The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC, 2023)

Game info: Wikipedia
Listening: extracted audio, YouTube

Credits

Original Soundtrack by Troupe Gammage, Joel Corelitz
Additional Music by SEGA
Music Special Thanks: Jun Senoue, Tony Harnell, Johnny Gioeli
Sound Design: Troupe Gammage, Joel Corelitz, Greg Batha

Info

I just found out that the funny haha April Fools’ Sonic visual novel has music by Troupe Gammage, a composer I’m sort of interested in, so I guess I had to listen to it. A million years ago he wrote some one-hour compo music that was later reused in Within a Deep Forest, and since then he’s worked on a handful of indie games. Most recently before this he was one of the composers of the higher-profile Solar Ash, another of which was Joel Corelitz—hey, that’s the other composer! I’ve heard a couple of random tracks by Corelitz but am otherwise not really familiar with him, I really do need to listen to Solar Ash at some point. (SEGA as a company is also credited for additional music, but I’d guess that’s just because a couple of tracks are reused from Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Mania.)

Murder is a detective game set aboard a train, so if you were expecting generally non-actiony music with a little bit of jazzy and wild west flair, you’d be correct. There’s also a decent amount of chiptune elements mixed into tracks here and there, which is great if you’re a fan of FM bass (and who among us isn’t?). I wasn’t too wowed by the soundtrack, but it’s fun and it hits the detective vibes pretty well in the tracks that are trying to evoke that feeling.

Recommended tracks:

  • Minigame” is a cute short dance loop

  • Casino” is a jaunty li’l jazz number with a short bit at 0:17 that reminds me of Keisuke Ito’s work for the AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES games

  • Conductor Car (Part 2)” starts off with a nice detuned chippy sound

  • Post Explosion Resolution” is nice and delicate

(track titles are unofficial and based on the filenames)

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