought by a larger one.
honestly being a lore consultant seems like a legitimate job for any series long enough in the tooth that your fanbase will get upset if you haven't spent a weekend spelunking into various wikis
You keep the story straight for the people who care and the people who don't... don't care either way!
@@edfreak9001 Couldn't agree more. Specially for Sonic, since i know VERY well how this franchise can be so inconsistent and confusing in terms of lore/story and characther writing. Thankfully now since Frontiers, mostly thanks to Ian Flynn; they actually care to organize everything and make all related Sonic media being unified.
@@edfreak9001 this is true, warhammer 40K loremasters are in high demand in the job market nowadays
@@edfreak9001 Yeah I agree Lore Consultant does actually sound like a great job idea for a long running series
Hell i'd love to do it, I can memorize lore so well I wonder why my memory is so terrible everywhere else
Fkn corpos
I love the idea that murder becomes a lost word replaced with “UA-cam”. Cant wait for the next version of “UA-cam on the orient express”
I myself prefer The UA-cam on the Nile. The UA-cam’s in the Rue Morgue also seems quite good.
As an RTGame viewer, I just assumed Yahtzee was yet another content creator who'd started using UA-cam as an insult.
@@hoodiesticks according to this videos own comments, they started this “trend” if you call it that, years ago. Honestly who cares tho.
A UA-cam of Crows lol
I also thought this was an RTGame refrance/callout
the actual prank with The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is getting people to stream it thinking it's the haha sonic dies funny meme game and then it's a completely earnest two hour showcase of what people like about these characters - Bobby Schroeder
That’s weird. I could’ve sworn the title was “The Yoinky-Sploinky of Sonic the Hedgehog”
now i wanna see yahtzee hit the yoink
Sounds a little sexual to me for some reason.
Okay so it's not just me. Weird.
The algorythm giveth and the algorythm taketh, I suppose.
He should really review the new xenoblade games since he liked x and it's probably the worst one.
Oh wow, it's been a while since the last dolphin joke. That sure brings back memories
The saga continues.
Honestlly the main appeal of the game is the interactions between the characters, we almost never get to see sonic and his friends just hanging out without it being during yet another fight with eggman
Was especially nice to get a few less common characters in there, like Espio and Blaze. Espio especially has gotten like zero screentime since Sonic Heroes (even Vector had Free Riders and an episode of Sonic Boom). But even stuff with how Shadow acts around Amy and Tails (and guest) without Sonic there to spark him was nice to see.
I would absolutely be down with more character interactions as firends with the Sonic cast. Maybe a future Sonic game could look into that as side content or mini games in between the main game. Like, Sonic could move to the next level or area, but if he shares a milkshake with Knuckles or goes to the gym with Shadow their friendship bond ranks up so maybe he should do that first.
@@Tuss36 Thanks to SaltyDkDan, Espio and Vector as a committed gay couple is now an accepted headcanon of mine.
It was this and the art style for me
@@gregvs.theworld451 Espio is in a relationship with Vanilla
Wow Yahtz, a "sonic inflation" joke?? What year is if, 2010? Actually, maybe it's a mark of monumental self-control that it took him this long to let that one out.
As funny as this was I think Yahtzee was more upset that he was tricked into playing an actual Sonic game than anything.
My biggest takeaway from this is that Yahtzee not only knows what Hatoful Boyfriend is but knows the the joke is that it's actually a gripping and dramatic story covering the themes of loss, youth, government corruption, and more while presenting it as a game where you try to smooch the prettiest pigeon.
don't forget the rpg boss battle against the evil murderous doctor
Not even like anime pigeons, straight up PNGs of pigeons
@@Kuraerisu That game was great. I bought it because "Girl dating photo-realistic pigeons" is hilarious (especially when you can also see them as dreamy anime boys), but was actually impressed with the story, which went way deeper and darker than I was expecting.
Loss, youth, government corruption, sounds like a perfect combination if I ever heard one
His game, hatfall has a reference to it as well.
Seeing some folks' reception to this new generation of Sonic feels like how people refuse to accept that the class clown/party animal finally got their life together by the class reunion.
The kicker is that the sincerity was always what made Sonic appealing to a lot of fans, but that kept getting undercut by subpar games and their social media arm playing damage control to the point of irony poisoning and the expectation that Sonic is not to be treated as anything more than a joke.
And just like a class clown/party animal, give him a bit of encouragement and he will go back to his old ways, it happened before with Sonic and it can certainly happen again (Sega is a mix of M. Night Shyamalan and George Lucas, not evil but stupid and baffling decisions all in once)
@@petarpoljak6918 Anything's possible, but the reason why I have faith in the current Sonic staff is because they've really been trying since the 30th anniversary to be consistent.
Add to that, I think the success of Frontiers has shown Sega to finally trust Sonic Team's instincts when it comes to handling the franchise. So long as they allow folks like Tyson Hesse, Ian Flynn, Kishimoto, and Christain Whitehead, etc. to play to their strengths, we shouldn't see as many embarrassments as we used to.
@@DTFauxClassicSonic Frontiers was overrated beyond all belief. Such fanfare for an OK game, my friend said it the best "if every game in the last 10 years is shit, an OK Game will be gold in the eyes of Sonic s****."
@@petarpoljak6918 I mean, we can hash out whether Frontiers' praise is deserved or not, but my overall point is that the franchise is fairing better when passionate artists and devs are in charge.
You can see across all the mediums (including social) that Sonic is moving past the post-'06 era of an over-reliance on meta humor, irony poisoning, and self-deprecation. There's still some of that, but way more weight being put into sincerity (which we see shine with this new visual novel), and the fans are loving it.
l understand where Yahtzee is coming from, but l think it was quite healthy for the sonic franchise as a whole to have a light-hearted low-stakes silly game where there can be a lot of focus on interaction with/between sonic's friends. Very often SonicTeam struggles to find a way to let the extended cast shine in sonic games but this was a great opportunity and l think it did fine enough in that regard. l wouldnt mind playing more of these bite-size silly adventures where we can just have the cast goof about, especially if it's free!
im pretty sure the issue is yahtzee just doesnt like sonic
remember when Yakuza did an april fools video of a Yakuza game that was like dragon quest but then everyone was like "yes! that! but unironically!" and it was received very well? it's proof that sometimes a silly mix can be the formula for gold.
1:32 The idea of Hellraiser's Pinhead being rendered completely powerless by the simple awkwardness of being cornered in a public bathroom is pretty damn good.
And not too far away from the actual gameplay of DbD
"Fuck you, Sega, I wanted blood!"
sound like a phase cuz someone never change.
This has to be one of the best Yahtzee line deliveries ever. I burst out laughing when he said that
@@MoskalMedia true.
😂
Man the game's got a highly positive rating because they took the exact opposite approach from what Yahtzee wanted here: Instead of the joke being it's a ridiculous april fools game, the april fools joke is that it's a legitimate sonic visual novel. With solid, in-character writing for the entire cast, more interactions between them than has been seen in any game in the last decade, and lots of dumb references to the franchise's history. It's not trying to be a joke, it just used the joke for advertising.
His point was you either make it ridiculous, or you make it an actual good game. They did neither.
@@OrangeDog20 the game is good, though. if you go into it just expecting a lighthearted visual novel where you get to see some characters hanging out in a casual setting instead of "joke game where sonic actually dies for real" then it's a genuinely nice experience.
@@alicebnuuy6155 not in his opinion, as detailed in this video. He went through all the gameplay and how it all sucked.
@@OrangeDog20 yahtzee can and has been wrong before, the games 98% rating on steam shows its good and people love it
@@OrangeDog20 I'm inclined to side with Alice and Popchip here, for a visual novel it was surprisingly solid and had more effort put in than a Sonic visual novel has any right to have. If visual novel's aren't Yahtz thing or he's not a good judge of them, he could dislike the game but that doesn't mean he's the de facto judge of it's quality, it's just his opinion.
LOL, Yahtzee is somehow upset that the creators of a Sonic the Hedgehog game don't hate Sonic as much as him.
I'm not even a Sonic fan, i thought it was good. You get locked in a room and you think, I got to solve some kinda Point and click puzzle to get out, nope sonic just runs real fast through door. The game does just enough of everything to be enjoyable without staying around too long to get super annoying.
reasonable tbh, sonic as a character is incredibly annoying and it's made worse by how everyone around him seems to love him
I’m sorry but “Mofo of Sofo the Hofo” made me spit my single malt all over the shag pile. Genius.
THIS!
This was a definitely a game for the fans, because the characterization was phenomenal, and it took itself just seriously enough that it made fun of itself without exaggerated self deprecation. It's more straightforward that non-fans would have liked, but it was a joyful romp for those of us already sucked in past the point of no return
I hear the job of "lore consultant" was a recent addition over at Sega, because now they actually want to keep accurate account of all Sonic-related events in the games. It's an interesting choice, too, because a few things within those same games don't quite mix. Like Blaze and her backstory in relation to Sonic 06.
Oh yeah, there's definitely gonna be some retcons and plotholes, but I suspect the end goal is to consolidate as much of the stories into one timeline.
Not unlike the Zelda games which only really started leaning into the "Zelda timeline" around TP or SS.
I guess the way to deal with that would be to say that the Blaze in the future is the Blaze of Sonic's World, whereas the Blaze in Rush is Blaze from the Alternate dimension.
But even not only is it very "overly convenient", it gets trickier when you introduce Silver into the mix and his future appearances along with Blaze (stating they both come from another dimension?).
I mean Sonic 06 pretty much yeets itself out of canon with the ending erasing all the events in the game. Which is unfortunate because some character development (mainly Shadow) was pretty good in that game (is that why he's back to being an edgy son of a hog in future games?).
Shoutouts to Eggman Nega being from Blaze's Dimension NOPE he was lying, he's from Silver's future and that HAS to be canon because otherwise Silver has no First Appearance.
Ngl, expecting Sega to actually kill their child-friendly mascot even as a joke and then getting disappointed when they don't is like getting mad that rain decided to be wet today too.
Not really surprised that "The guy who doesn't like Sonic" plays a short VN for fans of the characters doesn't like it, but Yahtzee seemed to have expected this game to be something crazily subversive or something.
Can't blame him for wanting actual murder from the murder game but it was pretty cute to watch these characters hanging out
@@twilightvulpine If you were actually expecting that, you're the April Fool.
@braystar8578 Yeah imagine expecting the AAA publishers actually releasing something worth playing. Can't let that happen.
Honestly, I don't know what he was expecting. Even the Steam description say's it's a fake murder mystery for Amy's birthday, so they weren't exactly hiding the twist.
That sounds like some real lame shit guy.
@@062843403 ?????
@@062843403 Jesus there's a lot to unpack here. The dude has a point, what are you on about?
The title shows up before the description. The title is misleading. Therefore, any understanding of the game will be disappointing. And they knew what they were doing when they picked the title, the intention being to get people to think they did something novel and gutsy, but actually didn’t at all
@@VideoGuy232 "The title is misleading. Therefore, any understanding of the game will be disappointing"
That's a baresurface level way to view literally anything, the tittles of most things don't refer to the game in any literal form and would by this metric be misleading.
What a roundabout way to cherry pick blame.
Even though Sega's golden boy doesn't actually get killed off in this, I think it's pretty good. I love the visual novel style, the music is amazing, and Detective Tails is the greatest, most adorable thing ever. I know that sort of thing isn't really Yahtzee's cup of tea, but oh well.
Sega should team up with Nintendo for a Detective Tails and Detective Pikachu crossover.
@@ferdinandavila-soto7233 Here me out: Sonic & Rayman - Railway Detectives. Get the spotlight back from those damn Rabbids.
Agreed
@@lnsflare1 Better yet, make it a 2D platformer, like Rayman Origins and Legends, with the same art style as those two games.
Yeah I don't know what Yahtzee was expecting. Because when I saw the title and the trailer, I knew EXACTLY what I was in for, and the game delivered
I think you went in expecting too much Yahtzee.
I knew from the trailer he wasn't going to die, and my question became "how are they going to NOT kill Sonic?" and what I got was a pleasant visual novel experience watching some characters I enjoy interacting.
Amy was too gleeful for that to actually have happened. But I gotta say the extent to which they almost killed him was more than I thought they would dare to.
I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, it does seem like Yahtzee was a victim of his own expectations more than anything else (The UA-cam of Yahtzee the Croshaw, if you will). On the other hand, Yahtz has a well-documented disinterest in visual novels and an even-better-documented disdain for the Sonic franchise and how it's been handled by Sega. The game is charming and silly, if a bit trite, and doesn't do anything bold with its story or subversive to the overarching canon. It's a game for existing fans, not a game that strives to bring fresh light or new attention to the series. All in all, none of the elements were in place for a positive critique. Yahtzee is speaking (as always) from his perspective and his tastes; he wasn't going to love the game because the game isn't for him and that's okay; that doesn't mean the game failed at what it set out to do, nor does it mean he's wrong for wanting something the game didn't (and frankly wasn't going to) deliver.
@@paultapping9510 that's better than many other people who think critics should only review games they like.
@@Gothstana or the old “reviews should be objective”, completely missing the point that a review relies on the subjectivity.
Maybe it's because I'm cheap and it was free but I actually quite enjoyed the game myself. It really scratched that Phoenix Wright banter itch, even if the mystery elements themselves are pretty meh. Tails commenting on how he's never actually stopped and played a game at a casino before because they were always busy running through them gave me a smirk. The trash bin gag, too, is pretty solid. Just a nice little snack game that people put a lot of love into.
Good to see RT's UA-cam-ing of UA-cam has made its rounds in the Escapist Office too.
My thoughts exactly
Nope. They did this a few years back, and it's been an occasional gag ever since
"non-canon", who's gonna tell him? 🤣
There's a certain irony to the fact that I enjoy watching these a week late. Not because I don't want to support the show, I would if I could; but rather because I need a buffer between hearing about anything AAA game industry related.
But if you're always watching them a week late, aren't you still just watching the videos at the same interval as everyone else, but a week forward?
@@maudlife Well yeah, but that also means it's another week between any hype-trains the game might have had, or controversies it spawned. Like when he did that new Harry Potter game people were flipping their crap over, it had all but entirely died down by the time I saw the review, so I barely had to hear about it at all.
Going off that last bit about this game "not being weird enough," I feel like Yahtzee would really enjoy Sonic Dreams Collection
Yeah, you can tell this was a video rushed out in a day.
This rant isn't even worth ire. It's just eye-rolling, stock "why didn't I get to actually murder Sonic the Hedgehog in this licensed game?" faux outrage, topped off with the usual refusal to engage with the story of the game *because* it's Sonic. Game's good. It's a full loaded short story with enough charm and wit to properly elucidate what a rando civilian would think crossing paths with Sonic's gang (fear, mostly) and does a great job at the concept of introducing people new to the franchise to Sonic's wider cast of characters in a comfortable, continuity-friendly setting. Because shockingly, it *is* canon (unless contradicted.) '06 is non-canon, this gives a wink and a nudge while providing gentle shout-outs to SATAM and the OVA, alongside games of every era. It's a passion project, and you can genuinely tell if you have one iota of care for the franchise as more than a punching bag.
If Yahtzee wanted a subversive gag game that absolutely did not get approval from IP holders, has he played Sonic Dreams Collection before? Ben Esposito of Neon White fame worked on that.
"What kind of Sonic Fan are you?" the corpse hissed at him from the tree. "I need a Sonic game that's twisted and brutal yet somehow beautiful, something out my darkest primordial nightmares but wearing a cute red headband," the detective answered. But that wasn't quite enough. "And..." he added, his rancid breath starting to fog the air "And... I'd like it to pay ME to play it."
The lore consultants are mostly just people who were writers for the sonic comics, or social media people, but regardless, they are far more than faceless corporates. There's a lot of easter eggs in this game for sonic fans.
This game really touched me on a personal level. When I was a few years younger, my long-held pet weasel UA-cam'd of old age, and being stomped on by the Comcast router repairman. The personal narrative of this game really helped me process the grief I felt over the event in a new light, and I'm happy to say I no longer fear UA-cam itself; UA-cam gives meaning to our life, by making it temporary, and pushing us to live well instead of wasting the time we have. Thank you, Yahtz, for bringing this masterpiece to my attention.
Alternative titles:
Dial H For Hedgehog
The Hog Who Hedged Too Much
Twin Green Hills
Sonic Chainsaw Masquerade
I want the next a final game to be titled Of Rings and Hedgehogs
To be fair the last time they ACTUALLY killed Sonic was in the year 2006. It uh... it didn't work out well, I can understand not wanting to repeat that.
Nah I count 2016 as another time they killed him because of sonic boom’s terrible development and then after that sonic team dropped sonic forces
Didn't they have this whole spiel about him being killed in the opening of Forces? I mean, he was alive again pretty quickly, but would that count?
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer oh he’s talking about when he dies in game
The fact that Yahtzee knows about Danganronpa scares me a little, because if he ever played it he'd probably eviscerate at least two of the three games, and I'm *not sure which ones*
Bold of you to assume he wouldn't eviscerate all three
That assumption is have nowhere in the original comment. It says *at least* 2.
Yes, I'm fun at parties.
The assumption that there's only 3 games......
I honestly kind of want to see it, cos I love those games but Jesus H do they have issues...
@@vigorouslethargy Yahtzee would never touch Ultra Despair Girls or Danganronpa S with a ten-foot pole
So basically Yahtzee is mad that Sonic wasn't cynical and self-loathing enough, failing to realize that concept would only appeal to HIM and turn away everyone else.
Who says it isn't Canon?
I just played it yesterday, and it was actually surprisingly delightful. The isometric viewpoint was somewhat frustrating, but those bits were short enough and had a good enough difficulty curve that it looped back around to engrossing, IMO. [EDIT: Also, the music for those sections slapped *hard,* especially by the end.]
I kinda want to see more of these games, with increasingly elaborate mechanics and stories. [EDIT: It could be Sonic's take on a Paper Mario style spinoff series, though a non-motion controlled Storybook Series could also fill that niche.]
Franchise is large enough a gaiden game like that wouldn't be out of place. Plus we've already seen a sloppily botched RPG game in the series, thanks Bioware. It can only improve with this.
It sounds like Yahtzee really wanted to play a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame written by people who don't like or respect Sonic the Hedgehog as a franchise, which is a recipe for terrible parody. If you're going to make a fanwork that's 2-3 hours long, that fanwork's plot ought to ooze love for the source material from every pore. Which is what this game does. That love is visible even to people who've never played a full Sonic game, and it's why the game has 98% positive reviews.
It's a free game Published By Sega called the Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog.
My only complaint was that the Isometric levels strained my eyes a bit near the end.
Other than that I got what I expected and more.
I fear yahtzee may have missed the entire point on this one.
totally true.
100%
I've heard the sonic inflation joke before and it still hasn't failed to make me laugh
...I really don't like saying this sort of thing, especially of a reviewer, but he's kinda missed the point.
He walked in expecting a subversive gag game where Sonic legitimately dies but... okay I'm gonna go into spoiler territory in case anyone actually gives a damn but...
The fact it's a murder mystery party is on the steam page, so it's not like they were hiding that. They played up the "Sonic's dead" angle for the trailer but at the same time... what the heck would they even do if they went the full way with it? We'd be looking at the first 10 minutes of forces, basically.
So the point of the game is just an earnest character exploration of Sonic and friends in an unfamiliar situation, with an outside observer ("Barry") bouncing off them. Tellingly, despite what Yatz said about Barry finding Sonic and his friends to be cool, he actually initially thought they were completely insane because of their various quirks, such as Rouge not bothering to play the game in favour of robbing the place, Knuckles getting frustrated enough at a video game to smash it and Episo's horrendous poetry due to his dedication to his role. The whole thing really doesn't WORK if you don't already like Sonic's friends, which Yatzhee has made pretty clear before that he doesn't, but if you do it's a legitimately charming little story.
I don't know why Yahtzee took the premise so seriously. This isn't Sonic Frontiers, it's a free April Fools game. I'm actually surprised that the STAFF took development so seriously and actually made a full on visual novel.
I think the issue is that Yahtzee is viewing the game as a gag game when that's not really what it is, it's a fairly sincere visual novel story that takes place in the Sonic world, and it seems he's unable to see past that made-up version of the game Yahtzee created in his mind and consider the writing, which is arguably the most important part of a visual novel.
Tbf releasing on April Fools day and having the premise of "Sonic the Hedgehog fucking died" in an official product very much makes it feel like a joke, even if it isn't one
It's because yahtzee adamantly refuses to see how sonic could be anything but what he was in the Dreamcast days. As he defended in both his Frontier review and his follow up Extra Puntuation on that point, to him sonic has to have the one tone and it's so obvious as to why that he "doesn't know how to explain it to us." This was sonic and the gang chilling at a birthday party, exactly what it says in the description, but that's not the high-energy cartoony nonsense he demands so it falls short.
The gag was really just that it's a sincere love letter to the fans who're still interested in the characters after all these years. Which is funny because of their history has been anything but kind.
"a gag game" is literally what it was advertised as.
@@maromania7 weird because every advertisement made it look like a gag game that came out on April fool's day.
@@hellsingfan89
It came out on March 31st lmao, not trying to invalidate the point but it was a day early and it takes like a 3 second google
- More than a decade of videogame journalism
- Doesn't knew the consequences of Googling "Sonic Inflation".
Yahtz needs to up his game
This is a joke I've seen elsewhere years ago. Either it crossed Yahtzee's path and he decided to adapt it into his script or he got the same brain cells firing as the others who made similar jokes previously.
I kind of love that Yahtzee was so salty feeling let down over the premise, he couldn’t appreciate what many found to be basically a much-higher-quality-than-it-needed-to-be refreshing free diversion. He just wanted it so bad and couldn’t forgive the burn.
"Not stupid enough" is rarely thrown out as criticism, but yeah I see it. Frankly I was just thrown off by this thing's actual existence, which I really enjoyed since I collect the IDW comic
I love how at the Dnd table Jesse is distinguished by having no distinguishing features.
I never assumed the cat was your fursona, Yahtzee. Obviously, your fursona is a dolphin.
(me) What is the name of fursona for an animal that doesn't have fur; like a dolphin.
(higher brain) rugby tackles the idea of googling that.
@@dannybeane2069 It probably depends on the type of animal that lacks fur since I know--thakfully only in passing--reptile fursona people tend to be called "scalies". So I assume that aquatic creatures have their own or three given there's so many different aquatic creatures (despite humanity's best attempts to UA-cam over the ocean).
But, uh, yeah, *don't* search engine any of that. I imagine the inflation "joke" in this video was actually Yahztee's dead-serious lament, just without bothering to change tone.
Dolphins really love the sea and sailors.
@@dannybeane2069 usually it's just fursona, but scalie is a common name as well.
@@dannybeane2069 Blubb-ersona?
The irony of this guy calling people humorless cunts while being so harsh toward a silly april fools game.
This whole review reminded me of that comparison he did in Totally Accurate Battlegrounds with the fake steak, with Yahtzee being the one trying to eat the rubber steak.
honestly its more like the opposite of that. Sega gave people free steak and he's complaining that it's not rubber.
Two problems I have with this review:
1: Reviewing a game from a franchise you hate just to complain about the franchise as a whole.
2: The criticisms are all just "this game isn't like the version I made up in my head", which is especially egregious when it outright says it's for a party in the Steam description.
Edit: Like, at this point, you're reviewing a game of a genre you hate, from a series you hate, and your main point of argument is that it's not like what you pictured in your head.
Not to mention that for a large portion of the game you're led to believe that Sonic is actually dead / dying - and while he does survive he really did get almost murdered and fought for his life.
So Yahtzee's saying "hi hi it's all play pretend" is misleading at best and an outright lie at worst - which is delightfully ironic considering his jab at the people leaving positive reviews "not playing the game".
So you’re watching a video of a guy reviewing a game of a genre he hates, from a series he hates, and then you’re upset he hates it?
@@happymoomoocow Mostly a mixture of annoyed and baffled. And the annoyance is mostly that he didn't actually review the game, just talked about how he wants it to be entirely different.
This is probably the nicest he's been to a Sonic title since his Sonic Colors and Sonic Frontiers review
And yet people are still throwing a hissyfit about this 😅
Honestly, whether people like it or not, sonic has a pretty deep lore and it's best stories, I feel, are where the characters take the situation seriously, even if it's kinda ridiculous.
That's what the fans actually enjoy. That and the character interactions.
And as such why it's not really a series that appeals to critics.
2:20 you.....were expecting for Sonic to actually die in a freakin april fools game?
even I, a complete moron, knew that sonic wasn't actually gonna die. so I don't know what the fuck Yahtzee was on to think sega would actually let that happen
That bit about "inflation" gave me the best chuckle I've had in a while
I love how contriving an elaborate joke to make the punchline “I looked up [insert character here] inflation” is just a recurring gag now among certain content creators. I remember Brian David Gilbert doing it in one of his Mario videos
Yeah…from that wording there…sonic the hedgehog inflation is something you probably don’t ever want to google
I can't be the only person who saw the title and thought this was going to be a video essay about the gradual decline in the quality of post-dreamcast sonic games.
Wow, what an original joke...... "Sonic games bad, right guys?"
@@dimitridsmoreira Who's joking?
@@dimitridsmoreira I reread what I wrote and still don't understand what made your butt fall out unless you own unvested Sega stock or something. I didn't even say sonic games are bad. I said that I thought that that's what this video was going to be about. Calm down, fanboy.
@@JohnSmith-vb5ze Oh sorry, i am just so used to people making jokes and shitting on this franchise and not presenting an actual good and compelling argument, other then "Sonic '06 bad, sonic kissed a princess, give me views". Which to be fair, that's what this video gave me vibes off.
i think yahtzee missed the "fools" part of "April fools"
Cool you were looking for a lightning fast VCR repair shop in Milwaukee i guess.
I'm just confused as to why this exists. Yahtzee doesn't care for visual novels, openly dislikes sonic games, and has multiple recent episodes on why he specifically hates when Sonic has any tone other than cheery cartoony fluff. So why cover something that is decidedly trying to be everything you dislike, you're usually quite adamant about not doing that, hence skipping multiplayer shooters whenever possible. Hell, some of his expectation gripes are directly at odds at what the game's description says it is, and being mad because you expected something the description directly says it isn't counts as the rarely seen "invalid criticism" in my book. Sorry Yahtzee, the floor is indeed made out of floor, little weird you thought otherwise but I fail to see the problem. I'm assuming Nick twisted your arm on this one? Or did you just not have time for anything else?
The "gag" was that it wasn't a gag, on april fools. Alternatively, the gag was actually giving a genuine love letter to the fans, because we usually just get another kick to the kidney.
The beauty of the game is that it's pretty good as simple detective game and as simple story. The actual ending twist was foreshadowed well and makes logical sense unlike something like Tangled Towers and character dynamics and jokes aren't far from IDW run.
“I was interested in the rising prices of genesis games” I saw that joke ending from about the distance between the us and Europe
Not like it invalidates any of your opinions on the story, but for most of the game you the player are left to believe sonic might actually be dead, and the player character just decides "oh well I guess he's just really good at acting, I don't wanna ruin their fun"
The only thing ironic about Alanis Morissette is that she made an entire song called Ironic and there was not one ironic thing in it. But even that's a stretch. Rain on your wedding day is only ironic if you're marrying a meteorologist who picked the date or your from a rainforest and you picked a venue in some rain-free place like Arizona.
my first thought was, "why the fuck are *you* reviewing this?". then i remembered that whenever you talk about sonic, it always gets more clicks
and i honestly got what i expected from it: a funny, charming and well-drawn little visual novel where i get to see some characters i like goof around for a couple hours. someone like you has basically nothing to gain from it (...except clicks. from people like me)
He says why he played it at 0:30. He didn’t make it an ambiguous statement either. Plus, the game has been reviewed by multiple reputable game magazines because it’s still a sonic game.
The irony when Sonic fans have the attention spans of goldfish lol
As a side note, expecting a game to be mid going in and being able to enjoy it on that level, does not change the fact that the game is mid and low effort…
@@VideoGuy232 i saw that part, bro. guy had to get something out quick. but i'm pretty sure he could've just done a retro review or something instead of taking a low blow (on a game that came out a while ago, btw. an april fools' game basically only holds relevance on april fools' day)
and like, i didn't expect it to be mid? i said exactly what i expected, and i liked it, especially being for free. "low effort" isn't at all a term i'd use for it, either
@@VideoGuy232
For a free visual novel style Sonic game it had more polish than it should have imo. Music was especially good. Characters had fun dialogue. The interrogation/puzzles were very simple, but that was probably to make it a quick and easy playthrough for any age group. As someone who now tends to care more about the comic series than the games, I got what I wanted out of this little freebie, which was the characters doing stuff that didn't revolve around fighting Eggman.
@@MrGuy__ "something out quick" this review is a week old and he reviews what he wants but okay.
@@justinianthe1st790 Oh ye, like the deadline magically existed again for the youtube reupload and yahtzee now had more time to get it out!
I understand! :D
Sheesh Yatz. A bit too harsh?
It's a simple, humorous novel game. Sorry that game with kids audience didn't actually have gore.
Did we play the same game? Most of the time the player character is thinking to themself about how absolutely bonkers Sonic and his friends are.
Dumbass can’t comprehend that Sonic fans like Sonic characters and like it when the free visual novel gives them a Sonic story with Sonic characters
The reason that it has so many positive reviews is that the game knew what the fans were looking for and made a game that wrote the characters well
An extreme tone-shift M-rated game would be funny in an absurdist sense to non-fans but the actual joke is that they made a heartwarming product instead of a cheap prank
I never played a single sonic game, but I found this one cute, so eh.
"Battering Spades" was a deep cut reference. Appreciated that one.
5:13 The Sonic Team are going by the logic that every game is canon, given that Frontiers even referenced the bloody Team Sonic Racing game as a past event. I'm also pretty sure Murder of Sonic is canon to the continuity since they refer to Frontiers like it just happened.
I will admit, I wish the puzzles were harder. It felt so easy, I wanted to test my mind.
Not everything is canon, thats just a joke tweet.
@@AzafuseKingTora I get that's a joke but it would also imply the Archie Sonic continuity is canon, along with Sonic X and other media.
Essentially though, for the sake of Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog, it is canon since it doesn't really contradict anything set up from previous titles. Sonic is a very status quo reliant series.
I believe the resident lore consultant for Sonic the hedgehog is Brian David Gilbert.
Really set up that inflation joke didn’t you 😂 great video
Thank you for giving a good excuse as to why I have ‘sonic inflation’ in my search history
I loved this game I hope they consider doing more visual novels in the future.
Okay, but I'm relatively sure that I heard that this was actually canon so they definitely couldn't have killed him in the case
IDK what you're on about Yahtzee, this game is a blast. Also "non-canon"? Haven't you heard, everything is canon now, even the IDW comics are considered canon to some extent (of which we have yet to learn as of right now). This is a Sonic game for Sonic fans who love the characters and their interactions, with some references and plenty of humor added on. Like how "Berry" will flash back to when they were told to look after the passengers and each time, the conductor says something different.
The isometric stuff meanwhile isn't comparable to Sonic 3D blast, because it's good. The player isn't doing anything complicated that would make it awkward, they can see what's in front of them, and there's a steadily growing challenge behind it's design. It's also there since this is a Sonic game, and Sonic games need a bit of that speed, going by my past experiences of someone somewhere always complaining when there isn't some element of speed.
Sorry Yahtzee, but I'm going to have to heavily disagree with you on this one
1:35 Nobody tell him about Babysitting Cream
"Sonic Lore Consultant" oh you mean Cybershell?
Yahtzee says all the positive reviewers must not have played the game because there isn't a murder and the cast is doing a murder mystery party. Except I wonder if Yahtzee actually played this at all, because (SPOILERS) there's an actual attempt on Sonic's life during it.
I'm sorry, an Extra Punctuation video can't be released on how Yahtzee actually likes games as a reviewer, before turning around and complaining about a game they never played.
"Murder of Surder the Hurder" LOL
I now want a game about Sonic the Hedgehog being murdered in a nowhere hotel, and detective Yahtzee was sent to investigate but was overcomed by depression and drank himself to oblivion.
If Yahtzee was hired to find the person who killed Sonic, he would do so with incredible vigor and efficiency. He would track down the killer, just to high five them for a job well done.
@@vigorouslethargy That's the Harrier du bois I know.
West of Loathing and Shadows Over Loathing have the best justifications for ditching quest items or skillbooks in your inventory after their relevance has passed or they've been used. Skillbooks usually get destroyed in some.comical manner, often relating to the skill you've just learned and because your character is enthusiastically testing out the new hotness. Quest items tend to be frankly and quietly discarded as a matter of course, because your character has a preternatural sense that they are no longer needed - or you just hand them back to the questgiver because it's not truly yours, you're just borrowing it to complete their task.
Keys? They get left in the lock so you'll "know where they are" later, or you use them and they immediately destroy themselves in the lock (forcing it unlocked for all time in the process.)
I've never seen a man so disinterested in a game before. Shock of all shocks, the guy who doesn't like Sonic or visual novels... didn't like the Sonic visual novel! That's not to say that you can't make an objective, unbiased review of a franchise or genre you dislike, though, I mean, IGN does it all the time.
But you didn't.
From your criticisms and your language used here, you failed to engage the game in good faith, instead letting your biases take the wheel and writing a piece putting words in the mouth of developers, making assumption after assumption of the team behind the game, and marking the end of it all with a profanity-ridden rant about higher-ups reigning in a team of developers who, from what came out within the literal weeks after the game came out (weeks that _you had_ to do even the littlest bit of research), didn't have too much of a hand in actually making the game, instead choosing to distribute it.
You couldn't handle the fact that fans of a series you hate got their shot to be fans of a series you hate, and express it in an official format. You decided, instead, that there was some outside force keeping the game from actually being grim or edgy, and shat on the game for being something you expected it to be. In that expectation, you failed to take the game for what it was; a love letter by fans of a franchise and its characters. You can make a video about any number of triple-A games and make all the claims you want about it. But the second you allow your biases to get in the way of your review, it no longer becomes an objective review, and rather an opinion.
Now, to be fair, you can have an opinion on something. And that's great! Your opinion is valid. But you can't assume everyone shares your opinion. You can't assume everyone has the same idea in their head that Sonic is the worst thing conceived by mankind. Because, and this is proven by the comments both here AND on the Escapist page, _that just isn't the case._ You talk like you're an edgy UA-cam reviewer from 2010, not a professional journalist. And you think, as an indie developer yourself, you'd have a little more respect for people who not only are mostly just fans of a franchise, but are getting their _start_ with this game.
This is not a review. It's a failure that is just UA-caming arrogant and fueled by a sense of self-importance, spite, and cynicism.
Casually dropping in a Poddington Peas reference and dipping, was my favourite part.
Zojirushi Rice Cooker mention by Yahtzee.
A man of culture!
Week 3 of asking for Pizza Tower
I’m going away for training for a new job soon and I’ll likely have little free time for UA-cam, so I’m really hoping he reviews Pizza Tower before then
Considering Yahtzee's points against the game was more "Oh it's very Silence Brand-worthy" and not "The UI in a visual novel sucks," does speak to the game itself being competently designed.
Could they have gone further with the non-canon? Probably. Did they give the vibe of being something straight out of a diehard Sonic fan's dreams? According to all of you, absolutely.
Watched a playthrough of this game, and I absolutely adore it. This thing isn't perfect by any means, but it was _way_ more polished and well-made than it had ANY right to be.
making a dumbass "subversive" story where they make fun of the series would've been way more calculated and corporate than just writing a story normally. Also way more cringe
I wonder if a Sonic rhythm game would work. Something like Hifi Rush.
They've never done one? Jesus, that sounds like an obvious thing to try to me.
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer They might have, I'm not sure. Since I haven't heard about one recently and the modern hybrid rhythm game is pretty recent. There might be a DDR clone (Mario has an old DDR clone).
@@TheSmart-CasualGamer The closest thing Sonic has ever come to a rhythm game is the submarine minigame (Deep Typhoon) in Sonic Rush Adventure, and the execution of special moves in Sonic Chronicles (both DS games weirdly enough).
This review feels very unnecessarily harsh. Like its a couple hours worth of free content and amazing characterization for fans of the sonic series, packed with refrences, jokes, and details that i literally saw multiple streamers scream in excitment about. Even if its true that this game would mean nothing to a non-sonic fan, you have to realize that this is a full free game with amazing art and charming characters.
So it's like an evening of dinner theater without the satisfying meal?