Tragic Legacy is a Sonic the Hedgehog fan-game made by MosaicArts, which is meant to serve as a creepypasta, but is also a way of speaking out to the blue blur's fanbase as a whole.
While mainly featuring small bits of gameplay, the game itself is mainly story-driven, and centers around Sonic going through a state of depression. How he handles it is down to the decisions of the player AND his own friends, and it will determine the ending of the storyline. Other factors may contribute to other endings as well.
The game can be downloaded here
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Tropes seen in the game:
- Big Bad: This seems to apply to the unknown entity in Sonic's mind, which preys on his doubts and tries to deter him from trusting his friends, effectively being the last obstacle in the path to achieve the best possible ending to the game.
- Bullied into Depression: The whole focus of the game's storyline, with Sonic having fallen under depression because of the levels of criticism he received on any of his own content. While he outright admits this to most of his friends, Amy doesn't learn about it until later in the story.
- Even Evil Has Standards: When meeting Robotnik, he'll refuse to attack Sonic for a couple of reasons; first being that he had a hard day himself, and that it wouldn't be a worthy victory if Sonic wasn't at full strength.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: This is a common thing for the cast of this game, as they'll often do this to deliver on more positive sides of things, like all the good things the fans have made, and even Nintendo allowing SEGA to release their games on other consoles.
- Multiple Endings: This game indeed has those, and they all depend on not only your decisions, but other factors too.
- Darkness Ending: If too many bad choices are made up to Tails' talk with Sonic, the blue blur will turn hostile and kill all of his friends in a dark state.
- Bad Ending: If not enough good choices were made, but very little bad choices were chosen, Sonic will refuse to keep going and kill himself by jumping to his doom, with Tails failing to stop him in time.
- Out of Chances Ending: This ending is simply achieved by running out of lives at any point in the game. Sonic and the entity both question why this occurred. On purpose? And if so, why? Because of curiosity, perhaps?
Or was it a joke to you? Maybe it wasn't like that at all, and you ended up getting here by accident. After questioning this a little more, both of the two force-close the game. - Amnesia Ending: Getting this ending is actually more difficult than the rest. For this one, you need to find EVERY ring that's located within Splash Hill, Angel Island, Carnival Night, and Green Hill, respectively. After this, Sonic's last stage will be completely altered, instead taking place in a literal ring dimension. He eventually comes across a ring deity that offers to resolve his worries; however, his life will completely change from doing this. Sonic agrees to this, grabbing a special ring before going back to Green Hill, where Tails finds him. After expressing his concerns, Sonic can only ask one question… "Who are you?"
- Neutral Ending: If you get enough good choices, but don't find Eggman/Robotnik or fully get the final choice right, Sonic prepares to jump… only to stop himself, knowing the painful consequences it could have if he does. At that point, Sonic's friends arrive on the scene, also not wanting him to jump. Even though this doesn't stop Sonic's depression, he's okay with continuing to live, if only for the sake of his friends.
- Best Ending: The player must be positive with EVERY choice, and also track down Robotnik in a hidden area of Green Hill, who will give his own advice to the blue blur without fighting him. Upon reaching the final choice, and answering that nothing would and will ever be the same without Sonic, Sonic actually stops to question things. He starts looking to the positives and gets to grips that pleasing everyone just won't work out. As he ponders on this, he falls unconscious and awakes in his own mind. As he goes through, his friends can be heard encouraging him to keep going to the end, and he eventually confronts the entity preying on his doubts. It finally comes down to six choices on the player's part about whether or not Sonic can keep this happy ending for himself. If all six are answered correctly, Sonic will wake up… and reveals he's finally back to being himself once more. Tails himself can't help but cry happily, seeing Sonic is back to normal at last. The first thing Sonic does after proving this is ask what the others would like to do with him. During this, Knuckles asks something else, visibly worried… Did anyone bother to check on the Master Emerald throughout all of this?
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Sonic is depressed almost all throughout this game, which almost everyone quickly picks up on. Sometimes, he tells his friends what's bothering him outright, or in some cases, chooses not to say. It isn't until the Best Ending that Sonic manages to regain his confidence and speak back against the Big Bad of the story.
- While Knuckles remains as the Master Emerald's guardian, he's perfectly okay with going away from it for a while, if not mainly to ensure Sonic is alright as he fights through his depression. He only starts thinking about the Emerald again at the end of the Best Ending.
- Player Nudge: At the first major choice in the game, the player will be warned that the choices they make will have lasting consequences for the rest of the way, and encourage them to pick the better options in all cases.
- Stalker with a Crush: This is only alluded to by the Big Bad as an excuse of how Amy managed to find Sonic and Tails near the start of the story. Sonic, however, deconstructs this in the positive choice, arguing that her care for him goes beyond the material of his abilities and right to her heart.
