Five Nights at Sonic's is a series of Five Nights at Freddy's fangames by TheCyVap, leader of the now-defunct Team Cyantix. It features Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. characters. The first game released on February 1st, 2015, and closely follows the original Five Nights at Freddy's, but only in gameplay; you play as the night guard (Knuckles the Echidna) and have to survive in Sonic’s Hero Pizza Palace for 6 hours against the cloned versions of Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, Yoshi, and Miles "Tails" Prower.
The game spawned several sequels: Five Nights at Sonic's 2 (April 16th, 2015), Five Nights at Sonic's 3 (September 15th, 2015), Five Nights at Sonic's 4 (November 7th, 2015), and Five Nights at Sonic's 5 (October 21st, 2016).
Other than 5, all of the previous games closely follow the gameplay of each original game, but began branching out in later games; Five Nights at Sonic's 3, for instance, while featuring its equivalence of Springtrap (Salvage Sonic) and phantom animatronics (Phantom Mario, Phantom Yoshi, Phantom Tails, Phantom Taingle, Phantom Balloon Toad, and Phantom Luiginette). It also introduces the Withered Toy animatronics of the second game as threats.
Five Nights at Sonic's 5 is the only prequel in the series and has you play as Dr. Eggman who works the night shift at the first location: Sonic’s Fast Food Diner. The main threats of this game are the future versions of each Golden Sonic that has appeared in previous games, arriving here as a result of time travel. Alongside the base game, there’s an extra Hard Mode that changes the aesthetics of the location and takes place inside Eggman’s coma-induced nightmare after being bitten by Origin Sonic.
A spin-off game entitled Five Nights at Sonic's: Maniac Mania by SmilerFurcifer, was released. Like Ultimate Custom Night, it features all previous clones and animatronics (now Suddenly Voiced), a different artstyle done by a different artist, buyable props for the office, achievements, swappable skins, and an interactive interview with Dr. Golden if Max Mode is beaten. A recode/remake of Maniac Mania was planned to release titled Five Nights at Sonic's: Maniac Mania Plus, featuring new game modes and even more skins, but was ultimately cancelled. A new remake of it called Maniac Mania Infinite was being made, complete with a demo releasing but was ultimately cancelled again.
All of the games besides Maniac Mania have been deleted off of Gamejolt, the site in which they were originally hosted, and the creator does not plan on putting them back on. The only way you can experience them for yourself is to either download mirrors of the games on other websites or by watching gameplay videos on YouTube. However, the creator later revealed his Updated Re-release in the form of the Five Nights At Sonic Collection,
containing every game as executables within a Super Mario All-Stars-esque format.
This game contains examples of:
- Art Evolution: The art style of the games has changed significantly in the history of the series. The first game had very digital art, and the characters looked Off-Model at times (According to
TheCyVap, this was because he was drawing each character in Flipnote Studio). After this, he switched over to MS Paint to drawing the characters for the second game to the fifth game. When another artist took over drawing duties for Maniac Mania, the art begins to look more polished, with cleaner lines and shadows. - Ax-Crazy: The clones are murderous at night due to Dr. Eggman’s tampering.
- Back from the Dead: Salvage Sonic brings his friends back as the Nightmare Clones in FNaS 4 courtesy of the cloning machines from the FNaS 1 pizzeria.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Origin Sonic is a yellow-colored Classic Sonic with a clean tophat and bowtie. He’s also the one responsible for biting off a part of Dr. Eggman’s head and grows up to become Dr. Golden.
- There's also Lefty Sonic in Maniac Mania. Ring the bell in her shop too many times, and she will promptly tell you to Get Out!.
- Big Bad: Dr. Eggman, who tampered with the cloning machines, causing the clones to become evil, and would later go on to possess Golden Sonic and later become Dr. Golden.
- Body Horror: The series is practically filled with this trope. Some notable examples are:
- Salvage Sonic, who is not only missing an arm but also a good portion of his belly, revealing his entrails and other organs.
- The withered clones, being rather bloodied and decrepit versions of their regular selves. Special mention goes to Withered Mario, who is missing his face.
- Origin Sonic and his numerous Golden Sonic couterparts, who are slowly leaking clone material (see Clone Degradation). It gets so bad that at one point Origin is completely covered with the black stuff, essentially becoming a shadow of his former self.
- Taingle brings a more robotic form of Body Horror to the table, being a mangled mess of robotic parts.
- The Withered Toy animatronics also fit into this trope, being severely damaged (yet still somehow functional). Special mention goes to Withered Toy Yoshi, who is missing... everything from the waist down.
- Canon Discontinuity: With the cancellation of several games within the series, several characters from the FNaS 4 DLC, Sonic's Pizzeria Simulator, and RockClones, were deemed not canon.
- Clone Degeneration: Origin Sonic starts leaking clone material, the black material he's made out of, over time until he's completely covered in it. It took him cutting his legs off for him to regenerate.
- Darker and Edgier: The last thing you's expect to see on any of these Sonic and Mario characters is a single drop of blood on them, but this series has them mangled, bleeding, and murdered.
- Dark Is Evil: Over the course of the games, Golden Sonic's cloning material begins taking up more and more of his body, making him look more and more disturbing to look at. Come the fifth game, and he's now fully covered in it, under the new name Shadow Sonic.
- Death by Cameo: Phantom Bew in Five Nights at Sonic's 3 might appear in one of the posters in the cameras. He's based on Bew, a member from Team Cyantix. The fact he's a phantom implies he died.
- There is also Phantom Ian, an Optional Boss in Maniac Mania that has you use all of the mechanics laid out for you to ward him off.
- Eye Scream: Eggman kills Tails in the third game by stabbing him in the eye.
- Expy:
- In general, most of the clones and animatronics can be seen as expies of the animatronics from the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise. Sonic is an expy of Freddy, Mario of Bonnie, Yoshi of Chica, Tails of Foxy, and so on and so forth.
- Dr. Golden is one towards Dr. Wily, as they make near-identical plans (reprogramming robot with good purposes to do evil), and towards Infinite, as they both use the Phantom Ruby to further their goals.
Hilarious in Hindsight in the former case since Dr. Golden is actually Dr. Robotnik, who is a friend of Wily's.
- Facial Horror: Just like Withered Bonnie, Withered Mario is also missing his face from the nose to his forehead, with his skull being clearly visible. Word of God says that the reason why this happened was because Mario did something to piss Yoshi off, and she slammed his face onto the stovetop while it was still hot.
- Gender Flip:
- Yoshi, in the main Mario titles, was always referred to with male pronouns, but his actual gender was never stated. In this game, Yoshi is stated to be explicitly female.
- In their home series, Sonic and Lefty are both explicitly male despite the latter being posessed by a female spirit. Here, Lefty Sonic is explicitly stated to be female.
- Grand Theft Me: Dr. Robotnik did this to Golden Sonic, causing him to become Shadow Sonic.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: Some time between the events of FNaS 2 and FNaS 3, Toy Yoshi lost the bottom half of her body. She is still able to move around despite this.
- Hidden Depths: Dr. Golden's interview after Maniac Mania’s max mode gives some extra detail about his likes, plans for the future, etc.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Dr. Eggman tries to order Clone Sonic to attack his fellow clones, but gets killed by Clone Sonic himself. Somewhat justified on Sonic's part, as Eggman himself was the one who killed them.
- Humongous Mecha: The Toymare in FNaS 4. It’s a 10 feet mish-mash combination of the toy animatronics with Salvage Sonic’s body stuffed inside of it.
- Irony: Golden Sonic was possessed by the very person whose head bit: Robotnik was the victim of "The Bite of '91".
- Kick the Dog: Luigi gets attacked by the clones and goes into hiding for about more than a decade, leading some to believe he died. Afterwards, he is hunted once more by even more deadlier versions of the clones.
- Kill the Lights: In Maniac Mania, Nightmare Golden Sonic will cause the lights of the room he is in to flicker. This is the only way to tell whether or not he is there.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Golden, who is possessed by Dr. Eggman.
- No Mouth: Tails Doll lacks a mouth, which makes him look more creepy.
- Off with His Head!: How Clone Yoshi dies in FNaS 3, courtsey of Eggman.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: All of the clones sport bleeding red eyes when on the hunt for the player.
- Shout-Out:
- The design of Clone Sonic when turning evil is based on Sonic.exe.
- Maniac Mania features characters from canceled FNaS games and those from the artist himself as a quick Easter Egg.
- By gathering the various Golden Sonics from various points in time into Sonic's Fast Food Diner, Shadow Sonic basically pulls a Xehanort.
- Slasher Smile: All of the Golden Sonics and Shadow Sonic sport one before frowning with Dr. Golden.
- Spikes of Villainy: Nightmare Mario in FNaS 4 has spikes under his boots, all to make stomping on Goombas all the more satisfying.
- Stalker with a Crush: Toy Tails is this to Dr. Golden. Ever since she was rebuilt, she had developed an unhealthy obsession with him to the point that she even thinks Dr. Golden likes her as well, even when he makes it clear that he has no interest in her.
- Suddenly Voiced: All of the characters in Maniac Mania are now able to speak directly to the player in their Game Over screens.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: After the gang in the first game received a slight redesign, Yoshi gains eyelashes.
- Villain Protagonist: You play as Dr. Eggman in the fifth game.
- Vocal Dissonance: The Yoshis and Toy Yoshis are supposed to be female, but they sound more like a man's voice somewhat higher in pitch. Especially egregious in Nightmare Yoshi's case, as her voice is the deepest of the Yoshi clones and it does not sound feminine at all.
