The YouTube of Sonic the Hedgehog (Zero Punctuation)

[@theescapist]

No, the title is not a typo. KZbin 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/

[@dahmerung]

I love that "KZbin" being used as a swear is catching on

[@ArthurDraco]

@@dahmerung maybe one day we'll reach the point where, like in one of Yahtzee's books, mathematical terms will be used as swear words.

[@scaper12123]

God damn it, KZbin

[@CaptainSeasick]

Jesus YouTubing christ, KZbin has gone full YouTubing KZbin! What the KZbin is wrong with these KZbins?!

[@johnwrath3612]

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.

[@pajamapantsjack5874]

I love the idea that murder becomes a lost word replaced with “KZbin”. Cant wait for the next version of “KZbin on the orient express”

[@SteveHargrove-i7d]

I myself prefer The KZbin on the Nile. The KZbin’s in the Rue Morgue also seems quite good.

[@hoodiesticks]

As an RTGame viewer, I just assumed Yahtzee was yet another content creator who'd started using KZbin as an insult.

[@SteveHargrove-i7d]

@@hoodiesticks according to this videos own comments, they started this “trend” if you call it that, years ago. Honestly who cares tho.

[@mossysnail6857]

A KZbin of Crows lol

[@NimhLabs]

I also thought this was an RTGame refrance/callout

[@billlederman2046]

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

[@thehypestpiknick2755]

That’s weird. I could’ve sworn the title was “The Yoinky-Sploinky of Sonic the Hedgehog”

[@darkjanggo]

now i wanna see yahtzee hit the yoink

[@Montesama314]

Sounds a little sexual to me for some reason.

[@nomchomsley854]

Okay so it's not just me. Weird.

[@MazeFrame]

The algorythm giveth and the algorythm taketh, I suppose.

[@danielgrezda3339]

He should really review the new xenoblade games since he liked x and it's probably the worst one.

[@smokepotion6981]

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.

[@edfreak9001]

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!

[@dimitridsmoreira]

​@@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.

[@awesomeman3750]

@@edfreak9001 this is true, warhammer 40K loremasters are in high demand in the job market nowadays

[@Xenomorthian]

@@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

[@chillhour6155]

Fkn corpos

[@dannykazari]

As funny as this was I think Yahtzee was more upset that he was tricked into playing an actual Sonic game than anything.

[@oilimenoruega7836]

Oh wow, it's been a while since the last dolphin joke. That sure brings back memories

[@bionicdragon5]

The saga continues.

[@declanmckenna6854]

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.

[@sarafontanini7051]

don't forget the rpg boss battle against the evil murderous doctor

[@Kuraerisu]

Not even like anime pigeons, straight up PNGs of pigeons

[@moonjelly5]

​@@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.

[@dodadamm]

Loss, youth, government corruption, sounds like a perfect combination if I ever heard one

[@MaryTannenbaum]

His game, hatfall has a reference to it as well.

[@bugjams]

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.

[@superspider64]

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

[@Tuss36]

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.

[@gregvs.theworld451]

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.

[@gregvs.theworld451]

@@Tuss36 Thanks to SaltyDkDan, Espio and Vector as a committed gay couple is now an accepted headcanon of mine.

[@milkflavored]

It was this and the art style for me

[@CallN0w]

@@gregvs.theworld451 Espio is in a relationship with Vanilla

[@kentonroush]

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]

His point was you either make it ridiculous, or you make it an actual good game. They did neither.

[@alicebnuuy6155]

@@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]

@@alicebnuuy6155 not in his opinion, as detailed in this video. He went through all the gameplay and how it all sucked.

[@Popchip99]

@@OrangeDog20 yahtzee can and has been wrong before, the games 98% rating on steam shows its good and people love it

[@gregvs.theworld451]

@@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.

[@timpointer6664]

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.

[@DTFauxClassic]

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.

[@petarpoljak6918]

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)

[@DTFauxClassic]

​@@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.

[@petarpoljak6918]

@@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****."

[@DTFauxClassic]

@@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.

[@RacingSnails64]

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.

[@stolen_light3751]

And not too far away from the actual gameplay of DbD

[@evilbob9970]

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 KZbin 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.

[@Gothstana]

​@@paultapping9510 that's better than many other people who think critics should only review games they like.

[@Emery_Pallas]

@@Gothstana or the old “reviews should be objective”, completely missing the point that a review relies on the subjectivity.

[@jimez86]

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.

[@Graknorke]

reasonable tbh, sonic as a character is incredibly annoying and it's made worse by how everyone around him seems to love him

[@Sponsie1000]

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!

[@NotASovietSpy1]

im pretty sure the issue is yahtzee just doesnt like sonic

[@braystar8578]

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.

[@twilightvulpine]

Can't blame him for wanting actual murder from the murder game but it was pretty cute to watch these characters hanging out

[@braystar8578]

@@twilightvulpine If you were actually expecting that, you're the April Fool.

[@1981cbrinkm]

@braystar8578 Yeah imagine expecting the AAA publishers actually releasing something worth playing. Can't let that happen.

[@U-Flame]

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

[@ThisThingEaten]

"Fuck you, Sega, I wanted blood!"

[@OwO377]

sound like a phase cuz someone never change.

[@MoskalMedia]

This has to be one of the best Yahtzee line deliveries ever. I burst out laughing when he said that

[@OwO377]

@@MoskalMedia true.

[@Koridai011]

😂

[@griffnuts]

I’m sorry but “Mofo of Sofo the Hofo” made me spit my single malt all over the shag pile. Genius.

[@davedixon2167]

THIS!

[@DMBLaan]

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.

[@calvinjluther]

That sounds like some real lame shit guy.

[@randoooooooooooo4676]

@@062843403 ?????

[@DanKnowsNothing]

@@062843403 Jesus there's a lot to unpack here. The dude has a point, what are you on about?

[@VideoGuy232]

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

[@theresnothinghere1745]

@@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.

[@DanGamingFan2406]

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.

[@ferdinandavila-soto7233]

Sega should team up with Nintendo for a Detective Tails and Detective Pikachu crossover.

[@lnsflare1]

@@ferdinandavila-soto7233 Here me out: Sonic & Rayman - Railway Detectives. Get the spotlight back from those damn Rabbids.

[@watershipup7101]

Agreed

[@ferdinandavila-soto7233]

@@lnsflare1 Better yet, make it a 2D platformer, like Rayman Origins and Legends, with the same art style as those two games.

[@TARINunit9]

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

[@danielgehring7437]

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]

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?

[@danielgehring7437]

@@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.

[@CheesecakeMilitia]

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.

[@Dragonpit]

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.

[@DTFauxClassic]

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.

[@Kiwi-fl8te]

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?).

[@Pinkanator]

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.

[@626Link]

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.

[@twilightvulpine]

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.

[@mc_cheshire]

This game really touched me on a personal level. When I was a few years younger, my long-held pet weasel KZbin'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 KZbin itself; KZbin 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.

[@aivalera]

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.

[@TheCoolestRyker]

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.

[@Helios2737]

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

[@maromania7]

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.

[@KirbyBandicoot]

"a gag game" is literally what it was advertised as.

[@hellsingfan89]

​@@maromania7 weird because every advertisement made it look like a gag game that came out on April fool's day.

[@Dgero]

@@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

[@lnsflare1]

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.]

[@JacksonJinn]

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.

[@Arkouchie]

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.

[@salamanda550]

Good to see RT's KZbin-ing of KZbin has made its rounds in the Escapist Office too.

[@SpearThroughanS]

My thoughts exactly

[@denmark1226]

Nope. They did this a few years back, and it's been an occasional gag ever since

[@Sabbatic]

Going off that last bit about this game "not being weird enough," I feel like Yahtzee would really enjoy Sonic Dreams Collection

[@collinhalverson4681]

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.

[@SuperSmashDolls]

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*

[@brunop.8745]

Bold of you to assume he wouldn't eviscerate all three

[@KarolMarcjan]

That assumption is have nowhere in the original comment. It says *at least* 2. Yes, I'm fun at parties.

[@vigorouslethargy]

The assumption that there's only 3 games......

[@siobhanlawper1051]

I honestly kind of want to see it, cos I love those games but Jesus H do they have issues...

[@SuperSmashDolls]

@@vigorouslethargy Yahtzee would never touch Ultra Despair Girls or Danganronpa S with a ten-foot pole

[@vi6ddarkking]

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.

[@davidbrickey8733]

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.

[@Waffletigercat]

I never assumed the cat was your fursona, Yahtzee. Obviously, your fursona is a dolphin.

[@dannybeane2069]

(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.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

​@@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 KZbin 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.

[@ArifRWinandar]

Dolphins really love the sea and sailors.

[@Gothstana]

​@@dannybeane2069 usually it's just fursona, but scalie is a common name as well.

[@pieoverlord]

@@dannybeane2069 Blubb-ersona?

[@top-notanalysis4942]

Alternative titles: Dial H For Hedgehog The Hog Who Hedged Too Much Twin Green Hills Sonic Chainsaw Masquerade

[@bigbruno2232]

I want the next a final game to be titled Of Rings and Hedgehogs

[@B00mt00b]

I've heard the sonic inflation joke before and it still hasn't failed to make me laugh

[@Montesama314]

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.

[@floricel_112]

2:20 you.....were expecting for Sonic to actually die in a freakin april fools game?

[@gaminggalaxies6633]

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

[@Swedishminer40]

Yahtzee when a video game has game mechanics

[@Kaybeeguy]

This is probably the nicest he's been to a Sonic title since his Sonic Colors and Sonic Frontiers review

[@petarpoljak6918]

And yet people are still throwing a hissyfit about this 😅

[@wakeangel2001]

"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

[@unintentionally_edgy5867]

“I was interested in the rising prices of genesis games” I saw that joke ending from about the distance between the us and Europe

[@MooreThanCosplay]

"non-canon", who's gonna tell him? 🤣

[@sileopatronus]

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

[@legateelizabeth]

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.

[@yourself1210]

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

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

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?

[@yourself1210]

@@TheSmart-CasualGamer oh he’s talking about when he dies in game

[@JacksonJinn]

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.

[@metageek7878]

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.

[@ObadiahtheSlim]

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.

[@jsloanhpi]

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.

[@friskecrisps8038]

Yeah…from that wording there…sonic the hedgehog inflation is something you probably don’t ever want to google

[@ninjacat230]

Who says it isn't Canon?

[@Yggi11]

That bit about "inflation" gave me the best chuckle I've had in a while

[@Firesidetalker]

"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."

[@ravenwarjoy]

I never played a single sonic game, but I found this one cute, so eh.

[@HeartburnPinkDerg]

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.

[@PopcornSonata]

I love how at the Dnd table Jesse is distinguished by having no distinguishing features.

[@goonished]

"Sonic Lore Consultant" oh you mean Cybershell?

[@mikhaelgribkov4117]

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.

[@mikerice868]

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

[@yidingliu8663]

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.

[@vigorouslethargy]

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.

[@yidingliu8663]

@@vigorouslethargy That's the Harrier du bois I know.

[@MrGuy__]

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)

[@VideoGuy232]

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…

[@MrGuy__]

@@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

[@vigorouslethargy]

​@@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]

​@@MrGuy__ "something out quick" this review is a week old and he reviews what he wants but okay.

[@JollaKoala]

@@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

[@connorwalters9223]

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

[@They_are_Arthur]

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]

Not everything is canon, thats just a joke tweet.

[@They_are_Arthur]

@@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.

[@DelphinusW]

When I saw he reviewed this bite-sized piece of April Fool's fanservice, I got my hopes up for a bit of positivity. "Surely he's not just punching down at a one-hour digital comic book", I thought. "There's gotta be something more to it!" Fie on me for not expecting he'd simply mismanaged his time. At least I enjoyed the VN itself, and I say this as someone who's not finished a Sonic game since the Genesis era, but these days Yahtzee playing a Sonic game smacks of the type of internet-warrior who just goes out of his way to get mad at things. The inflation joke is so old by this point, the memes have looped back around to promising smut and then making you Google controversial acts by nation-states.

[@Tobiwanz]

"Battering Spades" was a deep cut reference. Appreciated that one.

[@JonNewsh]

Thank you for giving a good excuse as to why I have ‘sonic inflation’ in my search history

[@nicklager1666]

Cool you were looking for a lightning fast VCR repair shop in Milwaukee i guess.

[@JohnSmith-vb5ze]

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]

Wow, what an original joke...... "Sonic games bad, right guys?"

[@JohnSmith-vb5ze]

@@dimitridsmoreira Who's joking?

[@JohnSmith-vb5ze]

@@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.

[@dimitridsmoreira]

​@@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.

[@The_AGL_Group]

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

[@RdTrler]

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.

[@anthonygotttheonly]

Really set up that inflation joke didn’t you 😂 great video

[@vinnythewebsurfer]

It’s admirable the level of disdain Yahtzee has for sonic games.

[@Yuli_Ban]

Eh, it's starting to wear a bit thin. "Sonic the Hedgehog fucking sucks and needs to die" was the in-thing circa 2007-2014 for a lot of legitimate reasons- I'm certainly still baffled that Sonic as a franchise survived at all past 2009 when you'd think Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic 06, and Sonic Unleashed would be a 1-2-3 KO punch that'd kill any franchise. But by 2023, it's clear the fanbase it's pretty well-rooted and defensive and a lot of the negative air towards the series has itself become the meme. Like for Christ's sakes, I recently saw one curmudgeon complain about Sonic's friends as if Sonic 06 was the most recent Sonic game to come out and they were helplessly forced to spend 90% of the game playing as Charmy the Bee and SIlver the Hedgehog, and he got downvoted into oblivion because, besides Sonic Boom and Forces DLC, the last game that even gave you the _option_ to play as any of Sonic's friends _was_ Sonic 06- 17 years ago. It's like, if you're that obsessed about a bunch of NPC side characters in a platformer series that haven't even been playable in _multiple_ console generations, I'd hate to see your opinions on Luigi or Princess Peach. And do you remember when G4 came back and immediately ragged on Sonic, and they got trashed _hard_ for it, whereas if they ran that same segment in 2012, it'd probably have been one of their more popular segments. My rambling, incoherent point being that "Sonic is terrible, so I'll slag off every aspect of this Sonic game from his shitty friends to his shitty gameplay without any second thought because it's Sonic" might be true, but the pendulum is no longer in that camp's favor and it's started coming off as a dated meme by reviewers who forgot it's not 2009 anymore. Edit: Actually, I was wrong. The last game that gave you the option was Mania. And most people tend to regard it as a great game, which kind of proves' fans' longstanding point that it was never the side-characters themselves that was the problem. But that's a post for another day.

[@happymoomoocow]

@@Yuli_Ban You are the exact kind of person Yahtzee is talking about when he talks about Sonic fans “Sonic bad” is definitely still a popular sentiment, the pendulum is definitely still on that side for a lot of people even though the second movie was pretty good and turned some people around on Sonic. Saying it’s not is just coping, I hate to tell you.

[@Yuli_Ban]

@@happymoomoocow Did you literally just "No U" me??

[@dimitridsmoreira]

@@happymoomoocow I have seen so many of your comments, and it seems that with all of them, you are trying so hard to defend this video and make an attempt to talk bad about Sonic in anything. And yes, we get it. This guy doesn't like Sonic, many people don't or don't care, and he is allowed to voice his opinions. But that doesn't mean we are not allowed to voice ours, and i think this video is not good at all and misses the entire point of the game, he is clearly in the minority here. And you can't deny that Sonic is in a great place right now, with 2022 easily being the best year for the franchise. Frontiers was a good game, and they made a charming and good visual novel for the fans. People still care about these things.

[@justinianthe1st790]

​@@dimitridsmoreira "Frontiers was a good game" Yeah if your standards are abysmal.

[@Dracinard]

I was so ready to discover that the staff in charge of the Sonic the Hedgehog KZbin channel had gone off the deep end, and consistently produced weird enough things to pull Yahtzee's attention for a full review. Ah well.

[@napkin8920]

to be quite honest, i never interpreted the yahtzee as a cat thing as anything other than sight gag in the sonic forces review, but for some reason this time around i immediately thought "yahtzee's fursona probably would be a dog, wouldn't it"

[@Love_Crafts_HP]

I loved this game I hope they consider doing more visual novels in the future.

[@youabra]

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.

[@alicebnuuy6155]

honestly its more like the opposite of that. Sega gave people free steak and he's complaining that it's not rubber.

[@banisherblade]

The most amusing part of this game is that Yahtzee had to censor the word 'murder' lol

[@Thule-ob1vm]

What's more insane: hearing Yahtzee unironically call a Sonic game "not stupid enough" or KZbin demonetizing a video over a word that even the FCC doesn't give a flying toss about on actual television?

[@harrytewkesbury7935]

Casually dropping in a Poddington Peas reference and dipping, was my favourite part.

[@ngchloe4877]

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

[@BuzzaB77]

Surely the murder of sonic would just be a video review of all their 3d games?

[@magetsalive5162]

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.)

[@judgedude3619]

- More than a decade of videogame journalism - Doesn't knew the consequences of Googling "Sonic Inflation". Yahtz needs to up his game

[@vigorouslethargy]

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.

[@gryffehondor4236]

NGL, this review kinda sucked. Yathzee spent all his time berating the game for not matching the mental image he had built up in his head while spending something like 20 seconds top speaking about the actual game. Which is a shame, 'cause even if TMOSTH isn't going to win any award for its gameplay, it's still an enjoyable visual novel with a vibrant art style, solid characters and competently written narrative with a few twists and great humor, all packed in a short length that doesn't overstay its welcome. For the great price of completely free and 2-3 hours to get through it, there's no reason not to play this game if it caught your eye in the slightest. And again, it's not like Yathzee is wrong technically about anything he said. But that's not a review of "The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog", his video is a review of "one jaded gamer's strained relationship with a franchise and its exploitation by Sega". Feels more relevant as an episode of Extra Punctuation than Zero Punctuation.

[@legtendgav556]

eh, ya get used to it

[@Yuli_Ban]

On a slight tangential note: the problem Yahtzee has with Sonic is that he is one of those jaded Genesis purists who had their limelight in the mid to late 2000s when Sonic was at his nadir, the ones who believe that anything Sonic-related needs to be just Sonic and his Genesis-era pals, Dr. Robotnik, running fast, blue skies, jazzy tunes, jumping on enemies, and that's it, and anything that deviates from that = automatic suck and fail and disaster. A lot of the big reviewers really got going in the 2000s and they shaped a lot of the internet discourse around Sonic for the longest time before the fans of the 2000s-era Sonic wound up growing up themselves and now those fans are the ones shaping discourse, so people like Yahtzee and a lot of the old-guard from IGN and GameInformer and G4 and whatnot are getting pissy and frustrated that the general atmosphere around Sonic is no longer Genesis purism. They haven't really moved on, and most of their jokes about Sonic are always going to come back to how terrible the post-Genesis franchise is and how creepy Sonic fans are, and that any Sonic game with a perspective other than one that only shows a single one of Sonic's creepy uni-eye = the cause of all our problems. Like I said elsewhere, circa 2009-2012, that sort of stuff was widely accepted as the truth, but a decade later, it comes off as extremely dated and riling the fanbase. And that's a bit of an issue for Yahtzee because he's always been a cynical guy (I've been following him since he cameoed on G4 back around 2007-2008), and it'd be uncharacteristic for him to not point out deficiencies in this series and its games.

[@7ambris]

I think Yahtzee is incapable of understanding the sincerity of a game like this, and how much people love the characters of this franchise. So when he sees an attempt at earnest (if simple) characterization, all he can think is "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO SOMETHING IRONIC AND AWFUL". This game in some ways was exactly what a lot of Sonic fans were hoping for: just a good time with characters we like presented at their best. It's not something novel or unique--it's just sincere. And after so many games that try so hard to be novel, genre-defining, or game-changing, all with mixed results--it's honestly just so refreshing to just have a simple meal well made.

[@MrThirtyH]

It was either his Sonic Frontiers review or the Extra Punctuation about it, but he stated right out that he simply DOES NOT understand how Sonic fans tolerate Sonic if he's anything but a parody of 90's-era RADICAL! Bro is a professional writer and he doesn't understand how shifting tone works.

[@dimitridsmoreira]

​@@MrThirtyH That's actually really sad, holy shit.....Makes me wonder why he even bothers to talk about this Franchise.

[@Gemkeeper]

I fear yahtzee may have missed the entire point on this one.

[@OwO377]

totally true.

[@SkateTroe]

100%

[@watchfulwanderer6443]

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.

[@gryffehondor4236]

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]

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?

[@watchfulwanderer6443]

@@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.

[@azzzanadra]

i think yahtzee missed the "fools" part of "April fools"

[@OtherMomo]

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"

[@MatthewRachansky]

So it's like an evening of dinner theater without the satisfying meal?

[@Brown95P]

Tbf, Sonic already died once in a canon-but-not-quite game, so the joke's on everyone for thinking that A) they'd actually seriously kill Sonic, B) the april fools game wouldn't be a serious game, and C) being non-canon would allow them to actually kill Sonic. The fanboyism of original the character is kinda cringe though, ngl.

[@tailgrowth]

"You cannot fault the title of 'The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog'" Apparently you can, if you're KZbin.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

Yahtzee for the last time stop throwing car batteries into the sea

[@GeorgePerakis]

"Yahtzee didn't like a Sonic game" Sunrises are less predictable than this dude.

[@SxC97]

"The Unalivening of Sonic the Hedgehog"