The executive producer behind Sega, which made the April Fools visual novel Sonic the Hedgehog Murders, revealed that Charmy Bee and Cream the Rabbit were planned, but were ultimately dropped from the murder mystery party. Earlier this month, Sega released a brand new Sonic the Hedgehog visual novel on April Fools’ Day, and teased that the series would be heading in a “new direction” after receiving a lot of feedback. Then it turns out that New Directions is “killing” the blue blur in the free visual novel.
Although announced as a joke, Sonic the Hedgehog was surprisingly well received by fans and critics alike. Despite an odd premise, this visual novel isn’t just a one-off spoof, but a rather sincere game that puts an extended cast at the forefront, offers interesting dialogue and a well-written and Simple murder mysteries to solve. Although Sonic Social Media manager and executive producer Katie Chrzanowski revealed that the game has an impressive cast of characters, two people were ultimately not invited to Amy Rose birthday party.
This was revealed in an interview with Chrzanowski and Kotaku about the development process of the social media team making the visual novel. One of the first things they nailed was the humor and interaction of Sonic the Hedgehog Murders. This includes nailing the roles of characters like Espio, Blaze, and Vector, with Espio at one point thought to be playing a doctor rather than a poet. However, Chaotix trio Charmy Bee was conspicuously absent, with Chrzanowski saying he was too young to be in a murder mystery game.
Charmy’s last standard age is 6, see Sonic Heroes manual for details. Another notable absence, Cream the Rabbit, was cut for the same reason. Blaze and Amy are her best friends, and while she’s mentioned in the Sonic the Hedgehog murders, she’s not seen anywhere. According to Chrzanowski, both Cream and Charmy are “too young to get into the workings of Murder,” though they’re happy with the game’s final cast and being able to put everyone in the spotlight without dragging the story.
In addition to the two deleted characters, Chrzanowski also described the inspiration for an entirely new player character to join Tails in solving the mystery. There was some discussion about making one of the other characters playable, but realized that the first-person view limited their on-screen presence on the grounds that having a third-party view of the extended Sonic cast’s interactions would be easier to build. This of course led to the player character, named Barry according to internal documents and the revealed trailer, getting a ton of fan art, much appreciated by the development team.
Sonic The Hedgehog Murders is out now on PC.