Sonic Fear is a trilogy of platforming horror fan games of Sonic the Hedgehog, majorly based on the Sonic R and Sonic.exe games, created by Yesmen10.
It consists of the games:
- Sonic Fear: Tails Doll El Assesino (Sonic Fear: Tails Doll the Murderer; used to be split into two parts before receiving a full version)
- Sonic Fear 2: Metal Sonic Fuera Del Control (Sonic Fear 2: Metal Sonic Out of Control)
- Sonic Fear 3: El Apocalipsis (Sonic Fear 3: The Apocalypse)
Warnings: spoilers will be unmarked!
Tropes in the Sonic Fear trilogy include:
- Adaptational Badass: Tails Doll, who was barely able to float on his original game, gains a whole new ray of powers, including but not limited to illusion making, Super-Empowering, and an One-Winged Angel form.
- Another Dimension: Tails Doll and Sonic.exe are stuck on one. They briefly escape it in Sonic Fear 2, retreat after being defeated, then come back to Sonic's world in Sonic Fear 3 through a Chaos Emerald-powered portal.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Tails Doll went rouge shortly after being created due to gaining sentience and demonic powers, and was sealed by Eggman in another dimension before the trilogy's start.
- Anachronic Order: The second game is a confusing case; it actually starts before Sonic wakes up from the illusions, but also a little after the first game. But also its intro takes place before the first game proper, it has multiple moments that flash back to the first game's events, and only the last quarter of the game truly takes place after the first game.
- Big Bad: Tails Doll is the main antagonistic force in the trilogy.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: More in a meta sense, but in Sonic Fear 3, Tails Doll quotes Sonic.exe's infamous "Hello, do you want to play with me?" and "You can't run" lines.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Tails Doll not only has Sonic.exe as The Dragon, but eventually also has his partners from his canonical debut game (Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles, and Eggrobo).
- Balance, Power, Skill, Gimmick: Like in the first Sonic Advance, respectively Knuckles, Sonic, Tails, and Amy form this quartet.
- But Thou Must!: When playing as Tails and Knuckles in the first game, Tails Doll will pop up at some points to force you into going the opposite way (otherwise, you'll get jumpscared by him).
- Cutscene: The first and second games have a few ones in sprites, while the third game uses animated cutscenes with an art style similar to Sonic Mania.
- Creepy Doll: Tails Doll, who in the first two games is perpetually soaked in blood (including a Slasher Smile mark), has Absurdly Sharp Claws, and in the third eventually shreds the plushie looks to become an Eldritch Abomination.
- Downer Beginning:
- Sonic Fear 2 starts with Tails Doll hijacking Metal Sonic, Metal Sonic (apparently) killing Eggman, and making the Tornado crash, making Sonic the sole survivor and setting the events of the first game.
- Sonic Fear 3 starts with Tails Doll and Sonic.exe coming to the actual Sonic's world, conquering it, and slaughtering many innocent animals.
- Disney Death:
- In Sonic Fear 3, Sonic is fatally injured by Tails Doll, but Amy arrives on time with the last Chaos Emerald, making him turn Super for the final battle. The chapter where the Final Battle happens is appropriately named "A Miracle."
- And as it turns out, everyone else from the Sonic cast that was shown dead in the first two games, since they were all illusions and weren't actually dead.
- Downer Ending: The second part of the first game ended with Sonic's remains falling on a grave. Subverted on the full release version as the game continues from that point... with Tails Doll turning the remains into Sonic.exe.
- Evil Laugh: Each of the three central antagonists have one.
- Enemy Without: Sonic.exe used to be Sonic's counterpart in the illusion dimension before being killed and revived as The Dragon of Tails Doll, then separated from the actual Sonic.
- Foreshadowing: During Chapter 4's early half, there is a Tails Doll jumpscare with a lot of buildup. In the middle of it, there is a very quick glance at Tails Doll's Devil form.
- Fearless Fool: Unlike the rest of the playable characters in Sonic Fear 3, during levels that are intended to be scary, Knuckles has a coolheaded smile on his icon instead of a nervous expression. Subverted in that, nonetheless he gets scared like the rest when the Sanity Meter is threatened.
- Hero Killer: Tails Doll seems to be one in the first two games, as it is shown he has killed a large part of the Sonic cast, including protagonists from the animated spinoffs and Sonic himself, whom he later revives to be his minion. Downplayed since Sonic.exe and Metal Sonic turned out to have helped in some of the kills, and Subverted once it turns out they were all illusions, which makes innocent animals the only real victims of Tails Doll, which is undone by the end of the third game anyway.
- Hell on Earth: Sonic's world becomes this in the third game after Tails Doll takes over, with many zones from the Genesis games being ruined, Emerald Hill, in particular, becoming a burning wasteland.
- Just in Time: The search for Sonic's friends in Sonic Fear 3 is framed this way. We get three pictures of them being tormented by their would-be killers, and Sonic seems to arrive and fight the boss on time to save them from dying.
- Karma Houdini: In spite of making Tails Doll (who after being banished to another dimension proceeded to torment Sonic for two games and attempted to take over and destroy Sonic's world in the third and last one), essentially being the indirect Greater-Scope Villain of the trilogy, the worst punishment he gets is being hanged on the illusion world, and chased by ghosts in the third game until Sonic saves him.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: The first two games of the trilogy feature an Amy Rose with the modern design as one of Tails Doll's illusion victims, but when Amy becomes playable in the third game, she uses the classic design instead.
- Mythology Gag:
- Sonic Heroes got an homage twice in the trilogy starting from the second game. In Sonic Fear 2, Metal Sonic became Metal Overlord as the Final Boss for Sonic to face-off. In Sonic Fear 3, Sonic became Super and bestowed his powers to Tails and Knuckles so they could face off together the One-Winged Angel form of an Evil Knockoff of one of them (only now it's Tails Doll instead of Metal Sonic).
- Bordering a little on Nostalgia Level, Tails' level in the first game is a remake of "Hill Act 1" of Sonic.exe's origin game, only with Tails Doll at the left, and multiple shadows of Sonic for Tails to pass through before meeting the actual Sonic.exe. Only, instead of it leading up to Hide and Seek, this happens:
THIS IS SONIC FEAR - Make My Monster Grow: In the third game, Tails Doll pops up during Eggrobo, Metal Knuckles, and Sonic.exe's battles to make them grow big for their respective battles third rounds.
- Make Way for the New Villains: Tails Doll establishes his status as the trilogy's Big Bad by (apparently) killing Eggman by hanging him at a cross, shown in detail in the second game's intro. In the third game, Tails Doll just teleports Eggman and leaves his ghost Mooks to handle him.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Tails Doll's ultimate goal by the time of the third game is to bring the apocalypse.
- Ontological Mystery: The reason why the Sonic cast was trapped in a strange world with Tails Doll as their tormentor and killer is only revealed at the end of the first game, and given more context at the second game.
- Psychological Torment Zone: It turns out the first two games might have happened in false worlds created by Tails Doll to torment Sonic, where the latter manages to completely escape from by the end of the second game.
- Rescue Arc: The third game's first half involves Sonic rescuing his friends from Tails Doll's allies.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Devil Tails Doll, Tails Doll's One-Winged Angel form, is a red giant with red-and-black eyes, and black Combat Tentacles.
- Recruitment by Rescue: In Sonic Fear 3, Sonic has to beat the bosses keeping his friends at ransom before we can play with them.
- Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: Downplayed examples.
- Although it kept the horror thematic through its entire run, the trilogy's atmosphere got less bleak and hopeless as it went on.
- While the end of the second part of the first game ended with Sonic's death, the full first game ended with Sonic.exe and Tails Doll's defeat (even though they turned out to not be the real deals). Not counting how the third game capped the trilogy with a straightforward Happy Ending thanks to the World-Healing Wave.
- Rogue Protagonist: Sonic.exe actually used to be the Sonic of the first half of Sonic Fear 1 (specifically, Sonic's counterpart in Tails Doll's Psychological Torment Zone) before being killed, then revived as Tails Doll's Brainwashed and Crazy Dragon.
- The Reveal:
- Sonic Fear 2 has a couple. Namely:
- Tails Doll hijacked Metal Sonic before the first game, and the latter is the reason why the Tornado crashed, killing everyone aboard it minus Sonic.
- The first game's events were all illusions from Tails Doll to torment Sonic, including the dead characters and the Sonic that'd eventually become Sonic.exe.
- Sonic Fear 2 has a couple. Namely:
- Recurring Location: The first two games have both at the endgame a stereotypical Big Boo's Haunt level with witches, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns, plus This is Halloween's instrumental as the background music. It was dropped in the third game, possibly because it was part of the illusion world or simply because of the music's copyright reasons.
- The Rest Shall Pass: At the climax of the third game, Sonic distracts Devil Tails Doll so the rest of the gang can collect the Chaos Emeralds.
- Sequential Boss: All the bosses in Sonic Fear 3 have at least one "traditional" phase, a "Get Back Here!" Boss phase, and a phase where they get bigger.
- Sequel Hook: In Sonic Fear 2. Although Sonic manages to break free of the illusions and defeat Metal Sonic, he wasn't able to destroy him for sure because Tails Doll and Sonic.exe retreated with him, are allied with Eggrobo and Metal Knuckles, and are preparing themselves for a second shot at Sonic's world.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: Although it is a horror-themed trilogy, the third part caps it all with a pretty optimistic ending, with Tails Doll and his army defeated, the world healed and saved, and all the heroes alive.
- Sanity Meter: The third game has one that automatically decreases after some specific jumpscares, and you must press down until the bar recovers fully.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Eggman is not a central character in the trilogy, but he was the one responsible for creating Tails Doll and sealing him in another dimension once it turned out he went rough.
- Villain Decay: Metal Sonic goes from the titular antagonist of the second game (and the one that helped set up the first game's events), to Warmup Boss of the third game who is unceremoniously defeated in the prologue.
- Villain Shoes: There's a bit in Sonic Fear 1 where you play as Tails Doll, slaughtering animals while his Bootstrapped Theme "Can You Feel the Sunshine" plays in a slowed down version.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: In the third game, even though Eggrobo, Metal Knuckles, and Sonic.exe eventually have respectively Amy, Knuckles, and Tails on their grasps, they prefer to torment them instead of killing them in an easy swipe.
- World-Healing Wave: Tails Doll's defeat in the third game results in all the damage he has done to Sonic's world being undone in white light.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: Sonic is unable to stop Tails Doll and Sonic.exe from escaping their dimension in the prologue of Sonic Fear 3 due to Metal Knuckles and Eggrobo's intervention, and the world is conquered by Tails Doll by the time of the first chapter. The rest of the game is spent on trying to stop him.
