"Alright! If you wanna play... then LET'S PLAY!"note
"Things were different back then... I still remember it... I know what the past holds... I know the secrets of my predecessors... And while THAT past has come and gone... the future is mine. AND MINE ALONE."
— Xanthus
Directed by Nominal Dingus, Undying Phoenix
is a mod for Friday Night Funkin', and a recursive mod of Vs Sonic.exe, refreshing the experience of the original mod with alternate versions of its songs.
The main synopsis is that the new major antagonist, Xanthus, had reset the events of the story, all so everything would be changed this time. Are you up for this new challenge?
Song List (Opponent vs. Player)
Story Mode: All Hail The King
- Let's Play (Alternate Too Slow) (Xanthus vs. Boyfriend)
- I'm In Your Head (Alternate You Can't Run) (Xanthus vs. Boyfriend)note
- The Fighters (Alternate Triple Trouble) (Xanthus, Soul Tails, Soul Knuckles, Soul Robotnik and Soul Metal Sonic vs. Boyfriend, Pico and Majin Sonic)note
Free Play/Sound Test
Introduced in Version 1
- Forever (Alternate Endless) (Majin Sonic vs. Boyfriend)
- Death Sentence (Alternate Execution) (Lord X vs. Daddy Dearest)
Introduced in the Early Bird update
- Early Bird (Alternate Milk) (Sunky.MPEG vs. Boyfriend)
Upcoming
- Silver Lining
- Once See The Sunrise (Alternate My Horizon) (Facidna and Witsune vs. Boyfriend)
- Separation (Alternate Triachel) (Lord X vs. Boyfriend)
Unused
- Reminiscence (Chotix vs. Boyfriend)note
- Falter Alters (Alternate Trinity) (Rewrite, Majin, Xanthus and Lord X vs. Boyfriend)
- Memorialize (Alternate Thriller Gen) (Rewrite vs. Boyfriend)
- Submerged (Alternate Sink) (Sink/Majin)
- Date To Die Four (Xenophanes, Soul Tails, Soul Knuckles, Soul Robotnik and Soul Metal Sonic vs. Boyfriend)note
- Reversed Hermit (The Fursuit/Noah vs. Boyfriend)
- Under-World 21 (Faker)
- Razorsharp (Alternate Malediction) (Loss vs. Boyfriend)
- Nullity (Lord X vs. Dave)
- Lost Our Way (Xanthus vs. Majin)
Scrapped
- Radical (Alternate No Good) (AoSTH/American Sonic vs. Boyfriend)
- Dead And Buried (Alternate Fight or Flight) (Starved vs. Tails)
- Lost to Darkness (Sonic vs. Xain)
- Otherworld (Lord X vs. Knuckles)
This mod contains examples of the following tropes:
- A God Am I:
- Subverted for Xanthus, who doesn't see himself as a God, but rather as a king of the world he inhabits.
- Subverted by Rewrite, as when he tells Boyfriend who he is in "Memorialise", he says "I AM SONIC :)"
- However, he exaggerates this trope in both "Memorialise" and "Falter Alters", instead proclaiming "I AM ALL".
- Adaptation Expansion:
- The main week covers all three of the primary Sonic.EXE levels instead of just "Hide & Seek".
- The only Friday Night Funkin' characters present in the original Vs. Sonic.exe were Boyfriend and Girlfriend, with Pico planned to appear in the cancelled 3.0 update. Undying Phoenix starts out with another FNF character alongside BF and GF, Daddy Dearest, who take's Boyfriend's place in the mod's "Execution" equivalent.
- "The Fighters" is longer than "Triple Trouble", not only bringing a fifth rival into the action in the form of Metal Sonic, but also evening out the odds by having Pico and Majin Sonic join the fight at later stages.
- Adaptational Location Change:
- In contrast to "You Can't Run" and "Triple Trouble" taking place in a deeper part of the Hide and Seek level, "I'm In Your Head" and "The Fighters" take place in the latter two major levels of the Sonic.EXE game.
- "Forever" still takes place in a forest, but it's more starlit compared to the one seen in "Endless".
- "Death Sentence" begins on the stage of Week 1, before shifting into Lord X's domain.
- While "Milk" took place on a stage with a disco ball, "Early Bird" takes place in a different room with a bowl of cereal on a pedestal.
- While "My Horizon" took place in Isolated Island, "Once See the Sunrise" instead takes place in Ice Cap Zone.
- "Fight or Flight" took place at Scrap Brain Zone, while "Dead and Buried" takes place in the bad future of Stardust Speedway, the same location as "Prey".
- "Thriller Gen" and "Trinity" took place in a black void with a small area lit where Rewrite stands, "Memorialize" on the other hand takes place in Green Hill before shifting to Rewrite in a dark room similar to that seen in "Sunshine". In addition, "Falter Alters" takes place in various locations, starting in the aforementioned Green Hill before visiting locations matching the fought opponents.
- "Sink" took place in Labyrinth Zone, while "Submerged" takes place in Tidal Tempest Zone, fitting for the climax of these events.
- All There in the Manual: A lot of background information about Xanthus is available in two text files found through a download link in the description of an instrumental video of "The Fighters", and many other info surrounding him and the rest of the mod is available through the official mod's twitter account, some Youtube community posts, and a whole lore document for Xanthus:
- Xanthus is a sentient piece of malware that manifested in a Sonic Mega Collection disk.
- He deliberately not mutilated the bodies of Tails, Knuckles, and Eggman so that they can serve him well.
- He has a tough love attitude towards Tails, Knuckles and Eggman, but does sincerely care about them.
- He cannot control inorganic entities - as a result, the Metal Sonic that shows up in "The Fighters" remains loyal to Eggman.
- He's bitter rivals with Majin due to the latter constantly foiling the former's schemes, just as how the ending of "The Fighters" shows an example of that.
- By extension, The Unused and Majin Show, due to also being made by Nominal, is semi-canon to this mod, due to the key role both characters have in their parts of the mod.
- In the pinned comment for the soundtrack video of "Once See The Sunrise", it's revealed that the jacket Boyfriend is wearing was stolen from Daddy Dearest, specifically one from a tour that made the latter popular back in the 80s.
- Art Shift: For "Early Bird", Sunky and Boyfriend are rendered in an art style akin to MS Paint, though still with the same level of quality as the rest of the mod.
- Ascended Extra: Majin Sonic. Not only are he and his grandfather, Carlos, a big aid in Boyfriend and Girlfriend's journey this time around, but Majin himself has a part to play in the final fight against Xanthus.
- Call-Back: The first vocal parts of Lord X's section of "Falter Alters" are a recreation of the vocals of "Death Sentence", the previous song in the mod featuring him.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the lore of the mod, Loss, better known as Curse, is known to be rather angsty, and that's only considering just how evil he is, as he was the one that killed Tails and Knuckles, while sparing Eggman and Sally.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Noah may look harmless on the surface, but he is the type of guy you do NOT want to piss off.
- Composite Character: In Submerged, it is revealed that Majin used to be this universe's version of Sink (though there's a chance it might be Carlos), who escaped with the help of the mask.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Xenophanes and Xanthus both differ drastically between their mods.
- For one, while Xenophanes sees himself as a God of his world, Xanthus lacks that belief, instead seeing himself as a king of the world he lives in.
- Upon being given a microphone by Boyfriend, Xanthus actually smashes it right away instead of at the end of "Let's Play", proclaiming that it isn't necessary for what he has planned.
- Xanthus is much less of a Sore Loser than Xenophanes was, only truly losing his cool the moment Majin shows up in "The Fighters".
- While Xenophanes mainly keeps Boyfriend and Girlfriend in one location, save for the brief pixelated Green Hill Zone segment, Xanthus drags them all throughout the three major zones of the Sonic.EXE game; "Hide and Seek" for "Let's Play", "You Can't Run" for "I'm In Your Mind", and "..." for "The Fighters".
- The three standard victims (Tails, Knuckles, and Dr. Eggman) in "The Fighters" don't show up completely mutilated from the get-go, unlike in the original mod's "Triple Trouble". Whilst Dr. Eggman turns into his mutilated form at times throughout his sections, the lore document indicates that this is Xanthus attempting to keep Dr. Eggman compliant through pain. Of course, this ends out not working, as the good doctor's will wins out, and he brings Pico along as a reward for occupying and entertaining him.
- Decomposite Character: In Vs Rewrite, Majin, Sonic.EXE and Lord X were actually alternate forms taken by Rewrite to pray on the nostalgia factor of the player's mind. In "Falter Alters", however, they are instead separate from Rewrite, being puppeteered in some form throughout the song. The homestretch also shows the three locked in cages while Boyfriend and Rewrite clash one last time.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Sunky appeared on the title art for the mod's GameBanana page before his song was in the mod proper.
- Evil vs. Evil: "Death Sentence" plays out like this, with Daddy Dearest, the base game's lead antagonist trying to stop Boyfriend from dating his daughter, facing off against Lord X, a reality-warper of his own world.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Majin starts off "Forever" by saying "Ohayōgozaimasu!", which is Japanese for "Good morning".
- High-Altitude Battle: Later turns of "Forever" play out like this, taking place above the forest canopy and at mountains with starlit skies, culminating with Majin and Boyfriend duking it out on a flying star platform before returning to the forest.
- Justified Tutorial: While the normal Tutorial song that is part of the mod counts, Majin provides one at the beginning of the main week to introduce the new "Focus" mechanic to help out throughout the songs in the mod.
- Lampshade Hanging: When Majin shows up during "The Fighters", he says to not act like Boyfriend (and by extension, the player) wasn't expecting him to show up, referring to his surprise appearance in the original "Four-Way Fracture" song.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: A WIP version of "Early Bird" was present in the first demo's files before it was officially added to the mod in the following update.
- Like Father, Like Son:
- Carlos was originally a game show host before his ratings dropped and he resigned to being a talk show host instead. He then inspired his grandson to do his own talk show, hence how The Unused and Majin Show came into being.
- Faker was known to be the original cause of the timeline reset and created his son, Unused, that also erased himself. However, after his soul found a way to recreate himself in a new body, Faker can be seen at his birthday party…alone, until Unused shows up, with Faker then hesitantly deciding to tell his son his real origin.
- Little Known Facts: A character named "Carlos" (portrayed as a version of Majin wearing a suit) drops these on the Sound Test menu, referring to certain characters in the base game, or in this mod. These change up on each visit to the menu.Carlos: Majin has a brotherly bond with his pal Unused, as it seems. However, I heard once they had a fight, merely because Unused dropped a joke too often. Something about a train?
- Marathon Level:
- "The Fighters" is this even more so than the original "Triple Trouble". Whereas "Triple Trouble" was 8 minutes and 29 seconds, and its cover, "Four-Way Fracture", reached 10 minutes and 53 seconds, "The Fighters" clocks in at a whopping 13 minutes and 9 seconds.
- "Falter Alters" also surpasses "Trinity" by a long shot. The original song clocked in at 6 minutes and 20 seconds, while "Falter Alters" reaches 9 minutes and 46 seconds in total.
- Mythology Gag: A multitude to various other Sonic.exe works, as well as a few to Nominal's previous videos.
- "Once See the Sunrise" is named like the achievement of the same name in fan-made Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles remake, Sonic 3: Angel Island Revisited. The achievement in question requires Knuckles to defeat the boss on the top exit to Ice Cap Act 1 with Tails as his companion, just as how the opponents of the song of the same name resemble Knuckles and Tails.
- The alternate equivalents of "You Can't Run" and "Triple Trouble" see a location shift to other zones that the original creepypasta describes for Knuckles and Robotnik's sections, that being Scrap Brain Zone, and a checkerboard-floored Marble Zone.
- The Sound Test code for "Forever" is 19 93, likely referring to 1993, the year in which Sonic CD was released.
- At the start of "Forever", Majin Sonic says "Ohayōgozaimasu!"note , in Nominal's previous remix of Triple Trouble, "Four Way Fracture", Majin says the same phrase at the start of his segment.
- A leitmotif of "Chaotic Endeavours" from the Recursive Fanfiction mod of the same name plays out at the halfway point in "Forever", both songs primarily featuring Majin Sonic.
- "The Fighters" is inspired by a previous remix Nominal Dingus did of "Triple Trouble" titled "Four Way Fracture", down to Majin showing up to assist Boyfriend.
- Quite a bit of dialogue shown in "Memorialize" is based on that heard in the official Encore remix of "Thriller-Gen".
- Lord X's section of "Falter Alters" starts off in a white void and the ground of Green Hill Zone, echoing "Trichael", emphasized by the instrumental being a recreation of said song. When the section intensifies, the background switches to the throne room he was seen in during Sonic PC Port's trailer, also with statues of the seven guardians on display.
- Noodle Incident: As revealed by Carlos, something happened between him and Xanthus that caused the latter to be banned from his show.
- One-Winged Angel:
- During "The Fighters", Xanthus puts his final form on display, letting loose all his power against Boyfriend and his companions.
- In the homestretch of "Falter Alters", Rewrite changes into a form that dwarfs Boyfriend and is Multi-Armed and Dangerous.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Majin delivers one near the end of "The Fighters" before he and Boyfriend step up to face down Xanthus once and for all.Majin: You brought this place to its knees... You destroyed it... and took over. And you ended their peace. That may be true... But you can't end infinity!
- Promoted to Playable: Daddy Dearest during "Death Sentence", and Pico and Majin Sonic in "The Fighters".
- Purple Is Powerful: Xanthus's final form includes purple fur, and he is at his most powerful in "The Fighters".
- Spared by the Adaptation: Compared to the original Vs Rewrite, where Boyfriend is attacked and his fate left ambiguous, here, thanks to aid from an alternate version of himself, Boyfriend successfully survives Rewrite's assault. Even before that, he stays alive the whole way through, enough to see Rewrite's One-Winged Angel form for himself.
- Token Good Teammate: Neither Carlos nor Majin mean any real harm, as they're both aiming to help the player and Boyfriend on their journey where they can. Majin even comes along to assist Boyfriend and Pico in the final fight against Xanthus. It's justified in Majin's case, as "Submerged" revealed that he's actually Sonic the Hedgehog himself (more specifically, a variant of Sink).
- Tombstone Teeth: A major distinguishing feature of Xanthus is how his mouth is stuffed entirely of big, fat, rectangular teeth, which can be seen in the artwork for "I'm In Your Head", "The Fighters", and shows up in his sprites for "Let's Play" so far.
- You Shouldn't Know This Already: After completing the main week, a sticky note will appear in the Sound Test with codes for a few other songs, like "Forever", "Death Sentence" and "Early Bird". However, trying to enter these before finishing the main week will have Carlos call the player out on this before sending them back to the main menu.
