Vs. Sonic.EXE goes above and beyond referencing its source material, as well as other famous Sonic urban legends and the series' history in general.
In general:
- The mod opens with a title screen identical to that of Sonic 1 and corrupts it in the same fashion as the original pasta. The menu is also edited to look like the Sonic.exe menu, with the character select even substituting for the difficulty selection.
- The 2.5/3.0 build open with the HaxeFlixel jingle from the original Friday Night Funkin' before it corrupts into the actual title screen.
Main week:
- The intro cutscene has .exe putting Tails' head on a pike, referencing the Game Over screen (and ending) of the creepypasta.
◊ He and the remains of Robotnik can be seen behind .exe during the first song, while Knuckles' arm can be seen behind Boyfriend. - "Too Slow" features leitmotifs of a slowed-down "Hill Act 1" and the infamous drowning theme prevalent throughout the Sonic franchise, which is also a theme that's commonly associated with Sonic.exe chasing a victim.
- .exe has his well-known laugh taken straight from Kefka of Final Fantasy VI fame. It happens multiple times, once halfway through "Too Slow", partly when he's about to attack Boyfriend, and a few times during "You Can't Run".
- The Jump Scare near the end of "Too Slow" is noticeably similar to the one in "An Ordinary Battle Amongst Familiar Hills", an infamous Bait-and-Switch video file that features .exe.
- The death animation for Sonic.exe, where he appears behind Boyfriend with his hands to his sides, is lifted directly from the Sonic.exe PC Port Remake.
- "Too Slow" take places in "Hide and Seek", the level where Sonic.exe murders Tails.
- Sonic.exe's left pose in the 2.0 update references the pose he took when killing Tails in the original pasta.
- Partway through "You Can't Run", the setting changes to that of Green Hill Zone from Sonic 1, with Sonic.Exe's sprite changing to a warped version of the Sonic 1 Sonic sprite. The song also turns into a Dark Reprise of the Green Hill Zone theme.
- The name of the third song, "Triple Trouble", is taken from the Game Gear Sonic game Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble.
- "Triple Trouble" has Boyfriend fight Tails, Knuckles and Eggman in the order they were claimed in the original Sonic.exe, with their appearances based partially on the descriptions of their icons after their levels are finished, and partly on the Sonic PC Port designs that grant them more grotesque visuals.
- Each character's segment of "Triple Trouble" typically fits in multiple references to songs commonly associated with them, such as Tails sampling the theme of Chemical Plant Zone, Knuckles sampling "Unknown From M.E.", and Robotnik sampling his boss theme from Sonic 2. Xenophanes's segments reference multiple songs from the games and the mod itself, primarily the Drowning theme, "You Can't Run", and "Endless".
- Sonic.exe's true form in "Triple Trouble" borrows elements from Mephiles the Dark, a canonical variation on the concept of a demon wearing a hedgehog's visage, coupled with the x-shaped scar of Lord X.
- Eggman's up pose, with his arms outstretched and his mouth wide open, references a piece of promotional stock art◊ from Sonic CD.
- Eggman's segment of "Triple Trouble" uses Boyfriend's "ooh yeah! Ha-ha!" from "Spookeez" in the base game for his equivalent to Eggman's laugh.
Bonus songs:
- "Endless" is one huge reference to the infamous "Fun is Infinite" Easter egg from Sonic CD, from the legions of creepy-looking Sonics to the song's name itself, and even the code you enter in the Sound Test is identical to the one used to reach the screen. Both the backing track and Majin's voice are composed from the iconic soundfont of the Sega Genesis to add another nod to the game he's from.
- Part of "Endless" has Boyfriend sing a few bars off of "Entry of the Gladiators", which was itself sampled by Carnival Night Zone in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, a level notorious for the "Barrel of Doom" that would leave you stuck in Carnival Night, well, forever (until the timer ran out, at least) if you didn't figure out what to do.
- The vanilla game's "3, 2, 1, GO!" starting sign plays just before the beat drop in "Endless".
- The Sonic in "Execution" and "Cycles" may appear to be just a slightly different rendition of Sonic.exe, but the cross-shaped scar on its torso gives away its identity as that of Lord X, the supposed true antagonist of the equally MST-ed sequel to the original story, Sonic.exe: Round 2. Specifically, this iteration of Lord X actually comes from Sonic (PC PORT) Remake. Lord X's original losing icon is also lifted from the remake, and his up pose in the update has his mouth open in the same manner as when he eats Tails. The song itself also takes place in the warped Angel Island Zone from the remake, albeit no longer on fire.
- One of the main criticisms of Sonic.exe is its rampant plagiarism of just about anything the author considered spooky from a number of different games. "Execution"'s main riff is taken straight from "Thorns" in the base game, then shifts into "Casanova" from Mid-Fight Masses a few measures later, and later on samples "Your Best Nightmare" from Undertale. "Cycles", "Execution"'s remake/replacement, omits most of the lifted riffs, but retains a modified version of "Thorns"' main riff, adds snippets of "Hill Act 1", and even utilizes a prolonged section of "Execution" towards the end, adding a meta aspect to the piece as a result.
- "Milk" fits a huge number of references to Sunky.MPEG into the span of a single song.
- Sunky's idle pose, the background, and the special Game Over screen are all references to his origin game, where he forces his friends into a dance party instead of killing them.
- Sunky's down pose is directly taken from one of the poses he takes before chasing Tlels in his version of "Hide and Seek".
- His left pose, meanwhile, has him holding a bowl of cereal with milk on his face. This, along with the song's name, references Silly.TIFF, where he feeds his friends breakfast after encountering them.
- The song itself has a few leitmotifs from Sunky.MPEG and Silly.TIFF, starting with the "Milk and Cereal" jingle and later including "Tight Pants/Body Rolls" and "You're on Blast". In a more recursive example, one can even hear a piece of "Endless" from this very mod towards the end.
- Sunky occasionally transforms into a T-Posing SpongeBob and gives his signature laugh. In Sunky.MPEG, said laugh is used to replace .exe's Kefka laugh. His voice samples are also all derived from archived audio of Tom Kenny's voice for SpongeBob, and a riff from "Best Day Ever" is present about halfway into the song.
- The picture for Milk on the freeplay menu is a close up of Sunky staring at the screen, an almost one-to-one of the "I Occasionally Sunk" jumpscare from Sunky.MPEG.
- "Sunshine" takes place in a red-and-white checkered void, referencing Tails Doll's official render for Sonic R, which was found to be quite creepy by many. At the halfway point of the song, the vocals briefly change to that of "Can you Feel the Sunshine" from the same game, a song which is often associated with Tails Doll. In addition, Boyfriend and Tails Doll are rendered as low-poly 3D models matching those of the Sega Saturn, the console Sonic R was on, and the song even begins with the starting countdown of the game.
- "Chaos" is primarily based off the opening moments of the "Running Wild" three-parter story from Issue #81 of Sonic the Comic, starting with that universe's Sonic falling into the pit where the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds are after being startled by a metallic voice saying "INTRUDERS" (the comic shows this was one of Knuckles' security robots) and emerging as Super Sonic. Porker Lewis, a supporting character from the comic, can also be observed in the foreground watching the affair, just as in the story.
- Parts of "Chaos" sample Perfect Chaos's second phase theme from Sonic Adventure, in allusion to Super Sonic's status as a similar entity that thrives on chaos energy, and his climactic moment in the Fleetway comics where he defeats Perfect Chaos by absorbing all of his energy. It also uses melodies from Sonic the Hedgehog 2's final boss theme, as well as Metallic Madness from Sonic CD.
- Parts of "Faker" directly reference the reversed section of Hill Act 1, most notably near the end of the song.
- "Black Sun" is a direct recreation of an official track for EXE.
- "Too Fest" features a warped version of the Green Hill Zone theme, referencing the bass-boosted version of the track Sanic is known for.
- The latter half of the unused song "Fate" takes cues from "His World" from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), with the guitar in the background sounding like the Zebrahead (Band) version of the aforementioned song. Furthermore, its motif appearing seems to reference the fight with Solaris, with the hero taking on an entity that exists beyond time and space and, based on the song's ending, succeeding.
- Early into the unused song "Fate", you can hear a crowd screaming in the background, similar to when Lord X appears on the title screen of Sonic PC Port after killing Tails, and a part in the song where the song acts like it's glitching out similar to the screen turning blue when Lord X is about to eat Tails.
- The... ahem, "lyrics" to "Personel" are all based on Coldsteel's bio in his original image. Even his nonsensical rant about his hearing, ear, losing part of his ear in a fight, earrings and calling out ChaosKid663 for stealing his shiny Moltres are based on parts of his description.
- "Round-a-Bout" is set in Marble Zone, the Zone majorly featured in the first episode of Needlem0use.
- "Prey" features a snippet of the final boss theme from Sonic 3 / Sonic & Knuckles as a reoccurring bit. Additionally, the infamous "hue"-ing from the Japanese version of the Stardust Speedway Bad Future track in the latter half of the song, which is also where Prey takes place.
- Tails Doll's appearance in "Soulless" is a one-to-one of the most infamous piece of art associated with it◊, that being the doll covered in blood and with a visible mouth full of sharp teeth.
- Halfway through the scrapped song "Forestall Desire", Pico briefly sings a lyrical snippet from the song "Pico", that of course being "go Pico, yeah, yeah, go Pico, oh".
